Answering the New Atheism: Dismantling Dawkins’ Case Against God
Review
“It has been a great pleasure to me as a long-retired Professor of Philosophy to have been set the task of reading Answering the New Atheism: Dismantling Dawkins’ Case Against God by Dr. Scott Hahn and Dr. Benjamin Wiker. For this ‘task’ has been for me not a task but a sustained delight. Rarely, if ever, in my many years as a Professor of Philosphy did I ever have the opportunity to read such a compelling argument.” — Antony Flew, Author of There is a God: How the World’s Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind
“Scott Hahn and Benjamin Wiker answer the arguments posed by the New Atheism effectively and decisively. They show, again and again, that atheists like Richard Dawkins are putting forth shoddy arguments, and once those arguments are dismantled by cool reason, there is very little left.” — Dinesh D’Souza, Richwain Research Scholar at the Hoover Institution; Author of What’s So Great About Christianity
“In a better world than ours there would have been no need for Answering the New Atheism. But under the circumstances, I’m grateful to Scott Hahn and Benjamin Wiker for their essential service in cooly, rationally taking apart Richard Dawkins’ inflamed rhetoric and exposing the absurdities, and the dangers, at its heart. Their final chapter is a particularly chilling, important reminder of what Dawkins’ secular faith would lead to if it were more widely embraced.” — David Klinghoffer, Author of Shattered Tablets: Why We Ignore the Ten Commandements at Our Peril and Why the Jews Rejected Jesus: The Turning Point in Western History.
Answering the New Atheism is a superb exposé of the Dawkins Delusion. Systematically and lucidly, Scott Hahn and Benjamin Wiker dissect and dispose of the fundamental errors that riddle Dawkins’ attempt to demonize the divine. Dawkins has declared a jihad against religion and his main weapons are diatribe and caricature. But the authors refuse to respond in kind and instead turn to reason, the one tool that Dawkins seems to disdain. As readable and humorous as it is rigorously reasoned, Answering the New Atheism is the best antidote in the marketplace for Dawkinitis.” — Roy Abraham Varghese, Co-author with Antony Flew of There Is a God: How the World’s Most Notorious Atheist changed His Mind, a book denouced by Dawkins. Editor of Cosmos, Bios, Theos, a work with 24 Nobel Prize winners that was described by Time Magazine as “the year’s most intriguing book on God.”
“Scott Hahn and Benjamin Wiker patiently, thoroughly pick apart the reasoning of Richard Dawkins until very little is left standing. I highly recommend Answering the New Atheism to anyone who wants to watch scientific atheist bullies get their comeuppance.” — Michael J. Behe, Lehigh University; Author of The Edge of Evolution
–Reviews
Scott Hahn and Benjamin Wiker patiently, thoroughly pick apart the reasoning of Richard Dawkins until very little is left standing. I highly recommend Answering the New Atheism to anyone who wants to watch scientific atheist bullies get their comeuppance. –Michael J. Behe
Product Description
The essential book for dismantling Richard Dawkins’ atheistic agenda. Scott Hahn and Benjamin Wiker collaborate to debunk Dawkins’ theories and show how inconsistent and illogical his conclusions truly are. This is the definitive book for college students or faithful Christians hoping to answer Dawkins’ claims and assert the logic and beauty of their faith.
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I felt like large portions of this book were based on a few misunderstandings on the part of Hahn and Wiker. For instance, the authors wrote page after page explaining how exceedingly unlikely it is that a modern living cell could randomly jostle into place and come to life. Dawkins would agree with them on this point; even the simplest modern cells are extremely complex. But in The Blind Watchmaker (a book cited repeatedly by Hahn and Wiker in Answering the New Atheism) Dawkins devoted an entire chapter to the subject of the origins of life. Dawkins even wrote “the only machinery of replication that we know [DNA] seems too complicated to have come into existence by means of anything less than many generations of cumulative selection” [p. 200]. He went on to explain how simple pre-DNA replicators could have provided the scaffolding necessary to evolve modern DNA replication. Hahn and Wiker quoted Dawkins from this very same chapter but omitted his explanation of the origins of life and instead erected a straw man argument to knock down. It’s hard to believe that they were unaware of Dawkins’ explanation, especially seeing as how Dawkins also devoted another chapter on the origins of life in Climbing Mount Improbable, another book cited repeatedly by Hahn and Wiker. From Climbing Mount Improbable: “the original replicator probably was not DNA…unlike DNA, the original replicating molecules cannot have relied upon complicated machinery to duplicate them” [p. 285]. The (intentional?) omission of these arguments was disappointing.
The authors explicitly do not deny “that evolution is in very important ways a partial cause of human intelligence” [p 82]. However, they argue, there is “an enormous discrepancy between what is needed to survive, and the intellectual ability we’ve actually got” [p 50]. Human brains can figure out “what’s going on inside atoms or inside black holes” which is “not at all necessary for Darwinian survival” [p. 50]. But various theories explain humans’ intellectual capacities: for example, the use of language provided a significant benefit for those best able to use it, which led to more capable brains, which led to more complex language, which fueled a rapid self-sustaining upward spiral in mental capacity and language complexity. And there is no shortage of examples of evolved traits later being put to uses far different than those that provided the original benefits. There is little mystery here. Plus, human minds have great difficulty understanding and imagining quantum mechanics, for instance, because the concepts are very different than the familiar ones that we need to survive. This makes perfect sense in light of evolution.
Dawkins’ main argument in The God Delusion is that “a designer God cannot be used to explain organized complexity because any God capable of designing anything would have to be complex enough to demand the same kind of explanation in his own right” [p. 136]. Hahn and Wiker assert that “it is only in Dawkins’ treating God as having an evolved, material intelligence that allowed him the dubious luxury of discounting His existence as very, very improbable…since God is by definition purely spiritual, then the contingency of material atom-shuffling is inapplicable” [p. 65]. But if not atom-shuffling, then what? However God came to be still needs an explanation which is entirely side-stepped by the authors. Why would non-physical intelligence need any less explanation than physical intelligence? I can understand it would be a different kind of explanation, but the authors offer none at all and utterly fail to counter Dawkins’ main argument. It’s like answering “why is the sky blue?” with “it’s not blue, it’s light blue” and then failing to offer an explanation of why the sky is light blue.
Most of the authors’ discussion of atheist morality is based on a simple assumption that is just false: that whatever is best for our selfish genes is by definition “moral”. “Does it promote survival? If it does, it is `good’” [p. 118]. Thus, they question how Dawkins can condemn the brutal practices in the Old Testament as immoral since natural selection is equally brutal. Even granting their premise for the moment, they do not make any attempt to defend the atrocities described in the Old Testament as moral according to their own God-given standard of morality. They criticize morality based on natural selection as no better than that of the Old Testament, then go on to upbraid morality based on natural selection as repugnant. Does that mean the morality taught in the Old Testament is also repugnant? Because that was what Dawkins argued and all the authors effectively responded with was “oh yeah? Well your morality is repugnant, too!” But in doing so they assumed that what is good for our selfish genes is by definition “moral” according to the atheist. This leads to all kinds of wild conclusions that sound more like a caricature of imaginary outrageous “evil people” rather than real life atheists. Dawkins explicitly states in The Selfish Gene “I am not advocating a morality based on evolution” [p. 2].
Either Dawkins is right and there is no personal God, or he is wrong and there is one. If he is right, then all the moral principles of Christianity espoused by the authors must come from the very same sources as Dawkins’ morality. That is, they are invented by humans who are the product of evolution. Evolved human beings are perfectly capable of inventing their own systems of morality. Those systems aren’t right or wrong in an absolute sense, but they can be better or worse at attaining such goals as minimizing suffering and pain.
The final chapter is a truly ridiculous “warning” to all the faithful of the awful perversions of society that would surely befall any country who allowed an atheist any kind of political power. It is reminiscent of the ludicrous 1930’s anti-marijuana propaganda film “Reefer Madness” which depicted mild mannered citizens transforming into raving lunatics, killing each other and jumping out of windows after smoking marijuana. The atheists will take your children away! They’ll shut down the churches! They’ll mandate abortions and euthanasia! The authors described Hitler, not Dawkins, and not atheists in general.
It would take another entire book to counter all the authors’ arguments, so I have offered only a few here. But despite this books shortfalls, it is an interesting read which provides insights into Catholic philosophy and views of atheists.
It has been interesting, having just read the book, reading the various takes (reviews) on it on this amazon page. The emotional response felt in some of them reveal that this is indeed becoming a hot topic. I also noticed dismissive generalization and various slogans being thrown about that failed to address specific arguments found in the book itself. My fav is one that tells us how erudite they are by not writing anything at all, thus refuting their own point. To those who refrained from this, I tip my hat to you. For those honest thinkers who are trying to wrestle with this issue and might consider this book, I think this quick read might be a helpful addition to the discourse and your understanding of the issues. It can be dense at times, but it does offer real arguments and insights that need to be met in the ongoing discussion over this neo-atheistic movement.
I would put this a college reading level. The arguments are often involved and require some “brain juice” and mental work. This is because they deconstruct many of Dawkins’ arguments which requires a piece-by-piece analysis and critique.
The writers examine two general aspects of Dawkin’s approach, 1) the consistency of his arguments and 2) the assumptions he makes but often does not explicitly tell the reader. They find massive holes in both aspects of his thought. At the end, they examine the implications for morality in Dawkin’s system. This last part is scary, but seems very much in line with what Dawkins wants. Perhaps “orwellian” might be a better term.
For those folks who are willing to read more than one book on the topic and want to see the holes in Dawkins thought, this would be an excellent choice.
I have spent some time reading Dawkin’s God Delusion, Stenger’s God: The Failed Hypothesis, and numerous other works by the “four horsemen” in recent years. I have come to respect intellectual couragousness by the authors; but, not the tone many of their criticisms have taken.
I and many like me who may not possess degrees in the natural sciences (or philosophical logic, for that matter!) are often misled by seemingly powerful rhetoric in these books. These ideas, left uncontested, may result in eternal consequences for atheists should the precepts of Christianity prove true.
‘The Reason for God’, Keller was failed to meet Dr. Dawkins’ face to face as necessary on many of his arguments. It specifically managed to avoid many of scientific speak that would have given it more credibility and convincing.
For this reason we should be grateful for Dr. Hahn’s commitment to balancing the argument. He succeeds in providing a systematic, logical dismantling of many of Dawkins’ errors, whilst giving credit where due.
I predict this book will engross curious minds until the last page and you will walk away having a renewed “faith” in the logic of the Church’s positions.
As far as cons are concerned:
No good news for some Protestants who do not admit the possibility of macroevolution (including homosapeins). The arguments are written by a Catholic theologian who has absorbed some well established laws and theories as tentative fact. If your beliefs stand to be threatened by the ever growing realization of macroevolution, then Dawkins has you pinned on many points, I’m afraid.
Also, While Dr. Hahn truly attempts to keep his composure and professionalism throughout the book when refuting “absurdities”, he does trip sometimes into condescending undertones against those who may have been persuaded by Dawkins’ works.
As a final note, I should like to add that the final part on imagining a “King Richard” governmental policy is a fascinating parody and also frightening when compared with similar Marxist governmental experiments.
Overall, this is just the kind of rebuttal that is required to match the quality of Dawkins’ persuasion. I am on edge to see what he should pen next. For similar theologian heavyweight issues, see Ratzinger (Benedict XVI).