Unbelievable? delves back into history and asks Did new atheism fail? with one the world’s best-known theologians Alister McGrath debating Oxford-educated philosopher and wildly successful YouTuber Alex O’Connor. Prompted by a new book Coming to Faith Through Dawkins which published on 29th August 2023, the book edited by Denis Alexander and Alister McGrath gathered other intelligent minds from around the world Australia, S. Africa, Egypt, USA, and the UK to share their startling commonality: Richard Dawkins and his fellow New Atheists were instrumental in their conversions to Christianity.
Despite a wide range of backgrounds and cultures, all are united in the fact that they were first enthusiasts for the claims and writings of the New Atheists. But each became disillusioned by the arguments and conclusions of Dawkins, causing them to look deeper and with more objectivity at religious faith. The fallacies of Christianity Dawkins warns of simply don’t exist.
“This is a novel book: real-life stories of people who have actually come to faith, not in spite of but through Richard Dawkins. It must be his own worst nightmare!” – William Lane Craig
Alister McGrath is a former atheist who discovered Christianity while studying the natural sciences at Oxford University. He has held a number of senior appointments during his career, including Professor of Historical Theology at Oxford, before taking up the Andreas Idreos Professorship of Science and Religion at Oxford, from which he retired last year. He also served as President of the Oxford Centre for Christian Apologetics. McGrath is one of the world’s best-known theologians and apologists, and is the author of the internationally acclaimed textbook Christian Theology: An Introduction, which has been translated into twenty languages. With his wife, he wrote a critique of Richard Dawkins’s God Delusion which became an international bestseller. Later this year, he will publish a new textbook entitled Christian Apologetics: An Introduction. McGrath has three earned doctorates from Oxford University, in the natural sciences, theology, and intellectual history.
Alex O’Connor is a YouTuber and host of the Within Reason Podcast, a philosophy platform designed to present philosophical discussions in an accessible format. A graduate of philosophy and theology from St. John’s College, Oxford University, he is also an international public speaker and debater, having defended his philosophical convictions against a wide range of experts across multiple continents, whose online video material has been viewed more than seventy million times.
Alex O’Connor: https://www.youtube.com/user/alexjoconnor
Alister McGrath: http://alistermcgrath.weebly.com
Buy the book Coming to Faith through Dawkins: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Coming-Faith-Through-Dawkins-Christianity/dp/0825448220
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