Dear People                       Whom God Loves,

Dear People Whom God Loves,

NEW ATHEISM

This column is based on the book God and the New Atheism by John Haught. Here are a few points about what is in the book.

He comments on the books by Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, and Daniel Dennett. He sees them as examples of what he calls the new atheism. He sees them as examples of "scientific naturalism." "Its central dogma is that only nature, including humans and our creation, is real. Since God does not fall within the realm of 'evidence' that science deals with, any reasonable scientifically educated person must therefore repudiate belief in God."

He says that they debate with those who have an idea of God that is shared by creationists, fundamentalists, terrorists and intelligent design advocates. Not that all these come to the same conclusion, but their ideas of God are similar. He also says that they do not debate the many Protestant and Catholic theologians whose idea of God are quite different.

They also do not have the depth, in his opinion, of the atheism of Sigmund Freud, Bertrand Russell, Ludwig Feuerbach, and Karl Marx as to why religion can be so dangerous.

He also calls the new atheists soft core atheists in comparison to Friedrich Nietzsche, Albert Camus, and Jean-Paul Sarte - the really hard core atheists.

He says this because of the claim by the new atheists that we could have a wonderful society - keeping our best human values - if we could eliminate everything that is not proved by scientific evidence. On the contrary, the hard core atheists recognize that eliminating God casts us into an abyss of nothingness and meaninglessness.

Finally, John Haught agrees with the new atheists that belief in God and practice of religion are not necessary to live a good moral life. He adds that the hard core atheists say that you cannot "rationally justify your unconditional adherence to timeless values without invoking the existence of God".

More later.

Smile, God Loves You,

Father Clay

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