My Year with God is well-intentioned, but ultimately highlights the complacency at the heart of modern secular thinking, writes Niall Gooch
In the early years of this century, one of the most striking cultural trends was emergence of a hard-edged and belligerent unbelief that came to be called the New Atheism. Professor Richard Dawkins was among the best-known members of this tendency, which also included the late Christopher Hitchens.
They could be well summed-up by Winston Churchill’s definition of a bore: “a man who can’t change his mind and won’t change the subject”. However, not all writers and intellectuals outside the faith should be identified with this tendency. There have been contributions to the debate that manage to strike a more constructive tone. The volume on atheism in Oxford University Press’ Very Short Introduction series, by the philosopher Julian Baggini, is unsatisfactory in certain respects, but generally thoughtful and non-confrontational.
