Answering the Apostles of the New Atheism (for printing b

70 Pages·2015·9.08 MB·English

Introducing the
Apostles of the
"New Atheism"
Richard Dawkins
Former Charles Simonyi
Professor of Public
Understanding of Science,
Oxford University
Author of The Ancestor's Tale;
The Selfish Gene; The Blind
Watchmaker; Climbing Mount
Improbable; Unweaving the
Rainbow; A Devil's Chaplain;
and The God Delusion
1
Sam Harris
Co-Founder and CEO of Project
Reason. He received a degree
in philosophy from Stanford
University and a Ph.D. in
neuroscience from UCLA
studying the neural basis of
belief with functional magnetic
resonance imaging (MRI). He
has studied both Eastern and
Western religious traditions,
along with a variety of
contemplative disciplines.
Christopher Hitchens
Contributing editor to Vanity Fair
and visiting professor of liberal
studies at the New School
Author of Thomas Jefferson:
Author of America; Thomas
Paine's "Rights of Man": A
Biography; Letters to a Young
Contrarian; Why Orwell Matters;
and God is Not Great: How
Religion Poisons Everything
Daniel C. Dennett
Professor of philosophy and
co-director of the Center for
Cognitive Studies at Tufts
University in Massachusetts
Author of Brainstorms;Elbow
Room;Consciousness
Explained;Darwin's
Dangerous Idea; Freedom
Evolves;and Breaking the
Spell
2
"If this book works as
I intend, religious
readers who open it
will be atheists when
they put it down."
Richard Dawkins, The God
Delusion, p. 5.
"A glance at history, or at the
pages of any newspaper,
reveals that ideas which
divide one group of human
beings from another, only to
unite them in slaughter,
generally have their roots in
religion. ...
Religious faith represents so
uncompromising a misuse of
the power of our minds that it
forms a kind of perverse,
cultural singularity —a
vanishing point beyond
which rational discourse
proves impossible." Sam
Harris, The End of Faith, p. 12, 25.
"As I write these words,
and as you read them,
people of faith are in
their different ways
planning your and my
destruction, and the
destruction of all the
hard-won human
attainments that I have
touched upon. Religion
poisons everything.
Christopher Hitchens, God is Not
Great: How Religion Poisons
Everything, p. 13, emphasis in
original.
3
"Almost no one is indifferent
to Darwin, and no one should
be. The Darwinian theory is a
scientific theory, and a great
one, but that is not all it is.
The creationists who oppose
it so bitterly are right about
one thing: Darwin's
dangerous idea cuts much
deeper into the fabric of our
most fundamental beliefs than
many of its sophisticated
apologists have yet admitted,
even to themselves." Daniel C.
Dennett, Darwin's Dangerous Idea:
Evolution and the Meaning of Life, p.
18.
"Guard wthha;nt wpaarsa cqohmvkhmnitfteudvla txoo ynour trust,
aevjkotirdeipnogvm ethnoeV ptroaf;Vanbeeb ahnvlodu iVdlkee bnoafbwbnliinvagVs
ankda cio; anjntrtaiqdeivscteiioVns
of whtaht :Visy feaulsdewlyn ucvmaolluedg nkwnvsoewwlVedge."
PRO1 ST iTmIoMthOyQ 6E:O20N A
"Guard what was committed to your trust,
avoiding the profane and idle babblings
and contradictions
of what is falsely called knowledge."
1 Timothy 6:20
4
What Is the
New Atheism?
What Is the New Atheism?
(cid:1) The apostles of the "New Atheism" sometimes refer
to themselves as "The Four Horsemen."
(cid:1) This is an obvious reference to the four horsemen of
the Book of Revelation.
(cid:1) It is now the name of a DVD you can purchase from
Richard Dawkins's website.
What Is the New Atheism?
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What Is the New Atheism?
(cid:1)
In addition to the books
already mentioned, other
works by "The Four
Horsemen" include:
What Is the New Atheism?
What Is the New Atheism?
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What Is the New Atheism?
What Is the New Atheism?
What Is the New Atheism?
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What Is the New Atheism?
What Is the New Atheism?
What Is the New Atheism?
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What Is the New Atheism?
What Is the New Atheism?
What Is the New Atheism?
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What Is the New Atheism?
What Is the New Atheism?
What Is the New Atheism?
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