Evaluation of the "New Atheism": Atheist Arguments and Christian Responses to Dawkins, Harris, Hitchens, Dennett

Evaluation of the "New Atheism" of Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, Daniel Dennett

“If this book works as I intend, religious readers who open it will be atheists when they put it down. What presumptuous optimism! Of course, dyed-in-the-wool faith-heads are immune to argument....” (Dawkins, The God Delusion, page 5); “I have set out to demolish the intellectual and moral pretensions of Christianity in its most committed forms...” (Harris, Letter to a Christian Nation, page ix); “Religion poisons everything.” (Hitchens, God is Not Great, page 13).

text

Heading

text

Heading

text

Heading

text

Heading

text

“If any man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man's religion is vain. Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.” (James 1:26-27 KJV); “Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect...” (1 Peter 3:15 NIV); “But examine everything carefully; hold fast to that which is good....” (1 Thess 5:21 NASB).

Selection of Books on "Both Sides"

The "New Atheism" Books

The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins (Houghton Mifflin, 2006)
Letter to a Christian Nation by Sam Harris (Vintage Books, 2006, 2008)
The End of Faith by Sam Harris (W.W. Norton, 2004)
Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon by Daniel C. Dennett (Viking, 2006)
God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything by Christopher Hitchens (Twelve Books, 2007)
The New Atheism: Taking a Stand for Science and Reason by Victor Stenger (Prometheus Books, 2009)

The God Delusion -- Flea Cycle

Christian Responses to the "New Atheists"

The Dawkins Delusion? Atheist Fundamentalism and the Denial of the Divine by McGrath and McGrath (IVP Books, 2007)
Dawkin's God: Genes, Memes, and the Meaning of Life by Alister McGrath (Wiley-Blackwell, 2004)
Deluded by Dawkins? A Christian Response to the God Delusion by Andrew P. Wilson (Kingsway Publications, 2007)
The Dawkins Letters: Challenging Atheist Myths by David Robertson (Christian Focus, 2007)
God is No Delusion: A Refutation of Richard Dawkins by Thomas Crean, O.P. (Ignatius Press, 2007)
The Truth Behind the New Atheism by David Marshall (Harvest House Publishers, 2007)
ATHEISM IS FALSE: Richard Dawkins And The Improbability Of God Delusion by David Reuben Stone (LuLu.com, 2007)
The New Atheists: The Twilight of Reason and the War on Religion by Tina Beattie (Orbis Books, 2007)
Challenging Richard Dawkins: Why Richard Dawkins is Wrong About God by Kathleen Jones (Canterbury Press, 2007)
Answering the New Atheism: Dismantling Dawkins' Case Against God by Scott Hahn and Benjamin Wiker (Emmaus Road, 2008)
The End of Reason: A Response to the New Atheists by Ravi Zacharias (Zondervan, 2008)
God and the New Atheism: A Critical Response to Dawkins, Harris, and Hitchens by John Haught (Westminster John Knox Press, 2008)
Why There Almost Certainly Is a God: Doubting Dawkins by Keith Ward (Lion Hudson, 2008)
Contending with Christianity's Critics: Answering New Atheists and Other Objectors by William Lane Craig and Paul Copan (B&H Academic, 2009)
The "New" Atheism: Ten Arguments that Don't Hold Water? by Michael Poole (Lion Hudson, 2009)
The Godless Delusion: A Catholic Challenge to Modern Atheism by Patrick Madrid and Kenneth Hensley (Our Sunday Visitor, 2010)

Books Defending Atheism or Naturalism

Atheism: The Case Against God by George H. Smith (Prometheus Books, 1989, orig 1979)
The Miracle of Theism by J. L. Mackie (Oxford Univ Press, 1982)
Sense and Goodness Without God: A Defense of Metaphysical Naturalism by Richard Carrier (AuthorHouse, 2005)
God: The Failed Hypothesis by Victor J. Stenger (Prometheus Books, 2008, 2007)
Atheism Explained: From Folly to Philosophy by David Ramsay Steele (Open Court, 2008)
Atheist Universe by David Mills (Ulysses Press, 2006)
Naturalism Defeated? Essays on Plantinga's 'Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism' edited by James Beilby (Cornell Univ Press, 2002)
The Atheist Debater's Handbook by B. C. Johnson (Prometheus Books, 1983)
Atheism: A Philosophical Justification by Michael Martin (Temple Univ Press, 1990)
Arguing About Gods by Graham Oppy (Cambridge Univ Press, 2006)

Christian Defense of Theism and Responses to Atheism

Reasonable Faith: Christian Truth and Apologetics by William Lane Craig (Crossway Books, 2008, 3rd edition), deals also with the "new atheists"
There Is A God: How the World's Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind by Antony Flew with Roy Abraham Varghese (HarperOne, 2007)
God's Undertaker: Has Science Buried God? by John Lennox (Lion Hudson, 2007)
The Twilight of Atheism by Alister McGrath (Galilee Doubleday, 2004, 2006)
I Don't Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist by Norman L. Geisler and Frank Turek (Crossway Books, 2004)
Warranted Christian Belief by Alvin Plantinga (Oxford Univ Press, 2000), and other books in this series
God, Chance, and Necessity by Keith Ward (Oneworld Publications, 1996)
Scaling the Secular City by J. P. Moreland (Baker Books, 1987)
The Existence of God by Richard Swinburne (Oxford Univ Press, 1987, 1979)
The Gods of Atheism by Vincent Miceli, S.J. (Crown Pub, 1971)
The Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology edited by William Lane Craig and J. P. Moreland (Blackwell Publishing, 2009)

Books Against Christianity or Christian Doctrine

Why I am Not a Christian by Bertrand Russell (Touchstone, 1957)
Why I Rejected Christianity: A Former Apologist Explains (Trafford Publishing, 2006) and Why I Became an Atheist: A Former Preacher Rejects Christianity (Prometheus, 2008) both by John W. Loftus
The Case Against Christianity by Michael Martin (Temple Univ Press, 1991)
Losing Faith in Faith: From Preacher to Atheist (FFRF, 1992, 2006) and Godless: How an Evangelical Preacher Became One of America's Leading Atheists (Ulysses Press, 2008) both by Dan Barker
C. S. Lewis and the Search for Rational Religion by John Beversluis (Eerdmans Publishing, 1985)
Resurrection of Jesus: History, Experience, Theology by Gerd Ludemann (Fortress, 1995), was a liberal "Christian" at the time, now an atheist
The Empty Tomb: Jesus Beyond the Grave edited by Robert M. Price and Jeffery Jay Lowder (Prometheus, 2005)
The Christian Delusion: Why Faith Fails edited by John Loftus (Prometheus, 2010)

General Christian and Catholic Apologetics

Handbook of Christian Apologetics by Peter Kreeft and Ronald Tacelli (Intervarsity, 1994)
The Case For Christ by Lee Strobel (Zondervan, 1998)
The Case For Faith by Lee Strobel (Zondervan, 2000)
Why I Am a Christian edited by Norman L. Geisler and Paul K. Hoffman (Baker Books, 2001, 2006)
Reasons to Believe: How to Understand, Explain, and Defend the Catholic Faith by Scott Hahn (Doubleday, 2007)
Reasons for Faith: Making a Case for the Christian Faith edited by Norman L. Geisler and Chad Meister (Crossway Books, 2007)
God is Great, God is Good: Why Believing in God is Reasonable and Responsible edited by William Lane Craig and Chad Meister (Intervarsity, 2009)
The Son Rises by William Lane Craig (Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2001, orig Moody, 1981)
Mere Christianity (mp3) by C. S. Lewis
The Problem of Pain (mp3) by C. S. Lewis
Miracles by C. S. Lewis

Other Books on Critical Thinking, God, Religion, and Science

Come Let Us Reason: An Introduction to Logical Thinking by Norman L. Geisler and Ronald M. Brooks (Baker Books, 1990)
Socratic Logic: A Logic Text Using Socratic Method, Platonic Questions, and Aristotelian Principles by Peter Kreeft (St. Augustine Press, 2008)
What's So Great About Christianity and Life After Death: The Evidence both by Dinesh D'Souza (Regnery Publishing, 2007, 2009)
How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization by Thomas E. Woods, Jr. (Regnery Publishing, 2005)
God and the New Physics (1983) and The Mind of God (1992) and The Goldilocks Enigma (2006, 2008) all by Paul Davies
The Demon-Haunted World (1996) and The Varieties of Scientific Experience (2006) both by Carl Sagan (latter with Ann Druyan)
Finding Darwin's God (1999) and Only A Theory (2008) both by Kenneth R. Miller
The Big Questions in Science and Religion (2008) and Pascal's Fire (2006) and Is Religion Dangerous? (2006) all by Keith Ward

Further Reviews and Criticism of The God Delusion

Andrew Brown, Prospect Magazine "Dawkins the Dogmatist" (pdf)
Antony Flew, BeThinking.org Review of The God Delusion (pdf)
Joan Bakewell, The Guardian "Judgment Day" (pdf)
Terry Eagleton, London Review of Books "Lunging, Flailing, Mispunching" (pdf)
H. Allen Orr, NY Review of Books "A Mission to Convert" (pdf)
Jim Holt, NY Times "Beyond Belief" (pdf)
Alvin Plantinga, Christianity Today "The Dawkins Confusion" (pdf)
Dan Dennett, Free Inquiry Review of The God Delusion (pdf)
Richard Swinburne Response to The God Delusion (pdf)
William Lane Craig, Christianity Today "God is Not Dead Yet" (pdf) and "Dawkins' Delusion" (pdf)

see also various Debate Books on my Audio page

by PhilVaz -- (postponed until 2010)