Ultimately, this book looks to demonstrate the irrationality of the New Atheism (as a group) and that atheism (as a worldview) is lacking in justification. Allow me quote to quote one of the authors, Tom Gilson, from Chapter 1: “Reason is the New Atheists’ weakness, not their strength. Their books, articles, and debates are riddled with fallacy, appeals to emotion, and mishandling of evidence. Their claim to reason is often much more a matter of public relations than competence in reasoned discourse.”
Later on in the chapter he writes that “the New Atheists’ ownership claim on the brand of reason is an empty one. They don’t practice it at all well, and in fact as we shall see, reason fits poorly within their presumptions and presuppositions. Reason rightly belongs to God and to the Way of Christ.”
Sounds like a pretty tall order. What do you think? Do you think the authors pulled off proving this?
Within two weeks I will post the first installment and will continue to post a chapter each week until I’m done.
Here are the Table of Contents so you can see what the book will be about:
1. The Party of Reason?, by Tom Gilson
2. The Irony of Atheism, by Carson Weitnauer
3. Dawkins’s Delusion, by William Lane Craig
4. Richard Dawkins: Long on Rhetoric, Short on Reason, by Chuck Edwards
5. Unreason at the Head of Project Reason, by Tom Gilson
6. John Loftus and the “Outsider-Insider Test for Faith”, by David Marshall
7. The Explanatory Emptiness of Naturalism, by David Wood
8. By It, We See Everything Else: The Explanatory Value of Christianity for Meaning and Ethics, by Samuel J. Youngs
9. Reason in a Christian Context, by Peter Grice
10. The Marriage of Faith and Reason, by David Marshall
11. Are Science and Christianity at Odds?, by Sean McDowell
12. God and Science Do Mix, by Tom Gilson
13. Historical Evidences for the Gospels, by Randall Hardman
14. The Problem of Evil and Reasonable Christian Responses, by John DePoe
15. Christianity and Slavery, by Glenn Sunshine
16. Did God Command the Genocide of the Canaanites?, by Matthew Flannagan
17. Epilogue, by Carson Weitnauer
