An examination of the theories and writings of Richard Dawkins by a world-renowned expert on the relation of science and religion. It includes in-depth analysis of Dawkins' landmark treatise The God Delusion (2006). It tackles Dawkins' hostile and controversial views on religion, and examines the religious implications of his scientific ideas.
"a brilliant book . . .it is difficult to think that the exposition of Dawkins' writings and their religious implications, will ever be better stated, explored, and criticized."
Times Higher Education Supplement
Praise for the previous edition
"Wielding evolutionary arguments and carefully chosen metaphors like sharp swords, Richard Dawkins has emerged over three decades as this generation's most aggressive promoter of atheism. In his view, science, and science alone, provides the only rock worth standing on. In this remarkable book, Alister McGrath challenges Dawkins on the very ground he holds most sacred - rational argument - and McGrath disarms the master. It becomes readily apparent that Dawkins has aimed his attack at a naive version of faith that most serious believers would not recognize. After reading this carefully constructed and eloquently written book, Dawkins' choice of atheism emerges as the most irrational of the available choices about God's existence."
Francis Collins, Director of the Human Genome Project
"In this tour-de-force Alister McGrath approaches the edifice of self-confident, breezy atheism so effectively promoted by Richard Dawkins, and by deft dissection and argument reveals the shallowness, special-pleading, and inconsistencies of his world-picture. Here is a book which helps to rejoin the magnificence of science to the magnificence of God's good Creation."
Simon Conway Morris, Professor of Evolutionary Palaeobiology, Cambridge University, UK
"Here Alister McGrath announces what every Darwinian Fundamentalist needs to hear: that science is and always has been a cultural practice that is provisional, fallible, and socially shaped - an enterprise to be cultivated and fostered, but hardly worshipped or idolized. A devastating critique."
David N. Livingstone, Professor of Geography and Intellectual History, Queen's University, Belfast, UK
Is the gene actually selfish? Is there really a "God-meme"? Does religion only cause violence and bigotry and is it at war with science?
In this fascinating and provoking study, Alister E. McGrath, a world-renowned theologian, addresses these and other questions sparked by the work of Richard Dawkins, one of the world's best-known atheists. This expanded and fully revised new edition now includes coverage of Dawkins' blockbuster The God Delusion, plus a new chapter on Dawkins as a popularizer of science, along with extensive updates reflecting the evolution of popular and scholarly debate on Dawkins' work. McGrath masterfully tackles Dawkins' hostile and controversial views on religion, and examines in depth the religious implications of his scientific ideas. This accessible and engaging book is a must-read for anyone interested in better understanding the interplay between science and religion.
