Chapter One

ONE

Not the Way to Invite a Conversation:
Dawkins, Dennett, and Harris


Atheists Speak Out

A recent shower of books by atheists-among them Letter to a Christian Nation by Sam Harris, Breaking the Spell by Daniel C. Dennett, and The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins-has fallen on the parched lips of lonely American atheists. These books have three purposes: to speed up the disappearance of biblical faith in America; to proselytize for rational atheism; and to boost morale among atheists, in part by calling attention to support groups to console them. Their overriding purpose is the first one: in Harris’s words, “to demolish the intellectual and moral pretensions of Christianity.” But the third one-to raise the morale of atheists-is not far behind.

All three books evince considerable disdain for Judaism, too. Dawkins calls it “a tribal cult of a single fiercely unpleasant God, morbidly obsessed with sexual restrictions, with the smell of charred flesh, with his own superiority over rival gods, and with the exclusiveness of his chosen desert tribe.” And the God of the Old Testament, Dawkins calls a “psychotic delinquent.”

It is not as if these authors admire Islam; rather, they use Islam as a weapon for bashing Christianity and Judaism. Harris says to Christians, “Nonbelievers like myself stand beside you, dumbstruck by the Muslim hordes who chant death to whole nations of the living. But we stand dumbstruck by you as well-by your denial of tangible reality, by the suffering you create in service to your religious myths, and by your attachment to an imaginary God.” In truth, though, the main inte