Many religious people, for example, believe that without religion there can be no morality. They think that without a bedrock of belief, their lives will have no purpose or meaning. If you can’t rely on it, what can you rely on? Many people feel very uncomfortable giving up the certainties on which they have based their lives. It tells Graffin’s story of growing up in a secular family (both parents were professors) with fundamentalist Christian grandparents, his love of music leading to the formation of Bad Religion, his early penchant to resist authority and question dogma, and how his later studies in science made him realize that the anarchy of punk music fit the anarchy implicit in evolution.īut there is a big problem with resisting authority.
He also has a PhD (Cornell University) and when he’s not on tour he teaches life sciences and paleontology at UCLA.Īnarchy Evolution is thoughtful, accessible, and civil. (Steve Olson, a science writer co-wrote it but the story, ideas, and argument are Graffin’s.) Those familiar with popular music will recognize Greg Graffin as the songwriter, vocalist, and front man for the influential punk band Bad Religion. The book is Anarchy Evolution: Faith, Science, and Bad Religion in a World Without God by Greg Graffin. There is one book to come from a New Atheist, however, that is markedly different, and that I am eager to recommend. I recommend both books for their societal impact, but think both are compelling primarily for those who are already convinced naturalists. And both men seem to argue that an enlightened society cannot tolerate religious belief-to Hitchens it is dangerous and to Dawkins it is delusional. What I found disappointing, however, was the theological naivety-if not ignorance-he displayed, because I had assumed his research would be more careful.
And I had read enough of Richard Dawkins to expect him to seem rather pompous in The God Delusion (2006) and was not disappointed. However, God is Not Great (2007) is little more than a secular diatribe. I expected to enjoy Christopher Hitchens’ book more than I did since I’ve long enjoyed his essays and reviews in Vanity Fair, the Atlantic, and other magazines for their wit, polemical style and razor sharp prose. Over the past few years I have read the authors known in the media as the New Atheists, and have tried to take their arguments seriously. Books Anarchy Evolution (Greg Graffin & Steve Olson, 2010)
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