The New Atheists and Criticism of the Canon — Abrahamic Religions 5 (C1)

THE ABRAHAMIC RELIGIONS · LESSON 5 OF 5

The New Atheists and Criticism of the Canon

C1 (B2–C2) · 70 minutes

The motion

Task Write one number for the motion. Keep it: you will vote again at the end.

1

strongly agree

2

mostly agree

3

on the fence

4

mostly disagree

5

strongly disagree

Religion is a force for good in the world.

This was the motion when the writer Christopher Hitchens debated the former British prime minister Tony Blair in Toronto in 2010.

A

TEXT A

The case against faith

Task (Partner A) Read Text A. Explain the New Atheists' four charges to your partner in your own words, without reading them out.

In the years after the attacks of 11 September 2001, four bestselling books turned private doubt into a public movement. Sam Harris began The End of Faith (2004) within weeks of the attacks. Richard Dawkins's The God Delusion and Daniel Dennett's Breaking the Spell followed in 2006, and Christopher Hitchens's God Is Not Great in 2007. Wired magazine named them the New Atheism in November 2006, and in

September 2007 the four met at Hitchens's home in Washington for a filmed conversation later known as "The Four Horsemen".

Their case had four strands. First, Dawkins treated God as a scientific hypothesis: a claim about the universe, to be judged on evidence, which he argued almost certainly fails, since a designer complex enough to make a universe would itself need explaining.

A

TEXT A · CONTINUED

The case against faith

Second, they described faith as belief without evidence, and argued that the special respect it enjoys shields ideas from the scrutiny any other claim would face. Third, they listed the harm done in religion's name: holy wars, terrorism, the persecution of heretics and unbelievers, the control of women. Hitchens's subtitle, How Religion Poisons Everything, put it bluntly. Fourth, they argued for morality without God: our moral sense has roots

in evolution and culture, and nobody needs belief to be good.

Dennett added a research programme: religion is a natural phenomenon, and the "spell" to break is the taboo against studying it scientifically.

B

TEXT B

The case against the New Atheists

Task (Partner B) Read Text B. Explain the critics' replies, and what became of the movement, to your partner in your own words, without reading them out.

Replies came from inside and outside religion. The theologian Alister McGrath, who also holds a doctorate in molecular biophysics, answered with The Dawkins Delusion? (2007), written with the psychologist Joanna Collicutt McGrath. They argued that Dawkins misread theology and the evidence about religion, and that his certainty mirrored the fundamentalism he opposed.

Some sharp critics were defending

no church. Reviewing The God Delusion in 2006, the literary critic Terry Eagleton argued that Dawkins had attacked a God few theologians believe in: not a very large being inside the universe, competing with science, but the reason there is anything at all. The historian of religion Karen Armstrong argued in The Case for God (2009) that the New Atheists read scripture as literally as fundamentalists do, ignoring centuries of non-literal reading.

B

TEXT B · CONTINUED

The case against the New Atheists

Both, in effect, accused them of attacking a straw man: a weak version of an opponent's view, built to be knocked down.

A second charge was political. In 2013 writers including Glenn Greenwald and Murtaza Hussain argued that some New Atheist writing on Islam had slid into anti-Muslim rhetoric. Harris rejected this: criticising ideas, he insisted, is not bigotry against people.

Others answered the charges of harm and morality.

Armstrong's Fields of Blood (2014) argued that most violence blamed on religion was driven by states and politics. The historian Tom Holland's Dominion (2019) argued that the values the New Atheists judged religion by, such as human equality and care for the weak, grew out of Christianity. Meanwhile the movement itself split in the 2010s over sexism and politics, and lost much of its energy.

Charge and reply

Task Partner A states each charge. Partner B gives the critics' reply from Text B, if there is one. Together, write a letter for each charge.

R = the critics reply directly · P = they reply in part · N = Text B has no reply

1. God is a scientific hypothesis, and it fails.

2. Faith is belief without evidence.

3. Religion does great harm in the world.

4. People can be good without God.

Then decide: which charge did the critics answer best, and which did they leave standing?

How the books were made

An older, quieter debate asks not whether religion is true, but how its books came to be.

The Torah's sources

Mark first, and Q

The oldest Quran leaves

Scholars note that the Torah tells some stories twice, names God differently and shifts in style. The documentary hypothesis, given its classic form by Julius Wellhausen in 1878, explained this as four sources, J, E, D and P, woven together. Many scholars, especially in Europe, now prefer other models, though most still recognise D and P. Orthodox Jews hold that God gave the Torah to Moses; Reform Jews accept critical study.

Matthew, Mark and Luke share long passages, often word for word. Most scholars explain this synoptic problem by holding that Mark came first and the others used him. Matthew and Luke also share sayings absent from Mark, often credited to a lost source, Q (German Quelle, "source"), though no copy exists and some scholars argue Luke simply used Matthew. The Catholic Church's Pontifical Biblical Commission (1993) called historical-critical study "indispensable"; some conservative Protestants remain wary.

In 2015 the University of Birmingham announced that two Quran leaves (parts of Surahs 18 to 20) were on parchment radiocarbon-dated to 568–645 CE; their text closely matches today's. The Sana'a palimpsest, found in Yemen in 1972, hides an erased Quran text with variant wording and a different surah order. Many Muslim scholars see such finds as confirming an early, faithfully kept text; others, such as the historian Tom Holland, say they unsettle the traditional account.

How the books were made

Task Read each card. For each, write two sentences: one beginning It shows… and one beginning It does not show…

The Torah's sources

It shows…

It does not show…

Mark first, and Q

It shows…

It does not show…

The oldest Quran leaves

It shows…

It does not show…

Faith and the scholars

Task Read the four positions. Agree which is easiest to defend and which is hardest. Then discuss three or more of the questions.

A

Scholarship shows how sacred texts reached us through human hands. Faith can live with that.

1. Should universities study scripture exactly like any other ancient text?

2. Is it fair to apply methods built for the Bible to the Quran?

3. Would a believer and a sceptic read the Birmingham dates differently? Should they?

4. Should schools where you live teach how sacred texts were formed?

5. Did the New Atheists need this scholarship, or is it a separate debate?

B

If people assembled a text over centuries, its authority is gone.

C

Scholarship can say how a text was written, never whether it is true.

D

The scholarship rests on assumptions, such as ruling out revelation, that believers need not share.

Arm yourself

Task Choose your side. Pick two cards to use, and one card from the other side that you will need to answer.

For the motion

Against the motion

A. Faith communities run schools, hospitals, food banks and refugee aid worldwide, often where the state does not reach.

E. Religion has supplied motives and blessings for crusades, persecutions and terror attacks, from the Middle Ages to 11 September 2001.

B. Believers led great reform movements: Quakers and evangelicals against the slave trade, the Baptist minister Martin Luther King Jr. for civil rights.

F. Faith praises belief without evidence, a habit that weakens reasoning and makes people easier to mislead.

C. In the US and several other countries, actively religious people report more happiness and vote and volunteer more (Pew Research Center, 2019).

G. Religious law is still used against women and gay people; in some countries apostasy or blasphemy can carry the death penalty.

D. Take religion away and people fight under other banners. The officially atheist states of the twentieth century were no gentler.

H. Goodness does not need God: Denmark and Sweden, among the least religious countries, rank among the world's happiest and least corrupt.

The debate

Task Debate the motion in this order. Use at least two cards from Arm yourself and at least one idea from today's texts or cards.

1. Opening speech, For: 2 minutes

2. Opening speech, Against: 2 minutes

3. Reply to the other side, For then Against: 1 minute each

4. Open exchange: 3 minutes

5. Closing line, Against then For: 30 seconds each

Religion is a force for good in the world.

Your second vote

Task Vote again. Compare your number with your vote on The motion.

1

strongly agree

2

mostly agree

3

on the fence

4

mostly disagree

5

strongly disagree

Religion is a force for good in the world.

Did the debate move you, and which argument did it?

Private reflection

Task Choose one prompt and write privately. Nobody will read what you write. Sharing afterwards is optional.

Prompt 1

Think of someone you know, or a character in a book or film, who changed their mind about religion, in either direction. What moved them: an argument, a person, or something else?

Prompt 2 (lighter)

Of everything in these five lessons, which story or idea would you most like to read more about, and where would you start?

Back to the beginning

Task Rate the four statements from Lesson 1 again. Has anything moved over five lessons? If so, what moved it?

1

strongly agree

2

mostly agree

3

on the fence

4

mostly disagree

5

strongly disagree

Jews, Christians and Muslims worship the same God.

The three religions have more in common than they have differences.

You can understand the history of Europe without knowing these stories.

Religion is more about what you do than what you believe.

Five lessons, three traditions, and arguments that are still going on. Thank you for joining them.

TEACHER'S REFERENCE · SKIP OR DELETE BEFORE CLASS

Answer key (1)

CHARGE AND REPLY suggested letters; students may argue for others

• 1. God is a scientific hypothesis: R. Eagleton and Armstrong reply that the God of classical theology is not a being inside the universe to be tested like a hypothesis, and that the New Atheists attacked a straw man. McGrath also says Dawkins misread theology.

• 2. Faith is belief without evidence: P. McGrath and Armstrong dispute the New Atheists' picture of faith and of how scripture is read, but Text B does not set out what evidence believers would point to.

• 3. Religion does great harm: R or P. Armstrong replies that most violence blamed on religion was driven by states and politics; the critics also turn the charge round, arguing that some New Atheist writing on Islam itself did harm (Harris rejects that). Text B does not deny that harm has been done in religion's name.

• 4. People can be good without God: P. Holland does not deny that unbelievers can be good; he argues that the values they are good by came historically from Christianity. Whether that matters to the charge is arguable. (Dennett's research programme goes unanswered in Text B.)

TEACHER'S REFERENCE · SKIP OR DELETE BEFORE CLASS

Answer key (2)

HOW THE BOOKS WERE MADE model answers

• The Torah's sources. It shows that the Torah has features (doublets, different names for God, shifts of style) that many scholars explain by several sources written over time. It does not show which model is right (the classic four-source scheme is now contested), exact dates or authors, or whether the text is revealed: that is a theological question historical method cannot settle.

• Mark first, and Q. It shows that the first three gospels depend on one another in writing, most likely with Mark first. It does not show that Q existed (no copy survives, and some scholars dispense with it; a minority also defend Matthew's priority), nor whether the events the gospels describe happened or what they mean.

• The oldest Quran leaves. It shows that the animal whose skin made the Birmingham parchment died, with 95.4% probability, between 568 and 645 CE, and that these passages then read much as they do today; the Sana'a lower text shows that a Quran text with different wording and surah order circulated in the seventh century. It does not show exactly when the ink was written (parchment could be stored for years before use), whether the leaves predate the standard text (van Putten argues their spelling shows they descend from it, and Shoemaker that radiocarbon dates for early Quran manuscripts tend to run early), or whether the Quran is revealed. Sadeghi and Goudarzi (2012) found that the Sana'a variants are often substantial but rarely change the basic meaning.