The Divinity Code

Yes, the latest book is about to ship...and officially should be in the shops from next Monday. Those wishing to beat the common herd to this 120,000 word book can still get one delivered to your door at the end of this coming week if you order now...

We again have a limited number of review copies for bloggers...email me to get your name on that list...

The back cover reads as follows, an a brief extract from the start of the book continues below:

Prologue
And So It Begins...

Dawkins’ Challenge

"I shall suggest that the existence of God is a scientific hypothesis like any other...even if God’s existence is never proved with certainty one way or the other, available evidence and reasoning may yield an estimate of probability far from 50%."

When I wrote my previous book Eve’s Bite earlier this year, there were some things I left unsaid. Not because I was afraid of saying them but because Eve’s Bite – which deals with social engineering in the West – was not really the forum to explore those issues in.

You see, over the past 24 months there has been an explosion of anti-God books on to the market – Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion merely being one of the most recent examples. That’s fine, it’s a free world. But informed debate cannot exist if you are not getting all sides of the story.

The truth is, far from Dawkins’ and others’ claims, there’s a growing, gnawing, accelerating suspicion within the scientific community that God may indeed exist and – horrors – be engaging with the natural world.

Yet the other reality is that our modern world is segmented into a range of different religions. If this “God” that science grudgingly concedes exists, then whose “God” is he/she/it?

In The Divinity Code, I am not attempting to blindly convert anyone to Christianity - I figure you are all smart enough to make your own choices in life. But laying my cards on the table, yes, I myself am a Christian. As an investigative journalist I had been trained to be skeptical about all things, and 26 years ago when I began my career I was at the time an atheist, and someone who believed only naturalism and science could explain the world and provide progress.

My journey to skepticism had been helped by books like the 1982 bestseller, The Holy Blood & The Holy Grail, which suggested Christ had never died on the cross but survived, married Mary Magdalene, moved to the south of France, had a couple of kids etc. Those of you who’ve read Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code may recognise this plotline and its variations.

I used my position as a journalist to run anti-God stories wherever I could, interviewing skeptical luminaries like Professor Lloyd Geering about the Gospel of Thomas supposedly driving nails into traditional Christian beliefs. I even, in my personal life, briefly teamed up with other atheists to try and “deprogramme” Christians in staged “interventions”.

This, then, is my background.

Despite all that, I eventually became a Christian – initially on pure faith alone because it went against what I perceived to be the credible evidence against it. Later, much later, I discovered that the atheist and skeptical literature I’d read had left out a lot of crucial information – a discovery that shocked me when I came across it. It was the “Inconvenient Truth” for atheism: data and information that didn’t fit the argument and so was deliberately put to one side or dealt with out of context.

As a journalist, this jolted me to a realisation. Any argument that cannot withstand robust debate is not a good argument. A reporter should follow the evidence where it leads, not merely where he or she wants it to lead. As an investigative journalist, I knew professionally that the omission of major, inconvenient facts was a sign that I needed to worry about the credibility of the books I was reading, regardless of what I had wanted to believe in them.

Fast-forward to the latest crop of “God” books from Dawkins, Hitchens, Harris, Dennett and the like. They may be bestsellers, but are their arguments simply the triumph of flashy rhetoric over meaningful substance?

I guess the real question is this: are you sufficiently secure in your own belief or lack of belief to read further? How do your current views about life, the universe and everything stack up against evidence, rather than just rhetoric?

The Divinity Code is not a book full of airy-fairy moralising. Instead, I’m applying Richard Dawkins’ dictum that much of religion is testable:

“I shall suggest that the existence of God is a scientific hypothesis like any other...even if God’s existence is never proved with certainty one way or the other, available evidence and reasoning may yield an estimate of probability far from 50%.”

On this much, Dawkins and I agree. Belief one way or the other is not built on 100% proof but on the balance of probabilities.

In taking up Dawkins’ gauntlet, this does not mean that science can 100% prove God’s existence or non-existence. Like all religious believers, I argue that the supernatural is, by definition, outside the reach or control of a branch of human study that restricts itself only to investigating the natural.

Like Dawkins, however, and like advocates of Intelligent Design, I argue that the fingerprints of God – if they exist – can in principle be found embedded in the natural world. Dawkins, of course, believes the evidence to be so non-existent as to almost be zero. This book, on the other hand, presents evidence that I believe makes the existence of God almost certain.

Unlike Dawkins, who has been known to avoid confronting evidence that doesn’t fit his arguments, I have taken the opportunity in The Divinity Code to examine the best evidence I can find from skeptics and deal with it head-on.

While there are a multitude of arguments raging about religion, and it would certainly take about eight books this size to deal with them all, I have chosen what I believe are the strongest challenges mounted by most critics.

By the very nature of the subject, however, we are dealing with issues of religious belief and proof one way or the other. And if Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens can make a spirited attack on religion, I can equally make a spirited attack on unbelief. It is my contention that belief in a higher power is not only rational – it is far more rational than skepticism.

Do I succeed? You be the judge.

Comments

[Sam Finnemore]

I'd request one, but I won't have an avenue to publish anything until next year. Might ask later.

Just as an aside, who is the source of that giant quote on the back cover?

[ian]

No one--that's just a design breakout... if it were a quote we would have sourced it... it was extracted separately from the main blurb to break up the text...

[Danyl Mclauchlan]

That giant chunk of text in quotes that appears on the back of the book where quotes traditionally appear? Why that's not a quote - it's a design breakout!

Have you ever considered a career in Labour Party PR Ian? I hear there's an opening at the Environment Ministry . . .

[ian]

Och, Danyl laddie...there's more than 300 footnotes and an 18 page index for you to chew through...I think there are more than enough quotes and facts already there...

[ZenTiger]

Danyl, what makes you think PR jobs at the Ministry for the Environment are open to people outside NZ Labour?

That's the first I heard of the idea.

[ZenTiger]

Scratch that, I've just paraphrased your comment! Perhaps we could instead have a chuckle on the likelihood Labour are keen to welcome Ian into their fold.

With all this alleged Global Warming, I doubt hell is about to freeze over.

[peter]

Ian

Do you take the opportunity the new book to develop your most revolutionary idea from "Eve's Bite". In that book, you claim basically that everybody is bisexual!!!

I would be very interested to hear other views on this opinion. In particular, is there anyone that would support Ian's thesis through personal experience. I can say absolutely categorically I am not bisexual and I know of only one person (a woman) that has shown that she is.

This is the silliest thing I have read in "Eve's Bite", but NOT the silliest by a very wide margin!!!

[ZenTiger]

Peter, how nice to come out as openly 'not bisexual' on this thread. Good for you.

Nice to see you are also still reviewing Eve's bite after all these days. But does it have to come up on every topic Ian posts under? Just link to the review you've done, with actual quotes of the relevant passage from your blog, perhaps.

[peter]

Zen

I was on topic - asking whether Divinity Code was in any way a sequel to Eve's Bite.

"And if you choose to be gay, you can equally choose not to be gay - to couch it in politically-correct liberal-speak - explore your bisexual side .." (Eve's Bite, p130)

The only way that Ian could promote this idea, confidently, and selectively quote so many who agree, is if he could relate to the above through his own personal feelings.

I am taking the alternative view. I am wagering that over 95% of bloggers here would never have been physically attracted to the same sex if they were heterosexual, or attracted to the opposite sex if they were homosexual.

Among the stars, David Bowie and Elton John both said or did things to suggest that they were bisexual. Elton John now says he was kidding and that he was gay all along. Bowie seems to be heterosexual.

Bisexuality seems to exist, but thankfully in very small numbers. Ian - if there were a loving God, I don't think God would be playing these jokes on such a grand scale as you suggest.

No this is surely an accident of evolution.

[ZenTiger]

No, you are off topic, by asking questions about the previous book in an effort to take the post off topic.

The only way that Ian could promote this idea, confidently, and selectively quote so many who agree, is if he could relate to the above through his own personal feelings.

Rubbish. I can think of several ways Ian could make this assertion based on the full context of what you speak about. Get your own blog, and I'll answer you there, or hope Ian comes through for you.

Bisexuality seems to exist, but thankfully in very small numbers.

And what problem do you have with bisexuality given that you seem to embrace "gay", another accident of evolution or an effect of social pressures, sexual abuse, and/or hormone imbalance?

Ian - if there were a loving God, I don't think God would be playing these jokes on such a grand scale as you suggest.

You think sexual orientation is a joke? Or is this a weak effort to disprove God? You come across confused. For an openly 'not bisexual' person you seem quite capable of holding two opposing ideas quite easily. Sure you don't swing both ways?

[ian]

Peter...if you have a problem with the bisexuality studies...take them up with the gay scientists who did them, or the gay icons who verified them...I'm merely the messenger, and all the studies were fully referenced just so that doubting Peters like yourself could research the inconvenient truth.

The reason thousand of "gays" quietly become ex-gays is not that they lose the same sex attraction, but that they find they still have opposite sex attraction as well if they really admit it, and then it merely comes down to the person you choose...

Personally, Pete, I think you're in denial on this...but the Greenberg study is pretty adamant...and remember, he's 'gay'.

[dad4justice]

Gay is a not the correct term for homosexuality, which is a mental health problem Peter .Hows Ramon ?

[robk]

I was waiting for peter to suggest the "design breakout" was actually a quote from the exclusive bretheren. But I see he's sidetracked again on the homosexual issue... ;-)

[Ryan Sproull]

What precisely constitutes a "number #1 bestselling book"? It seems to me that so many book covers I see are making the claim that there must be some monumental first-equal status going on.

[Danyl Mclauchlan]

Here's something else I'm curious about? Given that you describe your book as 'the ultimate slap-down, slam-dunk no holds barred title fight' with Richard Dawkins - did you bother to give Dawkins an opportunity to respond to this formidable challenge? Is he even aware that this 'ultimate slap-down' even exists?

[AVG]

Mr Wishart. Your cover wrongly takes a swipe at Spong & Armstrong. Neither propose any 'scientific hypothesis' as you suggest.
Spong, in 'Resurrection, Myth or Reality' and 'Jesus for the Non-religious' takes the open-minded reader into the Jewish mind of the first century. To see as they saw, to understand as they understood:- God watching them at night through his peep-holes [stars] in the sky. He then re-clothes 'that for which there are no words' in a shirt,tie and suit for this century. The divine is not in Creed and Dogma. The divine is lived.

[ian]

AVG, not only have I read the books in question...I have also extensively deconstructed their theses...in Spong's case particularly...

My argument...having reviewed their best explanations...is that they are demonstrably wrong on their facts...and consequently their conclusions are stuffed as well.

You can choose to believe Spong on blind faith...but not on the grounds of either logic or fact...

[AcidComments]

"The reason thousand of "gays" quietly become ex-gays is not that they lose the same sex attraction, but that they find they still have opposite sex attraction as well if they really admit it, and then it merely comes down to the person you choose... "

Ian.W.

Exactly!

I was in a position in Hamilton where I got know a lot of lesbians and it was often when they had thoughts or desires for dating or going out with men. It was the 'Lesbian Sisterhood' who would put 'pressure' and 'standover tactics' on the ones who were having those second thoughts!

There was also a recruitment whereby some straight women who were going through a rough patch would try and be converted to lesbianism. "Leave your husband say he's useless and get the DPB." That was often a common line used by one of the Lesbian sisterhood to tried and get new converts!

I know many other people who've had similar experiences and ancedotes with people in the gay and lesbian communities.

[Ryan Sproull]

The problem might be less lesbians and more Hamiltonians, Acid.

[ian]

Ryan...in my case more than 100,000 books sold...but the right to call yourself a #1 bestselling author, which a lot of publishing companies use to give readers some guarantee that the author can actually write, comes from hitting #1 on the bestseller lists. In NZ, they are compiled by Booksellers NZ, based on scanned sales over a given period.

You can release a book during a highly competitive period, as I did with Eve's Bite (which reached No. 2) where it was competing with cookbooks and Mother's Day promotional titles, and get a lower ranking than you would at other times of the year on the same sales turnover..

I've had three #1s and four #2s if memory and old documentation serves me correctly...

Because Divinity Code is being marketed in Australia and elsewhere where I am relatively unknown it requires more of this traditional promotional "fluff", which personally I'm not that fond of...That's the reality of marketing, however...