[341.1] MORE TAKES ON RICHARD DAWKINS

I have made a number of modifications to my own response on Ekklesia, especially in the footnotes, which seek to illuminate some of the many methodological confusions in his 'anti-God talk'. There is a thoughtful review from Bishop David Atkinson of Thetford on Fulcrum (I worked with him both in Southwark and during my CTBI days, lovely man - a scientist by background. I am less disposed towards onto-theological definitions, however). See also Jim Holt writing in the magazine of the New York Times; The Fear of Religion by philosopher Thomas Nagel in The New Republic; Dawkins the Dogmatist by Andrew Brown in Prospect magazine; 'Is God a Delusion? Atheism and the meaning of life' [download MP3] by Alister McGrath, author of Dawkins' God (Blackwell, 2004) - reviewed with generosity by the secularist Dan O'Hara here. Have a look also at McGrath's St Edmund's (Cambridge) public lecture, Has science disproved God?, which includes a detailed critique of arguments Dawkins has subsequently repeated in TGD. His comments on Dawkins' failures of reasoning, grounded in the history and philosophy of science, are well argued and astute. On 'religious language' and its discontents, incidentally, see this fine thought-piece by Catharine Madsen. It is the editorial from the latest issue of CrossCurrents, the journal of the Association for Religion and Intellectual Life. There's a Dawkins discussion on their board, which has an unusually high proportion of light to heat (based on what I've been reading elsewhere, which is frankly rather depressing). Also a thread on rationality in relation to belief. Meanwhile, Howard Jacobsen has a pastiche of Dawkins' on the Decalogue in the Independent (06.11.06, subscription), and Mary Riddell, herself an avowed non-believer, avers intelligently that Dogmatic atheism will never trump religion, while equally sensibly calling for a separation of church and state (Observer).