Religion and the New Atheism: A Critical Appraisal

Description

The term "new atheism" has been given to the recent barrage of bestselling books by Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, and others. Their books have had a significant media presence and have only grown in popularity over the years. This volume will serve to contextualize and critically examine the claims, arguments and goals of this new atheism."This collection will prove to be most valuable to readers who wish to understand the implications and phenomenal success of the new atheism from a multidisciplinary perspective. The editor is to be congratulted for assembling such an impressive list of contributions" - John F. Haught, Georgetown University"The new atheism, a species of secular fundamentalism, has excited a great deal of comment and controversy in recent years. Religion and the New Atheism raises the discourse to a new level" - Randall Balmer, Episcopal Priest and author of The Making of Evangelicalism"Amarasingam's collection of original essays dealing with various aspects of the recent work of new atheists is a most engaging read. The chapters included offer a wide array of perspectives, touching on numerous aspects and angles of New Atheism and its relationship to contemporary religion. While I most definitely did not agree with all of the contributions in the volume, and while I am generally more supportive of the new atheists than I am of their detractors, I found this volume over-all to be a compelling, engrossing, and provocative contribution" - Phil Zuckerman, Associate Professor of Sociology, Pitzer College, author of Society Without God