Atheism Tapes

When I was a theology student one of my tutors gave an inaugural lecture entitled, 'How to be an Atheist'. Now published in Faith Seeking the lecture called for a more thoughtful engagement by atheists in the debate about God's existence, if only to challenge theologians to think better. Some of this kind of debate was screened on BBC 2 in 2005 as 'The Atheism Tapes'. It was a series of half hour interviews with five prominent atheists, and my old tutor Denys Turner.

Unavailable now, the interviews have resurfaced on the web as transcrips. Fascinating as they are these interviews give some indication of how difficult it is to find well thought out atheism. Daniel Dennett's interview is at least more engaging. His Darwinism may be no different from Dawkins', but his analysis does give the theist something to think about. In this interview, Dennett's focus on the 'Cartesian stop' builds on the fact western thinking is so often still dependant on the separation of body and soul in the thinking of Descartes - Evolution is made to stop when it has finished with the body but before it reaches the soul. Where this exists (and it is common) it is bad theism.

Even so, this kind of problem has never seemed central to me when discussing the idea of God. That is one of the interesting things in this kind of debate. Things that seem central to one viewpoint can be peripheral to another. It is this kind of debate that opens us up to seeing our own methodological presuppositions more clearly.