The essential book for dismantling Richard Dawkins' atheistic agenda. Scott Hahn and Benjamin Wiker collaborate to debunk Dawkins' theories and show how inconsistent and illogical his conclusions truly are. This is the definitive book for college students or faithful Christians hoping to answer Dawkins' claims and assert the logic and beauty of their faith.
Answering the New Atheism
and over one million other books are available for Amazon Kindle. Learn more
 |
| |||||||||||||||
Shop the Amazon.com Textbooks Store and save up to 70% on textbook rentals, 90% on used textbooks and 60% on eTextbooks. |
Book Description
Frequently Bought Together
Editorial Reviews
Review
"It has been a great pleasure to me as a long-retired Professor of Philosophy to have been set the task of reading Answering the New Atheism: Dismantling Dawkins' Case Against God by Dr. Scott Hahn and Dr. Benjamin Wiker. For this 'task' has been for me not a task but a sustained delight. Rarely, if ever, in my many years as a Professor of Philosphy did I ever have the opportunity to read such a compelling argument." -- Antony Flew, Author of There is a God: How the World's Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind
"Scott Hahn and Benjamin Wiker answer the arguments posed by the New Atheism effectively and decisively. They show, again and again, that atheists like Richard Dawkins are putting forth shoddy arguments, and once those arguments are dismantled by cool reason, there is very little left." -- Dinesh D'Souza, Richwain Research Scholar at the Hoover Institution; Author of What's So Great About Christianity
"In a better world than ours there would have been no need for Answering the New Atheism. But under the circumstances, I'm grateful to Scott Hahn and Benjamin Wiker for their essential service in cooly, rationally taking apart Richard Dawkins' inflamed rhetoric and exposing the absurdities, and the dangers, at its heart. Their final chapter is a particularly chilling, important reminder of what Dawkins' secular faith would lead to if it were more widely embraced." -- David Klinghoffer, Author of Shattered Tablets: Why We Ignore the Ten Commandements at Our Peril and Why the Jews Rejected Jesus: The Turning Point in Western History.
Answering the New Atheism is a superb exposé of the Dawkins Delusion. Systematically and lucidly, Scott Hahn and Benjamin Wiker dissect and dispose of the fundamental errors that riddle Dawkins' attempt to demonize the divine. Dawkins has declared a jihad against religion and his main weapons are diatribe and caricature. But the authors refuse to respond in kind and instead turn to reason, the one tool that Dawkins seems to disdain. As readable and humorous as it is rigorously reasoned, Answering the New Atheism is the best antidote in the marketplace for Dawkinitis." -- Roy Abraham Varghese, Co-author with Antony Flew of There Is a God: How the World's Most Notorious Atheist changed His Mind, a book denouced by Dawkins. Editor of Cosmos, Bios, Theos, a work with 24 Nobel Prize winners that was described by Time Magazine as "the year's most intriguing book on God."
"Scott Hahn and Benjamin Wiker patiently, thoroughly pick apart the reasoning of Richard Dawkins until very little is left standing. I highly recommend Answering the New Atheism to anyone who wants to watch scientific atheist bullies get their comeuppance." -- Michael J. Behe, Lehigh University; Author of The Edge of Evolution
--ReviewsScott Hahn and Benjamin Wiker patiently, thoroughly pick apart the reasoning of Richard Dawkins until very little is left standing. I highly recommend Answering the New Atheism to anyone who wants to watch scientific atheist bullies get their comeuppance. --Michael J. Behe
Product Details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images? |
More About the Authors
Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
394 of 545 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
I felt like large portions of this book were based on a few misunderstandings on the part of Hahn and Wiker. For instance, the authors wrote page after page explaining how exceedingly unlikely it is that a modern living cell could randomly jostle into place and come to life. Dawkins would agree with them on this point; even the simplest modern cells are extremely complex. But in The Blind Watchmaker (a book cited repeatedly by Hahn and Wiker in Answering the New Atheism) Dawkins devoted an entire chapter to the subject of the origins of life. Dawkins even wrote "the only machinery of replication that we know [DNA] seems too complicated to have come into existence by means of anything less than many generations of cumulative selection" [p. 200]. He went on to explain how simple pre-DNA replicators could have provided the scaffolding necessary to evolve modern DNA replication. Hahn and Wiker quoted Dawkins from this very same chapter but omitted his explanation of the origins of life and instead erected a straw man argument to knock down. It's hard to believe that they were unaware of Dawkins' explanation, especially seeing as how Dawkins also devoted another chapter on the origins of life in Climbing Mount Improbable, another book cited repeatedly by Hahn and Wiker. From Climbing Mount Improbable: "the original replicator probably was not DNA...unlike DNA, the original replicating molecules cannot have relied upon complicated machinery to duplicate them" [p. 285]. The (intentional?) omission of these arguments was disappointing.
The authors explicitly do not deny "that evolution is in very important ways a partial cause of human intelligence" [p 82]. However, they argue, there is "an enormous discrepancy between what is needed to survive, and the intellectual ability we've actually got" [p 50]. Human brains can figure out "what's going on inside atoms or inside black holes" which is "not at all necessary for Darwinian survival" [p. 50]. But various theories explain humans' intellectual capacities: for example, the use of language provided a significant benefit for those best able to use it, which led to more capable brains, which led to more complex language, which fueled a rapid self-sustaining upward spiral in mental capacity and language complexity. And there is no shortage of examples of evolved traits later being put to uses far different than those that provided the original benefits. There is little mystery here. Plus, human minds have great difficulty understanding and imagining quantum mechanics, for instance, because the concepts are very different than the familiar ones that we need to survive. This makes perfect sense in light of evolution.
Dawkins' main argument in The God Delusion is that "a designer God cannot be used to explain organized complexity because any God capable of designing anything would have to be complex enough to demand the same kind of explanation in his own right" [p. 136]. Hahn and Wiker assert that "it is only in Dawkins' treating God as having an evolved, material intelligence that allowed him the dubious luxury of discounting His existence as very, very improbable...since God is by definition purely spiritual, then the contingency of material atom-shuffling is inapplicable" [p. 65]. But if not atom-shuffling, then what? However God came to be still needs an explanation which is entirely side-stepped by the authors. Why would non-physical intelligence need any less explanation than physical intelligence? I can understand it would be a different kind of explanation, but the authors offer none at all and utterly fail to counter Dawkins' main argument. It's like answering "why is the sky blue?" with "it's not blue, it's light blue" and then failing to offer an explanation of why the sky is light blue.
Most of the authors' discussion of atheist morality is based on a simple assumption that is just false: that whatever is best for our selfish genes is by definition "moral". "Does it promote survival? If it does, it is `good'" [p. 118]. Thus, they question how Dawkins can condemn the brutal practices in the Old Testament as immoral since natural selection is equally brutal. Even granting their premise for the moment, they do not make any attempt to defend the atrocities described in the Old Testament as moral according to their own God-given standard of morality. They criticize morality based on natural selection as no better than that of the Old Testament, then go on to upbraid morality based on natural selection as repugnant. Does that mean the morality taught in the Old Testament is also repugnant? Because that was what Dawkins argued and all the authors effectively responded with was "oh yeah? Well your morality is repugnant, too!" But in doing so they assumed that what is good for our selfish genes is by definition "moral" according to the atheist. This leads to all kinds of wild conclusions that sound more like a caricature of imaginary outrageous "evil people" rather than real life atheists. Dawkins explicitly states in The Selfish Gene "I am not advocating a morality based on evolution" [p. 2].
Either Dawkins is right and there is no personal God, or he is wrong and there is one. If he is right, then all the moral principles of Christianity espoused by the authors must come from the very same sources as Dawkins' morality.
UPDATE:
Since writing this review, I've read a few books about the evolutionary origins of morality. I recommend The Origins of Virtue: Human Instincts and the Evolution of Cooperation. The theory goes like this:
Our ancestors who were genetically predisposed to cooperate with each other were more likely to survive and pass on their genes than their selfish counterparts, presumably due to the efficiencies and advantages of teamwork. Similarly, our ancestors who refused to tolerate social injustice perpetuated by others were able to avoid being cheated and passed on the genes that built their judgmental brains. Those who felt guilty for committing actions that ruined cooperation were less likely to take those actions and were more likely to cooperate and pass on their genes. We are their descendants. We are no more free to decide not to feel guilty for betraying a friend than we are free to decide not to feel pain from slamming our hand in a car door. The emotion of guilt, like the feeling of physical pain, is an involuntary reaction that has a powerful influence on our behavior. And we all feel it, whether we believe in God or not, because we all share the genes that make the type of brains that act that way.
The final chapter is a truly ridiculous "warning" to all the faithful of the awful perversions of society that would surely befall any country who allowed an atheist any kind of political power. It is reminiscent of the ludicrous 1930's anti-marijuana propaganda film "Reefer Madness" which depicted mild mannered citizens transforming into raving lunatics, killing each other and jumping out of windows after smoking marijuana. The atheists will take your children away! They'll shut down the churches! They'll mandate abortions and euthanasia! The authors described Hitler, not Dawkins, and not atheists in general.
It would take another entire book to counter all the authors' arguments, so I have offered only a few here. But despite this books shortfalls, it is an interesting read which provides insights into Catholic philosophy and views of atheists.
The authors explicitly do not deny "that evolution is in very important ways a partial cause of human intelligence" [p 82]. However, they argue, there is "an enormous discrepancy between what is needed to survive, and the intellectual ability we've actually got" [p 50]. Human brains can figure out "what's going on inside atoms or inside black holes" which is "not at all necessary for Darwinian survival" [p. 50]. But various theories explain humans' intellectual capacities: for example, the use of language provided a significant benefit for those best able to use it, which led to more capable brains, which led to more complex language, which fueled a rapid self-sustaining upward spiral in mental capacity and language complexity. And there is no shortage of examples of evolved traits later being put to uses far different than those that provided the original benefits. There is little mystery here. Plus, human minds have great difficulty understanding and imagining quantum mechanics, for instance, because the concepts are very different than the familiar ones that we need to survive. This makes perfect sense in light of evolution.
Dawkins' main argument in The God Delusion is that "a designer God cannot be used to explain organized complexity because any God capable of designing anything would have to be complex enough to demand the same kind of explanation in his own right" [p. 136]. Hahn and Wiker assert that "it is only in Dawkins' treating God as having an evolved, material intelligence that allowed him the dubious luxury of discounting His existence as very, very improbable...since God is by definition purely spiritual, then the contingency of material atom-shuffling is inapplicable" [p. 65]. But if not atom-shuffling, then what? However God came to be still needs an explanation which is entirely side-stepped by the authors. Why would non-physical intelligence need any less explanation than physical intelligence? I can understand it would be a different kind of explanation, but the authors offer none at all and utterly fail to counter Dawkins' main argument. It's like answering "why is the sky blue?" with "it's not blue, it's light blue" and then failing to offer an explanation of why the sky is light blue.
Most of the authors' discussion of atheist morality is based on a simple assumption that is just false: that whatever is best for our selfish genes is by definition "moral". "Does it promote survival? If it does, it is `good'" [p. 118]. Thus, they question how Dawkins can condemn the brutal practices in the Old Testament as immoral since natural selection is equally brutal. Even granting their premise for the moment, they do not make any attempt to defend the atrocities described in the Old Testament as moral according to their own God-given standard of morality. They criticize morality based on natural selection as no better than that of the Old Testament, then go on to upbraid morality based on natural selection as repugnant. Does that mean the morality taught in the Old Testament is also repugnant? Because that was what Dawkins argued and all the authors effectively responded with was "oh yeah? Well your morality is repugnant, too!" But in doing so they assumed that what is good for our selfish genes is by definition "moral" according to the atheist. This leads to all kinds of wild conclusions that sound more like a caricature of imaginary outrageous "evil people" rather than real life atheists. Dawkins explicitly states in The Selfish Gene "I am not advocating a morality based on evolution" [p. 2].
Either Dawkins is right and there is no personal God, or he is wrong and there is one. If he is right, then all the moral principles of Christianity espoused by the authors must come from the very same sources as Dawkins' morality.
UPDATE:
Since writing this review, I've read a few books about the evolutionary origins of morality. I recommend The Origins of Virtue: Human Instincts and the Evolution of Cooperation. The theory goes like this:
Our ancestors who were genetically predisposed to cooperate with each other were more likely to survive and pass on their genes than their selfish counterparts, presumably due to the efficiencies and advantages of teamwork. Similarly, our ancestors who refused to tolerate social injustice perpetuated by others were able to avoid being cheated and passed on the genes that built their judgmental brains. Those who felt guilty for committing actions that ruined cooperation were less likely to take those actions and were more likely to cooperate and pass on their genes. We are their descendants. We are no more free to decide not to feel guilty for betraying a friend than we are free to decide not to feel pain from slamming our hand in a car door. The emotion of guilt, like the feeling of physical pain, is an involuntary reaction that has a powerful influence on our behavior. And we all feel it, whether we believe in God or not, because we all share the genes that make the type of brains that act that way.
The final chapter is a truly ridiculous "warning" to all the faithful of the awful perversions of society that would surely befall any country who allowed an atheist any kind of political power. It is reminiscent of the ludicrous 1930's anti-marijuana propaganda film "Reefer Madness" which depicted mild mannered citizens transforming into raving lunatics, killing each other and jumping out of windows after smoking marijuana. The atheists will take your children away! They'll shut down the churches! They'll mandate abortions and euthanasia! The authors described Hitler, not Dawkins, and not atheists in general.
It would take another entire book to counter all the authors' arguments, so I have offered only a few here. But despite this books shortfalls, it is an interesting read which provides insights into Catholic philosophy and views of atheists.
Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase
Great and thoughtful analysis of Dawkins' book, Case Against God. Although I doubt it will decisively change any minds it clearly outlines the great, obvious and significant weakness if believing that from nothing comes everything by chance/luck. The authors also raise the great problem of compassion and altruism for atheists. The problem of good is a major problem for atheists. Why be good if survival of the fittest is the basis for development?
69 of 110 people found the following review helpful
By Cool Reason
Format:Paperback
I have never written a review before, but I felt so strongly about this book not because it is a defense of religion (it does not directly advocate any form of theism), but because it is a fully rational response to Dawkins and set out according to the very terms he has laid forth in his arguments against God.
This book is written in a calm, collective, and fully rational way. It does so not by citing the Bible, but by playing on the same field as Dawkins and according to his own terms of evolutionary biology. This book demonstrates very effectively how Dawkins's unsound (but apparently sound for him) argumentation for the non-existence of a supernatural Being amounts to little more than soaring and highly influential rhetoric and oftentimes just plain bad science. It does all of this in a respectful and relaxed way, unlike the hostility, sneering tone, and sharp ridicule found in "The God Delusion".
If you have read parts or all of "The God Delusion", or if you have heard about the book and are somewhat unsure exactly what Dawkins is all about, I very highly recommend this book. This book is NOT another "religious" book frantically written to help readers save their respective religion out of fear of atheism. It is a book of cool reason, the very reason that Dawkins himself, I imagine, would advocate but evidently doesn't practice.
After reading some of the reviews on "The God Delusion" on this website, I noticed that there is a short video clip of Dawkins speaking about his book. In it he says, "I give in the book the argument, I think it is a rather strong argument, that there is no supernatural, supreme Being." And further, "The existence of God is a scientific question." If you have not seen this clip, I would highly recommend viewing it after reading "Answering the New Atheism".
I very kindly urge reading "Answering the New Atheism" in order not to instantly become a devout believer, but in order to think and to reason logically. Please do not let Dawkins's rhetorical masterpiece undermine your intelligence.
This book is written in a calm, collective, and fully rational way. It does so not by citing the Bible, but by playing on the same field as Dawkins and according to his own terms of evolutionary biology. This book demonstrates very effectively how Dawkins's unsound (but apparently sound for him) argumentation for the non-existence of a supernatural Being amounts to little more than soaring and highly influential rhetoric and oftentimes just plain bad science. It does all of this in a respectful and relaxed way, unlike the hostility, sneering tone, and sharp ridicule found in "The God Delusion".
If you have read parts or all of "The God Delusion", or if you have heard about the book and are somewhat unsure exactly what Dawkins is all about, I very highly recommend this book. This book is NOT another "religious" book frantically written to help readers save their respective religion out of fear of atheism. It is a book of cool reason, the very reason that Dawkins himself, I imagine, would advocate but evidently doesn't practice.
After reading some of the reviews on "The God Delusion" on this website, I noticed that there is a short video clip of Dawkins speaking about his book. In it he says, "I give in the book the argument, I think it is a rather strong argument, that there is no supernatural, supreme Being." And further, "The existence of God is a scientific question." If you have not seen this clip, I would highly recommend viewing it after reading "Answering the New Atheism".
I very kindly urge reading "Answering the New Atheism" in order not to instantly become a devout believer, but in order to think and to reason logically. Please do not let Dawkins's rhetorical masterpiece undermine your intelligence.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
1.0 out of 5 stars
A deeply dishonest book
This book opens with the story about how the authors, on learning that some theology students at Franciscan University had lost their faith after reading books such as Richard... Read more
Published 1 month ago by Karl I. Nordling
1.0 out of 5 stars
Same old tired anti-scientific arguments.
In this book Hahn and Wilker trot out the same old Christian apologetic "arguments" against evolution and add absolutely nothing to either the scientific or religious discussion of... Read more
Published 3 months ago by Galiana
3.0 out of 5 stars
A little repetitive
Good argument, but for those who don't believe, no proof is possible. Faith is a gift and we must pray for those who has lost it.
Published 4 months ago by Elizabeth Thomas
4.0 out of 5 stars
Good not great
There are great books out there defending God and this is good but doesn't contain all the proofs. Scott Hahn is so deep that I was lucky that this book is readable. Read more
Published 4 months ago by elln
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent
Scott Hahn is the most influential speaker of all time, his work has deep substance and it is very easy to read for average readers. Read more
Published 7 months ago by Ian Ling
5.0 out of 5 stars
Good Answers To Atheism
Unlike Catholic vs Protestant arguments where both parties can appeal to a bare common ground with the Bible or using history as a reference point, a theist arguing with an atheist... Read more
Published 8 months ago by Sexy Bachelor
1.0 out of 5 stars
Painfully dumbed down for non-thinkers
I could not even get past the sample. The authors clearly do not understand real logic or scientific language. Read more
Published 8 months ago by L. Cabrejos
1.0 out of 5 stars
Questionable assumptions
I am largely in agreement with other 1-star reviewers of this book, though I, like a few others, only read the sample--not the whole thing. Read more
Published 11 months ago by willus
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Point By Point Destruction of Atheism's latest Preacher.
Dr. Scott Hahn is a brilliant and gifted Biblical Scholar, and this book was the teamwork of himself and Benjamin Wiker who together refute this patently unscholarly atheist tome. Read more
Published 15 months ago by E. Burke
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great answer to The God Delusion!
Some of the scientific details on the explanation got a little long-winded for me, but it's great to know that anything that atheists can send our way has a good, logical,... Read more
Published 17 months ago by Joseph Sousa
