The Dawkins Delusion?

by Alister McGrath; Joanna Collicutt McGrath

Publisher:

SPCK

, 2007

World-renowned scientist Richard Dawkins writes in The God Delusion: “If this book works as I intend, religious readers who open it will be atheists when they put it down.” The volume has received wide coverage, fueled much passionate debate, and spread confusion and distrust.

Alister McGrath, along with his wife, Joanna, are ideal to evaluate Dawkins’s ideas. Once an atheist himself, Alister gained a doctorate in molecular biophysics before going on to become a leading Christian theologian. He wonders how two people, who have reflected at length on substantially the same world, could possibly have come to such different conclusions about God. The McGraths subject Dawkins’s critique of faith to rigorous scrutiny. This exhilarating, meticulously argued response deals with questions such as:

• Is faith intellectual nonsense?
• Are science and religion locked in a battle to the death?
• Can the roots of Christianity be explained away scientifically?
• Is Christianity simply a force for evil?

This book will be warmly received by those looking for a reliable assessment of The God Delusion and the many questions it raises—including, above all, the relevance of faith and the quest for meaning.

Key Features

• Discusses The God Delusion from the unique perspective of a former atheist
• Presents a critical engagement with the arguments set out in The God Delusion
• Assesses the reliability of Dawkin’s critique of faith in God

Contents

• Deluded about God?
• Has Science Disproved God?
• What Are the Origins of Religion?
• Is Religion Evil?

Top Highlights

“Though an atheist, Gould was absolutely clear that the natural sciences—including evolutionary theory—were consistent with both atheism and conventional religious belief.” (Pages ix–x)

“Bringing up children within a religious tradition, he suggests, is a form of child abuse.” (Page 3)

“Scientific theories cannot be said to ‘explain the world’—only to explain the phenomena which are observed within the world.” (Page 16)

“The natural sciences depend on inductive inference, which is a matter of ‘weighing evidence and judging probability, not of proof’” (Page 14)

“God is a delusion—a ‘psychotic delinquent’ invented by mad, deluded people.^{1” (Page 1)}

Endorsements

McGrath identifies Dawkins’ flawed arguments with surgical precision. McGrath spotlights Dawkins’ embarrassing biblical ignorance and exposes his religion-as-virus-of-the-mind theory as sociological naïvete. This intelligent yet accessible book is a must-read for anyone interested in the subject or for those with friends sucked under by the new current of atheist literature.

—New Man, November/December 2007

Combining scholarship with a popular style, the McGraths examine Dawkins’ arguments and find them wanting. They show the inadequacy of his argument on the major points, contending that Dawkins’ critique of religion is based on hearsay and anecdotal evidence rather than on hard research, and that he employs rhetoric rather than rationality.

—Library Journal, August 2007

One could hardly think of a better apologist for theism than Alister McGrath. This atheist-turned-Christian, also of Oxford, is a professor of historical theology. But as a student of molecular biophysics, he possesses the dual credibility in science and religion that Dawkins lacks. Like watching one schoolboy do another’s work, McGrath’s true gift is pointing out what Dawkins is obliged to show in order to make his case.

—Christianity Today, November 2007

The God Delusion makes me embarrassed to be an atheist, and the McGraths show why.

—Michael Ruse, Lucyle T. Werkmeister Professor of Philosophy, Florida State University

Richard Dawkins’ utopian vision of a world without religion is here deftly punctured by the McGraths’ informed discourse. His fellow Oxonians clearly demonstrate the gaps, inconsistencies, and surprising lack of depth in Dawkins’ arguments.

—Owen Gingerich, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, and author of God’s Universe

With rigorous logic and exquisite fairness, the McGraths have exposed Dawkins’ very superficial understanding of the history of religion and theology. Because he is so ‘out of his depth’ in these areas, Dawkins uses his fundamentalistic scientism and atheism to constantly misjudge the possibilities for dialogue between religion and science. Thank God for scholars like the McGraths who are committed to finding truth in both.

—Timothy Johnson, author, Finding God in the Questions

Addressing the conclusions of The God Delusion point by point with the devastating insight of a molecular biologist turned theologian, Alister McGrath dismantles the argument that science should lead to atheism, and demonstrates instead that Dawkins has abandoned his much-cherished rationality to embrace an embittered manifesto of dogmatic atheist fundamentalism.

—Francis Collins, director of the Human Genome Project

Product Details

• Title: The Dawkins Delusion?: Atheist Fundamentalism and the Denial of the Divine
• Authors: Alister McGrath, Joanna Collicutt McGrath
• Publisher: SPCK
• Print Publication Date: 2007
• Logos Release Date: 2013
• Pages: 144
• Language: English
• Resources: 1
• Format: Digital › Logos Research Edition
• Subjects: Christianity and atheism; Apologetics; Dawkins, Richard, 1941 › -The God Delusion
• Resource ID: LLS:DAWKINSMCGRATH
• Resource Type: Monograph
• Metadata Last Updated: 2024-09-24T16:22:42Z

About the Authors

Alister E. McGrath is an historian, biochemist, and Christian theologian born in Belfast, Northern Ireland. A longtime professor at Oxford University, he now holds the chair in theology, ministry, and education at the University of London. He is the author of several books on theology and history, including Christianity’s Dangerous Idea, In the Beginning, and The Twilight of Atheism. He lives in Oxford, England, and lectures regularly in the United States.

Joanna Collicutt McGrath is lecturer in the psychology of religion at Heythrop College, University of London. She is coauthor (with Jeremy Duff) of Meeting Jesus: Human Responses to a Yearning God