I’m sure many here are familiar with Richard Dawkins’ book, The God Delusion. A cousin of mine – to say he is not a Dawkins fan would be an understatement – is sending me a book he claims is a better work on the subject, The Dawkins Delusion – Atheist Fundamentalism and the Denial of the Devine, by Alister McGrath and Joanna Collicutt McGrath.
I’m curious…has anyone read this and would you care to comment?
Something has to be defined before it can be denied.
I have noted a tendency by some theists to try to describe atheism and related subjects appear cultish. It’s not skepticism and reason - it’s Dawkinsism! It’s not biology and evolution - it’s Darwinism! As though these concepts have no value outside of the “cult leaders” who advance them. I don’t blame them - it’s easier to attack reputations than to delve into that messy confusing “science” stuff.
I admit I’m not likely to read the McGraths’ book, but then, I didn’t read Dawkins’ either. I came to my atheistic views quite independently. The individual who had the most influence? Jerry Zucker, possibly.
Well, at least you don’t play favorites. 
Why would any rational person deny the existence of Andy Devine?
Cleopatra, Queen of Denial?
You can listen to Dawkins and McGrath debate on youtube and google video. I’d imagine that they go over pretty much the same information. In the two talks I’ve listened to I think McGrath doesn’t really answer the points Dawkins brings up and isn’t very impressive. I bet the book fares better though.
I haven’t heard of this book, but the other day I saw this one: There is a God: how the world’s most notorious atheist changed his mind. It looks pretty interesting, and when paging through it I saw that he does make references to Dawkins.
How the world’s most notorious atheist changed HIS mind? You mean Madalyn Murray O’Hare not only found God, she had a sex change too?
Yeah, that’s Antony Flew and a story a few years ago. Some people seem to think that if they once didn’t believe in God, but now do (or vice-versa), their new belief has more substance than someone who never changed their mind. I don’t buy it.
I don’t think that’s automatically the case; after all, you have theists who become atheists, and atheists who become theists. It happens both ways.
In fairness though, people bring up Antony Flew because he wasn’t just any atheist. Rather, he was one of the foremost atheistic debaters in his time, as was therefore well-informed regarding the classic arguments for atheism. In other words, while this doesn’t automatically justify his newfound beliefs, it does make his conversion atypical.
BTW, this is the point at which a certain Doper invariably says, “But Flew has made contradictory statements regarding his theistic beliefs! Obviously, his testimony can’t be trusted!” I think that’s both naive and a gross overstatement. Even if his stated beliefs have indeed varied, that should come as no surprise; after all, it could suggest a progression in his own ways of thinking. Indeed, according to Dr. Gary Habermas (one of Flew’s erstwhile debate opponents), Antony Flew first converted from atheism to deism, but has since switched to full-blown theism. It should be unsurprising that statements regarding his beliefs will have varied with time…
I’ve never even heard of “the world’s most notorious atheist.”
I therefore suspect that he may not really be all that notorious.
Antony Flew was the son of a minster and no doubt had a religious upbringing. It doesn’t seem all that unusual to me that such a person, deep down inside, had a religious need to believe, particularly as he draws close to the end of a long life.
I’m basically an atheist, certainly at least an agnostic, yet I’m pretty sure the last conscious thought in my head (if I’m in a position to be aware of dying) will be, well, here I go to find out if there is any kind of afterlife… I don’t see how, but I hope I have an a-ha moment, otherwise it’s gonna kinda suck…
Antony Flew was persuaded by bad ID arguments. In particular, he was swayed by fallacious statistical arguments regarding abiogenesis which he falsely stated have not been addressed by Dawkins and others. He admits, however, that he hasn’t actually kept up with or read any of the science. He basically doesn’t know what he’s talking about. He’s a philosopher, not a scientist.
He is also a pretty obscure figure who most atheists, including me, had never even heard of before religionists started trumpeting his rather unremarkable conversion. Atheism is not an ideology. It has no leaders. The fact that some obscure philosopher was dumb enough to fall for a creationist argument is not making anybody else fall to their knees. From what I’ve read of his statements, Flew is just a dipshit that’s too easily impressed by ID bullshit. He mneeds to take a science class.
As to the OP, I haven’t read it cover to cover, but I skimmed a lot of it at the bookstore not too long ago and got a pretty good sense of it. It’s not as bad as some of the other stupid, whiny, anti-Dawkins books that are out there but it doesn’t offer much to support the existence of God either. It largely addresses some of dawkins’ more sweeping claims about religion being toxic in general, claims that he focuses too much on fundie beliefs and generalizes them to all Christians, that he takes the Bible too literally – or rather, that he assumes all Christians do – that Christians are necessarily irrational and stupid, etc. These points are all pretty fair, Dawkins does get too polemic at times, too categorical, too sweeping, unecessarily belittling. That’s all true. The fact that he is abrasive and belittling, however, is not, in itself, a proof that God exists.
While a lot of time is spent attacking Dawkins’ style and his conclusions about religious people in general, I didn’t see much in the way of counters to his arguments against the existence of God. There was ad populem argumentation and some fallacious special pleading about the necessity of religion for morality. Maybe there was someything really dynamite that I missed in my reading, but I dount it.
All in all, it didn’t strike me as literalist, fundie hogwash like Strobel or McDowell, more like "We’re not all Noah’s Ark believing knuckle dragging morons kind of stuff. Don’t expect anything really substantial in the EoG debate, though.
Flew does not appear to have changed his mind so much as lost it to old age.
The positions are both based on a belief…unprovable in either camp. What’s the point? Selling books?
Tycho
Flew is famous in the same way that Maynard Smith is famous as a biologist or Ed Witten as a physicist. Fairly well recognised within their field but not as well known to the educated layman as Stephen J Gould or Stephen Hawking.
The NY Times article is very good and worth a read. It goes a lot into the back story behind his decision to convert.
I remember that NYT Sunday Magazine article. Seems like Antony Flew over the cuckoo’s nest.
Why *would *I read such a book? Dawkins may be abrasive, but he’s insightful and accurate.
A lot of people used one of his books in college philosophyhttp://books.google.com/books?hl=en&id=MmJHVU9Rv3YC&dq=anthony+flew+A+Dictionary+of+Philosophy&printsec=frontcover&source=web&ots=ciob6wx3vM&sig=LRvhplsDYiU9WEBcv5vHX45lrAM classes.
Better link: