Why do so many people – sometimes even intelligent people – swallow the preposterous claims of religion? G.A. Wells, the leading freethinker of our time, tries to shed light on this puzzle in his entertaining and enormously learned book, Belief and Make-Believe.Professor Wells begins by analyzing the nature of belief. To dispel popular confusions on the relation between words and thoughts, he compares the thinking process of scientists, laymen, and chimpanzees.The power of emotion and instinct...
In this provocative book, noted scholar G. A. Wells tells the story of Higher Criticism: the close study of the scriptures that reveals difficulties and discrepancies. Wells traces the discipline’s German beginnings, exploring the problems in the New Testament that prompted scholars to revise traditional theories of the scriptures’ origins. Wells then traces the development and reception of these views from the 18th century to today. Drawing on current biblical scholarship,...
"Using his probing intelligence to criticize the views of pundits from Locke to Chomsky, from Ayer to religious apologists, G. A. Wells has produced a lively essay on the persistent mistakes that have been made in understanding the relations among things, words, and ideas. The chapter entitled 'Language and the Bible' is a gem. It should delight skeptics even as it challenges believers. What's in a Name? shows, as if it still needed to be shown, that Wells is one of the...
