The point is the 1st century ideas of Father Radcliffe have grown up over the past 2,000 years. They have evolved. Dawkin's Atheism is nothing more then the recycled Atheism of the 19th century & if anything it has devolved.

Jim Scott , Queens, USA

I am fascinated that the militant atheist and the Fundamentalist Christian seem to have the same tyrannical God. I am also aware that many church people are scientists - some eminent in their respective fields like John Polkinghorn. Groups such as the Quakers have promoted science and continue to so

Gerard Guiton, Melbourne, Australia

Father Radcliffe claims that 'atheists had their time in the 19th century, but had little appeal now'. Atheists truly capture the Zeitgeist of the new century. Their books sell hugely; their lectures are packed. Traditional churches empty and few wish to become priests or to enter holy orders

Geoffrey Lake, Carbost, Scotland

It is always a surprise to me how vehemently the atheist expresses his or her view. My experience in life has been that when someone responds so negatively it is because their point of view is seriously challenged.
The experience of a Christian cannot be disputed, it is his experience. It is everyone's free will to say they cannot or will not believe in the Christian God of Love but not to deny the experience of another.
It seems to take up an inordinate amount of atheist energy and usually anger in the effort. Why is this?
What is it that drives Mr Dawkins and others to spend so much time on this?. Perhaps his need to be proved wrong. There is an inherent need in man to know, to experience unconditional Love. I believe this is the search that all men are making negatively and positively and I pray that we will all eventually have the experience of this love that God is pouring out at this time of Easter through his son Jesus Christ. It is available to anyone who wants it.

Marianne Wilson, Reading , UK

I can hardly see how being an atheist is 19th century when the advances made in the 20th century with relativity and quantum physics show even less evidence of the existence of God and the scientific forum has widely accepted evolution by natural selection. Currently in mainstream science there is no position for God. Anyone who reads this should check out "God: The Failed Hypothesis by Victor Stenger"

It is also laughable how this man equates godlessness with communism and attributes their problems to not believing in an imaginary friend. How droll...

Alogy, London, UK

Why are so many Christian apologetics still reiterating the same tired old fallacious comparison between atheism and communism?

Is it, perhaps, that they are so used to repeating the same 2000-year-old nonsense over and over regardless of reality or new evidence, that they have forgotten how to have a rational debate anymore?

Justin Megawarne, Denver, CO, USA

Atheists only seem to have the ability to mock and ridicule Christians. Are you afraid to engage in civilised debate? Or is that you do not have any rational arguments? I believe both.

Can I suggest you debate Timothy Radcliffe OP? I need a good belly laugh. You would not last 5 minutes.

MGH, Syney, Australia

"That monk is soooo 1st Century"

Joshua, London, UK

How interesting. Most of the atheists who commented on this article sounded like a school child's argument.

""Britain's leading Roman Catholic monk..."
Do we get to hear from Britain's leading flat-earther as well?"

I rather think we did, Minerva. Well done.

Martin, Telford, UK

If Atheists are 'stuck' in the 19th Century then believers are defenately stuck in the 1st Century. If the world was controlled by believers of the main faiths then it would be a very bleak place indeed. Galileo was branded a heretic for centuries for telling the truth. A truth the church didn't like. Imagine a world without contraceptives, the pope tells millions of people its wrong and evil yet they have save millions of lives from disease. If the theologians had their way we would never have discovered how the human body works through disection. We would be praying and getting blessed and told to have faith. I would rather have a pain killer than a bible.

Konrad, Belfast, Northern Ireland

"Britain's leading Roman Catholic monk..."
Do we get to hear from Britain's leading flat-earther as well?

Minerva, Germany,

Father Radcliffe is right. Dawkin's campaigning is an irrelevance when compared with the decline of morality and decency in western society. His thesis has been adequately dismissed by John Cornwell's "Darwins Angel".
Unfortuneately, he is part of a historical fanatical trend, with some very dubious 20th century antecedants, and there are others such as Phillip Pullman who have the zeal to promote their confused and limited world frame upon all of us. Dawkins is a biologist, and there are as many ways of knowing the complexity of the world as there are ways of knowing. All have equal justification, and biology has no god given supremacy or privilage to express the truth. Those of us who were born after the war - the spoilt and media savvy baby boomers, have been responsible for complete moral cowardice and a real abandonment of civilised values in the face of the enormous threats to the freedoms we profess to treasure so much. The real battle is being fought in the inner city.

John Nutt, Taunton, Somerset

Did not the Lord say to the woman taken in adultery (after saying" let him who is pure and sinless cast the first stone")"Go they way, and sin no more"? What would Mr Wakeling say, "carry on"?

Christian, London, England

Ruth Gledhill as an expert on religion should get it right. Timothy Radcliffe OP is a friar not a monk. The Order of Preachers (aka Domincans) , Carmelites and the Franciscans are orders of friars. Carthusians, Benedictines and Cistercians are monks. Jesuits, Redemptorists, Salvatorians etc. are clerks regular.

Tom, Cambridge,

If Richard Dawkins' ideas are from the 19th century, what century are Father Radcliffe's from? Seems the professor is about nine centuries ahead of the monk.

Terry Sanderson, London, UK