Three Cheers for Terry Eagleton

I have always had immense respect for Eagleton, whom I read in serveral of my undergraduate literature courses. His Illusions of Postmodernism is especially good.

He has an especially good review-- though it's really more of a castigation-- of Richard Dawkins' latest book up at the London Review of Books site, which you can read here.

Here is an especially quotable quote:
"Now it may well be that [Christianity] is no more plausible than the tooth fairy. Most reasoning people these days will see excellent grounds to reject it. But critics of the richest, most enduring form of popular culture in human history have a moral obligation to confront that case at its most persuasive, rather than grabbing themselves a victory on the cheap by savaging it as so much garbage and gobbledygook. The mainstream theology I have just outlined may well not be true; but anyone who holds it is in my view to be respected, whereas Dawkins considers that no religious belief, anytime or anywhere, is worthy of any respect whatsoever. This, one might note, is the opinion of a man deeply averse to dogmatism."

Thank you, Mr. Eagleton, for yet more intellectual firepower in service of the truth.