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GUEST: Chris Hedges, award winning journalist and writer, former foreign correspondent for the New York Times, the Dallas Morning News, The Christian Science Monitor, and National Public Radio, author of several books including “War is a Force that Gives Us Meaning,” and “American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America,” senior fellow at the Nation Institute and a Lannan Literary fellow

A spate of books in the past several years has resurrected the debate over religion. Authors like Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens and others, published books critiquing religion and its role in promoting intolerance, fundamentalism, and a host of problems. The books struck a nerve at a time when the simultaneous rise in Christian and Islamic fundamentalist forces in the US and abroad are seen as fomenting endless war and terrorism. Last year, award winning journalist, foreign correspondent, and author Chris Hedges debated Sam Harris at UCLA’s Royce Hall, and Christopher Hitchens in San Francisco over religion. Out of those encounters, comes Chris Hedges’ new book, “I don’t Believe in Atheists.” Hedges warns that Harris, Hitchens, and the rest of these so-called “new atheists,” are just as dangerous as religious fundamentalists – they use the cult of science to explain social, political and economic systems.