God and the New Atheism: A Critical Response to Dawkins, Harris, and Hitchens

God and the New Atheism: A Critical Response to Dawkins, Harris, and Hitchens

by John F. Haught
God and the New Atheism: A Critical Response to Dawkins, Harris, and Hitchens

God and the New Atheism: A Critical Response to Dawkins, Harris, and Hitchens

by John F. Haught

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Overview

In God and the New Atheism, a world expert on science and theology gives clear, concise, and compelling answers to the charges against religion laid out in recent best-selling books by Richard Dawkins (The God Delusion), Sam Harris (The End of Faith), and Christopher Hitchens (God Is Not Great). For some, these "new atheists" appear to say extremely well what they believe to be wrong with religion. But, as John Haught shows, the treatment of religion in these books is riddled with logical inconsistencies, shallow misconceptions, and crude generalizations. Can God really be dismissed as a mere delusion? Is faith really the enemy of reason? And does religion really poison everything? God and the New Atheism offers a much-needed antidote to the extremist claims of scientific fundamentalism. This provocative and accessible little book will enable readers to see through the rhetorical fog of this recent phenomenon and come to a clearer understanding of the issues at stake in this crucial debate.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780664234713
Publisher: Westminster John Knox Press
Publication date: 02/15/2008
Sold by: Barnes & Noble
Format: eBook
Pages: 156
File size: 2 MB

About the Author

John F. Haught is Senior Fellow in Science and Religion at the Woodstock Theological Center at Georgetown University in Washington, D. C. One of the world's leading thinkers in the field of theology and science, Haught was Chair and Professor in the Department of Theology at Georgetown from 1970 to 2005. An international lecturer and prolific author, his books include Christianity and Science, God After Darwin: A Theology of Evolution, and the prize-winning Deeper than Darwin: The Prospects for Religion in the Age of Evolution.

Read an Excerpt

According to Dawkins and Dennett, one must decide between theological and Darwinian explanations. Each reader must choose one rather than the other. It cannot be both. In issuing this dogma Dennett and Dawkins are simply restating one of the central assumptions of almost all science-inspired atheism. Carl Sagan, Michael Shermer, Steven Weinberg, Owen Flanagan, and Victor Stenger, just to name a few, have made similar claims, before so there is no need here to make a separate study of these writers. The authors I examine cover the same territory and more subscribe to the central tenets of the new atheism, but I have anyway. Numerous other current books, articles, and reviews seen little in these other works that has not been said as well, if not better, by the three authors I highlight in this volume.

Table of Contents

Preface     vii
Introduction     ix
How New Is the New Atheism?     1
How Atheistic Is the New Atheism?     15
Does Theology Matter?     28
Is God a Hypothesis?     40
Why Do People Believe?     53
Can We Be Good without God?     65
Is God Personal?     78
Christian Theology and the New Atheism     92
Suggestions for Further Reading     109
Notes     111
Index     117
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