Atheist Delusions: The Christian Revolution and Its Fashionable Enemies
5 May 2009
This post by me back in October last year on the British Humanist society’s collaboration with Richard Dawkins for adverts on the side of buses, declaring ‘there’s probably no God’, continues to attract comments, with over 50 so far.
With that in mind, I got my copy of Atheist Delusions, by David Bentley Hart in the post last weekend.
Taking a quick look at it, it does look superbly written, and carefully argued. I suspect this will be a key and important text for for anyone wanting to understand why the New Atheists, have so poorly understood religion and in particular christianity.
Amazon provide this description of the book:
“Currently it is fashionable to be devoutly undevout. Religion’s most passionate antagonists – Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris, and others – have publishers competing eagerly to market their various denunciations of religion, monotheism, Christianity, and Roman Catholicism. But contemporary anti-religious polemics are based not only upon profound conceptual confusions but upon facile simplifications of history or even outright historical ignorance: so contends David Bentley Hart in this bold correction of the distortions. One of the most brilliant scholars of religion of our time, Hart provides a powerful antidote to the New Atheists’ misrepresentations of the Christian past, bringing into focus the truth about the most radical revolution in Western history. Hart outlines how Christianity transformed the ancient world in ways we may have forgotten: bringing liberation from fatalism, conferring great dignity on human beings, subverting the cruelest aspects of pagan society, and elevating charity above all virtues. He then argues that what we term the ‘Age of Reason’ was in fact the beginning of the eclipse of reason’s authority as a cultural value. Hart closes the book in the present, delineating the ominous consequences of the decline of Christendom in a culture that is built upon its moral and spiritual values.”
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1.24 pm on 6 May 2009
[...] If you’re interested in this subject you might want to read the book Atheist Delusions that Jason Clarke reviews [...]
Comment by Mel
1.48 pm on 7 May 2009
I love the story of Gideon and the size of the army, where God is still bigger no matter how small He seems. I love how God declares that the gates of hell cannot prevail against His church. I only know two Atheists and I notice arguements pointing fingers at Christians addictively, and faulting God and his followers for being beings of blind trust. 1/2 truths get old even if they try to be new. No one can out do God and His Word no matter how crafty they think they are. I can see Christ alive and well when I walk into the large congregation as well as small. Jesus Christ is more powerful than all the fire from below no matter how dressed up it is. Reason cannot be controlled because men always have too many opinions and arguements. God is one in His purposes. It is futile to argue with God, yet its not wrong to struggle with God, is it? Doesn’t it seem that trusting God permits risk of wrestling with Him over the deepest questions of life?
Comment by Hanni
11.26 am on 9 May 2009
Submission is all about wrestling with something if like you cant do that then your not submitting to a whole lot right…but like arguing with G_d, why? What about obedience. Like if i argued with my dad he would punch me in the friken face for sure and thas just my dad! Disrespectful to put like our reasons and arguments up in his face.
Comment by brett jordan
7.39 pm on 10 May 2009
bought the book last week, and have spent the weekend working my way through it… it is a marvellous, funny and provocative piece of work by an intelligent mind that is really enjoying ‘having a go’ at the lazy, knee-jerk arguments of the modern secularists
Comment by Jason
8.35 pm on 10 May 2009
Glad you liked it
One of the best secularists I respect is Alain de Botton. He wrote this great article on religion for atheists.
http://www.standpointmag.co.uk/utopia-june
Comment by Mel
9.06 pm on 12 May 2009
Hanni, Your so right. The righteousness of God is truly obedience. Surrender and obedience. So right. They go hand in hand. God truly loves us and cares for us and it compels us to know him and believe in the Love that God hath to us as I John 4:16 gives us recognition. We inspire devotion to God when we love Him enough to obey Him. Self surrender smooths our way to walk with Jesus in His Way. I do love and appreciate the courage of the faith that it takes to face life with God in spite of opposition be it from atheists or stumbling blocks Satan places in our path. That great example Jesus left that, even though He was God’s son, He thought it not to be a crime to be equal with God, he emptied himself and put aside time to be with us. I rejoice. We are indebted to love Him and each other.
Comment by John
11.12 am on 15 Jun 2009
Why not read these superb essays on the naive self-serving delusions that (mis)inform what is usually called religion and “god”.
1. http://www.adidam.org/teaching/aletheon/truth-god.aspx
2. http://www.adidam.org/teaching/aletheon/truth-religion.aspx
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