Product Description

Currently it is fashionable to be devoutly undevout. Religion's most passionate antagonists - Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris, and others - have publishers competing eagerly to market their various denunciations of religion, monotheism, Christianity, and Roman Catholicism. But contemporary anti-religious polemics are based not only upon profound conceptual confusions but upon facile simplifications of history or even outright historical ignorance: so contends David Bentley Hart in this bold correction of the distortions. One of the most brilliant scholars of religion of our time, Hart provides a powerful antidote to the New Atheists' misrepresentations of the Christian past, bringing into focus the truth about the most radical revolution in Western history. Hart outlines how Christianity transformed the ancient world in ways we may have forgotten: bringing liberation from fatalism, conferring great dignity on human beings, subverting the cruelest aspects of pagan society, and elevating charity above all virtues. He then argues that what we term the 'Age of Reason' was in fact the beginning of the eclipse of reason's authority as a cultural value. Hart closes the book in the present, delineating the ominous consequences of the decline of Christendom in a culture that is built upon its moral and spiritual values.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #44035 in Books
• Published on: 2009-05-29
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 272 pages

Review
"...another blistering assault on the crass ignorance of the New Atheists when it comes to matters religious and theological."
-- John Saxbee, Church Times, 19th June 2009

About the Author
David Bentley Hart is visiting professor, Theology Department, Providence College, and author of several books, including In the 'Aftermath: Provocations and Laments' and 'The Beauty of the Infinite: The Aesthetics of Christian Truth'.

Customer Reviews

A brilliant debunking of atheist mythology
This book is an in-depth exploration of the bad history, as well as the misconceptions and ignorance about what it is people believe, that is so often used to attack religion. Written by well known American University lecturer, philosopher, and theologian, Professor David Hart, Atheist Delusions tackles such contentious moments in history as Galileo's trial and the witch hunts, explaining history and faith without resorting to popular misinformation or rhetoric, his history strong, verifiable, even-handed, and matter-of-fact, his arguments giving plenty of room for you to make up your own mind, something totally lacking from the populist rants of New Atheism's most virulent supporters, who tend to assume, if not demand, that you agree with their every view, regardless of how extreme or defamatory.

Professor Hart does not take not the opposite stance of defender railing against atheism itself, but instead attacks idealistic fanaticism on both sides, confessing that there are many denominations of Christianity that he vehemently dislikes, as well as many outspoken atheists he admires, warning against the angry and destructive creed of aggressive 'New Atheism', as well as challenging those who attack Christianity and other faiths without any idea of what they are about and the bad logic that they often use.

Though I wish it this book could have been a little stronger, and maybe a little less wordy in the introduction, this is a very good book for anyone who has already experienced much of the debate and despairs of the simplistic and pedantic nature of many current arguments, and is a timely warning not to take history's headlines at face value.