The Evolution of the New Atheist Argument

In summarising the main arguments for and against the New Atheist argument, Anthony Gottlieb provides a fairly even (yet far from comprehensive) account of the evolution of 21st century atheism.

Through John Wisdom‘s 1944 Parable of the Invisible Gardener, Gottlieb looks at how the arguments of “religious apologists” such as Karen Armstrong are falling back on arguments grounded in unfalsifiable beliefs.

The parable of the gardener [raises] an unsettlingly powerful point about the nature of faith. If you believe something, shouldn’t it be possible to say what would make that belief true or false? What is the content of your so-called belief in the existence of a God, or of a gardener, if you cannot say what difference his presence or absence would make to the world?

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