God is not dead!

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Created on Monday, 01 August 2011 01:00

Written by Richard Avery

On a wet and gloomy summer day a couple of years ago I came home up the vicarage drive and noticed a familiar face on the other side of our fence. It took me a little while to digest who it was, but I felt sure it was the scientist and outspoken critic of religious belief, Richard Dawkins No sooner had I recognised him than he was into a car and driving away from the Edward Jenner Museum. Later the museum staff confirmed that it was indeed Richard Dawkins I saw, there to film for a TV programme on the life of Edward Jenner. I had come within a whisker of meeting the man who described religious believers as "sucking on dummies" for comfort. Dawkins the champion of the 'New Atheism'.

As well as Dawkins, several others have written and spoken against belief in God and its impact on the world. You may have heard of, and possibly read, books like The God Delusion', or encountered other presentations in the media. What is new about this movement is not their brand of atheism, which has been around for a couple of centuries, but the aggressive tone of its proponents and their skilful use of the media to get public attention. After Dawkins' 'God Delusion', in 2007 Hitchens published 'God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything' and grabbed more headlines.

Why did this passionate atheism arise over the last decade? Dawkins himself has acknowledged that the 9/11 terrorist attacks in 2001 had a pivotal role. The attacks "revealed faith is not harmless nonsense, it can be lethally dangerous nonsense". since then Dawkins and others have taken a very hostile stance towards all expressions of religion, not only those with extreme views but also moderate believers.

The 'new atheists' have criticised religious faith on three fronts that we can summarise: (a) religion leads to violence, (b) religion is irrational, (c) science destroys religious belief. These sorts of criticism can get under our skin. What if that's true? Bad things are done in the name of religion. We cannot prove God's existence. Science does explain things that in the past were attributed to supernatural powers.

During my recent week of study in Canada, Prof. Alister McGrath addressed the accusations of the new atheism. He noted that often the atheist writers have cherry-picked all the bad things they can find about religion and misrepresented mainstream Christian faith. Though sometimes religion has caused intolerance and violence, It does not necessarily do so and can lead to the renunciation of violence (as with Dr Martin LutherKing). In fact two of the most violent and intolerant cultures, Stalin's Soviet Ullion and Mao's China, were staunchly atheist.

For Dawkins, faith in God may be infantile, something to be discarded as we grow up like belief in Santa. But many enter into Christian faith in later years. (McGrath himself was an atheist and very talented scientist as a young adult and came to faith in the midst of his scientific studies.) And not everything that matters, e.g. our moral values, can be proved by reason. Faith is not irrational, but it does go beyond the limits of reason. McGrath argues that atheism makes a lot less sense of the world than Christianity - a key realisation in his own journey to faith.

When it comes to the charge that science has swept away belief in God, the claltTls of new atheism simply do not tally with the way science works [volutionary biologist Stephen J Gould publicly dlsaqfeec! with Dawkins and stated that the 'God question' lies beyond sCientific method. Most scientists agree with Gould. (Gould was an atheist. but claimed that this conviction was not a matter for sciencel) Real sCience looks at the evidence and considers which explanation makes best sense of the evidence. It's a matter of judgment And some questions lie beyond science. Why are we here? What is the purpose of life?

Alister McGrath senses that the new atheism has already lost its momentum and the media are getting bored with the cries of its proponents There is little eVidence that these writings have dented religious faith on the global scale, even If they have unsettled and shaken some. The questions these atheist critics have raised about faith do concern many people (including believers) but most are not satisfied by their answers nor the aggressive and Intolerant manner in which their views are
expressed.

However, I should conclude by offering some thanks to Ricllard Dawkins. He has spurred Christians to thrnk about what we believe and why we believe it. And he has put talk about God and religion In the public arena. He has opened doors for conversation about our faith and why it matters to us.

Richard