John Guillaumier recommends the reading of two bestsellers like The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins and God Is Not Great by Christopher Hitchens.
He opines that these two books help to dispel the delusions and absurdities of religious beliefs (October 29).
A biochemist and professor of historical theology at Oxford University says of The God Delusion: “Dawkins seems to think that saying something more loudly and confidently, while ignoring or trivialising counter-evidence, will persuade the open-minded that religious belief is a type of delusion.
“For the gullible and credulous, it is the confidence with which something is said that persuades, rather than the evidence offered in its support... ironically the ultimate achievement of The God Delusion for modern atheism may be to suggest that it is actually atheism itself may be a delusion about God” (The Dawkins Delusion, Alternet).
Michael Novak, an American Catholic philosopher, journalist, novelist and diplomat, stated of Hitchens: “Engaged in polemics, atheists like to do two things, which Hitchens certainly does: The first is to make fun of believers on every matter possible, even when that requires outrageous misstatements of fact and employs such clumsy logic as they would mock in others.
“The second is to generate as many incoherences in the faith of believers as their fertile minds can make up.
“Hitchens is in our time one of the great masters of mockery and satire” (Michael Novak, Christopher Hitchens Is A Treasure. A Good Useful Atheist).
In an earlier piece titled On Leaving The Church (September 14), Mr Guillaumier stated that he left the Church 45 years ago and that ever since he has experienced an integration of personality and feels whole. His scathing, disparaging and dogmatic remarks about believers belie his self-image.
It would do Mr Guillaumier no harm in expanding his repertoire of readings which would include contributions made by some of the most influential scientists and writers in the world who openly and cogently proclaim their belief in the existence of God, and others who renounced their atheism.
Mr Guillaumier’s silence on brilliant minds who renounced their atheism speaks volumes. The late Antony Flew, an English philosopher and one-time outspoken atheist immediately comes to mind.
He dismayed the unbelieving faithful when he announced in 2004 that God probably did exist.
In 2007, his death was confirmed by Roy Abraham Varghese, with whom he wrote There Is A God. How The World’s Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind. In the book he explained that he now believed in a supreme intelligence, removed from human affairs but responsible for the intricate workings of the universe.
Francis Sellers Collins is an American physician-geneticist, known for his discoveries of disease genes and his leadership of the Human Genome Project. On July 8, 2009, President Barack Obama nominated him to the position of director of the National Institutes of Health. A one-time atheist, as Collins considered himself, he subsequently spent time dealing with dying patients which led him to question his atheism and to investigate various faiths. He subsequently became an Evangelical Christian. In his 2005 book, The Language Of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence For Belief, Collins considers scientific discoveries an “opportunity to worship”.
A highly readable and enormously intellectually challenging book is History Of God by Karen Armstrong, an ex-nun. In this book, she set the stage for the question: has God a future? This book is certainly not for the timid or for the Christian, Judaic or Islamic fundamentalists who, by their dogmatic and intolerant lives, unwittingly wipe out the face and heart of God.
Militant atheists and religious fundamentalists should concern us all about the truth they tell us about God. Both are characterised by intensity, prejudice and hence intolerance. They tear at and ridicule opposite viewpoints. They shut the door on diversity of opinions which is a gateway to truth.