Thank you for the link. I’ll have to keep my eyes open. I wouldn’t be surprised if the University of Minnesota brings you in, nor would I be surprised if some of the surrounding seminaries do as well. In fact, perhaps Bethel Seminary!?!?! That’d be an interesting discussion to hear/see.

What has been your initial reaction to some of the ‘critiques’ that us Christian’s have given to your book? Have you received any negative feedback that seems to be similiar to others?

Thanks. I love Dawkins, but you’re right he was a little riled up during that encounter with Haggard. (Not surprisingly given Haggard’s patronizing attitude!) Some people don’t like Sam Harris for various reasons, but one thing which always impresses me about Harris is that he is always cool as a cucumber. Nothing seems to phase him. I still think Dawkins was the “winner” in that scene, but if he handled it with more humor maybe he could have really knocked Haggard down a notch.

Will you be speaking in the Wisconsin/Minnesota area any time soon?

Hi Luke! At the moment, I’m not planning on coming up there, but if any group would like to sponsor me, I’d love to speak. I did speak to the Minnesota Atheists recently, and if you go to their website, you can find the podcast of my talk.

I’m not saying Haggard isn’t arrogant. He’s awfully arrogant, and being a hypocrite for telling Dawkins not to be!

The only thing I’m saying, and I think Darryl agrees, is that he isn’t telling Dawkins to read the books and meet the scientists he knows to be great like Haggard is. If you watch the YouTube clip, I think you can hear his sarcastic tone where he says “great like me”. I can’t imagine he meant that plainly. He was trying to portray what he thought Dawkins is like.

Again, I’m not trying to defend Haggard in any way. I’m just pointing out that he’s a jerk for a different reason then implied in Hemant’s book.

That was just my little nitpick. I’m a huge fan of Dawkins and Hemant as well. Oh and I finally finished Hemant’s book just a few hours ago. It was excellent. I finally have a book to lend with no reservations to Christian friends. Although it is addressed to Christians, I think atheists would get a lot out of it too. Hemant is a fine role model for the truly friendly atheist. (Some members in our local atheist group here would surely benefit from his example, not that I’m Mr. Perfect!)

Thank you for noticing my review, though I I had no idea that you would pay attention to that sort of thing (mostly because I assumed you would probably have ten million of them), but I’m glad that you found my review somewhat fair. I appreciated your dialogue and thoughts as well.

Will you be speaking in the Wisconsin/Minnesota area any time soon?

Blessings,
Luke Geraty