From Link
The atheist writers Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens have presented us with a choice: either you don't believe in God or you're a dope. "It is perfectly absurd for religious moderates to suggest that a rational human being can believe in God, simply because that belief makes him happy," writes Harris in the 2005 "Atheist Manifesto" now posted on the Web site of his new nonprofit, The Reason Project. Their brilliance, wit and (general) good humor have made the new generation of atheists celebrities among people who like to consider themselves smart. We enjoy their books and their telegenic bombast so much that we don't mind their low opinion of us. Dopey or not, 90 percent of Americans continue to say they believe in God.
This iteration of the faith-versus-reason debate has gone on for years, with no real resolution. Men (yes, mostly men) of faith have published passionate defenses of God. (See Tim Keller's 2008 The Reason for God.) In response, believers have published accounts of journeys toward unbelief; atheists have testified to conversions. The latest entrant in this category is from the Marxist Terry Eagleton: Reason, Faith, and Revolution: Reflections on the God Debate. Yet despite the proliferation of viewpoints, I'm guessing few readers have ever closed one of these volumes and honestly declared themselves changed.
Robert Wright's The Evolution of God, which comes out next week, is about to reframe this debate. Wright doesn't argue one side or other of the "Is God real?" question. He leaves that aside. Instead, he grapples with God as an idea that has changed—evolved—through history.
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