The God Question: What Famous Thinkers from Plato to Dawkins Have Said about the Divine

by Andrew Pessin

Book Overview

Does God Exist? Without doubt, the greatest question to face humanity in its history, the controversy rages on today with a recent spate of books on both sides of the divide. However, this debate is... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1851686592
• ISBN13: 9781851686599
• Release Date: July 2009
• Publisher: Oneworld Publications
• Length: 348 Pages
• Weight: 0.66 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 5.0" x 7.7"

Customer Reviews

I wish everyone would read this book.

This book is essential reading for people who aspire to any kind of cultural literacy. I teach courses on the history of religion and will assign this book for my next class. Students will find Pessin highly readable. Professors will be happy with Pessin's erudition and coherence. This is a must read.

A Tour de Force

Wow! Pessin succinctly presents the arguments for and against the existence of a supreme being as considered by philosophers, theologians, and biologists. From Plato to Dennett and Dawkins--they are all represented. His language is lucid and not without humor. The writing is easy to follow and delightfully structured. Moreover, he has no axe to grind.

A Layman's Review of Pessin's The God Question

I took this book along to enjoy on our recent summer vacation. What a great text - very thought provoking, insightful and incisive. The book is arranged in a series of short (2-3 page) essays that distill the thoughts of history's greatest thinkers into digestible snippets. "The God Question" at once provides fabulous fodder for conversation over the family dinner table while also stimulating deeper thought and further primary source research. I have wildly recommended this book to my friends! I very much enjoyed reading the book. Thanks for the great read.

Wonderful

This book is great. It manages to make complex philosophy understandable to even the most novice philosopher, while remaining engaging enough to satisfy even the most practiced philosopher. What I love the most about it is the shorter chapter structure. Unlike many philosophy books, the material is digested down into a number of pages at the most, allowing readers to dig into this book in manageable chunks and not become overwhelmed by the vastness of some of the subject matter. This book makes philosophy fun and easily understood without "dumbing it down". Its wonderful!

So clear and succinct, you might think philosophy is easy

The God Question is a sweet, easy, and thought-provoking read. You will be challenged by the arguments and ideas of the greatest western philosophers, and your mind will be buoyed, not hindered, by the succinct writing of Andrew Pessin. If you tried to read Aristotle, Descartes, or Kant in the original, you might never know what you're reading or whether it pertains to "the God question"...the original texts can be so long-winded and obtuse. Somehow Pessin, through his own insight, research, and years of teaching, boils down all these difficult characters and their religious ideas to just a few pages each. Read one chapter while brushing your teeth in the evening, and you'll have a grasp on the essence of a deep argument, enough to chew on all night in your dreams. Curiosity will drive you to read more, as Pessin allows subsequent philosophers to deal with their predecessors' shortcomings, rather than trying to hyperanalyze each argument himself. You'll feel a thrill akin to sitting in a class of fresh college students, listening to your favorite professor shed light on the dusty (but important) ideas on which modern thought is built. At the end of class, you'll wonder where the time went.