This book examines the post-9/11 God debate in the West. Through a close study of prominent English God debaters Richard Dawkins, Karen Armstrong, Christopher Hitchens, and Terry Eagleton, Adrian Rosenfeldt demonstrates that New Atheist and religious apologist ideas and arguments about God, science, and identity are driven by mythic autobiographical narratives and Protestant or Catholic cultural heritage. This study is informed by criticism of the New Atheist polemic as being positivistic, and the religious apologists as propagating "sophisticated theology." In both cases, the God debaters are perceived as disassociating themselves from human lived experience. It is through reconnecting the God debaters' intellectual ideas to their cultural and social background that the God debate can be grounded in a recognisable human reality that eludes reductive distinctions and disembodied abstractions. Adrian Rosenfeldt is a teaching associate at La Trobe University and Melbourne University, Australia. His research interests and teaching involve classical sociology, cultural sociology, sociology of mental illness, modernism, and criminology. His current research focuses on different forms of humanism and identity-making as recognisable in the twenty-first century God debate.

Auteur

Adrian Rosenfeldt is a teaching associate at La Trobe University and Melbourne University, Australia. His research interests and teaching involve classical sociology, cultural sociology, sociology of mental illness, modernism, and criminology. His current research focuses on different forms of humanism and identity-making as recognisable in the twenty-first century God debate.

Contenu

Introduction2. Richard Dawkins: Public Professor of Science3. The Mythos of Karen Armstrong4. Christopher Hitchens' New Enlightenment5. Terry Eagleton's Revolution6. Conclusion