Finally, an account of the “New Athiesm” that incorporates things I have been saying for years .
If Antony Flew’s conversion illustrates the continuing need for rational argument, the rise of the so-called “new atheism” illustrates the deeper problem with the basic plausibility of Christianity. The leaders of new atheism, writers like Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, Daniel Dennett and Richard Dawkins, have all written bestsellers repudiating Christianity, religion, and theism.4 What is interesting is that the new atheists appear unaware of the revolution in Christian philosophy of religion over the last forty years.5 To be frank, the sophistication of their respective critiques is closer to the level of the crude village atheist or the curmudgeonly troll who emerges from under his bridge to throw stones at passing parishioners. The new atheism is notable not for the power of its argumentation, but rather for the heightened intensity of its rhetoric.
