The New Atheists and Their Recent Attacks
If you’ve looked over the best seller lists recently you may have noticed two new books that champion the cause of atheism. One is by the Englishman, Richard Dawkins and the other, titled “Letter to a Christian Nation” is by the American, Sam Harris.
I didn’t give the title of Dawkins’ book because the title itself is a blasphemous statement. Dawkins, Harris and other atheist authors including Christopher Hitchens form the vanguard of a new atheist militancy.
Dawkins has been quoted as saying that Christians have no right to raise their children as Christians. It is a new overt assault on our faith. This new surge of atheistic zeal is really a form of secular fundamentalism.
I define a fundamentalist as anyone who is deeply committed to the basic or fundamental doctrines of his or her faith. I consider myself a Christian fundamentalist.
The atheistic fundamentalists are deeply committed to the belief that life formed by accidental collisions of atoms and death causes the ending of consciousness. Not surprisingly, they are deeply committed to evolution as an explanation of origins.
This reminds me of a time when Thomas Huxley (1825 – 1895) in England and Robert Green Ingersoll (1833 – 1899) in the United States promoted Darwinian evolution and atheism. Evolution is the origins myth of atheism. The teaching of evolution in the public schools has caused many young people to embrace atheism.
Let me give a thumbnail sketch of the history of philosophy to give you an idea of the context in which the new atheists operate. For the nearly 2,000 year period from Socrates (470 – 399 BC) to Rene Descartes (1596 – 1650) the emphasis in