Responses

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Ironically, some of the sternest critics of the New Atheists to date have been fellow atheists. The philosopher of science Michael Ruse, himself a renowned critic of intelligent design, has written that 'The God Delusion makes me embarrassed to be an atheist.'[1] Although himself a renowned critic of intelligent design, Ruse nevertheless defends the claim that a Darwinian can also be a Christian, despite the position of Dawkins and others. Furthermore, the anthropologist and evolutionary psychologist Scott Atran, also an atheist, subjected the New Atheists' knowledge of religion (and especially of the relationship between religion and violence) to harsh criticism following the November 2006 Beyond Belief conference.[2]

Less surprisingly, New Atheism has also drawn criticism from theologians. Critics have included biologist and theologian Alister McGrath (The Dawkins Delusion 2007)[3] who has contested Dawkins' evolutionist explanation of religion (especially his appeal to the theory of memetics) as well as his treatment of scripture, and theologian Keith Ward (Is Religion Dangerous? 2006)[4], who has argued that the religion-violence link is not as straightforward as many critics of religion allege and appealed to a more nuanced account of the causes of human violence.

At the time of writing the 'God Wars' show no signs of abating and it can be expected that the controversy will continue into the foreseeable future.

References

McGrath, Alister. The Dawkins Delusion. London: SPCK, 2007.
Ward, Keith. Is Religion Dangerous? Oxford: Lion, 2006.

Bibliography

Footnotes

[1]↑ See, for example, Richard Harries' article 'Is it possible to be moral without God?' in the Guardian newspaper of 30 December 2007
[2]↑ See Atran's 'A Response' at: thesciencenetwork.org. For streaming video of Atran's criticisms during the conference follow the links at: thesciencenetwork.org
[3]↑ Alister McGrath, The Dawkins Delusion (London: SPCK, 2007).
[4]↑ Keith Ward, Is Religion Dangerous? (Oxford: Lion, 2006).

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