Responding to Neo-Atheism ( Many years of very successful publishing run for anti-God writers )

Neo-atheism has had a very successful publishing run over the past several years, with best-selling books by Christopher Hitchens ("god is not great"), Sam Harris ("Letter to a Christian Nation") and Richard Dawkins ("The God Delusion"), among others. But this year there has been an equally impressive counter-phenomenon. Three recent books, written from three widely divergent perspectives, have responded to the arguments of neo-atheism with both intellectual force and literary grace.

In April, David Berlinski, a secular Jew and well-known skeptic of Darwinism, who holds a Ph. D. in Philosophy from Princeton and has written widely on mathematics and science, published "The Devil's Delusion: Atheism and Its Scientific Pretensions." The book defends religion by attacking atheism's attempt to enlist science in its cause.

The book is written with Mr. Berlinski's characteristic literary verve. To a Nobel Prize scientist's argument -- offered at a conference on "science, religion and reason" -- that "for good people to do evil things, [it] takes religion," Berlinski responds: "Just who has imposed on the suffering human race poison gas, barbed wire, high explosives, experiments in eugenics, the formula for Zyklon B, heavy artillery, pseudo-scientific justifications for mass murder, cluster bombs, attack submarines, napalm, intercontinental ballistic missiles, military space platforms, and nuclear weapons?"

Last month, Michael Novak, a Catholic scholar who holds the Jewett Chair in Religion, Philosophy and Public Policy at the American Enterprise Institute, published "No One Sees God: The Dark Night of Atheists and Believers." Mr. Novak believes the country needs a respectful dialogue between believers and unbelievers, and he has effectively produced one in book-length form, setting forth the arguments of the neo-atheists with extraordinary respect and civility before presenting his own views.

He has written a humble book, all the more powerful for its humility. Even at age 74, after a lifetime of religious study and writing, he acknowledges he cannot be certain that what he believes is true. But he has set forth a case for religion that is all the more compelling for its serious treatment of the other side.

This month, Rabbi David J. Wolpe, named earlier this year by Newsweek at age 49 as the number one pulpit rabbi in America, published "Why Faith Matters." It is a book in a class by itself, because it combines both intellectual force and lawyer-like accumulation of historical, statistical and other evidence with something equally compelling -- the power of personal example.

Wolpe is the senior rabbi at Sinai Temple in Los Angeles and teaches modern Jewish religious thought at UCLA, but he was -- at an important stage in his life -- an ardent atheist. He grew up in a rabbinical family, initially rebelled against a religious future and, influenced by the works of Bertrand Russell, fell into atheism during his college years. He eventually rejected Russell's views decided to try rabbinical school -- "on spec," as he told his friends. One of his brothers predicted it would be "a phase."

His new book is his seventh he has written during the phase. His first book, "The Healer of Shattered Hearts," was a lyrical summary of rabbinic Judaism that established him, in Rabbi Joseph Telushkin's words, as "the poet of Jewish theology." His mother's stroke at age 52 led him to write "In Speech and Silence," a book-length meditation on words and song in religion. His most remarkable volume, "Making Loss Matter," described a way of capturing meaning from the most painful moments of life. It was written in the midst of the cancer that struck his wife at age 31, preventing her from bearing further children.

In a column in 2003, Rabbi Wolpe wrote about the Talmud's insistence that we "bless God for the bad as well as the good" -- and later that year lived out that teaching. He collapsed during a speech at the University of Pennsylvania, with what was shortly diagnosed as a brain tumor requiring surgery. The tumor was benign, but three years later he learned he had a new malady: lymphoma. He underwent extensive chemotherapy, losing his hair and strength but continuing to give weekly sermons at Sinai Temple throughout. Some of the lessons he learned from those experiences are at the heart of his book.

The faith reflected in his book is thus hard won, arriving after a long journey from atheism, through adversity, to an understanding that gives his book the earned eloquence that comes from a book not simply written but lived. He covers an extraordinarily large array of issues in just 198 pages of text: whether faith is simply projected onto a meaningless world; whether science answers the questions religion once addressed; whether history demonstrates that religion is responsible for numerous wars; whether people would be happier without it; whether evolution can explain self-consciousness; whether evil can be understood; and numerous other issues.

Ultimately he believes that life is at its heart not a puzzle to be solved but a mystery to be appreciated. The legendary Jewish educator, Shlomo Bardin, was once asked whether he believed God in fact existed. Mr. Bardin's response was "I don't know; I only know that when I see a sunset, I want to say a Psalm." It was an acknowledgement of the limits of human intelligence, the evidence before our eyes, and the power of religious ritual.

Rabbi Wolpe's book continues that theme, effectively conveying that religion is the reasonable response to the wonder we see around us, and to the knowledge that many things -- starting with love -- are things we cannot see. He takes Shlomo Bardin's poetic observation one step further, concluding that "what represents God in this world is neither the sky nor the sanctuary, but the human face" - something Wolpe demonstrates with groups by simply asking them to look into each others' eyes. Perhaps the most eloquent page of his book is his five-word inscription to his wife and child: "All the proof I need."

All three of these books exhibit a quality that is largely missing from the volumes by the neo-atheists: a sense that there is wisdom in all points of view, and that wisdom is not exclusively found in one. It is ironic that what ultimately makes neo-atheism not only unconvincing but off-putting is the fact that it often exhibits the very fundamentalism it purports to find in religion: an absolute certainty in its views, an uncritical worship of its god -- science -- as a saving force, and a denigration of those who refuse to be saved. Berlinski, Novak and Wolpe, in their divergent ways, demonstrate that a religious outlook that does not deny doubt, values humility, and appreciates the implications of the miracle of our existence, is the more reasonable approach to life.

This is my recent favorite:

Answering the New Atheism: Dismantling Dawkins’ Case Against God (Paperback)

by Scott Hahn (Author), Benjamin Wiker (Author)

http://www.amazon.com/Answering-New-Atheism-Dismantling-Dawkins/dp/1931018480/

Review

“It has been a great pleasure to me as a long-retired Professor of Philosophy to have been set the task of reading Answering the New Atheism: Dismantling Dawkins’ Case Against God by Dr. Scott Hahn and Dr. Benjamin Wiker. For this ‘task’ has been for me not a task but a sustained delight. Rarely, if ever, in my many years as a Professor of Philosphy did I ever have the opportunity to read such a compelling argument.” — Antony Flew, Author of There is a God: How the World’s Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind

“Scott Hahn and Benjamin Wiker answer the arguments posed by the New Atheism effectively and decisively. They show, again and again, that atheists like Richard Dawkins are putting forth shoddy arguments, and once those arguments are dismantled by cool reason, there is very little left.” — Dinesh D’Souza, Richwain Research Scholar at the Hoover Institution; Author of What’s So Great About Christianity

“In a better world than ours there would have been no need for Answering the New Atheism. But under the circumstances, I’m grateful to Scott Hahn and Benjamin Wiker for their essential service in cooly, rationally taking apart Richard Dawkins’ inflamed rhetoric and exposing the absurdities, and the dangers, at its heart. Their final chapter is a particularly chilling, important reminder of what Dawkins’ secular faith would lead to if it were more widely embraced.” — David Klinghoffer, Author of Shattered Tablets: Why We Ignore the Ten Commandements at Our Peril and Why the Jews Rejected Jesus: The Turning Point in Western History.

Answering the New Atheism is a superb exposÃ© of the Dawkins Delusion. Systematically and lucidly, Scott Hahn and Benjamin Wiker dissect and dispose of the fundamental errors that riddle Dawkins’ attempt to demonize the divine. Dawkins has declared a jihad against religion and his main weapons are diatribe and caricature. But the authors refuse to respond in kind and instead turn to reason, the one tool that Dawkins seems to disdain. As readable and humorous as it is rigorously reasoned, Answering the New Atheism is the best antidote in the marketplace for Dawkinitis.” — Roy Abraham Varghese, Co-author with Antony Flew of There Is a God: How the World’s Most Notorious Atheist changed His Mind, a book denouced by Dawkins. Editor of Cosmos, Bios, Theos, a work with 24 Nobel Prize winners that was described by Time Magazine as “the year’s most intriguing book on God.”

“Scott Hahn and Benjamin Wiker patiently, thoroughly pick apart the reasoning of Richard Dawkins until very little is left standing. I highly recommend Answering the New Atheism to anyone who wants to watch scientific atheist bullies get their comeuppance.” — Michael J. Behe, Lehigh University; Author of The Edge of Evolution
—Reviews

Scott Hahn and Benjamin Wiker patiently, thoroughly pick apart the reasoning of Richard Dawkins until very little is left standing. I highly recommend Answering the New Atheism to anyone who wants to watch scientific atheist bullies get their comeuppance. —Michael J. Behe

Product Description
The essential book for dismantling Richard Dawkins’ atheistic agenda. Scott Hahn and Benjamin Wiker collaborate to debunk Dawkins’ theories and show how inconsistent and illogical his conclusions truly are. This is the definitive book for college students or faithful Christians hoping to answer Dawkins’ claims and assert the logic and beauty of their faith.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.