David Marshall's The Truth Behind the New Atheism

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Speaking of the New Atheism movement...

My friend David Marshall, former missionary to Southeast Asia, now an increasingly prolific author of popular-level Christian apologetics, just alerted me that stock has arrived for his new book The Truth Behind the New Atheism: Responding to the Emerging Challenges to God and Christianity.

I expect this is an expanded version of an article he was going to write for _First Things_ last year, on Dennett's (then-)new book about the (merely) evolutionary source of religion--when he heard Dawkins was going to release _The God Delusion_, he decided to just wait and do a full book addressing both authors as his primary topical focus. (That's an educated guess on my part; hopefully I'll be able to find a way to do an interview for the site.)

He has managed to snag a couple of good pre-press reviews, too, from people like Paul Griffiths, Warren Chair of Catholic Thought at Duke Divinity School; and Rodney Stark, sociologist and historian, re-invested in recent years in the religious value of Christianity, but perhaps most well-known among scholarly Christians and sceptics alike for his famous, or infamous {g}, theologically neutral (indeed even naturalistic!) sociological analysis and assessment of the success of early Christianity in The Rise of Christianity.

I doubt any fan of Dennett or Dawkins is going to like what happens, no matter what; but in the past David has proven to be fairly fair about his targets--sometimes to the annoyance of people on our side who were hoping for more of a thrashing! (Not that he doesn't land pretty hard where he thinks it's warranted.) While I haven't read the book myself yet, I expect better-than-average results based on my past evaluations of his work. I'm hoping someone here on the Cadre will do a review (since I think I ought to recuse myself for association bias--as noted he's a friend of mine from years back.) But meanwhile, I can at least help announce that his book is heading for shelves soon! {g}

Comments

Arizona Atheist said…
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
1/06/2009 01:35:00 PM
Layman said…
Per the comment policy of this blog:

"This blog is open to comments by anyone interested provided: (1) the comments are civil, (2)they are on point, and (3) they do not represent efforts by the comment authors to steer readers to long posts on other websites."

The above, now deleted comment, was deleted because it violated the comment policy. The author is welcome to restate his points without including a gratuitous link to a long argument on
another website along with a serious accusation of dishonesty.
1/08/2009 03:50:00 PM
Arizona Atheist said…
Sorry, I wasn't aware of the policy.

That's alright though. All I wanted to expose was the fact that David Marshall's book was horribly argued. I detailed these facts in the refutation I wrote. I welcome anyone to critique it but no one has had the guts...even Marshall. People don't need the direct link to find the review...just have to click on my user name and go to my blog. The review is listed on the side. Feel free to stop by and argue against it if you'd like. Anyone. This is why I posted a link to begin with.

Thanks.

And Marshall has lied about me. Sorry, I don't censor truth.
1/08/2009 08:25:00 PM
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