What They're Missing

There have been a handful of critical reviews of the "new atheist" books by older atheists, those who've been at the business of studying and arguing with Christianity for many years.  The primary fault they find is the brashness, the dismissiveness of the charges against Christianity that don't take care to take good and decent arguments seriously.  Here's a sampled from Theodore Dalrymple in The City Journal who takes the new breed of atheists to task.

The curious thing about these books is that the authors often appear to think that they are saying something new and brave. They imagine themselves to be like the intrepid explorer Sir Richard Burton, who in 1853 disguised himself as a Muslim merchant, went to Mecca, and then wrote a book about his unprecedented feat. The public appears to agree, for the neo-atheist books have sold by the hundred thousand. Yet with the possible exception of Dennett’s, they advance no argument that I, the village atheist, could not have made by the age of 14....

For Dennett, to prove the biological origin of belief in God is to show its irrationality, to break its spell. But of course it is a necessary part of the argument that all possible human beliefs, including belief in evolution, must be explicable in precisely the same way; or else why single out religion for this treatment? Either we test ideas according to arguments in their favor, independent of their origins, thus making the argument from evolution irrelevant, or all possible beliefs come under the same suspicion of being only evolutionary adaptations—and thus biologically contingent rather than true or false. We find ourselves facing a version of the paradox of the Cretan liar: all beliefs, including this one, are the products of evolution, and all beliefs that are products of evolution cannot be known to be true.

Comments

[Aaron Snell]

>>Either we test ideas according to arguments in their favor, independent of their origins, thus making the argument from evolution irrelevant, or all possible beliefs come under the same suspicion of being only evolutionary adaptations—and thus biologically contingent rather than true or false.

Now here's an atheist with whom I could have a decent argument and discussion. This is an excellent point, and I'm glad it's coming from the other side.

[Pauli]

What a relief.

[BruinEric]

A very intriguing read, thanks for pointing this out. I've generally steered away from articles or interviews on this neo-atheism trend at the moment, but this critique is still interesting.