Three hundred years after the Age of Enlightenment began some nonbelievers are worried that reason is losing out to religion. Their concern has provoked what's called a New Atheism movement. Proponents, who see the growing influence of religion in public life as an attack on reason and science, are fighting back with an intellectual movement that has produced several best-selling books. At the same time, surveys show that Atheists are America's least trusted people, and critics accuse them of being fundamentalists in their own right. Does religion foster ignorance and lead to violence and war? Can human society survive without it?
Are Atheists Evangelizing against God?
Credits
Guests:
- Richard Dawkins - Professor of the Science of Public Understanding at Oxford
- Francisco Ayala - Professor of Evolutionary Biology at UC Irvine
- Bob Edgar - General Secretary of the National Council of Churches
- Penny Edgell - Director of Graduate Studies in Sociology at the University of Minnesota