Douglas Groothuis has some interesting thoughts on Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins. They’re the guys that are preaching this “New Atheism” which I guess is basically Old Atheism with an attitude.
1. These two books are offering nothing new by way of critiques of theism or specific religions. Christian philosophers and biblicla scholars have responded to all the charges before. What is different is their severe tone. Religion is not just wrong, but terribly dangerous. It should scarcely be tolerated. To demonstrate this, one must argue that a belief is both false and deleterious. That doubles the intellectual load–and produces a fair amount of bombast.
2. Harris especially assumes that all believers are fideists or rely on the worst possible arguments. This is false. A debate with Bill Craig would demonstrate this in short order. When Harris’s book was discussed on NPR, the host said, “Should religion, which is based on faith and not reason, have a say in public policy?” Talk about the fallacy of the complex question! Some people’s faith is unsupported by evidence and argument, but this is not true of all religions people. It is not true of me, for example. So, the good old straw man makes another appearance to supply the fallacy.
3. Harris and Dawkins are correct in demanding that religious worldviews supply good arguments for their beliefs. Blind faith is no virtue in Christian teaching and apologetics is not optional (Acts 17:16-34; 1 Peter 3:15; Jude 3).
