Thoughtful essays to revive dialogue about atheism beyond belief. The Varieties of Atheism reveals the diverse nonreligious experiences obscured by the combative intellectualism of Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, and Christopher Hitchens. In fact, contributors contend that narrowly defining atheism as the belief that there is no god misunderstands religious and nonreligious persons altogether. The essays show that, just as religion exceeds doctrine, atheism also encompasses every dimension of human life: from imagination and feeling to community and ethics. Contributors offer new, expansive perspectives on atheism's diverse history and possible futures. By recovering lines of affinity and tension between particular atheists and particular religious traditions, this book paves the way for fruitful conversation between religious and non-religious people in our secular age.

During his 2009 inaugural speech, President Obama described the United States as a nation of "Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus-and nonbelievers." It was the first time an American president had acknowledged the existence of this rapidly growing segment of the population in such a public forum. And yet the reasons why more and more people are turning away from religion are still poorly understood. In Faith No More, Phil Zuckerman draws on in-depth interviews with people who have left religion to find out what's really behind the process of losing one's faith. According to a 2008 study, so many Americans claim no religion (15%, up from 8% in 1990) that this category now outranks every other religious group except Catholics and Baptists. Exploring the deeper stories within such survey data, Zuckerman shows that leaving one's faith is a highly personal, complex, and drawn-out process. And he finds that, rather than the cliche of the angry, nihilistic atheist, apostates are life-affirming, courageous, highly intelligent and inquisitive, and deeply moral. Zuckerman predicts that this trend toward nonbelief will likely continue and argues that the sooner we recognize that religion is frequently and freely rejected by all sorts of men and women, the sooner our understanding of the human condition will improve. The first book of its kind, Faith No More will appeal to anyone interested in the "New Atheism" and indeed to anyone wishing to more fully understand our changing relationship to religious faith.

This handbook is an attempt to offer a concise set of rejoinders for use by atheists in their formal (and informal) debates with theists. Older, more traditional, arguments are included as well as original arguments. The result is a short book, yet one that contains an unrelenting presentation of argument and analysis.
For some time now atheists have been in need of firm grounds upon which to base their position. This handbook offers them this foundation.

This title reassesses the term 'atheism' in the context of contemporary French philosophy. Drawing primarily on the work of Alain Badiou and Jean-Luc Nancy, plus Quentin Meillassoux and Slavoj Zizek, Watkin explores the theme of atheism through the ideas of the death of God and nihilism, and probes the limits of any 'atheistic politics'. He argues that rigorous atheism is elusive, and that Continental thought, even in its most stridently atheistic guises, has yet to fully come to terms with the death of God.

Spectres of False Divinity presents a historical and critical interpretation of Hume's rejection of the existence of a deity with moral attributes. In Hume's view, no first cause or designer responsible for the ordered universe could possibly have moral attributes; nor could the existence (or non-existence) of such a being have any real implications for human practice or conduct. Hume's case for this 'moral atheism' is a central plank of both his naturalistic agenda in metaphysics and his secularizing program in moral theory. It complements his wider critique of traditional theism, and threatens to rule out any religion that would make claims on moral practice. Thomas Holden situates Hume's commitment to moral atheism in its historical and philosophical context, offers a systematic interpretation of his case for divine amorality, and shows how Hume can endorse moral atheism while maintaining his skeptical attitude toward traditional forms of cosmological and theological speculation.

The authentic spiritual quest is marked not by certainties but by questions and doubt. "How To Be An Agnostic" explores the wonder of science, the ups and downs of being 'spiritual but not religious, ' the insights of ancient philosophy, and God, the biggest question.
Mark Vernon was an Anglican priest, left a conviction atheist, and now finds himself to be a committed, searching agnostic. Part personal story, part spiritual search, this journey through physics and philosophy concludes that the contemporary lust for certainty is demeaning of our humanity. We live in a time of spiritual crisis, but the key to wisdom - as Socrates, the great theologians and the best scientists know - is embracing the limits of our knowledge.
This much expanded edition was previously published as After Atheism, and includes new chapters looking at mindfulness meditation, 'pic'n'mix' religion, quantum spirituality, the probability of God and why Stephen Hawking is wrong about nothing.

Over the past decade the Religion vs. Atheism debate has generated a lot more heat than light. With passionate advocates on both sides, it is possible we have lost sight of the real people and problems behind the controversies and conflicts. Where does the truth lie? In Faitheism Krish Kandiah asks us to take a long hard look at ourselves - and a more understanding look at each other. Written for both committed Christians and committed Atheists and everyone in between, this accessible and practical book can help all of us find a way to talk about the things that really matter to us in ways that encourage empathy, mutual understanding and respect and yet that don't shy away from tackling the hard topics. The ideas in this book can transform our relationships, our workplaces and our nation as it lays down a path for a genuinely more inclusive, hospitable and understanding society. Krish contends that whether you are a Christian, an Atheist or somewhere in between, we can all grow in our own beliefs and understand each other better. In this challenging exploration of the myths about Christianity and Atheism, time and again we will find the evidence shows that the truth on the ground is not what one might expect - and the potential for genuine understanding is far greater than the antagonists on either side would have you believe.

Does God Matter? features eleven original essays written by prominent philosophers of religion that address this very important, yet surprisingly neglected, question. One natural way to approach this question is to seek to understand what difference God's existence would-or does-make to the value of the world and the well-being of its inhabitants. The first essay sets the stage for the discussion of this topic. The three essays in Section I defend versions of pro-theism: the view that God's existence would -- or does -- make things better than they would otherwise be. The four essays in Section II defend anti-theism: the view that God's existence would, or does, make things worse than they would otherwise be. The three essays in Section III consider the interplay between the existential and axiological debates concerning the existence of God. This book presents important research on a growing topic in philosophy of religion that will also be of keen interest to scholars working in other areas of philosophy (such as metaphysics, epistemology, and value theory), and in other disciplines (such as religious studies and analytic theology).

Answers You Need for the Tough Questions About Your Faith Atheists are launching a new wave of attacks against Christianity and faith in God. It's hard to know how to handle their claims that they have a more enlightened, scientific, and sophisticated worldview. How can you respond with precision to arguments against your faith? With instructive clarity, Dr. Louis Markos confronts the modern-day atheists' claims that new evidence disproves the existence of God. In fact, you will find that the "proof" they peddle is not new at all. Rather, they recycle claims that have already been disproven by Christian thinkers of the past...claims that you can silence today with the same solid logic. Equip yourself to defend your beliefs from a deep well of knowledge and conviction. Stand in confidence that the trial of public opinion versus universal truth has already been held-and God is the victor.

Febvre asked this core question in The Problem of Unbelief: “Could sixteenth-century people hold religious views that were not those of official, Church-sanctioned Christianity, or could they simply not believe at all?” The answer informed a wider debate on modern history, particularly modern French history. Did the religious attitudes of the Enlightenment and the twentieth century―notably secularism and atheism―first take root in the sixteenth century? Could the spirit of scientific and rational inquiry of the twentieth century have begun with the rejection of God and Christianity by men such as Rabelais, writing in his allegorical novel Gargantua and Pantagruel – the work most often cited as a proto-"atheist" text prior to Febvre's study? The debate hinged on some key differences of interpretation. Was Rabelais mocking the structures of the Christian Church (in which case he might be anticlerical)? Was he mocking the Bible scriptures or Church doctrines (in which case he might be anti-Christian)? Or was he mocking the very idea of God’s existence (in which case he might be an atheist)?

The other great contribution that Febvre made to the study of history can be found not so much in the fine detail of this work as in the additions that he made to the historian's toolkit. In this sense, Febvre was highly creative; indeed it can be argued that he ranks among the most creative of all historians. He sought to move the study of history itself beyond its traditional focus on documentary records, arguing instead that close analysis of language could open up a gateway into the ways in which people actually thought, and to their subconscious minds. This concept, the focus on "mentalities," is core to the hugely influential approach of the Annales group of historians, and it enabled a switch in the focus of much historical inquiry, away from the study of elites and their deeds and towards new forms of broader social history. Febvre also used techniques and models drawn from anthropology and sociology to create new ways of framing and answering questions, further extending the range of problems that could be addressed by historians. Working together with colleagues such as Marc Bloch, his understanding of what constituted evidence and of the meanings that could be attributed to it, radically redefined what history is – and what it should aspire to be.

Recently, the "new" atheists have been putting out books, articles, bus ads, and TV programs in attempts to sway people to their cause. Through these tactics they've managed to gain a large amount of public attention and media exposure--but do their arguments really hold water? Using the analogy put forward by esteemed philosopher Anthony Flew, Michael Poole examines the new atheists' use of the "10 leaky buckets" tactic of argumentation--presenting readers with a sum of arguments that are each individually defective, as though the cumulative effect should be persuasive. This closer look at the facts reveals that the buckets are, indeed, leaky.

The central contention of the "New Atheism" of Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris, and Christopher Hitchens is that there has for several centuries been a war between science and religion, that religion has been steadily losing that war, and that at this point in human history a completely secular scientific account of the world has been worked out in such thorough and convincing detail that there is no longer any reason why a rational and educated person should find the claims of any religion the least bit worthy of attention. But as Edward Feser argues inThe Last Superstition, in fact there is not, and never has been, any war between science and religion at all. There has instead been a conflict between two entirely philosophical conceptions of the natural order: on the one hand, the classical "teleological" vision of Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, and Aquinas, on which purpose or goal-directedness is as inherent a feature of the physical world as mass or electric charge; and the modern "mechanical" vision of Descartes, Hobbes, Locke, and Hume, according to which the physical world is comprised of nothing more than purposeless, meaningless particles in motion. As it happens, on the classical teleological picture, the existence of God, the immortality of the soul, and the natural-law conception of morality are rationally unavoidable. Modern atheism and secularism have thus always crucially depended for their rational credentials on the insinuation that the modern, mechanical picture of the world has somehow been established by science. Yet this modern "mechanical" picture has never been established by science, and cannot be, for it is not a scientific theory in the first place but merely a philosophical interpretation of science. Moreover, as Feser shows, the philosophical arguments in its favor given by the early modern philosophers were notable only for being surprisingly weak. The true reasons for its popularity were then, and are now, primarily political: It was a tool by which the intellectual foundations of ecclesiastical authority could be undermined and the way opened toward a new secular and liberal social order oriented toward commerce and technology. So as to further these political ends, it was simply stipulated, by fiat as it were, that no theory inconsistent with the mechanical picture of the world would be allowed to count as "scientific." As the centuries have worn on and historical memory has dimmed, this act of dogmatic stipulation has falsely come to be remembered as a "discovery." However, not only is this modern philosophical picture rationally unfounded, it is demonstrably false. For the "mechanical" conception of the natural world, when worked out consistently, absurdly entails that rationality, and indeed the human mind itself, are illusory. The so-called "scientific worldview" championed by the New Atheists thus inevitably undermines its own rational foundations; and into the bargain (and contrary to the moralistic posturing of the New Atheists) it undermines the foundations of any possible morality as well. By contrast, and as The Last Superstition demonstrates, the classical teleological picture of nature can be seen to find powerful confirmation in developments from contemporary philosophy, biology, and physics; moreover, morality and reason itself cannot possibly be made sense of apart from it. The teleological vision of the ancients and medievals is thereby rationally vindicated - and with it the religious worldview they based upon it.

Compares secular attitudes characterizing “religious nones” in the United States and Canada Almost a quarter of American and Canadian adults are nonreligious, while teens and young adults are even less likely to identify religiously. None of the Above explores the growing phenomenon of “religious nones” in North America. Who are the religious nones? Why, and where, is this population growing? While there has been increased attention on secularism in both Europe and the United States, little work to date has focused on Canada. Joel Thiessen and Sarah Wilkins-Laflamme turn to survey and interview data to explore how a nonreligious identity impacts a variety of aspects of daily life in the US and Canada in sometimes similar and sometimes different ways, offering insights to illuminate societal and political trends. With numbers of nonreligious people even higher in Canada than in the US, some believe that secular currents to the north foreshadow what will happen in the US. None of the Above asserts that a growing divide between religious and nonreligious populations could engender a greater distance in moral and political values and behaviors. At once provocative and insightful, this book tackles questions of coexistence, religious tolerance, and spirituality, as American and Canadian society accelerate toward a more secular future.

Successor to the highly acclaimed "Encyclopedia of Unbelief" (1985), edited by the late Gordon Stein, the "New Encyclopedia of Unbelief" is a comprehensive reference work on the history, beliefs, and thinking of America's fastest growing minority: those who live without religion. All-new articles by the field's foremost scholars describe and explain every aspect of atheism, agnosticism, secular humanism, secularism, and religious scepticism. The topics include morality without religion, unbelief in the historicity of Jesus, critiques of intelligent design theory, unbelief and sexual values, and summaries of the state of unbelief around the world. Over 130 respected scholars and activists world-wide served on the editorial advisory board and over 100 authoritative contributors have written in excess of 500 entries.;In addition to covering developments since the publication of the original edition, the "New Encyclopedia of Unbelief" includes a larger number of biographical entries and much-expanded coverage of the linkages between unbelief and social reform movements of the 19th and 20th centuries, including the labour movement, woman suffrage, anarchism, sex radicalism, and second-wave feminism. The distinguished contributors are philosophers, scientists, scholars, and Nobel Prize laureates. With a foreword by evolutionary biologist and best-selling author Richard Dawkins, this unparalleled reference work provides comprehensive knowledge about unbelief in its many varieties and manifestations.

One of the twentieth century's most brilliant and unconventional thinkers, Alexandre Kojeve was a Russian emigre to France whose lectures on Hegel in the 1930s galvanized a generation of French intellectuals. Although Kojeve wrote a great deal, he published very little in his lifetime, and so the ongoing rediscovery of his work continues to present new challenges to philosophy and political theory. Written in 1931 but left unfinished, Atheism is an erudite and open-ended exploration of profound questions of estrangement, death, suicide, and the infinite that demonstrates the range and the provocative power of Kojeve's thought. Ranging across Heidegger, Buddhism, Christianity, German idealism, Russian literature, and mathematics, Kojeve advances a novel argument about freedom and authority. He investigates the possibility that there is not any vantage point or source of authority-including philosophy, science, or God-that is outside or beyond politics and the world as we experience it. The question becomes whether atheism-or theism-is even a meaningful position since both affirmation and denial of God's existence imply a knowledge that seems clearly outside our capacities. Masterfully translated by Jeff Love, this book offers a striking new perspective on Kojeve's work and its implications for theism, atheism, politics, and freedom.

Questions about how to negotiate belief and non-belief in social and public spheres are attracting an increasing amount of attention from academics in a range of disciplines, and from concerned members of the public. This volume addresses the emergence of ‘new atheism’ and the developing ‘spiritual but not religious’ phenomenon. Avoiding simplistic accounts of atheism, and of religious belief, it provides readers with insight into a wide range of nuances within theism and atheism, as well as spiritual practice and faith. The chapters by an international panel of contributors focus on topics such as: a typology or cartography of atheisms and agnosticism; contrasting types of atheism within Christianity and Buddhism; questions about cognitive and doxastic stances in atheisms; theist rejections of and atheist embracing of ‘God’; and atheist aesthetics. Reaching beyond the Christian tradition, the book will be of particular interest to scholars of the philosophy of religion, as well as religious studies and theology more generally.

New ideas about the nature of God and Christianity that will give Dawkins' best friends and worst enemies alike some stimulating food for thought Tackling Hawking, Dawkins, Dennett, Hitchens, and a newcomer in the field--the French philosopher Michel Onfray--John Lennox points out some of the most glaring fallacies in the New Atheist approach in this insightful book. Since the twin towers crashed to the ground on September 11, there has been no end to attacks on religion. Claims abound that religion is dangerous, that it kills, and that it poisons everything. And if religion is the problem with the world, say the New Atheists, the answer is simple--get rid of it. Of course, things aren't quite so straightforward. Arguing that the New Athiests' irrational and unscientific methodology leaves them guilty of the very obstinate foolishness they criticize in dogmatic religious folks, this erudite and wide-ranging guide to religion in the modern age packs some debilitating punches and scores big for religious rationalism.

Charles Devellennes looks at the the religious, social and political thought of the first four thinkers of the French Enlightenment: Pierre Bayle, Jean Meslier, Paul-Henri Thiry d'Holbach and Denis Diderot to explicitly argue for atheism as a positive philosophy. He shows how atheism evolved considerably over the century that spans the works of these four authors: from the possibility of the virtuous atheist in the late 17th century, to a deeply rooted materialist philosophy with radical social and political consequences by the eve of the French revolution. The metamorphosis of atheism from a purely negative phenomenon to one that became self-aware had profound consequences for establishing an ethics without God and the rise of republicanism as a political philosophy.

Annie Besant is primarily remembered as the international president of the Theosophical Society. One of the most important aspects of her career were the years that she was a professional atheist, which has given her a place in history as a pioneer feminist. The Origins of Theosophy contains thirteen of Besant's pamphlets, originally published from 1883-1890. This book is ideal for students of theology.

This is a book about the need for redemptive narratives to ward off despair and the dangers these same narratives create by raising expectations that are seldom fulfilled. The quasi-messianic expectations produced by the election of President Barack Obama in 2008, and their diminution, were stark reminders of an ongoing struggle between ideals and political realities. Redemptive Hope begins by tracing the tension between theistic thinkers, for whom hope is transcendental, and intellectuals, who have striven to link hopes for redemption to our intersubjective interactions with other human beings. Lerner argues that a vibrant democracy must draw on the best of both religious thought and secular liberal political philosophy. By bringing Richard Rorty's pragmatism into conversation with early-twentieth-century Jewish thinkers, including Martin Buber and Ernst Bloch, Lerner begins the work of building bridges, while insisting on holding crucial differences in dialectical tension. Only such a dialogue, he argues, can prepare the foundations for modes of redemptive thought fit for the twenty-first century.

This volume presents the findings of a number of empirical and theoretical studies on education about religions and worldviews (ERW) conducted in the Western societies of Britain, Ireland, Canada, Norway, Finland, New Zealand, Australia and Canada. Educational programmes about diverse religions and worldviews began to be investigated and implemented as strategies to encourage interreligious understanding and social cohesion, particularly following the 2005 London bombings when a fear of youth radicalisation and home-grown terrorism became prevalent. In addition, as a growing number of people in Western societies, and young people especially, declare themselves to have no religious affiliation, state actors are currently grappling with the reality that we are living in increasingly multifaith and non-religious societies and government education systems have become places of contestation as a result of these changes. This volume examines ERW research and policies in a number of diverse places in the hope of identifying common themes, overlapping insights and best practices that can inform research and policy for religious literacy and interreligious understanding in other contexts. This book was originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Intercultural Studies.

A significant number of Americans view atheists as immoral elitists, aloof and unconcerned with the common good, and they view science and scientists as responsible. Thanks in large part to the prominence and influence of New Atheists such as Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Daniel Dennett, and Christopher Hitchens, New Atheism has claimed the pulpit of secularity in Western society. New Atheists have given voice to marginalized nonreligious individuals and underscored the importance of science in society. They have also advanced a derisive view of religion and forcefully argued that science and religion are intrinsically in conflict. Many in the public around the globe think that all scientists are atheists and that all atheist scientists are New Atheists, militantly against religion and religious people. But what do everyday atheist scientists actually think about religion? Drawing on a survey of 1,293 atheist scientists in the U.S. and U.K., and 81 in-depth interviews, this book explains the pathways that led to atheism among scientists, the diverse views of religion they hold, their perspectives on the limits to what science can explain, and their views of meaning and morality. The findings reveal a vast gulf between the rhetoric of New Atheism in the public sphere and the reality of atheism in science. The story of the varieties of atheism in science is consequential for both scientific and religious communities and points to tools for dialogue between these seemingly disparate groups.

Thoughtful essays to revive dialogue about atheism beyond belief. The Varieties of Atheism reveals the diverse nonreligious experiences obscured by the combative intellectualism of Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, and Christopher Hitchens. In fact, contributors contend that narrowly defining atheism as the belief that there is no god misunderstands religious and nonreligious persons altogether. The essays show that, just as religion exceeds doctrine, atheism also encompasses every dimension of human life: from imagination and feeling to community and ethics. Contributors offer new, expansive perspectives on atheism's diverse history and possible futures. By recovering lines of affinity and tension between particular atheists and particular religious traditions, this book paves the way for fruitful conversation between religious and non-religious people in our secular age.

One of the twentieth century's most brilliant and unconventional thinkers, Alexandre Kojeve was a Russian emigre to France whose lectures on Hegel in the 1930s galvanized a generation of French intellectuals. Although Kojeve wrote a great deal, he published very little in his lifetime, and so the ongoing rediscovery of his work continues to present new challenges to philosophy and political theory. Written in 1931 but left unfinished, Atheism is an erudite and open-ended exploration of profound questions of estrangement, death, suicide, and the infinite that demonstrates the range and the provocative power of Kojeve's thought. Ranging across Heidegger, Buddhism, Christianity, German idealism, Russian literature, and mathematics, Kojeve advances a novel argument about freedom and authority. He investigates the possibility that there is not any vantage point or source of authority-including philosophy, science, or God-that is outside or beyond politics and the world as we experience it. The question becomes whether atheism-or theism-is even a meaningful position since both affirmation and denial of God's existence imply a knowledge that seems clearly outside our capacities. Masterfully translated by Jeff Love, this book offers a striking new perspective on Kojeve's work and its implications for theism, atheism, politics, and freedom.

In a time marked by prominent public clashes between theists and atheists, much less attention has been given to the question of agnosticism, whether in public debate or in academic literature. This is all the more surprising given that so many in Western society feel unable to identify unequivocally with either theism or atheism. This book brings together some leading contemporary philosophers, from both the analytic and continental traditions, to give a sustained and in-depth treatment of the question of agnosticism. Approaching the question from a variety of stances and employing different methodologies, the contributors explore the various possible meanings of agnosticism today. Several of them develop what they describe as a 'New Agnosticism,' where the relationship with theism or forms of religious belief is not as mutually exclusive as has often been assumed. Others look for signs of agnosticism in places where it is not usually thought to be found, such as in forms of continental philosophy, and even in theology itself. They also raise interesting methodological questions at the intersection of analytic and continental philosophy. These are stimulating and innovative essays working with the most recent developments in philosophy and religious thought. They open up new avenues of thought that will be of interest to philosophers, theologians, and other thoughtful readers, whether theist, atheist, or agnostic.