Why God Won't GO Away

131 Pages·2016·13.67 MB·English

by  Alister McGrath

For Bruce and Phyllis Beard
Alister McGrath, a former atheist, is Professor of Theology, Ministry
and Education at King's College London, and Director of its Centre
for Theology, Religion and Culture. He is one of the leading critics
of the 'New Atheism' and regularly comments on its themes.
His many books include the international bestseller The Dawkins
Delusion?, cowritten with Joanna Collicutt McGrath.
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For Bruce and Phyllis Beard
WHY GOD WON'T
GO AWAY
Engaging with the New Atheism
•
Alister McGrath
(SPCK)
First published in Great Britain in 2011
Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge
36 Causton Street
London SWIP 4ST
www.spckpublishing.co.uk
Copyright © Alister McGrath 2011
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any
form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying,
recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system,
without permission in writing from the publisher.
SPCK does not necessarily endorse the individual views contained in its publications.
The author and publisher have made every effort to ensure that the external website
and email addresses included in this book are correct and up to date at the time
of going to press. The author and publisher are not responsible for the
content, quality or continuing accessibility of the sites.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 978-0-281-06387-1
3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2
Typeset by Graphicraft Ltd, Hong Kong
Printed in Great Britain by Ashford Colour Press
Produced on paper from sustainable forests
2013 -D7- j 0
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Contents
•
Introduction VB
Part 1
WHAT IS THE NEW ATHEISM?
The New Atheism: how it all started 3
2 What's 'New' about the New Atheism? 23
Part 2
ENGAGING THE NEW ATHEISM:
THREE CORE THEMES
3 When religion goes wrong: violence 43
4 Reason: the rationality of beliefs 56
5 A question of proof: science 72
Part 3
WHERE DOES THE NEW ATHEISM
GO FROM HERE?
6 Where is the New Atheism now? 91
7 God won't go away: beyond the New Atheism 96
Notes 100
Further reading 116
v

Introduction
• I
In September 2001 a series of coordinated suicide attacks was
launched against targets in the USA - events now invariably
referred to simply as '9/11 '. Of the four planes hijacked by Islamic
terrorists, three were flown into major landmark buildings in
New York and Washington, causing considerable loss of life.
The impact of these attacks was massive, reflecting a widespread
perception that the world had just changed irreversibly. The
'war against terror' became a dominant theme of the presidency
of George W. Bush, and the USA and its allies became enmeshed
in conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. Public anxiety about
the deadly consequences of religious fanaticism reached new
levels.
In the view of many, this last point is of critical importance
for understanding the sudden emergence in the first decade of
the twenty-first century of the movement now known as the
New Atheism. Some atheist writers such as Richard Dawkins
I
had been arguing that religion was irrational and dangerous for
years, without making much headway. Suddenly these atheist
arguments seemed both attractive and culturally plausible.
Someone or something had to be blamed for 9/11, and Islamic
religious fanaticism was an obvious possibility. In the white heat
of anger against this outrage, 'Islamic religious fanaticism' became
simplified - first to 'religious fanaticism' and then simply to
'religion'.
Dawkins would play a central role in this change in cultural
mood in Western liberal circles, for 9/11 confirmed everything
he'd always believed: religion was dangerous precisely because it
was irrational, and when it failed to win arguments it resorted
to terror instead. Four days after the attack, Dawkins wrote: 'To
fill a world with religion, or religions of the Abrahamic kind, is
Vll
Introduction
like littering the streets with loaded guns. Do not be surprised
if they are used.'2
Many regarded these comments as ridiculously simplistic.
Others, however, saw Dawkins as a bold thinker willing to tell
the truth. Religion is dangerous. It's not to be respected but to
be feared - and wherever possible neutralized. It's a time bomb
waiting to explode; a loaded gun waiting to kill people. As
Christopher Hitchens put the point a few years later, with a
verbal economy matched only by its emotional intensity: 'Religion
kills.' The 9/11 attack turned out to be the intellectual and moral
launch pad for the New Atheism.
If the New Atheism wanted to get a debate about religion
under way, it certainly succeeded. Suddenly everyone wanted to
talk about God. I and many others have welcomed this debate.
The New Atheism has raised questions of fundamental import
ance, such as the rationality of faith, the relation of religion and
science, the possible links between faith and violence and the
place of religion in Western society. For many years these matters
had been seen as uninteresting and irrelevant. But not now.
A most interesting conversation has begun, and I'm sure the New
Atheism will not mind others joining in and taking the discus
sion further. There's a lot more that needs to be said.
Why? Because God just won't go away. In the UK the influential
magazine The Economist, which had been 'so confident of the
Almighty's demise that we published His obituary in our
millennium issue', rather inconveniently found itself obliged to
issue a correction in 2007. Religion is back in public life and
public debate.3 Many are now wondering whether the New
Atheism itself is beginning to look and sound a little stale and
weary, repeating old arguments dressed up as if they were new
and radical.
This book engages the ideas of the New Atheism, primarily
as we find it stated in the works of its four leading representa
tives: Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris and
Christopher Hitchens. But it's important not to limit our discus
sion to these four thinkers. One of the most distinctive features
of the New Atheism is the 'virtual communities' it has generated.
viii