Reason, Faith, and Revolution: Reflections on the God Debate (Terry Lectures) [Paperback]

'Terry Eagleton's intervention into the debate sparked by Richard Dawkins's 'The God Delusion' is, by turns, thought-provoking, infuriating, inspiring and very, very funny.' --'London Review of Books'

'a gloriously rumbustious counter-blast to Dawkinsite atheism... paradoxes sparkle throughout this coruscatingly brilliant polemic... This is, then, a demolition job which is both logically devastating and a magnificently whirling philippic... Much of what it says is too true.' --Paul Vallely, 'The Independent'

'Eagleton's book began as a series of lectures delivered at Yale University. They must have been a riot... He's fantastically rude all round, about 'Ditchkins', about religion itself... It's terrific polemic.' --Melanie McDonagh, 'Evening Standard'

"This is sure to ruffle feathers on both sides of the God debate ... Many will, simply, have to read this." --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

"... a rich, subtle and humane series of essays that deserves close study ... Eagleton has immeasurably raised the standards."
--This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

"...interesting things to say about the notion of rationality...the mixed legacy of the Enlightenment, and present-day attitudes towards Islam." --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

"...offer(s) an account of Jesus and his teachings which is as good as any outside the ranks of biblical specialists." --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

"effortlessly, and ruthlessly...tears apart Dawkins and Hitchens ... carv[ing] up the militant atheists using their own weapons of reason." --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

...a radical contribution to what is becoming one of the important issues of our age." --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

"...has an acute ear for the bland complacency and hubristic self-confidence of many contemporary secularists...much to admire here." --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

"...the inner intellectual and spiritual journey it prompts is arduous and daunting." --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

"His gloriously rude dismissal of postmodernism and...sardonic jabs against the evangelical preachers...are worth the entry price alone." --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Terry Eagleton's witty and polemical 'Reason, Faith, and Revolution' is bound to cause a stir among scientists, theologians, people of faith and people of no faith, as well as general readers eager to understand the God Debate. On the one hand, Eagleton demolishes what he calls the 'superstitious' view of God held by most atheists and agnostics, and offers in its place a revolutionary account of the Christian Gospel. On the other hand, he launches a stinging assault on the betrayal of this revolution by institutional Christianity. There is little joy here, then, either for the anti-God brigade - Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens in particular - nor for many conventional believers. Instead, Eagleton offers his own vibrant account of religion and politics in a book that ranges from the Holy Spirit to the recent history of the Middle East, from Thomas Aquinas to the Twin Towers.

Terry Eagleton is Bailrigg Professor of English Literature at the University of Lancaster, England, and Professor of Cultural Theory at the National University of Ireland, Galway. He lives in Dublin.