Rating: 
Summary: Interesting argument - not convincing
Review: This book takes an undeveloped hypothesis of Freud: "Psychoanalysis, which has taught us the intimate connection between the father complex and belief in God, has shown us that the personal god is logically nothing but an exalted father, and daily demonstrates to us how youthful persons lose their religious belief as soon as the authority of the father breaks down" and developes it to explain the atheism and hostility toward religion of famous atheists like Bertrand Russell. The primary problem with the book is that it is not psychoanalysis at all. You cannot do post-mortem psychoanalysis from literary biographies. It is not there. The book would carry more weight if it were composed of actual analyses. But then, of course, it loses it cache of turning the same psychoanalytical arguments, used by atheists to debunk religion, against those very same atheists.
For a believer, needing rhetorical ammunition in a debate of theism vs. atheism, the book may have some utility. Otherwise, it is merely an academic exercise in sophistry.
Rating: 
Summary: This is not psychology
Review: Vitz' work contains a fatal flaw: the presumption that one "becomes" an Atheist.We all start out Atheists. People (thankfully only some of them) become god believers only after they have been exposed to the claims that gods exist. An Atheist is someone who lacks belief in gods. An Atheist does not believe in gods for the same reason he/she doesn't believe in Santa or unicorns or any other imaginary beings .. because there is zero credible evidence of their existence. An Atheist does not "become" an Atheist due to external pressure. An Atheist starts out an Atheist, as all people do, and has either managed to deprogram themselves after suffering the brainwashing of the religion pushers or has never succumbed to the brainwashing at all. Shame on Vitz for being such a bad scientist and propagating ridiculous theories to explain something which he clearly has no understanding of and to justify his own bizarre need to cling to the hope that the imaginary god being exists. NYU should fire him. If you want to understand Atheism, talk to a real Atheist.
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