Atheist Delusions: The Christian Revolution and Its Fashionable Enemies (Hardcover)

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Key Phrases: new atheists, glorious sadness, Middle Ages, Western Europe, Catholic Church (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review

"With impressive erudition and polemical panache, David Hart smites hip and thigh the peddlers of a `new atheism' that recycles hoary arguments from the past. His grim assessment of our cultural moment challenges the hope that `the Christian revolution' could happen again."-Richard John Neuhaus, former editor in chief of First Things (Richard John Neuhaus )

"Provoked by and responding to the standard-bearers of `the New Atheism', this original and intellectually impressive work deftly demolishes their mythical account of `the rise of modernity.' Hart argues instead that the genuinely humane values of modernity have their historic roots in Christianity."-Geoffrey Wainwright, Duke Divinity School (Geoffrey Wainwright )

"In this learned, provocative, and sophisticated book, Hart presents a frontal challenge to today''s myopic caricature of the culture and religion that existed in previous centuries."-Robert Louis Wilken, University of Virginia (Robert Louis Wilken )

"Surely Dawkins, Hitchens et al would never have dared put pen to paper had they known of the existence of David Bentley Hart. After this demolition-job all that is left for them to do is repent and rejoice at the discreditation of their erstwhile selves."-John Milbank, author of Radical Orthodoxy: A New Theology (John Milbank )

"A devastating dissection of the `new atheism,' a timely reminder of the fact that `no Christianity' would have meant `no West,' and a rousing good read. David Hart is one of America''s sharpest minds, and this is Hart in full, all guns firing and the band playing on the deck."-George Weigel, Distinguished Senior Fellow, Ethics and Public Policy Center, Washington (George Weigel )

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 antireligious 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.

 

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 272 pages
• Publisher: Yale University Press; 1 edition (April 21, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0300111908
• ISBN-13: 978-0300111903
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.1 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (28 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #8,091 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

58 of 70 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Easterner Defends the West, April 3, 2009

By	Jacob of Sterlington (Louisiana) - See all my reviews

I will forgo the standard adjectives that came to mind when I read this book: brilliant, stunning, breathtaking. That is a given when one reads David Bentley Hart. This book is a combination of alternative history, apologetics, and smash-mouth theology.

Hart claims the Christian faith represented a revolution in the story of humanity (ix). It shattered the pagan cosmology (115) and introduced new categories of reality, the dimension of the human person for one. However, Hart's thesis is more subtle than that. He is not simply saying "Christianity has done a lot of good to the world; therefore, you need to belive,"--that would be a variant of the genetic fallacy that Hart so masterfully refutes. Rather, Christianity has its own telling of the story, a telling that reworks the categories of human existence within the framework of its own story.

Over against the story is the narrative of modernity. Modernity's telos is that of freedom. Its highest ideal is putting trust in the absence of a transcendental. Its freedom is nihilistic. Modernity's current defenders, and this is the first half of Hart's book, retell the Western story in a way to demonize Christianity in their defense of modernity. Therefore, Hart meticulously shows how Christianity did not impede science (the chapter on Galileo is hilarious), burn witches (the Inquisition, despite its bad moments, actually limited the bloodiness of the State's persecution of heretics), or fight religious wars (the Crusades are actually a different case, worthy of a conversation but not under this topic).

One slight criticism: Given Hart's thesis of the Christian revolution of thought and humanity, its shattering and rebuilding of worlds, it is rather surprising to see Hart end on so dismal a note. If the Christian Revolution is as powerful as he says and as I believe, and if the detractors of Christianity are slightly moronic, as appears to be the case, does this not ultimately point to the triumph of the Christian narrative? Of course, the word triumph needs to be carefully qualified.

Conclusion:
Like all good things, this book must end. Not only does one have the privilege of being smarter after reading this book, one will be entertained: Hart's in-your-face rhetoric is hilarious and refreshing. May this book enjoy many printings.

14 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Metaphysical Underpinnings Matter, June 7, 2009

By	G. Kyle Essary (Melaka, Malaysia) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This is not a direct response to the New Atheists, but to their skewed perspective of history (full of error and logical inconsistency). As such, it does not respond to their errors one by one, but instead attempts to show how influential the metaphysical underpinnings of Christianity have been and continue to be to the Western mind. It shows how often they rely on the metaphysical underpinnings of a Christian mindset to even make their arguments.

As has become typical of Hart's work, the reader will need a dictionary at their side while reading. That's okay, because learning a new word here and there can only help us in our precision, and precision matters immensely to Hart.

Hart has given the reader historical correction at its finest. He first takes the historical errors (such as the "Dark Ages") that have too often pervaded the Western mindset and places them into their proper context, often showing that what pop-historians often write as fact, is more a created myth than reality. He follows this correction by illuminating the reader to the radical Christian revolution in the West, which transformed its values, ethics and persona.

One cannot finish this book (no matter their philosophy) without having a great appreciation for the influence of Christianity, whether it be in regards to science and creativity, medicine and hospitals, education and the university or our entire conception of justice and "human rights." The reader may continue to disagree with the truth of such a view, but they cannot help but appreciate the results that it brought about in Western life.

The book does not end with a happy or triumphalist tone. In fact, Hart admits his fear that the West will continue to move away from the Christian vision (as much of the non-Western world may be moving toward it). He sheds light on the many negative products from the myth of "progress" when not tempered by a Christian ethic. He concludes by suggesting that in the West, the reasonable thing for Christians to do may be to follow our forefathers into the desert.

Overall, the book presents a fascinating historical analysis of Western humanity, the philosophical and metaphysical basis of why the West views individuals as it does and a prophetic perspective (through the eyes of Nietzsche) of what may lie ahead for the post-Christian West. I heartily recommend the book.

58 of 76 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Dont let the bombastic title fool you: this is a much needed (and quite hilarious) corrective to modern atheist mythology, April 4, 2009

By	Derrick A. Peterson (Oregon) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Dont let the bombastic title fool you (it appears to be a play on both Dawkin's The God Delusion and the latter part of the title of Schliermacher's famous On Religion: Speeches to Its Cultured Despisers and so is actually a rather sly title despite its prima facie inflammatory nature). This is by no means a standard book of apologetics. You will find here no trenchant rehashing of the so-called arguments for God's existence (cosmological, axiological, ontological), theodicy, or the well worn cart paths of the wearisome and quixotic Evolution vs Creationism debates. Rather what Hart attempts to do (and does beautifully) is to show that the assumptions of the "New Athiests," (e.g. Dennet, Dawkins et all) and the common mythology of atheism amongst laypersons and professionals pervading our contemporary atmosphere--namely that the history of Christianity is one of completely violent, doctrinaire aggression, suppression of scientific inquiry, fideistic stupidity, the abnegation of freedom and self thinking, and all in all the historical quintessence and amalgamation of nearly all the maladies and vicious shortcomings of Western history--are completely false.

To complete this task Hart sets forth a history of Christianity that shows, e.g. that Christianity was not some great and malicious interruption to the ideals of Classical and Hellenistic science in the so-called Dark Ages, but in fact preserved and expounded upon classical ideas, and even--interestingly enough--mediated to Islam via Syriac Christianity's copious translations of Aristotle the Aristotelian scientific heritage that eventually became re-integrated into the Western world. Or, for example, the notorious case of Galileo and his condemnation by Pope Urban the VIII is wonderfully narrated with the historical precision it deserves to show (rightfully, and finally in a way that will reach the popular consciousness) that this was an anomaly in the general historical relationship between science and the Church; that it was not in fact a battle between the incandescent purity of the reason of scientific legitimacy versus the stalwart bastion of traditional fideistic dogmatism of the church but rather the asinine conflict between two supremely egotistical men; that, if one looks at it, Galileo despite his brilliance could provide no empirical evidence for his Copernicanism (which, up to that point had created no stir in the church and found both admirers and detractors...in fact Pope Paul the 3rd, to whom Copernicus' book was dedicated quite liked it) and so, ironically (as Hart wonderfully puts it), it was the CHURCH that was demanding evidence from GALILEO, who was in many ways blindly devoted to the hypothetical system of Copernicanism despite the lack of empirical evidence for his heliocentricism; and, quite humorously, that the eventual success of heliocentricism in the likes of Kepler and Newton was not the eventual success of some Classical Greek scientific spirit obfuscated by some Christian decline, but its final and ultimate defeat by a new system of science which superceded the old Aristotelian prejudices due to the influence of Christianity.

This is only a small piece of the books recovering of Christian history, but overall Hart's thesis is that the Christianity transformed the ancient world: it brought dignity to human beings, liberated us from fatalism, subverted the cruelest aspects of pagan society, emphasized learning and self control, and elevated charity above all virtues. In fact, to summarize, no Christianity means the disappearance of most, if not all of the positive force of Western history (a lofty thesis, to be sure).

But the book is so much more than even this corrective. Hart is not only a scholar of profound depth, but he also has a sharp sense of humor that saturates his beautiful writing style with a glamor and a fluidity of reading that few academics of his stature can achieve. There were moments when I actually laughed out loud at some of Hart's hilarious observations, and overall I could hardly put this book down. I strongly recommend this book. Not only is it an innovative and historically accurate (though as Hart himself admits, not exhaustive) account of Christianity, and not only does it provide an excellent introduction to Hart apart from his much more difficult (but also amazing) Beauty of the Infinite, but it is a ripping good read in its own right. An indispensable read for Christians (and atheists!) of all levels of learning.