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The Twilight of Atheism: The Rise and Fall of Disbelief in the Modern World

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Allister McGrath's The Twilight of Atheism is a thought provoking book no matter what your background. This book is no polemic against atheism. McGrath only mentions arguments for and against God on a few occasions, and then only to set them in their historical context and show the rise and decline of atheist philosophy. And to be clear, by atheism McGrath means what many call "hard atheism." The deliberate, supposedly informed, affirmative belief that there is no God.

One of the strengths of the book is that McGrath does not hesitate to examine atheism as a cultural/philosophical development just as any other. That is, he examines the cultural factors influencing its development and growth. Though some atheists naively believe that atheism is simply a matter of applying logic and reason to see the obvious, this is an inadequate basis for explaining its origins and development as a philosophical movement. This does not deny the possible truth of atheism any more than examining the cultural and historical factors that facilitated the rise of Christianity necessarily negates the truth of Christianity. According to McGrath, one catalyst for atheist thought was the ongoing revolutionary attitudes across the board towards authority, including royal and ecclesiastical. Christianity was seen as part of an oppressive establishment and atheism was a "liberating" intellectual force. Religion, especially Christianity, was seen by many as an oppressive force and atheism was the vehicle of its destruction.

McGrath's overview of this period, and his closer examination of such atheists as Freud and Marx, is very helpful and makes the above points well. He builds on these points to show that by the middle of the 20th century, atheism seemed on the verge of philosophical dominance in two forms. Externally, by the vehicle of communism atheism had spread over almost a third of the world, apparently vanquishing religion in the previously Christian areas of Russia and Eastern Europe. Internally, atheistic philosophy seemed on the verge of similar successes in the West. Symbolized by Time Magazine's famous cover page asking, "Is God Dead?" The answer seemed to be yes, or almost nearly so.

But just when atheism seemed on the verge of victory, it collapsed. Communism failed and was widely discredited by a recognition that it was an oppressive, not liberating force. Though atheism had been brutally imposed on the people of Russia and Eastern Europe, it faded fast once the state vehicle of oppression was lifted. Atheist numbers have dropped dramatically throughout former communist nations, and Christian numbers have surged.

In the West, atheism stumbled as well. Christianity adapted, and largely through Pentacostalism/Charismaticism, revised itself into a potent and popular new movement. In the third world nations of Latin America, Africa, and Asia, this movement supplanted Marxism in offering hope to the poor and oppressed. Even in Western Europe, atheism lost its potency and transformed into a more neutral nonreligious attitude.

What happened?

First, as a reaction to the establishment, atheism was destined to lose potency once Christianity was no longer part of the establishment. There is much to commend this argument. This explains why atheism was never as popular in the United States--where religion was a matter of personal preference rather than state sanction. If there was no oppressor, there is no need for a liberator.

Second, "hard" atheism has no more to commend it intellectually than theism. According to McGrath, neither side can claim compelling evidential or philosophical argument for its position. And because there seems to be something in humankind -- put their by God or by social factors -- that seeks a connection with spirituality or the divine, atheism loses what is intellectually a draw. This point is no doubt controversial, for both sides. I do not necessarily agree with it, but do recognize that because of predispositions and biases on both sides, the force of the argument for or against either position has not gained the upperhand. With that being the case, religion does seem to fulfill a need in most people that atheism simply cannot.

Third, Christianity adapted--especially Protestantism. As more of an intellectual movement than a mystical one, McGrath believes that Protestantism was especially vulnerable to atheism's arguments. With the rise of spiritualism in the Protestant sects (through the Pentacostal and Charismatic movements), Protestantism adapted to the situation and made itself more attractive. Again, there is much to commend this argument and I see it as an offshoot as the first one. Christianity modified itself to be seen as liberator once again by the poor and oppressed--often offering a material and spiritual liberation for those who embrace it.

There seems to be some misunderstanding about what McGraw is claiming. He does not claim that atheism is doomed to elimination. There will be plenty of atheists. Nor does he say that Christianity has won. He frankly admits that the decline in Christianity in Western Europe appears to be long lived, though it has not given way to atheism, but to agnosticism and complacency. What has not happened, but what seemed likely, is the victory of atheism as a philosophical force in Western Culture (and in communist nations.).

On a whole, The Twilight of Atheism is a thought provoking read. More so than I expected. There is much food for thought here for all sides to the debate. As a plus, McGrath writes in an understandable and unpolemical manner, making this book very readable (though not particularly exciting).

Alister McGrath is a moderately conservative Evangelical theologian who was born in Northern Ireland. After a period of atheism, he became a Christian and is now one of the most prolific theologians in the world. In this book, he traces the rise of atheism from the time of the French revolution to its gradual decline in recent years.

Prof. McGrath is a good storyteller. Along with a discussion the seminal thinkers of atheism such as Nietzsche, Freud, Marx and Feuerbach, we get a political, historical and social overview of the entire movement. For example, Prof. McGrath discusses recent political issues such as the turbulence of the 60s and Madeline Murray O'Hair's crusade for atheism. While this book is no substitute for more detailed studies on atheism, it provides a historical and political background that other studies generally don't.

Prof. McGrath is, as I said, an incredibly prolific author. He has probably written, edited, or revised over 15 books since 2000. Because of this, it would appear that a few too many errors and editing problems creep into his books. For example, Robert Ingersoll is described as the "great atheist" when he was the "great agnostic." The former Episcopal bishop of Newark is not James Spong, but rather John Spong. The same quote from Augustine appears twice within a few pages, etc. In spite of these defects, THE TWILIGHT OF ATHEISM is an enjoyable work.

By the time I finished Alister McGrath's "The Twilight of Atheism", I had identified several major problems with it. These often flow into one another, but can be summed up in three major points; in no particular order:

(1) This book is apologetics ("the branch of theology that is concerned with defending or proving the truth of Christian doctrines"). Far from being a fair study of the history of atheism in relation to the religions of the world over time, its written by a 'former atheist' with a (primarily western and Protestant) Christian audience in mind. There is a disturbing tendency by the author to allow his apologetics to color his interpretation of historical events to the point of revisionism.

(2) It uses an improper definition of "atheism." This is perhaps the most surprising. The standard dictionary definition will be along the lines of "a lack of belief in the existence of God or gods." McGrath denies this and seems to think it means something like 'the active rejection of, or rebellion against God and religion'. But this is more properly 'ANTI-theism'. Consider in this light his pronouncement that "Atheism is ultimately a worldview of fear [...] largely derivative, mirroring the failings of the churches and specific ways of conceiving the Christian faith." (P. 274) When you realize that atheism and antitheism are not the same thing, it knocks a lot of the wind out of the main premise (that atheism is in its twilight). Antitheism perhaps, but not necessarily atheism. He also curiously refers to atheism as a religion quite a few times. The famous rejoinder to this, of course, is that 'atheism is a religion like bald is a hair color'.

(3) Its main premise (that atheism is in decline) relies almost entirely on the axiom that Postmodernism is correct and Modernism is false. I left this one for last because it needs the most explanation. As per McGrath's use of the terms, I will summarize them as follows:

Modernism is a school of thought that had its origins in the Enlightenment. It holds that the truth about the universe can be discovered and known with certainty. At its most extreme, it sees the world in stark terms of black and white, right and wrong, strong and weak, good and evil. Postmodernism is a school of thought that developed in reaction to the excesses of Modernism. It holds that there are many truths about the world around us and that it is impossible to distinguish between them with any certainty; at its most extreme, not only is everything seen in shades of grey, but all the shades are the same color. It is thus a far more tolerant way of dealing with cultural differences (including religion).

While treating other cultures with respect and promoting diversity is a noble idea, the problems start when you try to apply postmodernism to logic. Using postmodernist philosophy, the author thus feels he can happily dispense with rationalism, which he asserts has "quietly died out in most places" anyway (P. 271). This leads to perhaps the most absurd statement in the whole book (P. 92) which reads: "the simple fact is that both atheism and Christian belief were found to lie beyond the available evidence. The burden of proof is equally distributed between the two." But if there is no evidence to believe in a God, why should we? As McGrath believes: "A cold and dry rational account of nature might well satisfy the human reason, but it left the imaginative and emotional faculties untouched." (P. 115) Thus emotional reasons, to the exclusion of reason, are to McGrath indeed valid for religious belief. Consider his repeated praise for Pentecostalism, which relies on "charismatic gifts", such as "speaking in tongues [...] prophesying, [faith] healings, and exorcisms." (P. 194)

Finally, probably the least important criticism, but one that made me want to put the book down well before I finished it: its too long. McGrath really doesn't have to spend so many pages trying to refute 19th century poets, among other things. I'd say that he could easily have made his point in less than half the pages.

(Please note: I orginally submitted a more detailed (and thus much longer) review that wasn't accepted, probably because it was too long; if you are interested you can read it here: http://groups.google.ca/group/alt.atheism/msg/106370963dacef92 )

McGrath, who has often shown a preoccupation with the refutation of atheism as a philosophical position (particularly as presented by Richard Dawkins), sets out an extended (though peculiar) account of the history of atheism in this book and speculates about its strengths, weaknesses, and future as a point of view in Western and world culture.

Much of the book is devoted to an idiosyncratic account of the history of atheistic thought. The French Revolution is portrayed as the first atheistic event in history, though McGrath does hedge enough to make it clear that atheism is neither the true cause or result of it, besides the fact that by all accounts not many of the revolutionaries actually were atheists (as Deism was much more common and many people retained some sort of belief in Christianity even as revolutionaries). He goes on to account for the development of atheism in philosophy and other disciplines, giving particular credit to Feuerbach, Marx, and Freud, though commenting that their explanations of the genesis of atheism require a circular reasoning of beginning with the assumption that there is no god. He spends a chapter dismissing the idea of a conflict between science and religion (as McGrath is not a creationist or "intelligent design" proponent; he seems to endorse Gould's idea of "non-overlapping magisteria") and then proceeds to give a much more idiosyncratic view of the development of atheistic thought.

He stops to mention George Eliot, a largely positive figure in the history of atheism. Otherwise, he prefers to spend the most time on personally repulsive individual atheists, such as the perversions of AC Swinburne, the appalling personal details of the life of Madalyn Murray O'Hair, and the totalitarian Joseph Stalin. He repeatedly reminds the reader of Communism and portrays this secular faith in the perfectibility of human society as the legitimate face of atheism in the 20th Century, mentioning the deathtoll of Communism at ever turn. He mentions the National Secular Society in Great Britain and the O'Hair-led group American Atheists in the US, both of which are shrinking, but fails to discuss the British Humanist Association and its counterpart the American Humanist Association, which are growing in popularity at the moment.

The heart of McGrath's thesis is that atheism is an alternative religion. This "religion" believes that all the other religions which believe in supernatural forces (particularly God) will always and everywhere lead to the persecution of humankind. So, atheists are best understood as anti-theists, who further believe that a Utopia will begin if only religion can be eliminated. The Communist attempt to persecute religion out of existence failed horribly and was a nightmare, of course (though the Communists persecuted people for many reasons other than religion and got cooperation from certain religious leaders in many times and places; McGrath's portrayal of Communism as an anti-God machine being more than a little over-simplified), but hardly represents the secret wishes of most atheists (though perhaps was part of his own atheist fantasy in adolescence, as McGrath makes clear his own atheist ideology during his youth was Marxism). The Marxist-Leninists persecuted many fellow atheists who had any sort of divergent political beliefs and the Stalinists only did this more so. All but equating totalitarian communism with atheism (which McGrath comes very close to doing) is simply McCarthy-like hyperbole. He also repeatedly puts Nazism in the same class as Communism as an atheistic, totalitarian political ideology, which is totally absurd. (Though there were atheist Nazis, Nazism was closely allied to the "Positive Christianity" movement and didn't really advocate atheism at all. McGrath feels that atheism was a necessary precursor to Nazism, but doesn't really explain why, except to imply that Nazism would have been somehow inconceivable apart from atheism. Nazism actually advocated acceptance of any religion that renounced Judaism and didn't undermine their politics, with many Nazis even embracing and creating varieties of Germanic neo-paganism, such as the German Faith Movement. Essentially, Nazism was happy to embrace any faith that worked for their party at a given moment, and thus rhetoricians of all stripes like to associate the Nazis with whoever they do not like.) This attempt to portray atheism as a full-fledged ideology in and of itself is a failure, though, as atheism is simply the lack of a belief in deity that happens to be a feature of many other ideologies and worldviews, such as secular humanism, positivism, philosophical naturalism, Marxism, objectivism, and many other secular philosophies. Most atheists I know are anything but utopians who believe that the elimination of religion from humanity would lead to a perfectly positive future and McGrath's tendency to see all atheists (of whatever stripe) in this light is ludicrous.

McGrath portrays atheism as a position in retreat, at the end of the book. On an intellectual level, this is primarily due to the influence of post-modernism, which McGrath seems to feel has definitively put the nails into the coffin of Enlightenment and modernist thinking that provide the intellectual underpinnings of most modern atheist philosophies and worldviews. Essentially, he argues that atheism is only emotionally engaging as a response to corrupt or disengaged religions (which he actively feels the Christian churches to have been in those times and places where atheistic ideas held the most sway). He feels that the focus is currently on corrupt and disengaged secular institutions, particularly in the former Communist countries, and that emotionally engaging forms of Christianity (particularly Pentecostalism) will be the ideological winners going forward. McGrath's bottom line is that Christianity (the only religion he really discusses at all) is so much more engaging and appealing than atheism (which he portrays as being quite flat, disengaging, and boring) that human beings will only choose it if they feel it's better than just about any other spiritual alternative, which always tells a better story.

There are many reasons to doubt McGrath's conclusions. Though he is right that the spread of Christianity in Africa and South Korea do show the vitality of missionary work in many parts of the world, he may be misunderstanding what has led to the long-term growth of atheism. I believe most atheists simply see the lack of a belief in God as merely one aspect of a larger worldview. This worldview may not offer hope of eternal life, but simply seems to be more plausible and likely (in part because it does not postulate any utopian outcome for humanity, either in this world or any other). People may actually want to believe in supernatural saviors, but Western Europe shows no signs of making a big return to faith and the post-Communist return to faith in Eastern Europe (not surprising after a long turn of state enforced atheism) seems to have slowed considerably now that those craving religion have all had a chance to have it again. Instead, most Eurpoeans seem to find the emotionally salient forms of Christianity (like Pentecostalism) to be unpersuasive (particularly as these forms of faith tend to be the most anti-science and literalistic, as well, which is a feature McGrath conveniently overlooks). Though atheism and agnosticism are much less prevalent in the U.S., they are slowly growing and faith is slowly eroding over time. There's no reason to be so certain that the US won't seem more like Western Europe given another half-century or so. The fact is that many of the forms of religion McGrath seems to see as the future of the faith and the scourge of atheism (mega-churches and Pentacostal fervor) are so often creationist in their science, literalistic in their reading of the Bible, confining in their lifestyles, and regressive in their politics. Though they may be riding a post-modern wave in reaction to the excesses of post-Enlightenment ideologies, they are probably also creating excesses of their own that will eventually produce a new backlash. Over the very long run, it's hard to see from here whether modern forms of conservative Christian faith, atheism, or distinctly non-Christian forms of faith might hold the future.

McGrath's emphasis on the power of post-modernism to corrode atheism is an extremely odd choice. The post-modernism that McGrath embraces as the philosophical end of atheism, he equally derides in its many theological guises. Secondly, there are many signs that post-modernism is on the wane, with many prominent intellectuals turning against the movement as being at best a unique form of criticism and at worst utterly incomprehensible gibberish. It's hard to see how post-modernism will maintain it's own emotional and theoretical appeal going forward, particularly as it begins to wane in Academe. Further, most evangelical Christians in my locale often spend a considerable effort preaching against post-modernism as a form of "relativism" that corrodes Christianity faster than almost anything else.

Though McGrath may be right that atheism can never sustain its emotional appeal, his feeling that emotionally salient and popular forms of Christianity are the most likely alternative may not be sound. Post-modern thinking can have extremely interesting results in the spiritual realm, leading to neo-pagan, New Age, muti-cultural, and other wild conclusions that equally undermine Christianity. The diversification of spritual culture has probably more often been the outcome of increasing secularism in Western Europe than the rise of secular humanism and philosophical naturalism. So, we all may wind-up in the midst of a spiritual culture that looks more like the melange of religion in Japan, creating a stable yet dynamic balance of competing faiths in a secular polity over time. Such a spiritual marketplace might operate relatively well in a multipolar culture that relies more on secular institutions for a sense of shared values and national unity and international cooperation to function. But what exactly will prove to be possible and historically contingent remains to be seen.

At the very end, McGrath concludes that atheism cannot succeed when the Christian churches are approachable and above reproach. While this may be true, he doesn't entertain the possibility that a diffuse spiritual culture that would please neither the doctrinaire Christian or doctrinaire atheist may be the most likely outcome of all. Few took Pentecostalism very seriously at first, either.

For a better idea of what most atheists actually believe about atheism, Julian Baggini's Atheism: A Very Short Introduction is an excellent place to start. For an atheist's view on the history of atheism, Jonathan Miller's A Brief History of Disbelief. If you want your evangelical Christian bias reaffirmed, though, buy this book and don't read much else on the subject.

Alistair McGrath has written, for someone who enjoys history, an interesting look into the people and events of the past that made an impact on how theists and atheists view their respective philosophies. In that sense, the book deserves (imo) 5 stars. I gave it 3 stars because I think that Mr. McGrath gives too much credit to these forerunners of unbelief as far as modern atheism is concerned. Most of the atheists I know, and I know quite a few, came to atheism not from Freud or Feuerbach, but from being raised in a religious family and finding it all a bit suspicious. Most atheists were not raised by atheists. Many of them attended religious schools and entered adulthood as believers. It is not Voltaire that makes them change to atheism, but the Bible or the Book of Mormon or the Quran. One person can read the Quran and weep at the beauty and insight contained on its pages. Another person throws it aside as the ravings of a madman who heard voices. One person pores over the Bible as the Guide to Life, the Universe and Everything, while another person can't get over the stories of talking snakes, big fish that swallow people and a magician that walks on water and turns water into wine for parties to see what the big deal is about. It is all a matter of perspective. And of course atheists come across as angry -- they are usually treated like they're the devil by religious folk who hate and fear them. Why not be a little miffed? If Alistair McGrath expects atheists to accept his decision to believe in Jesus and be a Christian, one would hope that he would respect those who looked at the same evidence and came up with a different verdict.

Alister McGrath's "The Twilight of Atheism" is a well-meaning but shallow attempt to prove that atheism is on its way out. It doesn't come close to making its case.

I thought McGrath's previous book, "In the Beginning," about the creation of the King James translation of the Bible, was well-written and nicely done, if not quite up to the intellectual heft of competing books on the same subject published around the same time. But here he just falls on his face completely. To give just the most risible example, he claims that one of the more convincing examples of the rise in religiosity can be found in the trend toward more spiritually minded episodes of "Star Trek." The rest of the book doesn't get more profound than that.

McGrath is a former atheist/Communist turned Protestant convert, which might help explain his "more Anglican than the Archbishop of Canterbury" attitude, but the fact is that not only does he fail to make his case, he doesn't even seem to realize that the data he employs to make his case (such as the fact that "liberal" Christian denominations are hemorrhaging members while the more mindless branches of Christianity are thriving) can be adduced to prove exactly the opposite contention - that what we're seeing today in the rise of brain-dead Evangelical Christianity is a case of Christianity running around like a chicken with its head cut off, and that it's the sign of a dead-end rather than a renewal. I wouldn't presume to say that Christianity is on its way out (as Chou En-Lai once said about the French Revolution, it's too soon to tell), but the fact that Europe is now aggressively secular, while the Catholic Church among others is off desperately trolling for converts in the Third World, is not a particularly hopeful sign.

If you'd like to read a book that makes the argument for the existence of a supreme being, and does it in a way that's far more cogent and intellectually respectable, I would suggest you try Hans Kung's "Does God Exist?," which goes over much the same ground as this book and does it much better. Unless you're prepared to be satisfied with very simplistic answers to very knotty questions, give this one a pass.

There's an old cliche about the ferocity of the converted. McGrath's depiction of "atheism" demonstrates the validity of that assessment. Although he restrains his fury over the views of those who deny deities in the early parts of the book, his control erodes as the pages are turned. By the concluding chapter he's in full rant about those who have the temerity to leave the embrace of Christianity. In presenting this history of atheist thought in the Western world, he works in purely narrative mode, devoid of any analytical methods. Atheism, in McGrath's view, is a simple denial of established churches, projected to encompass their foundation, a remote deity.

McGrath's book purports to be a history of "atheism". From the outset he portrays it as a "movement" launched during the Enlightenment, later flourishing to a mild degree. He selects various thinkers who challenged the hegemony of Christianity in Western Europe over a single century - bracketed by the Fall of the Bastille and demolition of the Berlin Wall. Those dates are either signal flares or red flags to the reader, as McGrath understands well. The French Revolution, as a logical expression of the Enlightenment, sought to reject the overbearing Christianity France had suffered. As McGrath notes, both the revolution and the logic failed.

The author parades a gallery of "atheists", critical of the Church. With so many elements to criticise, they projected beyond Church institutions to its foundation deity. Among those in the line-up for judgment, McGrath hoists Voltaire, de Sade, Marx and Freud. If there is one atheist thinker that stands out in this rogues gallery, it is Ludwig Feuerbach. Feuerbach's analysis of the failings of Christianity became, in McGrath's view, a pillar of non-theist thinking. Both Marx and Freud, and many between turned to his ideas the most realistic. Although McGrath incessantly points out Feuerbach's financial difficulties [imposed by a deity?], he cannot help but note his lingering influence.

As McGrath warms to his theme, he seizes any opportunity to grant atheism a foundation role where he can discern one. Freud's psychoanalyis and admiration of Darwin are founded on atheism first and medicine after. Marx and Lenin's struggle to overcome the flaws of capitalism are driven by the desire to create a "godless" society. Finally, of course, the rise of Hitler's Nazi movement are founded on a dream of a society without divine guidance. Strange then, that McGrath conveniently overlooks Hitler's own "bible" declaring that in elminating the Jews, he was doing "the Lord's work". He also omits mention of Hitler's support from the Vatican.

Hitler, Lenin and others who dismisses Christianity and other religions pale into insignificance when McGrath reveals the real devil. Richard Dawkins, Britain's most eloquent athiest, appears again and again. McGrath drags Dawkins into view, excoriating the Darwinian's vilification of superstition and contempt of blind faith. In doing so, he rather overreaches himself. Accusing a man with a view 4 billion years deep of "ignoring history" is almost the ultimate irony. To McGrath, a convert from teen-age atheism, Dawkins refusal to follow his path is the ultimate heresy. With a reach crossing many borders and the impact he's likely to have on souls instead of just bodies, Dawkins is clearly the more formidable enemy. Besides, the others are long departed.

If there's anything humorous in this book, it's McGrath's attempt to reach the "younger set" with his reference to "spirituality" in the Star Trek TV series. He claims Gene Roddenberry restrained any Christian [he says "spiritual"] expression on the series. In doing so, he neglects to note it was Roddenberry's hope that religious sects would be shelved over the next three centuries. McGrath compounds this distortion by claiming one character restores a sense of "spirituality" to the series - Chakotay of ST: Voyager! The most opportunistic and devious character after Will Riker! Not an example to hold up for emulation. In any case, Chakotay's character worships ancestral spirits, one of the many "heathen" practices Christianity has expended much energy trying to eradicate.

In short, this book is just a cry of desperation. McGrath's focus on "atheism" as a movement against Christianity reveals a narrowness inexplicable for a man who teaches theology. McGrath lines up his enemies, mowing them down at the end of each presentation. As a Christian, he's unable to conceive of individuals finding faith inadequate. He wants an organisation that he can assault and dismember. It's not there. That makes it easy to pick off targets as they arise, but it fails utterly to subdue the notion that Nature shows there is no need for deities.
[stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]

Despite the off-putting smugness of this book's title Professor McGrath proves to be a genial writer who has some interesting insights on theism and atheism. Unfortunately, the book is also marred by misconceptions that are surprising given the author's obvious intellect and learning. To start, I am not sure that atheism is entering the twilight that the good professor claims. In the industrialized world, secularism seems entrenched in Europe and Japan, and is increasing even in that swamp of Christian piety, the United States. To be sure, membership in evangelical and fundamentalist Protestant sects has also increased, as has the number of Catholics, but as any sociologist of religion knows, figures on denominational membership are imprecise to say the least. The result of carefully designed and overlapping public opinion polls indicates that unbelief continues to gain ground in the U.S. Turning to the underdeveloped world, Professor McGrath has a solid case (backed up by historian Philip Jenkins in his book, "The Next Christendom"), but surely the burgeoning numbers of third-world Christians has a great deal to do with the truly desperate conditions under which many of them live. If I may modify remarks about Communism made by President Harry Truman before a joint session of Congress: "(Religion is) nurtured by misery and want. It spreads and grows in the evil soil of poverty and strife. It reaches its full potential when the hope of a people for a better life has died." In the face of wide-scale social breakdown and the alienation felt by formerly rural populations jammed into anonymous megacities, is it any wonder that religion serves as a source of community and help? On the other side of the coin, one might ask if religion will decline in third world societies as they transform into developed nations.

Professor McGrath brings an interesting perspective to the growth of atheism in the nineteenth century. He correctly notes that Karl Marx did not call for religious persecution; Marx simply thought religion would die off naturally in the envisaged workers' state because its consolations would no longer be needed. (How wrong that was!) He accurately quotes one of Marx's comments on religion: "Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people." However he wrongly states that this complete quotation is Marx's most famous statement about religion. Typically, only the last sentence is cited, and that is used to smear anyone to the left of Pat Robertson as hostile to religion. There are several more consequential mistakes about the views of Sigmund Freud. While Freud did compare religion to a mass neurosis, he chiefly viewed theistic religion as an illusion. (The title of his most extended work on religion was his book, "The Future of an Illusion".) An illusion is a misperception (as when someone mistakes a coil of rope in a darkened room for a snake, or thunder for the voice of the gods), in contrast to a delusion (a false idea) or a hallucination (a false perception originating entirely in the mind). Illusions are not in themselves a psychiatric condition. Contrary to what Professor McGrath implies, it would be considered a terrible breach of professional ethics for a psychotherapist to try to talk a client out of their religious beliefs. Psychotherapists, like plumbers, are hired (or invited) by clients to perform the job at hand--not to give extraneous opinions. Freud, whatever else one thinks of him, was entirely clear about that. Certainly there are therapists so caught up in their hostility to theistic religion that they commit the malpractice of overstepping their bounds; certain fervid Christians who hang out a psychotherapist's shingle (e.g., practitioners of "reparative therapy") can be charged with similar offenses.

An entire chapter is devoted to the noisy career (and terrible end) of Madalyn Murray O'Hair; but to what end? I did not need Professor McGrath's account to know that Mrs. O'Hair was a dreadful shrew who loved the sound of her own voice. Had she lived in a world of quiet agnostics, no doubt she would have wound up being a loud, obnoxious Christian, instead of a loud, obnoxious atheist. She is no more representative of atheists then the carrion-faced Reverend Fred Phelps is typical of Christians. Professor McGrath disapprovingly notes--among other unlovely traits--Mrs. O'Hair's antipathy towards homosexuals. At this, I can only recommend to the Professor and other Christians some prudent prescriptions regarding motes, beams, and eyes. In much of the United States today, it is still as dangerous for a known gay person (or someone merely thought to be such) to be out walking alone as it was (and sometimes still is) for an African American during the high noon of segregation. Perhaps individual Christians cannot be blamed for this state of affairs, but it was not Mrs. O'Hair or other atheists who poisoned the atmosphere with incessant attacks on gays as putative `menaces' to the family, the nation, the Earth, the Moon, the Solar System, and the Universe beyond.

Finally, and most bizarrely, the author pins his hopes for the return of religion on the rise of postmodernism. To think it was the redoubtable C.S. Lewis who wrote that, "Radical subjectivism is the death of the society that embraces it." A descent into an abyss of irrationality and it's companion, superstition, is a wholly bad thing--especially in an age that has religious enthusiasts such as Osama bin-Laden eagerly combing the world in search of fissionable material to construct a bomb. Unfortunately, Christians are not exempt from outbreaks of religious enthusiasm that start off commendably, but can degenerate quickly into hunts for scapegoats when the New Jerusalem fails to arrive on cue. (See Norman Cohn's book, "Pursuit of the Millennium" for a fascinating-and sometimes grotesque-history of medieval millennialism.) True, after the "witches" or Jews are burned, or the gay kid beaten to death, remorse may set in. Then Christians swear a mighty oath not to do it again, which holds until they do it again. Christians in search of corroboration of these points may wish to query gay or Jewish acquaintances, if they have any.

Professor McGrath insists that atheism must fade because religion has lost its oppressiveness and atheism is increasingly seen as flogging a dead horse. On the contrary, I predict that fanatical religion, armed with weapons from AK-47's to anthrax to tactical nukes, will produce (and is producing) a Golden Age of worldwide conflicts that will rival-if not surpass-the death tolls of the twentieth century from secular totalitarianism. (Yugoslavia, Rwanda, and Sudan are just curtain raisers.) Secular, democratic societies should beware of conservative Christians and radical Muslims joining forces against them the way German Communists and Nazis joined forces against the Weimar Republic, or the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany allied against western democracies from 1939 to 1941. The observation Lucretius made before the time of Christ still holds: "Numberless are the evils spawned by religion."

I am embarrassed for Oxford University for the first time in my 62 years. In "The Twilight of Atheism", Professor Alister McGrath has undermined my assumption that, in the age of the internet, one can depend upon academic pedigrees as a useful means for estimating the extent of wheat in the present abundance of chaff on controversial topics such as "science and religion."

If the argumentation he offers on "atheism" meets criteria for adequacy among his colleagues in his field of study called "historical theology," I suggest an external review of his entire department is in order. In the main, McGrath goes to great lengths to tell us a made-up story about the rise of atheism so that he can tell us a story of its decline. He acknowledges the work of Stark whose many studies have given the sociological data to show that there has never been a time when secularism held sway, yet McGrath insists on pretending that atheism has had a rise and fall. (When, in 1965, Time magazine gave a cover to the query "Is God Dead?", McGrath says "The public atheism that had taken its first faltering steps in the eighteenth century had finally come of age. P. 145" However, he offers no explanation of how we are to understand this claim. He offers no sociological, or any other kind of data in support.)

Why does he insist on the rise and fall narrative structure for his commentary? Is this the only imaginable hook for talking about various writers, who, over the centuries have raised questions about the adequacy of grounds for religious belief? The book hardly attempts to fulfill one claim announced on the book jacket, namely that it will "expose the flaws at the heart of atheism, and argue that the renewal of faith is a ...necessary response to its failures." By taking the pseudo historical approach he certainly has given himself permission to avoid looking closely at the adequacy of arguments for belief and for unbelief. No wonder the book jacket claims that the book will "unsettle believers and nonbelivers alike" since the views of neither are adequately argued. His editors knew.

And the prose, Oh My! Take this for example: "When the news of the French Revolution reached the universities of Germany, a sense of standing on the threshold of a new era appears to have dawned. (p. 51)" Now parse that sucker. Did the threshold dawn or did it only appear to "dawn?" Or, was it only the sense of standing in the threshold that either did or didn't appear? McGrath has given us the perfect summary judgment to apply to his book, the one he made of the writings of Feurback: "...notable more for the stridency of its assertions than the substance of its arguments."

It is ironic that McGrath's book came out in 2004 shortly before the books by the New Atheists: Sam Harris (2004); Richard Dawkins (2006); Daniel Dennett (2006) and Christopher Hitchins (2007). Since then McGrath has published two books that deal with the New Atheism, 'The Dawkins Delusion' (2007) and 'Why God won't go Away' (2011). In the main 'Twilight of Atheism' covers the history of atheism in the two hundred years between the fall of the Bastille in 1789 and the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. As a work on history he does a competent job, understanding the past helps us understand the present, and gives us a hint about the future. It is one of the ironies of history that the early Christians were called atheists (atheistos) because they challenged the validity of the pagan religious system. He should have spent a bit more time discussing the Soviet Union as the world's first atheist state; it would have made a good case study of what happens when atheists have power. It would be interesting to see what comrade Dawkins would do if he had real power, e.g. how would he go about eradicating the 'religion' virus?

The Soviet Union tried power to eradicate religion, but it did not work. This is a lesson from history, but it failed, which is evident to us all. Some have argued that he deals with hard atheism, but why should McGrath soft peddle on this issue? I was particularly intrigued by the biography of Madalyn Murray O'Hair (1919-1995) who was responsible for removing prayer and the bible from state schools in the USA, she was a hard line atheist, but her arguments were not very good, much the same as the New Atheists. If people object that McGrath is dealing with hard atheism, then I suggest that this is nothing when compared with the vitriol of the New Atheism. In some ways this book would have been much better if it was published three years later to take into account the New Atheism, but then I guess that the title would need to be changed.

So, you guys who want an atheist Utopia. It has been tried and tested, and found wanting.