Atheist Delusions: The Christian Revolution and Its Fashionable Enemies

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Atheist Delusions: The Christian Revolution and Its Fashionable Enemies

4.25 of 5 stars 4.25 · rating details · 236 ratings · 52 reviews

In this provocative book one of the most brilliant scholars of religion today dismantles distorted religious “histories” offered up by Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, and other contemporary critics of religion and advocates of atheism. David Bentley Hart provides a bold correction of the New Atheists’s misrepresentations of the Christian past, countering their polem...more

Hardcover, 253 pages

Published April 21st 2009 by Yale University Press

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Aug 04, 2011 Jacob Aitken added it

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 sub...more

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Oct 14, 2011 Rachael rated it 3 of 5 stars

Hart takes on some of the prevailing themes in the popular New Atheist literature including the idea that religion has been a primary source of misery throughout history and that its effects were only mitigated as the chains of superstition were thrown off with the scientific revolution and enlightenment. He makes some interesting and no doubt valid points including that the witch hunts were not nearly as bad as is imagined and that the church actually tended to suppress them rather encourage th...more

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Aug 16, 2011 Ian marked it as to-read

Shelves: academia, history, languages, magic, mythology, philosophy, politics, religion, sciences-and-maths, society, war

I was going to dismiss this book as annoying polemic until I did a little further research. It is not, actually, a rebuttal directed at Dawkins & Hitchens & co. It is, actually, more of a rebuttal to Gibbons & Clarke & co. The author examines many of the myths about the history of Western civilization, detailing how much more complex it is than we are usually willing to admit, and how much of what we "know" is more akin to the tale of George Washington & the cherry tree than...more

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May 15, 2011 Tim rated it 5 of 5 stars

Theologian David Bentley Hart writes, not so much against the New Atheists who he dismisses in a couple of pages early and late. "The tribe of the New Atheists is something of a disappointment. It probably says more than it is comfortable to know about the relative vapidity of our culture that we have lost the capacity to produce profound disbelief." (220) Instead he writes, quite clearly, in almost Chestertonian fashion about modernity's demand for freedom, which he finds to be nihilism, and ad...more

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Mar 26, 2012 David rated it 5 of 5 stars

I've read this book twice, enjoying it immensely both times. The second time was so that I could share it with a book club made up of mostly scientific/engineering guys. I am the token religious one and they let me pick a book every now and again. I ended up being the book's champion in a crowd of skeptics who did not accept my enthusiasm. Hart's language no doubt mirrors the God Delusion books he mocks. The sentences are long. The heart of the book comes out of Hart's extensive study of church...more

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Aug 24, 2012 Scott rated it 2 of 5 stars

I wanted to like this book and did enjoy it as a discussion of Christian history, but as a rebuttal directed towards the so-called "New Atheists". Well, it wasn't. The "New Atheists" are popularizing atheism and directing it towards the masses. Their works are hardly nuanced enough to take the criticism of most academics, even those in agreement. But this can be true for other arguments too. It wouldn't be hard to pick a popular book on Christian apologetics written for laymen and tear it apart....more I wanted to like this book and did enjoy it as a discussion of Christian history, but as a rebuttal directed towards the so-called "New Atheists". Well, it wasn't. The "New Atheists" are popularizing atheism and directing it towards the masses. Their works are hardly nuanced enough to take the criticism of most academics, even those in agreement. But this can be true for other arguments too. It wouldn't be hard to pick a popular book on Christian apologetics written for laymen and tear it apart. So in my mind this book is like a stage for the great warrior to kill the rabbit. Sure, this book has a particular audience in mind, too. There's nothing wrong with that, but the arrogance that comes through for the "New Atheist" project does grow tiresome (that's not to say the "New Atheists" can't be guilty of arrogance too). Besides if all arguments became academic monographs, who in the masses would actually read them anyway. There is a place for such "popular" arguments and discussions. But academics, if anything, should recognize the difference, and the tone of their books, in my opinion, would be better if they reflected this. Maybe all parties can at least agree that it's refreshing to see an broad interest in such important questions.

But more importantly, this book only covers criticisms directed towards Christian history, which for anyone who has actually read the "New Atheists" would recognize isn't a significant (or read convincing) part of their argument anyway. To a large extent the "New Atheists" are only rehashing popular post-Enlightenment strains of thinking about Christianity. They are hardly adding anything new to the argument (which isn't surprising since they aren't historians). The argument is old, but anyone who knows much about history would recognize that interpretation can never be divorced from the interpreter's viewpoint and context. Hart is no different in how he frames his argument. Despite how one writes the history of the church, whether one chooses to demonize Christians or not, the fundamental argument of the "New Atheists" about the existence of a personal God and the value of faith/belief (or danger of faith/belief as Harris might argue) remains unanswered by Hart's argument.

This is too bad, because at times Hart does make reference to the "New Atheists" terrible understanding of philosophy and theology, but he never elaborates on what he means here. But it is here that something important can be said against the "New Atheists." And, perhaps, Hart's interpretation of Christian history can feed this, but in the end it just never does. He could have just as easily taken up the argument for a different interpretation of Islamic history, too, but he still wouldn't have challenged the core of the "New Atheists" argument that there is no personal God. To make matters worse, the history reads of Western nepotism (Centrism would work here too although I like the negative implications, biases and all implied by nepotism). Should we really be surprised to find so many good contributions from Christianity in Western history when Christianity has dominated Western history for so long, including the present and it's values, all this despite one's view of modernity and post-modernity? Even to a large extent Western atheism is a contribution of Western Christianity. A more honest comparison would be looking into the history of the East too. What really was the difference? Is charity really one of them? What about science? Some might consider this more a curse than a blessing. (less)

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Dec 06, 2012 Seth Holler rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

It's all good, but I enjoyed Hart's celebration of Christian virtues (Part 3) more than his historical corrective (Part 2). The bookends (Parts 1 and 4) are much shorter, and where he deals most directly with New Atheism.

Highlights:
Chapter 13, "The Face of the Faceless" is just extraordinary. Worth the price of admission, as they say.

Chapter 14 tells the story of Julian the Apostate with surprising sympathy.

Chapter 15 surveys the great theological controversies of the 4th and 5th centuries in se...more

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Oct 05, 2009 David rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: apologetics, church-history

Hart does not systematically respond to the "New Atheists" here, instead he focuses on aspects of their attack on Christianity relating to history. The general myth in our culture, promoted not just by new atheist but older critics of Christianity as well, is that the ancient world was a place of reason and prosperity until Christianity came along and replaced it with dogmatic faith, plunging western culture into centuries of "dark ages" from which we only emerged in the modern period with the E...more

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Jun 10, 2011 Tony rated it 4 of 5 stars

A polemic against the New Atheists (Dawkins, Hitchens, Dennett etc.) who accuse Christianity (even more than other religions) of having opposed science, hindered and resisted scientific research and advance, in the name of its obscurantist and life-denying dogma.

The New Atheists' arguments have become so widely accepted that many readers accept them without question as fact.

Hart, a historian of the early Church, argues that almost all of the New Atheists' assertions are simply untrue: the histor...more

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Mar 31, 2013 Eddy Allen rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: arts-and-historical

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Feb 22, 2010 Matt rated it 5 of 5 stars

Except for a strange interpretation of the gospel of John as a proto-gnostic or a para-gnostic work, this is a splendid correction of the New Atheists.

Hart captures the uniqueness of Christianity in the ancient world and the revolution that these New Atheists can't even begin to understand. It's like they're living in a house that owes its foundation and most of its framework to uniquely Christian architecture and all they can see is the wood, hay, and stubble in the corners. Hart spends most o...more

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Nov 01, 2009 Shelley rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: christianity, history, non-fiction

This book is a refreshing respite from the relentless onslaught of publications we've seen in recent years from the so-called New Atheists. If you've grown skeptical or weary of venomous titles like God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything, The God Delusion, or The End of Faith: Religion, Terror and the Future of Reason, or better yet, if you've found something compelling in these titles, David Bentley Hart's book is worth reading.

In Atheist Delusions: The Christian Revolution and Its...more This book is a refreshing respite from the relentless onslaught of publications we've seen in recent years from the so-called New Atheists. If you've grown skeptical or weary of venomous titles like God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything, The God Delusion, or The End of Faith: Religion, Terror and the Future of Reason, or better yet, if you've found something compelling in these titles, David Bentley Hart's book is worth reading.

In Atheist Delusions: The Christian Revolution and Its Fashionable Enemies, DBH seeks to expose the New Atheists for what they really are: popular and sensational writers who often rely on inconsistent, faulty and hyperbolic reasoning to advance their anti-faith claims. (I mean, really, "religion poisons everything"?) It is important to understand that this book is not a rant against atheism, but New Atheism. DBH laments the disappearance of yesteryear's logical and thoughtful atheists, people like Frederick Nietzsche who realized the rather frightening implications of their atheistic presuppositions. You will be hard pressed to find among the New Atheists a thinker like Sartre who will admit his disturbance in the face of God's absence, "for along with his disappearance goes the possibility of finding values in an intelligible heaven" ("Existentialism is a Humanism", 28). The terrifying implications, then, which Sartre had the courage to acknowledge, is that "[man:] is nothing more than the sum of his actions, nothing more than his life...[he:] commits himself and draws his own portrait, outside of which there is nothing" (37). Although he disagrees with their fundamental presuppositions, DBH does not try to hide his respect for the atheists of former times.

It is also important to understand that this book is not a defense of "religion," but rather Christianity, and the ways in which Christianity revolutionized the culture from which it sprang and the ways it has continued to leave an imprint on our thinking, even when we refuse to give credit where credit is due.

In an effort to try to correct some of the misconceptions about historic Christianity that have been popularized by the New Atheists and other postmodern thinkers, DBH steps into three roles: that of the philosopher, the historian and, to a lesser extent, the theologian. I liked him best as philosopher.

In the opening chapter of his book, DBH does an excellent job of highlighting, in a very cogent and intelligent way, the most egregious errors of New Atheism. He reminds us that we all bring presuppositions to the table, and that any New Atheist who believes that he has been endowed with the gift of perfect objectivity - that he has somehow parted with the chains of bias that enslave people of faith - is simply deluding himself. He also argues quite well that one's belief in Truth or Beauty or The Good hinges on one's belief in transcendence. Hart demonstrates that the New Atheists' claims, brought to their logical conclusions, "would ultimately erase any meaningful distinction between good and evil, compassion and cruelty, love and hatred, reverence and transgression, and few of us could bear to inhabit the world on those terms" (23). What distinguishes the New Atheists from their more logical and brave predecessors is that they refuse to acknowledge the implications of their claims. To use a popular cliche, they'd like to have their cake and eat it, too.

DBH as historian was certainly impressive, but I found it somewhat difficult to assimilate the many facts he presented into a coherent whole. I’m sure this is due to knowledge deficits on my part; he does assume, rightly or wrongly, that his readers will come to his text with an already-established foundation of historical knowledge. If you, like me, are largely ignorant of early Christian and Hellenistic history and culture, just hang on and try to enjoy the ride. Also, if you decide to read this book and are Protestant, you will probably be disappointed by that fact that he makes virtually no mention of the Reformation, even though he discusses people and events from that era. I realize that he himself is not Protestant, but how can a book that defends Christianity throughout the ages leave out the Reformation?

DBH as theologian was not my favorite, but this is to be expected when a theologically conservative Reformed Baptist interacts with the ideas of a theologically liberal Eastern Orthodox. I don’t fault DBH for allowing his theology to creep into his book – it is his book, after all – but he does take it for granted that his readers share his theological convictions, even ones that I’m not sure are widely accepted by the Christian community as a whole, like the doctrine of “divination.”

Overall this book is an engaging read and DBH is an impressive writer. Some Goodreads reviewers accused him of being a bit “snarky” and elitist, and I must admit, he is. Perhaps there were times when he could have tread more lightly on his opponents' views, but if any group deserves a dose of "snarkiness," it's the New Atheists. They've been asking for it, and DBH simply delivered.(less)

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Aug 06, 2012 Paul rated it 4 of 5 stars

I didn't start and finish this book in day, I started it months ago and finished it 7/31/12. This is the first book I added to Good Reads.

Excellent arguments though Hart can lose you and he uses words I'd never even heard of before--you need a dictionary at hand throughout!

This is not so much a book arguing for God's existence as it is a counter argument to the New Atheists' negative claims re Christianity. Hart makes very good points but does sometimes give in to negative characterization of th...more

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Jan 09, 2013 Joel rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: books-bought

This book REALLY should have had a different title. Just like even vaguely religious people would be reluctant to pick up any book called Religious People Are Morons, someone who is vaguely certain that "science" and modern views about human nature and history and politics are "better" than the way things were in the past will probably not pick up this book.

The book -- a "historical essay," according to its author -- is basically a survey of the social impact of Christianity in the 3rd and 4th c...more

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Dec 08, 2009 Sam Schulman rated it 4 of 5 stars

From my favorite Orthodox theologian, and the master of an beautiful and enviable prose style, an understated demolition of every anti-Christian cliche from Edward Gibbon to Daniel Dannett and Hitchens, pointing out that the alternative to Christianity in the West(for gentiles) always was and always will be more barbaric, more superstitious, more anti-science and more anti-semitic than Christianity has been. Jews, women, the intellectually curious, the freedom-loving, the tolerant and the indivi...more

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Sep 14, 2009 Jeremy rated it 4 of 5 stars

Brilliant, if biting, deconstruction of the "new atheism" as intellectually, academically inept. The best parts of the book are Hart's descriptions of Greco-Roman paganism and how Christianity brought a 'revolution' to that culture. As an Eastern Orthodox theologian, Hart writes about the Trinity, the Incarnation, the doctrine of creation with special skill and beauty. He is also the most helpful contemporary theologian I've read on the modern notion of freedom (see chapter two) and its influenc...more

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Mar 18, 2012 Stuart Yoder rated it 3 of 5 stars

If you can get past the combative, condescending tone in the early part of the book, this book has some good things to say. I think it is somewhat mis-titled, as the thrust of the book really has nothing to do with atheism. There is a certain mythology you see sometimes today that Christianity (and religion in general) is the source of oppression, wars, hatred, etc. This book walks through history and I think effectively addresses some of the accusations leveled against christians.

Rate it 3 star...more

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Feb 22, 2010 John Roberson rated it 4 of 5 stars

Hart is brilliant and knows more than I can imagine. Unfortunately, he's also smug and mean-spirited. He smacks around the facile claims of the so-called New Atheists and helpfully re-narrates the history of Christianity. Unfortunately, his derisive wit will probably turn off New Atheist sympathizers before he can say anything of substance, and he's not able to spend much time on the subject of what an intellectually serious detractor of Christianity might say.

For someone who says Christianity r...more

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Dec 26, 2012 David Robertson rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: apologetic

This is not a light read! (I should not have used is at my bedtime reading!). This is however a work of brilliance - its beginning is superb, as is its ending. To my mind it gets a bit bogged down in the middle (and if you are not into early history you will struggle). It is very intense and packed and cannot be skim read. But I think he does a superb job of deconstructing the shallow and wooly thinking of the new fundamentalist atheists. I love the section where he speaks about modern society h...more

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Dec 20, 2012 Jeff rated it 5 of 5 stars

I first encountered David Bentley Hart in his earlier book, "The Doors of the Sea: Where Was God in the Tsunami? That book, like the present volume is a penetrating study by a brilliant thinker. As I read "Atheist Delusions" I found myself envisioning a discussion between Hart and the late Christopher Hitchens. How interesting that would have been. If you are awake and paying attention you have most certainly heard the assertion made by a good number of shrill atheists that religion is a problem...more

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Jan 27, 2013 Jonathan rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: theology-aplogetic

The book stats off giving the impression that it is a full fledged apologetic against the "new Atheist" movement, but that is not where the author remains. His tone is initially very snarky--which is funny considering some of the comments that he is responding to (as he is simply matching them)--but he moves away from the vitriolic language as he shifts more "on topic": responding to particular 'over-generalizations' that have crept into the masses' presumptions about Christianity, its history,...more

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Nov 08, 2012 Glenn Myers rated it 4 of 5 stars

I thought I was going to enjoy this book when the librarian slowly handed it to me after reading the cover carefully and blinking several times. The first law of librarianship requires me to hand this to you, I figured he was saying, but I had no idea that anyone could be so perverted as to want to read it. This book is blasphemous about some of the gods of our bestseller shelves. It thinks the New Atheists are not just wrong but intellectual dwarves who previous generations of atheists would be...more

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May 25, 2012 Paul rated it 4 of 5 stars

Well that was a refreshingly well articulated read. I was a little put off at times by Hart's dismissive and almost sarcastic tone towards those he rails agin esp the first couple chapters. Hart is quite insightful and in the course of defending Christianity against the Athiesm/nihilism of our age he reveals the interplay between belief and society, it's morals, norms etc. A good read, esp. for someone involved in apologetics and for those interested in religion and sociology. I especially liked...more

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Nov 30, 2009 Mike E. rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Christians, skeptics, those interested in history

I learned a lot from Hart about history. This book is written by an academician writing for a popular audience and I think he succeeds. He does this not only by abandoning footnotes and copious documentation but by writing . . a story. It is not a terribly encouraging story. It is the story of Christianity and its dissipating influence. The New Atheists are the symptom, not the problem. This book is not really a response to Dawkins et, al.--it is a call for spiritual reformation and boldness.

In...more I learned a lot from Hart about history. This book is written by an academician writing for a popular audience and I think he succeeds. He does this not only by abandoning footnotes and copious documentation but by writing . . a story. It is not a terribly encouraging story. It is the story of Christianity and its dissipating influence. The New Atheists are the symptom, not the problem. This book is not really a response to Dawkins et, al.--it is a call for spiritual reformation and boldness.

In the book he masterfully articulates the impact and triumph of Christendom in centuries long past. He also leaves the reader with a pessimistic view of the future. This is where I would disagree with Hart. All Christianity is local. The power of God need not be seen in empires who formally embrace Christ or church dogma for Christ's church to be all that it should be. We don't need to be the leaders in art or government or the academy (though that would be nice!) for God to be doing great things.

In addition to learning much about history, Hart superbly describes the idol of the New Atheists and our secular culture in general--the ultimacy of the human will. On p. 20 he writes of the prevailing world view, "Those of us who now, in the latter days of modernity, are truest to the wisdom and ethos of our age place ourselves not at the disposal of God, or the gods, or the Good, but before an abyss, over which presides the empty power of our isolated wills, whose decisions are their own moral index." He rightly identifies that the dominant idol of our age is choice--and not what one is actually choosing.

I also profited by seeing Hart expose the "logic" and "integrity" of Nietzsche as compared to the absurdity and sloppiness of the New Atheists.

The thesis of Hart's book is this, "I wish to make no claims regarding the plausibility of truth or Christian belief, or of religious conviction in general. But the notion that the rise of Christianity coincided with or was assisted by some universal decay of the power of rational thought in late antiquity is simply insupportable (156)." In reality, the book does much more than this.

Hart's description of the conflict between Ambrose and Theodosius I on pp 195-96 was worth the price of admission for me. He masterfully describes this amazing interchange between the leaders of church and state and then shows the reader the transition from the church's primacy over the state to the battle between the church and state to where we find ourselves today with what he calls the "cult of the state."

I rate it only 4 stars because I had a hard time hanging on in the middle of the book and for some questionable theological statements that are superfluous to the gist of the book (but not to God!).

I think that this is the only book that I have ever read by someone who is Eastern Orthodox. My prayer is that God would grant us more scholars like this guy. I don't think evangelicals have anyone like this--do we? Here's a link to a short article by him

http://www.firstthings.com/onthesquar...

(less)

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Oct 05, 2009 Toby rated it 3 of 5 stars

Just finished (finally). Two thoughts:

The first hundred pages or so of this book are just grand. Hart's bombastic and over-the-top rhetoric is in some of his other work pretty obtuse, perhaps unintentionally, and in other books one wonders how much intellectual flexing is going on. And perhaps there are works of his where it is just part of the jargon of doing philosophy in our world. But whatever the case, Hart's rhetoric is perfect for laying out the new atheists. He mocks them, harasses them,...more Just finished (finally). Two thoughts:

The first hundred pages or so of this book are just grand. Hart's bombastic and over-the-top rhetoric is in some of his other work pretty obtuse, perhaps unintentionally, and in other books one wonders how much intellectual flexing is going on. And perhaps there are works of his where it is just part of the jargon of doing philosophy in our world. But whatever the case, Hart's rhetoric is perfect for laying out the new atheists. He mocks them, harasses them, and generally has a great time of showing how their history and reasoning and logic are about as complex and meaningful as a six year old on a playground. There is some really useful historical work in this book as well, countering some of the more common claims that Christianity generally introduced anti-intellectualism, tyranny, and the mistreatment of women and slaves into the world. Hart handily dismantles various attempts at this and frequently shows that the reverse is actually the case. And he does this without glossing over various failures and problems in the story as well.

On the flip side, the book ends rather bland. While it doesn't quite reach shrill, his tone is far more tragic as the pages go on. Where he begins almost triumphalistically, calling the new atheists cowards and buffoons, he fears that their popularity is a symptom of a broad and grand sweeping change in the modern intellectual and religious landscape that signals the overwhelming retreat of Christianity from western culture. He cites the monastic movement as perhaps something of what the modern Church has to look forward to. And this tragic, retreatist conclusion was the most disappointing. While it's absolutely true that the Lord may have His people in a period of decline, and the scenery may change significantly as this occurs, this retreatist mentality is exactly what got us here in the first place. Now Hart is most certainly not advocating "running away," and his book is a clear example of cultural engagement. But his book begins as a rallying call, looking back at the progress of the gospel down through the centuries, despite many weaknesses and failures on the part of believers. But when it comes to the present, Hart fails to see the same possibilities, the same gospel leaven at work, and one gets the sense that Hart is something of a romantic, looking back in longing for the old days and rather bewildered by the modern world he faces.

Definitely worth the read, but also definitely disappointing, especially after such a fun start to the book. I see that I apparently rated this book before I finished it. Given the ending, I'm taking back one of those stars. Only three stars.(less)

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Oct 05, 2009 Lyndon rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: theology

I like Hart well enough; but this is an odd sort of essay. Sure, he makes quick work of the New Atheists, dismantling their optimistic (and misleading) adoption of reason over religious belief and practice. Hart slices and dices the arguments that under girds much of the Atheistic fervor with his usual rhetorical skill and quick wit. Yet his arguments (coherent as they might be) are made without much attention to the usual copious listings of footnotes or bibliography that are usually part of hi...more

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Mar 29, 2013 Jamie Howison rated it 4 of 5 stars

I almost wish that Hart had foregone the opening section of this book, in which he gets as scrappy and aggressive as those he's challenging (Hitchens, Dawkins, and company), because by the time he really hits his stride it becomes not really about the new atheism at all, but rather a soaring portrayal of how the Christian faith transformed what it means to be human. That part of his book is gorgeous (and is worth five stars), while his argumentative beginning is frankly not all that appealing.

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Jan 26, 2013 Scott B. rated it 5 of 5 stars

David Bentley Hart offers a masterful polemic in defense of the Christian historical record. He writes with more verve and wit than Christopher Hitchens, reasons more logically than Daniel Dennet, draws clearer analogies than Richard Dawkins, and puts Sam Harris' awkward pseudo-scientific ethics to shame with heavy doses of the real thing. Although awkward apologetics crowd the shelves of the Christian bookstore, this is the single best book to give the self-righteous atheist in your life.

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Dec 02, 2010 Asher Gregory rated it 4 of 5 stars

One of the more better done books to try and justify goodness to Christianity. Intelligently done unlike many of those feel good Jesus loves you nonsense that take into account absolutely no history of the faith. This is good. A lot of history. No denial that there is blood on the hands of Christians and yet it shows there is a great deal of good. He makes a lot of good points about atheists. If it weren't so late I would write more but I have insanely early class tomorrow and just not into it.

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Jun 30, 2009 Derek Holt rated it 5 of 5 stars

No one speaks more clearly or profoundly than David Hart. This book - like all his books - was not "easy" to read, but it was compelling, enlightening and even disturbing, taking into account the gross position of willful ignorance our age assumes toward history. Serious Christians - or even Christians floundering in the wake of the recent torrent of popular skepticism - would do very well to read this one.

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About David Bentley Hart

Hart is an Eastern Orthodox writer and a professor of philosophy and theology. He has taught at Duke Divinity School, the University of Virginia, and the University of St. Thomas.

More about David Bentley Hart...

Books by David Bentley Hart

The Doors of the Sea: Where Was God in the Tsunami?

The Beauty of the Infinite: The Aesthetics of Christian Truth

The Story of Christianity: An Illustrated History of 2000 Years of the Christian Faith

In the Aftermath: Provocations and Laments

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“. . . [Nietzsche] had the good manners to despise Christianity, in large part, for what it actually was--above all, for its devotion to an ethics of compassion--rather than allow himself the soothing, self-righteous fantasy that Christianity’s history had been nothing but an interminable pageant of violence, tyranny, and sexual neurosis. He may have hated many Christians for their hypocrisy, but he hated Christianity itself principally on account of its enfeebling solicitude for the weak, the outcast, the infirm, and the diseased; and, because he was conscious of the historical contingency of all cultural values, he never deluded himself that humanity could do away with Christian faith while simply retaining Christian morality in some diluted form, such as liberal social conscience or innate human sympathy.” — 8 people liked it

“I can honestly say that there are many forms of atheism that I find far more admirable than many forms of Christianity or of religion in general. But atheism that consists entirely in vacuous arguments afloat on oceans of historical ignorance, made turbulent by storms of strident self-righteousness, is as contemptible as any other form of dreary fundamentalism. And it is sometimes difficult, frankly, to be perfectly generous in one’s response to the sort of invective currently fashionable among the devoutly undevout, or to the sort of historical misrepresentations it typically involves.” — 3 people liked it

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BBCode	[url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/863971.Atheist_Delusions?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book][img]http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1328827616l/863971.jpg[/img][/url] [url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/863971.Atheist_Delusions?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book]Atheist Delusions: The Christian Revolution and Its Fashionable Enemies by David Bentley Hart[/url]

Atheist Delusions: The Christian Revolution and Its Fashionable Enemies

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