Atheists: Slaves to Simplicity

Modern secularists often paint a naive view of the medieval church. The reality was far more complex, argues Tim Stanley.

Pope Nicholas V

One of the frustrating things about the conflict between religious traditionalists and atheist secularists is that its participants are rarely debating the same thing. Angry atheists such as Richard Dawkins attack a vision of faith that is far removed from theological or historical reality. They lift passages at random from religious texts or take isolated events in the history of religion, present them to the believer and say: ‘How can you worship a God that is so capricious?’ or ‘How can you attend a church that is so cruel?’

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