BBoy
I first read the term atomism from Isaiah Berlin’s book on the Enlightenment referred to by Shouls’ book on Locke. Can you give me the reference for Taylor’s article? I am glad we can agree that Modernity is in crisis. It was an eye opener to me to read Descartes and Locke in the original (or some of it) particularly having attended seminars on Medieval thought. I was astounded that so much was dismissed but taken up again under a new guise and claimed as original. Surely Locke’s method of abstraction from observation to produce universals of an empiricist nature is a thinly disguised borrowing from William of Ockham!

Taylor’s Sources of the Self was very good but Buckley’s At the Origin of Modern Atheism I think gives a better theological perspective. I would welcome a more private correspondence if you are interested.

"An uncritical and positive view of the Enlightenment is orthodoxy at Australian secular universities to the extent that few have departments of theology even though the history of the West is unintelligible without such knowledge."

Two utterly false propositions. 'The Enlightenment' is constantly under criticism at Australian universities; whether it is through to combination of the Protestant work ethic and capitalism, through scientism as an ideology, or whether it is on the contextual value of universal rationality. A history of "the West" (how's that for use of "Enlightenment" discourse!) is quite possible without theology; these days we use comparative religion, sociology of religion and - although it must pain our author - philosophy!

The horrors of 20th century were only different in scale from those of the Crusades or the Inquisition or the Spanish activities in South America, all examples of tyrannical behavior on behalf of religion.
The R.C. Church supported Mussolini's murderous efforts against the North African countries and entered into a pact with Hitler, seeking advantage for the church. For centuries that religion, which claims to be THE church, preached that all Jews inherited the responsibility for deicide. Attributing collective responsibility is inherently immoral and the gospels do it often. To futher quote Christopher Hitchens, "For emphasizing tribe and dynasty and racial provenance in its holy books religion must accept responsibility for transmitting one of mankind's most primitive illusions down through the generations."
If we could stop religious indoctrination of children we might be able to give a genuine thinking secular society a fair chance of success.

"Such a view of God lies at the heart of modern atheism"
Now that made me laugh. Sells you seem to have missed the point. Modern thought comes down to some very basic ideas. While science has become the tool of modern thought it is grounded in the idea that man can only know the natural world. The supernatural can not be tested, the various ideas about the supernatural can not be compared in any purposeful way. So the question is why bother, why believe in the unknowable. You being a christian is most certainly more to do with your place of birth and your parents then any great truth you may have uncovered

Who does Peter Sellick pray to? Does he pray? And why?
Is there such a thing as a theological mental illness?

"The most damaging heritage from Descartes and Locke is modern liberalism."

Big statement. I'm not exactly sure where the writer thinks the Enlightenment took place but you'd better out the French such as Diderot, the Encylopedists and the brilliant Scottish philosopher, David Hume. Way after the 16th C.

I was taught that the Church was actually one of the places of light and learning.

I would have thought that the persecution of both protestants and catholics across continetal Europe from 1640- the middle 1800s, would have been enought to turn the average punter off religion for life. But not so.