Atheism, Fundamentalism and the Protestant Reformation

Examines the idea that new atheism and Protestant fundamentalism have the same historical origin, and share a range of surprising beliefs.

Because of its provocative thesis and mutli-disciplinary approach, this book will be of interest to historians, theologians, philosophers, and sociologists of religion. Key subject areas include atheism and non-religion, Protestant fundamentalism, science and religion, the theological origins of the modern world, and the effects of postmodernity.In this study of new atheism and religious fundamentalism, this book advances two provocative - and surprising - arguments. Liam Jerrold Fraser argues that atheism and Protestant fundamentalism in Britain and America share a common historical origin in the English Reformation, and the crisis of authority inaugurated by the Reformers. This common origin generated two presuppositions crucial for both movements: a literalist understanding of scripture, and a disruptive understanding of divine activity in nature. Through an analysis of contemporary new atheist and Protestant fundamentalist texts, Fraser shows that these presuppositions continue to structure both groups, and support a range of shared biblical, scientific, and theological beliefs. Their common historical and intellectual structure ensures that new atheism and Protestant fundamentalism - while on the surface irreconcilably opposed - share a secret sympathy with one another, yet one which leaves them unstable, inconsistent, and unsustainable.