Notes
Notes
Introduction
1 The capitalized term ‘New Atheism’ is used throughout to refer specifically to the movement now known by this name, rather than the more general and imprecise idea of ‘more recent forms of atheism’.
2 Richard Dawkins, ‘Religion’s Misguided Missiles’. The Guardian, 15 September 2001.
3 ‘In God’s Name: A Special Report on Religion and Public Life’. The Economist, 3 November 2007.
1 The New Atheism: how it all started
1 See their 2006 Christmas messages to this network: <http://edge.org/documents/archive/edge199.html>. The contents of all web pages noted in this book have been archived for the purposes of verification.
2 Gary Wolf, ‘The Church of the Non-Believers’. Wired, November 2006: <http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.11/atheism_pr.html>. See also Simon Hooper, ‘The Rise of the “New Atheists”’; CNN, 9 November 2006: <http://edition.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/europe/11/08/atheism.feature/index.html>
3 The phrase seems first to have been used in a discussion between the four writers recorded in 2007. The reference is to the biblical image of the ‘Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse’ (Revelation 6.1–8), generally seen as a portent of the end-times. Other names are often linked with the movement: for example, the physicist Victor J. Stenger, who argues that science disproves the existence of God (Victor J. Stenger, God: The Failed Hypothesis: How Science Shows That God Does Not Exist. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2008). This lumbering book is something of a blunt instrument compared with those by Dawkins or Hitchens, even if it echoes at least some of their ideas.
4 For the full text of Atran’s critique of Harris and others see <http://edge.org/discourse/bb.html#atran2>
5 Mark Juergensmeyer, Terror in the Mind of God: The Global Rise of Religious Violence, 3rd edn. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2003.
6 William T. Cavanaugh, The Myth of Religious Violence. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009.
7 Cavanaugh, Myth of Religious Violence, pp. 18–54, 212–20.
8 Cavanaugh, Myth of Religious Violence, p. 225.
9 Sam Harris, The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason. New York: Viking Penguin, 2006, pp. 52–3.
10 See Rudolph J. Rummel, Lethal Politics: Soviet Genocide and Mass Murder since 1917. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 1990, esp. pp. 109–26.
11 See, for example, R. J. [Richard] Eskow, ‘Reject Arguments for Intolerance – Even from Atheists’. Huffington Post, 4 January 2006.
12 Sam Harris, Letter to a Christian Nation. New York: Knopf, 2006.
13 Publisher’s Weekly, 253/46, 20 November 2006.
14 Sam Harris, The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values. New York: Free Press, 2010.
15 Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion. London: Bantam, 2006, p. 5.
16 Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene, 2nd edn. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989, p. 198.
17 Dawkins, God Delusion, p. 5.
18 Dawkins, God Delusion, p. 308.
19 Michael Shermer, How We Believe: Science, Skepticism, and the Search for God. New York: Freeman, 2000, p. 71.
20 For a very positive assessment of Dawkins’ role as a scientific popularizer see the collection of essays in Alan Grafen and Mark Ridley (eds), Richard Dawkins: How a Scientist Changed the Way We Think. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006.
21 I offer an evaluation of Dawkins’ views on the relation of science and religion, based on works published up to 2003, in Alister E. McGrath, Dawkins’ God: Genes, Memes, and the Meaning of Life. Oxford: Blackwell, 2004.
22 Dawkins, God Delusion, p. 188.
23 I discuss this point more fully elsewhere: see Alister E. McGrath, Darwinism and the Divine: Evolutionary Thought and Natural Theology. Oxford: Blackwell, 2011, pp. 254–67.
24 See especially Richard Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe without Design. New York: Norton, 1986.
25 Richard Dawkins, ‘Viruses of the Mind’, in A Devil’s Chaplain: Reflections on Hope, Lies, Science and Love. New York: Mariner Books, 2004, pp. 128–45.
26 Dawkins, A Devil’s Chaplain, pp. 144–5.
27 For the origins and early development of this idea see McGrath, Dawkins’ God, pp. 119–38.
28 Dawkins, A Devil’s Chaplain, p. 145.
29 For an up-to-date account see McGrath, Darwinism and the Divine, pp. 254–62.
30 <http://cfpm.org/jom-emit/2005/vol9/edmonds_b.html>
31 Anthony Kenny, What I Believe. London: Continuum, 2006, p. 21.
32 Daniel C. Dennett, Darwin’s Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meaning of Life. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995.
33 Daniel C. Dennett, Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon. New York: Viking Penguin, 2006.
34 Dennett, Breaking the Spell, p. 9.
35 Dennett, Breaking the Spell, pp. 240–6.
36 Dennett, Breaking the Spell, p. 240.
37 See Keith Ward, Why There Almost Certainly Is a God: Doubting Dawkins. Oxford: Lion Hudson, 2008.
38 For some critical reflections see Justin L. Barrett, ‘Is the Spell Really Broken? Bio-Psychological Explanations of Religion and Theistic Belief’. Theology and Science 5 (2007), pp. 57–72.
39 Dennett, Breaking the Spell, pp. 31–2.
40 Tina Beattie, The New Atheists: The Twilight of Reason and the War on Religion. London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 2007, pp. 7–9.
41 Christopher Hitchens, God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything. New York: Twelve, 2007, p. 13.
42 As cited in Ian Parker’s profile of Christopher Hitchens, ‘He knew he was right’. New Yorker, 16 October 2006.
43 Hitchens, God Is Not Great, pp. 13, 25.
44 For the way in which celebrity can give rise to a certain type of God-like authority see Pete Ward, Gods Behaving Badly: Media, Religion, and Celebrity Culture. Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2011.
45 George M. Marsden, A Short Life of Jonathan Edwards. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2008, p. 131.
46 Hitchens, God Is Not Great, p. 7.
47 Hitchens, God Is Not Great, p. 176.
2 What’s ‘New’ about the New Atheism?
1 Gary Wolf, ‘The Church of the Non-Believers’. Wired, November 2006: <http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.11/atheism_pr.html>
2 For recent examples of this diversity, all published after the appearance of the New Atheism, see Steve Antinoff, Spiritual Atheism. Berkeley, CA: Counterpoint Press, 2010; André Comte-Sponville, The Little Book of Atheist Spirituality. New York: Viking, 2009; J. Angelo Corlett, The Errors of Atheism. London: Continuum, 2010.
3 Carlo Maria Martini and Umberto Eco, Belief or Nonbelief?. New York: Arcade Publications, 2001.
4 The classic study of this remains E. Digby Baltzell, The Protestant Establishment: Aristocracy and Caste in America. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1987. For feminist perspectives on the maleness of leading New Atheists see Tina Beattie, The New Atheists: The Twilight of Reason and the War on Religion. London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 2007. As has often been pointed out, there are surprisingly few African-American atheists.
5 Christopher Hitchens, Letters to a Young Contrarian. New York: Basic Books, 2001, p. 55.
6 Greg M. Epstein, ‘Less Anti-theism, More Humanism’. Washington Post, 1 October 2007.
7 Christopher Hitchens in dialogue with Dennis Miller, 30 October 2009. For Hitchens’ apology see <http://current.com/shows/upstream/91393992_atheist-christopher-hitchens-apologizes-for-mother-teresa-insult.htm>. For his earlier critique see Christopher Hitchens, The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice. London: Verso, 1995.
8 From Ian Parker’s profile of Christopher Hitchens, ‘He knew he was right’. New Yorker, 16 October 2006.
9 <http://richarddawkins.net/>
10 Figures as of May 2010.
11 This survey was based on 1,648 adults chosen randomly from across the USA, designed by the Baylor Institute for Studies of Religion and conducted by the Gallup organization. For details see Rodney Stark, What Americans Really Believe: New Findings from the Baylor Surveys of Religion. Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2008.
12 For example, the majority of Americans who claim to be ‘irreligious’ pray, with a large minority (32 per cent) praying ‘often’.
13 See, for example, Alvin L. Reid, Radically Unchurched: Who They Are and How to Reach Them. Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel, 2002; Thom S. Rainer, The Unchurched Next Door. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2003.
14 <http://friendlyatheist.com/2010/02/03/how-many-copies-of-the-god-delusion-have-been-sold/>
15 Bruce DeSilva, ‘Pundit Christopher Hitchens picks a fight in book, “God is Not Great”’. Rutland Herald [Vermont], 25 April 2007.
16 Julian Baggini, A Very Short Introduction to Atheism. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003. This was published before the phenomenon of the New Atheism emerged.
17 Julian Baggini, ‘Nyateismen virker mot sin hensikt’. Fri Tanke 2009/1 (March 2009), pp. 42–3.
18 For the English text of this article see <http://www.fritanke.no/ENGLISH/2009/The_new_atheist_movement_is_destructive/>
19 <http://julianbaggini.blogspot.com/2009/03/new-atheist-movement-is-destructive.html>
20 Baggini here alludes to the titles of two of the canonical works of the New Atheism, discussed in Chapter 1: Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion. London: Bantam, 2006 and Daniel C. Dennett, Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon. New York: Viking Penguin, 2006.
21 A similar approach is found in Graham R. Oppy, Arguing About Gods. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006. Oppy’s point is that while neither atheism nor theism are rationally compelling, they’re both nevertheless rational.
22 <http://realityismyreligion.wordpress.com/2010/02/23/locked-entry-will-open-soon/>
23 This posting has since been removed from the Dawkins website. It can be accessed, along with other views on this incident, from sites such as <http://heathen-hub.com/blog.php?b=254>
24 See, for example, the comments at <http://realityismyreligion.wordpress.com/2010/02/23/locked-entry-will-open-soon/#comment-89>
25 For some of the issues relating to anonymity on the web see Judith S. Donath, ‘Identity and Deception in the Virtual Community’, in Marc A. Smith and Peter Kollock (eds), Communities in Cyberspace. London: Routledge, 1999, pp. 29–59.
26 <http://www.courthousenews.com/2010/10/22/31283.htm>. For comment see <http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/an-ungodly-row-at-the-dawkins-foundation-2115632.html>
27 <http://joshtimonen.com/post/1387207318/the-ultimate-betrayal>
28 See Graeme Turner, Understanding Celebrity. London: Sage, 2004.
29 <http://www.zazzle.co.uk/what_would_dawkins_do_tshirt-235812038105228356>. The slogan is a parody of a popular Christian armband, ‘What would Jesus do?’.
30 <http://smashingtelly.com/2008/06/19/the-four-horsemen-dennett-dawkins-harris-hitchens/>
31 <http://news.independentminds.livejournal.com/3760686.html>. Viewed and archived 21 June 2010. This page has since been deleted.
32 Daniel C. Dennett, ‘The Bright Stuff’. New York Times, 12 July 2003; Richard Dawkins, ‘The Future looks Bright’. The Guardian, 21 June 2003.
33 Gary Wolf, ‘The Church of the Non-Believers’. Wired, 2006. <http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.11/atheism_pr.html>
34 <http://www.meetup.com/London-Brights/calendar/past_list/>
35 The London Atheists, who occasionally held joint meetups with the London Brights, continue to function. Their website points to ongoing attendance of 12–20 at their recent meetups, somewhat lower than the highs of 2006–7. See <http://www.meetup.com/London-Atheists/>
36 Chris Mooney, ‘Not too “bright”: Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennett are smart guys, but their campaign to rename religious unbelievers “Brights” could use some rethinking’. Skeptical Inquirer, March–April 2004.
37 Christopher Hitchens, God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything. New York: Twelve, 2007, p. 5.
38 Dawkins, God Delusion, p. 257.
39 Dawkins, God Delusion, p. 259.
3 When religion goes wrong: violence
1 William Temple, Nature, Man and God. London: Macmillan, 1934, p. 22.
2 For further exploration of this point see Peter Harrison, ‘Religion’ and the Religions in the English Enlightenment. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990; Daniel L. Pals, Seven Theories of Religion. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996; Samuel J. Preus, Explaining Religion: Criticism and Theory from Bodin to Freud. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1987.
3 Christopher Hitchens, Letters to a Young Contrarian. New York: Basic Books, 2001, p. 55.
4 Meera Nanda, ‘Spirited Away’. New Humanist 121/3, May/June 2006 <http://newhumanist.org.uk/973/spirited-away>
5 Meera Nanda, ‘Spirited Away’.
6 Paul Heelas, Linda Woodhead, Benjamin Seel and Bronislaw Szerszynski, The Spiritual Revolution: Why Religion Is Giving Way to Spirituality. Oxford: Blackwell, 2005.
7 Natalya Sadomskaya, ‘Soviet Anthropology and Contemporary Rituals’. Cahiers du monde russe et soviétique 31 (1990), pp. 245–53.
8 Martin E. Marty with Jonathan Moore, Politics, Religion, and the Common Good: Advancing a Distinctly American Conversation About Religion’s Role in Our Shared Life. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2000.
9 Emilio Gentile, Politics as Religion. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2006, pp. 1–15.
10 Diego Gambetta (ed.), Making Sense of Suicide Missions. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005.
11 Robert A. Pape, Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism. New York: Random House, 2005.
12 Scott Atran, ‘The Moral Logic and Growth of Suicide Terrorism’. Washington Quarterly 29/2 (Spring 2006), pp. 127–47.
13 Richard E. Wentz, Why People Do Bad Things in the Name of Religion. Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1993. See also Sudhir Kakar, The Colors of Violence: Cultural Identities, Religion, and Conflict. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996.
14 Alberto Toscano, Fanaticism: On the Uses of an Idea. London: Verso, 2010.
15 For exploration of this theme see Richard A. Burridge, Imitating Jesus: An Inclusive Approach to New Testament Ethics. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2007.
16 One of the best recent studies is Walter Wink, Jesus and Nonviolence: A Third Way. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2003.
17 For an outstanding account of this tragic incident and its implications see Donald B. Kraybill, Steven M. Nolt and David Weaver-Zercher, Amish Grace: How Forgiveness Transcended Tragedy. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 2010. For a more popular account see Jonas Beiler with Shawn Smucker, Think No Evil: Inside the Story of the Amish Schoolhouse Shooting – and Beyond. New York: Howard Books, 2009.
18 The French Revolution went through an atheist phase but this did not last long enough to become institutionally embodied in national policy.
19 V. I. Lenin, ‘Socialism and Religion’, in Collected Works, 45 vols. Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1965, vol. 10, pp. 83–7.
20 Anna Dickinson, ‘Quantifying Religious Oppression: Russian Orthodox Church Closures and Repression of Priests 1917–41’. Religion, State and Society 28 (2000), pp. 327–35. See further Dimitry V. Pospielovsky, A History of Marxist-Leninist Atheism and Soviet Anti-Religious Policies. New York: St Martin’s Press, 1987; William Husband, ‘Soviet Atheism and Russian Orthodox Strategies of Resistance, 1917–1932’. Journal of Modern History 70 (1998), pp. 74–107.
21 Also known as the ‘League of the Militant Godless’. For its history and methods see Daniel Peris, Storming the Heavens: The Soviet League of the Militant Godless. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1998. For reflections on the failure of Soviet strategy see Paul Froese, ‘Forced Secularization in Soviet Russia: Why an Atheistic Monopoly Failed’. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 43 (2004), pp. 35–50.
22 Christopher Hitchens, God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything. New York: Twelve, 2007, pp. 243–7.
23 Perhaps the most interesting critique of Hitchens’ views on the Soviet Union comes from within his own family. Peter Hitchens, brother to Christopher, served for many years as a journalist in the Communist bloc of Eastern Europe. He ended up working in Moscow on the eve of the collapse of the Soviet Union. See Peter Hitchens, The Rage against God. London: Continuum, 2010.
24 Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion. London: Bantam, 2006, p. 273.
25 Dawkins, God Delusion, p. 249.
26 Timothy J. Colton, Moscow: Governing the Socialist Metropolis. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995, pp. 228–31.
27 For the story see Rüdiger Lux and Martin Petzoldt (eds), Vernichtet, vertrieben – aber nicht ausgelöscht: Gedenken an die Sprengung der Universitätskirche St. Pauli zu Leipzig nach 40 Jahren. Berlin: Kirchhof & Franke, 2008.
28 Gentile, Politics as Religion, p. 1.
29 François Furet, The French Revolution, 1770–1814. Oxford: Blackwell, 1996.
30 ‘La terreur n’est autre chose que la justice prompte, sévère, inflexible; elle est donc une émanation de la vertu.’ Robespierre, speech entitled ‘Sur les principes de morale politique qui doivent guider la Convention nationale’, delivered 5 February 1794. Oeuvres de Maximilien Robespierre, 10 vols. Enghien les Bains: Editions du Miraval, 2007, vol. 10, p. 357.
31 Terry Eagleton, ‘Lunging, Flailing, Mispunching’, review of The God Delusion. London Review of Books, 28/20, 19 October 2006.
4 Reason: the rationality of beliefs
1 John Locke, Works, 10 vols. London: Thomas Tegg, 1823, vol. 8, p. 447.
2 Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy:Paradise, 2.56–8.
3 J. J. C. Smart and J. J. Haldane, Atheism and Theism, 2nd edn. Oxford: Blackwell, 2003. At the time of writing, Smart is emeritus professor of philosophy at Monash University, Australia; Haldane is professor of philosophy at St Andrew’s University, Scotland.
4 For a recent study emphasizing the importance of the stability of beliefs in Hume’s philosophy see Louis E. Loeb, Stability and Justification in Hume’s Treatise. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002.
5 See, for example, Alvin Plantinga, ‘Reason and Belief in God’, in Faith and Philosophy: Reason and Belief in God, ed. Alvin Plantinga and Nicholas Wolterstorff. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1983, pp. 16–93.
6 Extract from a lecture given by Dawkins at the Edinburgh International Science Festival (1992). The lecture was published under the title ‘Lions 10, Christians Nil’ in an electronic journal entitled ‘The Nullifidian’, <http://www.skepticfiles.org/nullif/v01i08.htm>
7 Isaiah Berlin, Concepts and Categories: Philosophical Essays. New York: Viking Press, 1979, pp. 2–5, 161–2.
8 Berlin, Concepts and Categories, pp. 114–15.
9 Terry Eagleton, ‘Lunging, Flailing, Mispunching’, review of The God Delusion. London Review of Books, 28/20, 19 October 2006.
10 Alvin Plantinga, God and Other Minds: A Study of the Rational Justification of Belief in God. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1990.
11 James H. Olthuis, ‘On Worldviews’, in Stained Glass: Worldviews and Social Science, ed. Paul A. Marshall. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1989, pp. 26–32.
12 Christopher Hitchens, God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything. New York: Twelve, 2007, p. 5.
13 See M. Neil Browne and Stuart M. Keeley, Asking the Right Questions: A Guide to Critical Thinking, 8th edn. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2007, p. 196.
14 See especially Robert J. Louden, The World We Want: How and Why the Ideals of the Enlightenment Still Elude Us. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007.
15 Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion. London: Bantam, 2006, p. 31.
16 This point was made by Xenophon in the classical period. The modern origins of this approach lie in Ludwig Feuerbach: see Van A. Harvey, Feuerbach and the Interpretation of Religion. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995.
17 See Heinz Fastenrath, Ein Abriss atheistischer Grundpositionen: Feuerbach, Marx, Nietzsche, Sartre. Stuttgart: Klett, 1993. For the background to these developments see Winfried Schröder, Ursprünge des Atheismus: Untersuchungen zur Metaphysik- und Religionskritik des 17. und 18. Jahrhunderts. Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt: Frommann-Holzboog, 1998.
18 Hitchens, God Is Not Great, p. 8.
19 Hitchens, God Is Not Great, p. 10.
20 Hitchens, God Is Not Great, p. 102.
21 Iris Murdoch, ‘The Sovereignty of Good over Other Concepts’, in Existentialists and Mystics, ed. Peter Conradi. London: Chatto, 1998, pp. 363–85.
22 See, for example, Alister E. McGrath, ‘Atheism and the Enlightenment: Reflections on the Intellectual Roots of the New Atheism’, in Mere Theology: Christian Faith and the Discipleship of the Mind. London: SPCK, 2010, pp. 139–53.
23 For excellent studies see Jeffrey Stout, The Flight from Authority: Religion, Morality and the Quest for Autonomy. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1981; Maiken Umbach, Federalism and Enlightenment in Germany, 1740–1806. London: Hambledon Press, 2000; Gertrude Himmelfarb, The Roads to Modernity: The British, French and American Enlightenments. New York: Knopf, 2005; Jonathan I. Israel, Enlightenment Contested: Philosophy, Modernity, and the Emancipation of Man, 1670–1752. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008.
24 Rebecca Goldstein, The Proof and Paradox of Kurt Gödel. New York: Norton, 1995, p. 204.
25 See, for example, Alasdair MacIntyre, Whose Justice? Which Rationality? London: Duckworth, 1988; Stephen Toulmin, Cosmopolis: The Hidden Agenda of Modernity. New York: Free Press, 1990; John Gray, Enlightenment’s Wake: Politics and Culture at the Close of the Modern Age. London: Routledge, 1995.
26 William James, ‘The Sentiment of Rationality’, in The Will to Believe and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy. New York: Longmans, Green and Co., 1897, pp. 63–110.
27 The classic study remains Bernhard Kopp, ‘Die marxistische Theorie von Überbau und Unterbau und ihre nicht-marxistischen Abwandlungen’. Zeitschrift für philosophische Forschung 22 (1968), pp. 575–97.
28 I have in mind here Johann Georg Hamann’s late eighteenth-century critique of Kant, which involves the recognition that ‘knowers’ are shaped by their cultural context: see Oswald Bayer, Vernunft ist Sprache: Hamanns Metakritik Kants. Stuttgart: Frommann-Holzboog, 2002.
29 Daniel C. Dennett, Darwin’s Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meaning of Life. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995, p. 63.
30 Stephen P. Stich, The Fragmentation of Reason: Preface to a Pragmatic Theory of Cognitive Evaluation. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1990, p. 62.
31 Hitchens, God Is Not Great, p. 283.
32 It is not my intention to explore the Christian view of this matter, but informed readers will immediately realize that both the New Testament and the Christian tradition recognize and engage precisely this point. We do not see and think clearly; we need illumination and grace. For the classic discussion of this idea in Augustine of Hippo, see Robert J. Hardy, Actualité de la révélation divine. Paris: Éditions Beauchesne, 1974, pp. 60–8.
33 See Jeremy Gray, Ideas of Space: Euclidean, Non-Euclidean, and Relativistic, 2nd edn. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989.
34 A point emphasized in MacIntyre, Whose Justice? Which Rationality?
5 A question of proof: science
1 Thomas H. Huxley, Darwiniana. London: Macmillan, 1893, p. 252.
2 Hugh G. Gauch, Scientific Method in Practice. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003, pp. 1–110.
3 The best study is Peter Lipton, Inference to the Best Explanation, 2nd edn. London: Routledge, 2004.
4 Mary B. Hesse, Forces and Fields: The Concept of Action at a Distance in the History of Physics. London: Nelson, 2005.
5 See the points made in James T. Cushing, Quantum Mechanics: Historical Contingency and the Copenhagen Hegemony. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994.
6 For the debate and the issues see the collection of essays in Bernard Carr (ed.), Universe or Multiverse? Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007.
7 Helge S. Kragh, Conceptions of Cosmos: From Myths to the Accelerating Universe: A History of Cosmology. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006.
8 Richard Dawkins, ‘Darwin Triumphant’, in A Devil’s Chaplain: Reflections on Hope, Lies, Science and Love. New York: Mariner Books, 2004, pp. 78–90, quote at p. 81.
9 Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene, 2nd edn. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989, p. 330.
10 For a collection of essays from leading thinkers exploring the options see Carr (ed.), Universe or Multiverse?
11 See, for example, the important discussion of the relation between ‘evidence’ and ‘warrant’ in Susan Haack, Evidence and Inquiry. Oxford: Blackwell, 1993.
12 James Robert Brown, Philosophy of Mathematics: An Introduction to the World of Proofs and Pictures. London: Routledge, 1999, pp. 71–8; George Boolos, ‘Gödel’s Second Incompleteness Theorem Explained in Words of One Syllable’. Mind 103 (1994), pp. 1–3.
13 For a highly influential discussion see John Lucas, ‘Minds, Machines and Gödel’. Philosophy 36 (1961), pp. 112–27.
14 See his famous comments on F. W. Hutton’s concerns about his theory: The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, ed. F. Darwin, 3 vols. London: John Murray, 1887, vol. 2, p. 155.
15 Pietro Corsi, ‘Before Darwin: Transformist Concepts in European Natural History’. Journal of the History of Biology 38 (2005), pp. 67–83.
16 For a discussion of these difficulties see Abigail J. Lustig, ‘Darwin’s Difficulties’, in The Cambridge Companion to the ‘Origin of Species’, ed. Michael Ruse and Robert J. Richards. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009, pp. 109–28.
17 See here Michael Bulmer, ‘Did Jenkin’s Swamping Argument Invalidate Darwin’s Theory of Natural Selection?’ British Journal for the History of Science 37 (2004), pp. 281–97.
18 Charles Darwin, Origin of Species. London: John Murray, 1859, p. 171.
19 Gauch, Scientific Method in Practice, p. 152.
20 Julia Kristeva, The Incredible Need to Believe. New York: Columbia University Press, 2009, p. 3. Her general point is widely accepted within contemporary philosophy: see for example Slavoj Žižek, How to Read Lacan. London: Granta, 2007, pp. 93–4; John Cottingham, Why Believe? London: Continuum, 2009.
21 Bas C. van Fraassen, The Scientific Image. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1980, pp. 202–3.
22 Dawkins, ‘Science, Genetics and Ethics’, in A Devil’s Chaplain, pp. 27–37; quote at p. 34.
23 John Dupré, ‘Against Scientific Imperialism’. PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association 2 (1994), pp. 374–81.
24 For critiques see Frederick A. Olafson, Naturalism and the Human Condition: Against Scientism. London: Routledge, 2001; Mikael Stenmark, Scientism: Science, Ethics and Religion. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2001. For helpful nuancing of the issues see Susan Haack, Defending Science – Within Reason: Between Scientism and Cynicism. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2003.
25 Hilary Putnam, ‘Was Wittgenstein Really an Anti-Realist about Mathematics?’, in Wittgenstein in America, ed. Timothy C. McCarthy and Sean C. Stidd. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001, pp. 140–94; quote at pp. 185–6.
26 Sam Harris, The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values. New York: Free Press, 2010.
27 See especially the analysis in Ruth Anna Putnam, ‘Perceiving Facts and Values’. Philosophy 73/283 (1998), pp. 5–19. Putnam here points out the implicit subjectivism intrinsic to any ‘scientific’ attempt to achieve ethical objectivity.
28 See for example the insightful New York Times review of the work: Kwame Anthony Appiah, ‘Science knows best’. New York Times, 1 October 2010.
29 Peter B. Medawar, The Limits of Science. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985, p. 66.
30 Stephen Jay Gould, ‘Impeaching a Self-Appointed Judge’. Scientific American 267/1 (1992), pp. 118–21.
31 Thomas Dixon, ‘Scientific Atheism as a Faith Tradition’. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science C 33 (2002), pp. 337–59.
32 Jeffrey Burton Russell, Inventing the Flat Earth: Columbus and Modern Historians. New York: Praeger, 1991.
33 The best study is John Hedley Brooke, Science and Religion: Some Historical Perspectives. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991.
34 For the role of this Institute in developing Soviet genetics see A. E. Gaissinovitch, ‘The Origins of Soviet Genetics and the Struggle with Lamarckism, 1922–1929’. Journal for the History of Biology 13 (1980), pp. 1–51.
35 Dimitry V. Pospielovsky, A History of Marxist–Leninist Atheism and Soviet Anti-Religious Policies, 2 vols. New York: St Martin’s Press, 1987.
36 See for example the recent studies of David B. Wilson, ‘The Historiography of Science and Religion’, in Science & Religion: A Historical Introduction, ed. Gary B. Ferngren. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002, pp. 13–39; Thomas Dixon, G. N. Cantor and Stephen Pumfrey (eds), Science and Religion: New Historical Perspectives. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010.
37 See Ronald L. Numbers (ed.), Galileo Goes to Jail and Other Myths About Science and Religion. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009.
38 Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion. London: Bantam, 2006, pp. 66–9.
39 Paul Parson, ‘How to Sell Science to the Big Brother Generation’. New Scientist, 3 December 2008.
40 <http://richarddawkins.net/articles/3382>
41 The debate was transmitted by the BBC on its then Third Programme, a channel dedicated to serious cultural issues. It remains a landmark in contemporary discussion. For the text of the debate see Al Seckel, Bertrand Russell on God and Religion. Buffalo, NY: Prometheus Books, 1986, pp. 123–46.
42 For a good popular account see Simon Singh, Big Bang: The Origin of the Universe. New York: Fourth Estate, 2004.
43 See Stan Wallace (ed.), Does God Exist? The Craig–Flew Debate. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2003.
44 For his own account of his turnaround on this issue see Antony Flew, There Is a God. New York: HarperOne, 2007. Dawkins is singularly ungracious about this development, dismissing it as an ‘over-publicized tergiversation’ on the part of a minor senile philosopher: Dawkins, God Delusion, p. 92.
45 For a detailed account and interpretation of these phenomena see Alister E. McGrath, A Fine-Tuned Universe: The Quest for God in Science and Theology. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009.
46 Fred Hoyle, ‘The Universe: Past and Present Reflections’. Annual Review of Astronomy and Astrophysics 20 (1982), pp. 1–35; quote at p. 16.
47 For a discussion of this point see Alister E. McGrath, Surprised by Meaning: Science, Faith, and How We Make Sense of Things. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011.
48 Isaiah Berlin, The Crooked Timber of Humanity: Chapters in the History of Ideas. London: Pimlico, 2003, pp. 208–13. The curious title of this important collection of essays reflects a famous dictum of Immanuel Kant: ‘Nothing straight was ever made out of the crooked timber of humanity.’
49 The importance of this point is noted by John Pennington, ‘The “Childish Imagination” of John Ruskin and George Macdonald: Introductory Speculations’. North Wind 16 (1997), pp. 55–65.
50 For a recording of the debate see <http://fixed-point.org/index.php/video/35-full-length/164-the-dawkins-lennox-debate>
51 <http://richarddawkins.net/audio/1707-debate-between-richard-dawkins-and-john-lennox>
6 Where is the New Atheism now?
1 Oxford Student, 19 May 2010. ‘Prominent writer and commentator Christopher Hitchens described the Archbishop of Canterbury as a “sheep-faced loon” at a debate on secularism in Oxford on 12 May.’
2 For example, in his interview with Simon Mayo on BBC Radio Five, broadcast on 18 June 2007. This comment, which shocked Mayo, generated delight for many New Atheist bloggers. Others were alarmed at the obvious damage such comments caused to the public image of the New Atheism, as the following comment on the Richard Dawkins website indicates: Hitchens’ ‘cheap shot at the vicar who phoned in, namely calling him a “sheep faced loon” proves yet again that Hitchens is above all an arrogant git’. See <http://richarddawkins.net/audio/1304-interview-with-richard-dawkins>
3 Charles A. Shriner, Wit, Wisdom and Foibles of the Great. New York: Funk & Wagnalls, 1918, p. 567.
4 The Independent, 21 September 2010. See also the same newspaper’s leading article ‘Benedict spoke to Britain’, 20 September 2010.
5 Barbara Bradley Hagarty, ‘A Bitter Rift Divides Atheists’. National Public Radio, 19 October 2009. Text at <http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=113889251>
6 See Paul Kurtz, What is Secular Humanism? Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2006.
7 For the text see <http://www.americanhumanist.org/Who_We_Are/About_Humanism/Humanist_Manifesto_II>
8 <http://community.beliefnet.com/go/thread/view/43861/18728697/Ron_Lindsay_Steals_Center_for_Inquiry_from_Paul_Kurtz>
9 Mark Oppenheimer, ‘Closer Look at Rift Between Humanists Reveals Deeper Divisions’. New York Times, 1 October 2010.
10 Paul Kurtz, ‘The “True Unbeliever”’. Free Inquiry 30/1 (December 2009/January 2010) <http://www.secularhumanism.org/index.php?section=library&page=kurtz_fi_30_1> (the italics are Kurtz’s).
7 God won’t go away: beyond the New Atheism
1 Christopher Hitchens, God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything. New York: Twelve, 2007, p. 12.
2 William S. Bainbridge and Rodney Stark, The Future of Religion: Secularization, Revival, and Cult Formation. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1985, p. 1.
3 For an excellent study of these trends see Luke Bretherton, Christianity and Contemporary Politics: The Conditions and Possibilities of Faithful Witness. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010.
4 Much of Hitchens’ argument here is anticipated in John Trenchard’s Natural History of Superstition (1709).
5 For a survey of recent discussions of this point see Tom Sjöblom, ‘Spandrels, Gazelles and Flying Buttresses: Religion as Adaptation or as a by-Product’. Journal of Cognition and Culture 7 (2007), pp. 293–312; Alister E. McGrath, Darwinism and the Divine. Oxford: Blackwell, 2011, pp. 254–67.
6 See further Tom Wright, Simply Christian: Why Christianity Makes Sense. San Francisco: HarperOne, 2006; Timothy J. Keller, The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism. New York: Dutton, 2008; Alister E. McGrath, Surprised by Meaning: Science, Faith, and How We Make Sense of Things. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011.
7 John Haldane, ‘Philosophy, the Restless Heart, and the Meaning of Theism’. Ratio 19 (2006), pp. 421–40.
8 Charles Taylor, A Secular Age. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2007, p. 530.
9 Bart van Leeuwen and Francisco Lombo de Léon, ‘Charles Taylor on Secularization’. Ethical Perspectives 10 (2003), pp. 80–8.