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Pitched as an introduction to philosophy, this book is actually very heavy going. Time and again I found myself re-reading sentences several times until I concluded that I couldn't get what the author was trying to say, before moving on to the next sentence, with some amount of hope that the previous sentence wasn't important anyway. It seems to me that modern philosophers have all reached the conclusion that the big questions have already all been answered as well as they are ever going to be. Therefore, the only way to find employment as a modern philosopher is to construct confusing answers for the unanswerable questions in order to hide the fact that, essentially, they have nothing new to say.

I started with the God chapter and it soon became apparent that the author is trying to prevent the reader from 'thinking' for themselves, by subtly peddling his mildly atheistic viewpoint. At least, I think that's what he was doing. It's hard to know for sure when you find yourself unable to read so much of it. To quote page 151: "To jump the gun a little, I am going to present a fair number of reasons against supposing that anything recognizable as religious belief is true. Some readers may feel threatened by this. They can take some comfort from the tradition in theology that the more unlikely a belief is to be true, the more meritorious is the act of faith required to believe it. But at the end of the chapter, the restless spirit of reflection will cause us to look at that view as well." Look at the nice long words he uses. And the long meandering sentences. This isn't even an example of one of his most impenetrable paragraphs. This is the paragraph that first alerted me to the fact that the author is not neutral, but wants us to think he is. Condescendingly, he tells us here that believing in God is reasonable, but wrong. I think :oS

So, that whole chapter is devoted to semi-dismissing some of the weaker arguments FOR the existence of God. Some people will be delighted and encouraged by the conclusions that the author shepherds us towards, but religious people, agnostics, free-thinking philosophers and even open-minded atheists (I know there are some) will be disappointed. Whoever you are, whatever you believe, you have to admit that there are zero bomb-proof arguments for or against the existence of God. From a religious point of view, that can only be a good thing. Evidence of God's existence would remove the need for faith, and with it all those meritorious benefits of faith-based belief. If there were any bomb-proof arguments against God, then we wouldn't keep getting fed with all the weaker arguments.

What would have been nice, and neutral, is a substantial section in which Simon exposes the flaws of the most common atheistic arguments AGAINST the existence of God. However, if you are a non-neutral author addressing this subject, then probably you are only ever going to be interested in arguing your side of the debate. Missed opportunity, epic fail. Did he do that because he is not confident enough in his atheism? If he was confident then he'd have no need to worry about arguing the other side. To paraphrase Epicurus: "Is Simon willing to be neutral, but not able? Then he is impotent. Is he able but not willing? Then he is biased. Is he both willing and able? Then why argue only one side of a debate? Is he neither willing nor able? Then how can we call him a philosopher?" Shazam, my friends. Sha-zam!

The rest of the chapter is subdivided into bite-size chunks, but the sources he quotes are often even harder to digest than his own words. The first one is 11th century medieval monk St. Anselm. I won't repeat it here, but suffice to say it is written in a way which might have made sense to Anselm and his chums nearly 1000 years ago, but is pretty difficult to read for us today. Okay, one small part of Anselm's quote: "But when this same fool hears me say 'something than which nothing greater can be thought', he surely understands what he hears, and what he understands exists in his understanding; even if he does not understand that it exists (in reality)...". Urgh, is the word. Translation required, Mr Blackburn. Request denied.

Please don't allow this book to put you off the subject of philosophy. I have several philosophy books which are all much more readable than this. After reading most of the God chapter I can tell you that so far I have learned nothing interesting. A basic introduction, in terms of subjects dealt with, it may well be. But a basic introduction needn't be this difficult to read. I suspect that the people who say this is a good book, or not deep enough, are people who want to tell the world how intelligent and well-read they are. I am very intelligent, but I couldn't read this and I don't mind admitting it.