He claims that the Western world was awakened from its tolerant sleep mainly by terrorist attacks like the one on the Twin Towers. With screams „God is great“ extinguished thousands of lives.

In this atmosphere, the New Atheists began to preach their gospel about the perniciousness of any religion and the saving power of scientific atheism, secularism, and humanism. They argued that if everyone became an atheist, the world would be better.

In addition, the Internet and social media have expanded, allowing „ use of certain manipulation tactics at the global level“.

According to Wood, atheists recruited into their ranks in the style of „join this group and you will be better than everyone else“. Unlike „religiotardov“ (a combination of the words religion and retard), infidels are intelligent adherents of science. Believers, therefore, deserved ridicule (as Dawkins himself called for.

New Atheism gained prominence during a specific period. Today, however, as the spirit of the times has changed, even its sworn enemies speak kindly of Christianity. The most prominent figure in this shift is Oxford evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins. He embodies the strengths and weaknesses of New Atheism himself. His change of opinion, albeit slight, is nevertheless significant, and shows that the Western story of faith and secularisation is far from over.

The God Delusion
The criticism from the new atheists was often superficial yet attention-grabbing, which may explain their success on the early internet. To this day, quotes, paraphrases and ideas originating from the works of this movement’s members circulate on social networks.

The crowning achievement was Dawkins’ 2006 book The God Delusion. Its proponents used it as a weapon against Christian superstition.

In the book, Dawkins echoes the view of the writer and philosopher Robert Pirsig that ‘when one person suffers from a delusion, it is called insanity; when many people suffer from a delusion, it is called religion’.

Dawkins seeks to defend the idea that religion is “an accidental by-product — a malfunction of something useful”. From a social perspective, he argues that faith “undoubtedly represents a divisive force”, and describes the God of the Old Testament as “the most unpleasant character in all works of fiction”.

He compares religious education to indoctrination or mental abuse.

The book concludes by asserting that, while religion does provide comfort, secular alternatives are superior in this respect. The benefits of science and philosophy far outweigh the distractions of faith.

Philosopher Dawkins
Dawkins routinely mocked attempts by philosophers and theologians to refute the theory of evolution. And rightly so — they were dabbling in a field they did not sufficiently understand, which led to embarrassing mistakes. However, Dawkins himself is guilty of the same error.

In The God Delusion, he used a variety of disciplines to refute and criticise religion. However, as a biologist with no background in sociology, political science, philosophy or theology, he ventured into unfamiliar territory.

‘The God Delusion makes me ashamed of being an atheist,’ wrote philosopher of science Michael Ruse. According to Ruse, Dawkins would not pass even an introductory course in philosophy or religion because he ‘proudly criticises what he knows nothing about’.

Czech priest and philosopher Tomáš Halík expressed a similar view: ‘I respect Dawkins’ contribution to science, but I cannot take his pseudo-philosophy seriously now he’s become an ideologue. After mocking the biblical Book of Genesis, he was asked by Rabbi Sacks if he had read any of the extensive professional theological literature on interpreting the Bible. It turned out that he was unaware of any of it.”

‘Mocking religion and not knowing contemporary religious thought is as wrong as wanting to discredit science by pointing out the mistakes and naivety of early modern naturalists,’ Halík concludes.

Several philosophers have demonstrated that the ‘central argument’ of this book, which its author was particularly proud of, is worthless. Dawkins argues that a god capable of explaining our complex universe would have to be even more complicated and thus require an explanation himself. However, if we were to describe one improbable complexity (our ordered universe enabling life) by another improbable complexity (an all-powerful and all-knowing God), we would not be explaining anything; we would merely be increasing improbability.

Is there a designer who designed it? Dawkins asks. In contrast, Darwinism is intended to provide a satisfactory explanation of how complexity arises from simplicity.

This argument is intended to demonstrate ‘why God almost certainly does not exist’, as the title of one of the chapters suggests.

However, the famous Christian philosopher William Lane Craig asserts that this is a ‘logically invalid argument’. He criticises Dawkins for several philosophical errors, but here we will mention only one.

Asserts that this is a „logically obviously invalid argument“. He blames him for several philosophical missteps, but here we will mention only one.

Suppose God is an immaterial, incorporeal mind without parts or composition. In that case, it is, from the point of view of our universe, a much simpler entity than the most primitive material being.

„Dawkins is baffled by the fact that while ideas in the mind can be very complex, the mind itself is a simple entity,“ thinks Craig.

Criticizing something without taking it seriously can only be successful when our readers don’t take it seriously either. And so God’s error it remains the work of an ignorant preacher for an uneducated audience that was no longer seriously interested in Christianity anyway.

Tendent Dawkins

Therefore, it is a pity that Dawkins never discussed with Craig. Even though he received a lot of invitations, he always beat them away; the excuses changed often.

„ I will be happy to debate with the bishop, archbishop, cardinal, pope. (…) But not with people who became famous only as professional debaters. They must have something more. I don’t have time for that,“ explained once.

However, Dawkins debated non-clerical opponents several times. And Craig is a renowned academic philosopher, not only famous as a „professional debater“.

That is why many came to what Halík, already cited, alluded to. Dawkins only wants to criticize the caricature of religion, which he presents as religion itself.

Recently, there have been signs that he may be similarly biased in his presentation of his own field of study, natural science, and, in particular, evolutionary biology.

In his first bestseller, The Selfish Gene, he popularised the genocentric model of evolution. This model posits that life evolves through random gene mutations, with natural or sexual selection allowing only the most suitable to survive.

In this model, the decisive unit is the gene, and, as Dawkins writes, humans are merely ‘survival machines — robotic creations blindly programmed to preserve selfish molecules known as genes’. Dawkins claims that instead of God, it is genes, body and mind that created us.

A few years ago, he engaged in a discussion with Denis Noble, an Oxford biologist and, coincidentally, a member of the committee that awarded Dawkins a PhD.

Noble is one of the leading representatives of the so-called Third Way in evolutionary biology. Its members highlight that the latest knowledge contradicts the idea that life developed randomly and in a gene-centric way.

In short, research shows that evolution is not senseless or accidental; individual species are not merely a means for genes to spread endlessly through random mutations and natural selection. Instead, organisms manipulate their genes creatively according to their own needs through cells, thereby ‘driving their own evolution’. (The reader can learn more about this process here.)

A surprising return of faith. Will the West be Christian again?

Juraj Valach

Science as a promotional tool for atheism:
However, Dawkins was unable to refute Noble’s arguments.

In an interview with British journalist Justin Brierley, Noble claims that genocentric evolution had a strong dogmatic presence in academic circles, distorting scientific knowledge and significantly slowing cancer research, for example.

Paradoxically, Dawkins did precisely what he accused Christians of: by clinging to his ‘holy’ truth, he prevented scientific development and the discovery of the truth about humanity.

The question, then, is whether he himself is closed-minded and clings to a particular scientific explanation – I suspect the goal is to deny God and promote atheism.

If scientific knowledge showed so clearly and sharply the improbability of the existence of the Most High, why would even more prominent scientists like Dawkins himself profess the Creator? And it was not infrequently their scientific work that brought them to faith.

One such person is Francis Collins, who led the international Human Genome Project to map the human genome. Among other things, Collins helped his friend and Dawkins’ brother, Christopher Hitchens, with his expertise as he died of cancer.

Collins, in his book The Creator’s Language: Defending the Honest Search for Scientific Truth and Christian Faith, shows that Christianity is compatible with evolutionary science

Richard Dawkins’ 2009 London streets campaign with the inscription God probably does not exist. So stop worrying and enjoy life. Photo:

Secular reform
Dawkins did not discover new evidence of God’s non-existence or formulate an irrefutable argument about God’s error. Aquinas had already addressed the arguments he used in his own Summa Theologica, and he was one of many Christian apologists to do so. Even the evolutionary theory of genocentrism, which was supposed to support his unbelief, seems to be waning.

So what was the supposed benefit of the New Atheism?

As many have already said, he was not offering anything new. Similar tropes can be found in the anti-religious texts of Enlightenment philosophers writing in France, the now somewhat dilapidated bastion of modern secularism.

In his poem Les Éleuthéromanes from 1772 on the liberation of all people, Diderot writes, ‘If only humanity dared to listen to the voice of its heart, his hands would weave the intestines of the priest, for no other rope would be found to seize kings.’

The idea that religion is the biggest obstacle to a better future was also central to the emergence of social science at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries.

In his book Slain God, historian Timothy Larsen illustrates this, exploring the relationship between Christianity and social anthropology. The founder of the discipline, Edward B. Tylor, considered one of the primary missions of his work to be enabling Western audiences to see through the smokescreen of religion, eliminate it, and thus create a better society.

Western intellectual reformists repeatedly target religion, which they see as binding society to the past.

In this spirit, Dawkins’ efforts can be viewed as part of a cultural-political movement that builds on the legacy of Western secularists, employing compelling rhetoric to address contemporary issues and strive for social change.

Notable in this context is his 2009 campaign in London. He put posters on buses that read: God probably doesn’t exist. So stop worrying and enjoy life.’

However, what sets the British biologist apart from his predecessors is that he has fully realised the outcome of his reforms. People got a little scared of him.

The experiment went through, but the results were not pleasing

During the few years that the New Atheism was at its peak, secularization in the West was reaching record numbers. The new atheists, led by Dawkins, could thus test whether the decline of religion would bring the expected improvement in society’s quality of life.

But it seems that the problems are somehow not decreasing, rather the opposite. Several observers even claim that they are increasing due to the loss of faith.

Greater secularization correlates with an increase in depression in the population, more broken families, with the rise of Islam, an increase in loneliness, and the support of extremist or populist currents. And in the end, even misinformation or scientific theories did not disappear.

Many promoters of atheism (, including Dawkins), were also pleasantly surprised by progressivism, which replaced their favorite, classical liberalism.

It does not mean that all problems are caused by faith waste. But all the vigor with which the New Atheists marched against religion in the name of bright tomorrows was useless. The decrease in religiosity itself does not have salvific effects, as they believed in their myopic diagnosis. And today they have evidence for that.

In an interview with the British LBC a year ago, Dawkins said something that would have been unthinkable a few years ago. When asked what he would bequeath to his nation at Easter, he replied: ‘I have to say that I was a little scared when I heard that Ramadan was being promoted. I think we are a culturally Christian country. I consider myself a cultural Christian.’

Although he is pleased that the number of believers is declining, he would hate to see Christian culture disappear because he feels at home in the Christian ethos. If another religion were to replace it, he said it would be ‘horrible’. Compared to Islam, Christianity is considered an ‘essentially decent religion’.

He therefore realised that he prefers to live in a Christian country, even though he does not believe in any of the articles of faith, and he hopes that Christianity will serve as a fortification against the Islamisation of the world.

In an interview, several viewers criticised Dawkins for wanting to eat the fruit from the tree he had spent his whole life cutting down. Christianity has been his number one enemy all his life, yet today he is praising it?

It’s a strange situation.

It’s as if the general of the army of infidels himself is looking back nostalgically after a successful crusade against religion, hoping that he hasn’t mortally wounded his life’s enemy.

After all, Christianity is basically a nice religion with which to live. If he dies, much worse people will take his place.

Like other secular intellectuals, Dawkins realised in his old age that all the alternatives to the Christian worldview were leading him in a direction he didn’t want to go in.