atheism and the argument for it?

Last year when I had a working tv, I happened to switch on the program Big Ideas and hear Alistair McGrath on Richard Dawkin's book The God Delusion. Well I took a few notes and this last week I came across them while spring cleaning. Time to post them.

McGrath states Dawkins has 4 prime assertions.

1. Belief in God is irrational (read immature) like belief in Santa and the tooth fairy
2. Science demonstrates there is no God
3. Faith can be explained
4. Faith leads to violence

Alister McGrath, Professor of Historical Theology at Oxford University is a former atheist and scientist turned theologian and well qualified to confront Dawkins with his own book The Dawkins Delusion. He argues this is a weak book which is -

"marred by its excessive reliance on bold assertion and rhetorical flourish, where the issues so clearly demand careful reflection and painstaking analysis, based on the best evidence available. Attractive precisely because it is simplistic, Dawkins demands the eradication of religion. Only when it is eliminated can the human race rest secure! Get rid of religion, and the world will be a better place. It is a familiar theme, if stated with greater fervor than before.”

It seems to me both Dawkins and McGrath are working in a charged environment and both are working from faith positions. The more unfortunate is that Dawkins cannot see that his position is not only NOT a neutral position but in fact his also a faith position. Richard Dawkins, in the earlier The Selfish Gene, developed the idea of the meme which is a unit of sociocultural information, such as a practice or idea (or even belief), that gets transmitted verbally or by repeated action from one mind to another. Religion and belief and the idea of meme seems to be viewed negatively. Are we not seeing Dawkins with a meme in action? Working out of a faith tradition?

You can find an mp3/podcast of the program here if you're interested.

The fool says in his heart,"There is no God." Psalm 14:1, Psalm 53:1