REVIEW BY NICK MATTISKE
BOOK | INVENTING THE UNIVERSE: WHY WE CAN’T STOP TALKING ABOUT SCIENCE, FAITH AND GOD | ALISTER MCGRATH
Confronting the New Atheists is a bit like tidying up after toddlers. It’s continuous, there is an amount of tantrum throwing and, ironically in the New Atheists’ case, you can’t reason with them. It may at times seem pointless, but it is important to persist so that others don’t follow their lead.
Alister McGrath, a former atheist and physicist, and now C S Lewis-like apologist for Christianity’s reasonableness, has been battling the New Atheists for years. In particular Richard Dawkins, the Donald Trump of atheism, who attacks made-up enemies with half-truths, and has a minority fervent band of equally irrational followers.
We have heard much about the supposed clash of religion and science, but in his latest report from the frontline, McGrath is keen to point out that it is more of a clash between religion and a particular ideology – the reductionism from populists such as Dawkins.
At the core of this battle, and this book, is a clash over meaning. We all subscribe to grand narratives that give our lives meaning and a select few believe that science can explain everything. McGrath points out how this view is not the default position of science, but an ideology that ignores the fact that we negotiate our world using various mental maps.
Most interestingly, he reports on the recent findings of neuroscientists and anthropologists that religion is seemingly hard-wired into our brains. While some see this is as a necessary delusion engineered by evolution, McGrath, somewhat light-heartedly, says that religion’s ubiquity in human societies suggests that a rejection of religion is a cognitive deficiency.
The suggestion that the New Atheists are slightly crazy may align with the suspicions of some of us, and if they bothered to take note of McGrath’s provocative comment, it may induce more tantrum-throwing.
Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton Ltd
RRP: $19.99
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