In his new book Outgrowing God, Richard Dawkins purports to demolish the claims of mainstream religion, starting with belief in a Creator. All of life's big questions can apparently be answered by science.

A call for Christianity to recover its confidence The mainstream Churches are faltering - or even at risk of dying out - in their Western and Middle Eastern heartlands. Surveys confirm that only a minority of people in a country such as Britain now claim Christian allegiance. The pattern is being matched in neighbouring societies. At the same time many opinion formers preach secularist ideology with a self-confidence shading into dogmatism. Others, unsure of their moorings, feel some residual attachment to spirituality, while being sceptical about the existence of God and other articles of...