John Humphrys: In God We Doubt

I am absolutely staggered by John Humphrys’ book In God We Doubt. I heard his radio series, but I am sorry to say the book is even worse. Though he plays devil’s advocate to unreasonable extremes sometimes, I actually generally like John Humphrys on Radio 4’s Today Programme. He does press politicians when they refuse to answer simple questions, and he is obviously a nice and well meaning man. But this book, an exercise in fence-sitting, is virtually a non-entity, and it is an inadvertent insult to the public to even expect it to be read.

Humphrys by his own admission doesn’t know where he stands – he calls himself a failed atheist. He repeatedly, wrongly refers to Sam Harris as Sam Smith (I could barely believe my eyes when I saw this). The book is supported by no references or footnotes. He frequently resorts a subjective position (“well, at least to me”). He agrees yet disagrees with Dawkins on the same points. This book is nothing more than an inconclusive musing, lacking intellectual rigour and precision. One wonders if it was released just to make money.

I repeat, I generally like John Humphrys (and share his concern over poor use of English), but this book is not fit for release to the general public, and to think he could have written it is almost enough to put me off listening to him on The Today Programme.

For fuller reviews of the book see the last one on this page and the first one here – and for a really serious analysis of this whole subject, of course see here.