Luckily I am also a member of the UMSS and am now fully aware of the hidden agenda of this free book handout. I don't oppose free speech but at least have the decency to be honest about where you're coming from.

Dawkins‘ defence of atheism produced his best-seller to date, The God Delusion (2006), with 1.5 million copies sold. Many high-profile atheists praised it, and naturally Christians criticized it. For example, Philip Bell, M.Sc. and former cancer researcher, published a detailed review, and there are other books responding to it. However, leading logician and Christian philosopher Alvin Plantinga (1932– ), currently “John A. O’Brien Professor of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame”, was not impressed with Dawkins‘ excursions outside biology into philosophy, claiming that they could be called sophomoric were it not a grave insult to most sophomores.

Prof. McGrath himself responded to the book (co-authored with his wife). This also revealed that Dawkins‘ support among atheists was not universal—famous evolutionary philosopher Michael Ruse writes in the blurb, “The God Delusion makes me embarrassed to be an atheist, and the McGraths show why.” Ruse also said that the “new atheists” led by Dawkins are “a bloody disaster”, and said the following about the book:

“Question: What do you think of The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins? Your approach is a lot milder? (The book lays open on his bed in the hotel room in Amsterdam where Ruse is interviewed.)

“Answer: I am just as critical of this book as of the work of Intelligent Design authors like Michael Behe, despite the fact that I, as an agnostic, am closer to Dawkins, and am 99% in agreement with his conclusions. But this book is stupid, politically disastrous and bad academics. If someone spoke about biology and evolution as he does on theology, Dawkins would react without mercy.

“A good academic will inform himself in depth in a subject he is writing about. Dawkins did not. He is neither a philosopher nor a theologian. I am not a biologist myself, but at least I study the subject in depth before I write about it. And that arrogance and that pedantic attitude of his. …

“Dawkins‘ book confirms my analysis of evolution as pseudo-religion. His secular humanism has quasi-religious characteristics.”

Another atheist, Terry Eagleton, Professor of Cultural Theory at the National University of Ireland, Galway, began his review of The God Delusion with these words:

“Imagine someone holding forth on biology whose only knowledge of the subject is the Book of British Birds, and you have a rough idea of what it feels like to read Richard Dawkins on theology.”

Eagleton continues:

“ … does he imagine like a bumptious young barrister that you can defeat the opposition while being complacently ignorant of its toughest case? Dawkins, it appears, has sometimes been told by theologians that he sets up straw men only to bowl them over, a charge he rebuts in this book; but if The God Delusion is anything to go by, they are absolutely right.”

Dawkins publicly debated his book with John Carson Lennox, Professor of Mathematics at Oxford. Lennox is also a Christian apologist and Intelligent Design supporter, and teacher of Science and Religion at Oxford, and the author of several books on the relations of science with religion and ethics. This debate did not cover evolution, but the wider Christianity vs atheism topics covered in The God Delusion. Dawkins seemed quite red-faced and uncomfortable during the debate.

However, Dawkins refuses to debate best-selling author Dinesh D’Souza, author of What’s So Great about Christianity among others, even though D’Souza is a theistic evolutionist not a creationist. Yet many of Dawkins‘ fellow ‘new atheists’ such as Christopher Hitchens and Daniel Dennett have been willing. In an open letter, D’Souza contrasted Dawkins‘ eagerness to entrap non-scientist Christians on his TV shows with a refusal to debate a strong opponent on level terms:

“To be honest, I find your behaviour extremely bizarre. You go halfway around the world to chase down televangelists to outsmart them in an interview format that you control, but given several opportunities to engage the issues you profess to care about in a true spirit of open debate and inquiry, you duck and dodge and run away. …

“ If you are so confident that your position is right, and that belief in God is an obvious delusion, surely you should be willing to vindicate that position not only against Bible-toting pastors but also against a fellow scholar and informed critic like me!

“If not, you are nothing but a showman who takes on unprepared and unsuspecting opponents when you yourself control the editing, but when a strong opponent shows up you manufacture reasons to avoid him.” http://www.theGreatestHoaxOnEarth.com