This book expands the current axiology of theism literature by assessing the axiological status of alternative conceptions of God and the divine. To date, most of the literature on the axiology of theism focuses almost exclusively on the axiological status of theism and atheism. Specifically, it focuses almost entirely on monotheism, typically Judeo-Christian conceptions of God, and atheism, usually construed as ontological naturalism. This volume features essays from prominent philosophers of religion, ethicists, and metaphysicians addressing the value impact of alternative views such as ultimism, polytheism, pantheism, panentheism, and idealism. Additionally, it reflects a wider trend in analytic philosophy of religion to broaden its scope beyond the Judeo-Christian tradition. Value Beyond Monotheism will be of interest to scholars and advanced students working in the philosophy of religion, ethics, and metaphysics.

The God Delusion caused a sensation when it was published in 2006. Within weeks it became the most hotly debated topic, with Dawkins himself branded as either saint or sinner for presenting his hard-hitting, impassioned rebuttal of religion of all types. His argument could hardly be more topical. While Europe is becoming increasingly secularized, the rise of religious fundamentalism, whether in the Middle East or Middle America, is dramatically and dangerously dividing opinion around the world. In America, and elsewhere, a vigorous dispute between 'intelligent design' and Darwinism is seriously undermining and restricting the teaching of science. In many countries religious dogma from medieval times still serves to abuse basic human rights such as women's and gay rights. And all from a belief in a God whose existence lacks evidence of any kind. Dawkins attacks God in all his forms. He eviscerates the major arguments for religion and demonstrates the supreme improbability of a supreme being. He shows how religion fuels war, foments bigotry and abuses children. The God Delusion is a brilliantly argued, fascinating polemic that will be required reading for anyone interested in this most emotional and important subject.

This textbook demonstrates the relevance and importance of humanism as a non-religious worldview. Each chapter includes a helpful pedagogy including a general overview, case studies, suggestions for further reading, and discussion questions. Making this the ideal textbook for students approaching the topic for the first time. The textbook explores controversial topics that will instigate debate such as human rights, sexuality, relationship between science, humanism and religion, abortion, euthanasia, war and non-human life.

What do people believe about death and the afterlife? How do they negotiate the relationship between science and religion? How do they understand apparently paranormal events? What do they make of sensations of awe, wonder or exceptional moments of sudden enlightenment? The volunteer mass observers responded to such questions with a freshness, openness and honesty which compels attention. Using this rich material, Mass Observers Making Meaning captures the extraordinarily diverse landscape of belief and disbelief to be found in Britain in the late 20th-century, at a time when Christianity was in steep decline, alternative spiritualities were flourishing and atheism was growing. Divided as they were about the ultimate nature of reality, the mass observers were united in their readiness to puzzle about life’s larger questions. Listening empathetically to their accounts, James Hinton – himself a convinced atheist – seeks to bring divergent ways of finding meaning in human life into dialogue with one another, and argues that we can move beyond the cacophony of conflicting beliefs to an understanding of our common need and ability to seek meaning in our lives.

Drawing on ethnographic inquiry and the anthropological literature on doubt and atheism, this volume explores people's reluctance to pursue religion. The contributors capture the experiences of godless people and examine their perspectives on the role of religion in their personal and public lives. In doing so, the volume contributes to a critical understanding of the processes of disengagement from religion and reveals the challenges and paradoxes that godless people face.

This book examines the relations between the Albanian communist regime and the Albanian Autocephalous Orthodox Church (AAOC) from 1945, when the communists came to power, to 1967, when Albania became the only atheistic state in the world, and religion of all kinds was completely suppressed. Based on extensive archival research, the book outlines Orthodox Church life under communism and considers the regime's strategies to control, use, and subordinate the Church. It argues against a simple state oppression versus Church resistance scenario, showing that the situation was much more complex, with neither the regime nor the Church being monolithic entities. It shows how, despite the brutality and the constant pressure of the state, the Church successfully negotiated with the communist authorities and benefited from engaging with them, and how the communist authorities used the Church as a tool of foreign policy, especially to strengthen the regime's ties with their East European allies.

The essays in this book not only examine the variety of atheist expression and experience in the Western context, they also explore how local, national and international settings may contribute to the shaping of atheist identities. By addressing identity at these different levels, the book explores how individuals construct their own atheist-or non-religious-identity, how they construct community and how identity factors into atheist interaction at the social or institutional levels. The book offers an interdisciplinary comparative approach to the analysis of issues relating to atheism, such as demography, community engagement, gender politics, stigmatism and legal action. It covers such themes as: secularization; the social context of atheism in various Western countries; the shifting of atheist identities based on different cultural and national contexts; the role of atheism in multicultural settings; how the framework of "reasonable accommodation" applies to atheism; interactions and relationships between atheism and religion and how atheism is represented for political and legal purposes. Featuring contributions by international scholars at the cutting edge of atheism studies, this volume offers unique insights into the relationship between atheism and identity. It will serve as a useful resource for academics, journalists, policy makers and general readers interested in secular and religious studies, identity construction and identity politics as well as atheism in general.

The Secular Outlook: In Defense of Moral and Political Secularism shows how people can live together and overcome the challenge of religious terrorism by adopting a "secular outlook" on life and politics. * Shows how secularism can answer the problem of religious terrorism * Provides new perspectives on how religious minorities can be integrated into liberal democracies * Reveals how secularism has gained a new political and moral significance. * Also examines such topics as atheism, religious criticism and free speech

In this book, former Yeshiva student turned secularist Bruce Ledewitz proposes a Reformation in secular thinking. He shows that in opposition to today's aggressive Atheism, religious sources are necessary if secularism is to promote fulfilling human relationships and peaceful international relations. Amid signs that secularism is growing in unhealthy ways, Ledewitz proposes a new secular way to live, in which elements of religion, humanism, and materialism are combined to create something at once quite old and startlingly new.

http: //www.hallowedsecularism.org/

The recent rise of the New Atheism has aroused great general interest, thrown up questions of fundamental importance, and started a fascinating conversation. Why God Won't Go Away invites us to join in. The volume opens with a survey of the main ideas of the New Atheism, as expressed in the works of Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens. We then examine the core views of the movement closely, making due reference to its 'virtual community' of websites and blogs. Subjects explored include: whether religion is delusional and evil, the belief that human beings are fundamentally good, whether we should have faith only in what can be proved through reason and science, the idea that the best hope for humanity is a 'New Enlightenment' The result is a lively and highly thought-provoking volume that poses a number of interesting questions. Why is religion experiencing a resurgence in the twenty-first century, when we are meant to have grown out of such a primitive fixation? Has the New Atheism's fascination with rationality led to a fatal underestimation of the longing of the human heart to adore? And if, as Christopher Hitchens writes in exasperation, religion is 'ineradicable', doesn't this tiresome fact suggest that dismissing belief in God as irrational and unscientific might just be a waste of time?

Infidel Feminism is the first in-depth study of a distinctive brand of women's rights that emerged out of the Victorian Secularist movement. It looks at the lives and work of a number of female activists, whose renunciation of religion shaped their struggle for emancipation. Anti-religious or secular ideas were fundamental to the development of feminist thought, but have, until now, been almost entirely passed over in the historiography of the Victorian and Edwardian women's movement. In uncovering an important tradition of Freethinking feminism, this book reveals an ongoing radical and free love current connecting Owenite feminism with the more "respectable" post-1850 women's movement and the "New Women" of the early twentieth century. This book will be invaluable to both scholars and students of social and cultural history and feminist thought, and to interdisciplinary studies of religion and secularization, as well as those interested in the history of women's movements more broadly.

This book provides the first comprehensive overview of atheism, secularity and non-religion in Central and Eastern Europe in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. In contrast to scholarship that has focused on the 'decline of religion' and secularization theory, the book builds upon recent trends to focus on the 'rise of non-religion' itself. While the label of 'post-communism' might suggest a generalized perception of the region, this survey reveals that the precise developments in each country before, after and even during the communist era are surprisingly diverse. A multinational team of contributors provide interdisciplinary case studies covering Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Russia, Ukraine, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Croatia, Romania and Bulgaria. This approach utilises perspectives from social and intellectual history in combination with sociology of religion in order to cover the historical development of secularity and secular thought, complemented with sociological data. The study is framed by methodological and analytical chapters. Offering an important geographical perspective to the study of freethought, atheism, secularity and non-religion, this wide-ranging book will be of significant interest to scholars of twentieth-century social and intellectual history, sociology of religion and non-religion, cultural and religious studies, philosophy and theology.

Partiality and Impartiality in African Philosophy fills the lacuna in African philosophy literature on the inherent tension between requirements of partiality (favoritism) and impartiality (equality). Motsamai Molefe deploys two strategies to philosophically resolve the tension between partiality and impartiality. The first strategy involves applying the moral theories of Kwasi Wiredu, Thaddeus Metz, and Kwame Gyekye to the problem. Finding their views useful in some ways and seriously limited in others, Molefe turns to the second strategy in which he invokes the salient normative concept of personhood in African cultures. Molefe argues that the concept of personhood adjoins theories of human dignity and moral perfection (virtue). The major insight that emerges is a robust ethical theory qua personhood that accommodates both partiality and impartiality. He grounds requirements of impartiality on human dignity, which operates largely as a macro-ethical concept that normatively informs the character of our social institutions (politics). Politics is characterized by fairness, equality, and impartiality. Partiality (the agent-and-other-centred forms of it) is directly connected with the agent's chief moral duty to achieve her own virtue (moral perfection), which operates as a micro-ethical concept. These two kinds of moral partialism, self-favoritism and close ties such as family, are justified by appeal to the project's view, instead of the individuals-and-relationships view typically invoked to justify moral partiality in the literature.

This unique volume looks at three engaging and contemporary case studies. This topic has a wide appeal in sociology, political theory, religious studies, and cultural studies, along with the burgeoning field of studies in secularity and nonreligion. Anxiety surrounding religious symbols have never been more apparent than in society today and this volume offers a comprehensive analysis of this controversial topic.

Based on extensive ethnographic fieldwork, this book examines how contemporary secularism in France is positioned as a guarantor of women's rights. Selby argues that the complex "fetishization" of headscarves in public, governmental, and feminist French discourse positions publicly-visible Muslim women in ways that obscure their engagement with laicite (French secularism).

The series Religion and Society (RS) contributes to the exploration of religions as social systems- both in Western and non-Western societies; in particular, it examines religions in their differentiation from, and intersection with, other cultural systems, such as art, economy, law and politics. Due attention is given to paradigmatic case or comparative studies that exhibit a clear theoretical orientation with the empirical and historical data of religion and such aspects of religion as ritual, the religious imagination, constructions of tradition, iconography, or media. In addition, the formation of religious communities, their construction of identity, and their relation to society and the wider public are key issues of this series.

This new study examines the relationship of atheism to religious tolerance from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment in a broad array of literary texts and political and religious controversies written in Latin and the vernacular primarily in France, the Netherlands, and Switzerland. The main authors featured are Desiderius Erasmus, Sebastian Castellio, Jean Bodin, Michel de Montaigne, Dirck Coornhert, Justus Lipsius, Gisbertus Voetius, the anonymous Theophrastus redivivus, and Pierre Bayle. These authors reflect and inform changing attitudes to religious tolerance inspired by a complete reconceptualization of atheism over the course of three centuries of literary and intellectual history. By integrating the history of tolerance in the history of atheism, Religious Tolerance from Renaissance to Enlightenment: Atheist's Progress should prove stimulating to historians of philosophy as well as literary specialists and students of Reformation history.

In response to the intellectual movement of New Atheism, this volume articulates a "New Theist" response that has at its core a desire to engage in productive and depolarizing dialogue. To ensure this book is of interest to atheists and theists alike, a team of experts in the field of philosophy of religion offer an assessment of the strongest New Atheist arguments. The chapters address the most pertinent questions about God, including politics and morality, and each essay shows how a reflective theist might deal with points raised by the New Atheists. This volume is a serious academic engagement with the questions asked by New Atheism. As such, it will be of significant interest to scholars working in the philosophy of religion and theology, as well as those engaged in religious studies generally.

The decline of the Christian churches in the West is undeniable but commentators differ in their understanding of what this represents. For some it shows a decline in interest in religion as such; for others, religion has not declined, it has only changed its shape. Possible candidates for Christianity's replacement are the new religious movements of the late 1960s and what is variously called New Age, alternative or contemporary spirituality. Secular Beats Spiritual offers a detailed study of the religious and spiritual innovations of the last 50 years. It assesses their popularity in the UK and concludes that the 'not decline-just change' view cannot be sustained. Serious interest in spirituality has grown far less quickly than has the number of us who have no religious or spiritual interest. The most popular and enduring movements have been the least religious ones and those that have survived have done so by becoming more 'this-worldly' and less patently religious or spiritual. Yoga is popular but as a secular exercise programme; Transcendental Meditation now markets its meditational technique as a purely secular therapy; British Buddhists now offer the secular Mindfulness; and the Findhorn Foundation (Europe's oldest New Age centre) is no longer the germ of a counter-cultural communalism but sells its expertise to major corporations. Steve Bruce also demonstrates that, although eastern religious themes (such as reincarnation and karma) have become more popular as the power of the Christian churches to stigmatise them has declined, such themes have also been significantly altered so that what superficially looks like the easternization of the West might better be described as the westernization of the easternization of the West.

This book explores the relational dynamic of religious and nonreligious positions as well as the tensions between competing modes of nonreligion. Across the globe, individuals and communities are seeking to distinguish themselves in different ways from religion as they take on an identity unaffiliated to any particular faith. The resulting diversity of nonreligion has until recently been largely ignored in academia. Conceptually, the book advances a relational approach to nonreligion, which is inspired by Pierre Bourdieu's field theory. It also offers further analytical distinctions that help to identify and delineate different modes of nonreligion with respect to actors' values, objectives, and their relations with relevant religious others. The significance of this conceptual frame is illustrated by three empirical studies, on organized humanism in Sweden, atheism and freethought in the Philippines, and secular politics in the Netherlands. These studies analyze the normativities and changing positions of different groups against the background of both institutionalized religious practice and changing religious fields more generally. This is a fascinating exploration of how nonreligion and secularities are developing across the world. It complements existing approaches to the study of religion, secularity, and secularism and will, therefore, be of great value to scholars of religious studies as well as the anthropology, history, and sociology of religion more generally.

This book acts as a bridge between the critical study of 'religion' and empirical studies of 'religion in the real world'. Chris Cotter presents a concise and up-to-date critical survey of research on non-religion in the UK and beyond, before presenting the results of extensive research in Edinburgh's Southside which blurs the boundary between 'religion' and 'non-religion'. In doing so, Cotter demonstrates that these are dynamic subject positions, and phenomena can occupy both at the same time, or neither, depending on who is doing the positioning, and what issues are at stake. This book details an approach that avoids constructing 'religion' as in some way unique, whilst also fully incorporating 'non-religious' subject positions into religious studies. It provides a rich engagement with a wide variety of theoretical material, rooted in empirical data, which will be essential reading for those interested in critical, sociological and anthropological study of the contemporary non-/religious landscape.

A passionate, highly accessible clarion call to a world dangerously threatened by irrational superstitions of all kinds. 'Truly a book for our time' Steven Pinker 'In Sweden's public square, Christer Sturmark has done as much as anyone to uphold reason and humane critical thinking' Richard Dawkins 'As lucid and illuminating as it is warm and inspiring' Rebecca Goldstein In country after country, conspiracy theories and religious dogmas that once seemed to have been overtaken by enlightened thought are helping to lift authoritarian leaders into power. The effects are being felt by women, ethnic minorities, teachers, scientists and students - and by the environment, the ultimate victim of climate change denial. We need clear thinking now more than ever. Christer Sturmark is a crusading secular humanist as well as a Swedish publisher and entrepreneur, and The Flame of Reason is his manifesto for a better world. It provides a set of simple tools for clear thinking in the face of populist dogmas, anti-science attitudes and pseudo-philosophy, and suggestions for how we can move towards a new enlightenment. From truth to Quantum Physics, moral philosophy to the Myers-Briggs test, Sturmark offers a passionate defence of rational thought, science, tolerance and pluralism; a warm and engaging guide for anyone who wants to better navigate the modern world. Translated by and co-written with Douglas Hofstadter, celebrated cognitive scientist, physicist and author of Godel, Escher, Bach.

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.

This book presents a pragmatic response to arguments against religion made by the New Atheism movement. The author argues that analytic and empirical philosophies of religion-the mainstream approaches in contemporary philosophy of religion-are methodologically unequipped to address the "Threefold Challenge" made by popular New Atheist thinkers such as Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, and Daniel Dennett. The book has three primary motivations. First, it provides an interpretation of the New Atheist movement that treats their claims as philosophical arguments and not just rhetorical exercises or demagoguery. Second, it assesses and responds to these claims by elaborating four distinct contemporary philosophical perspectives- analytic philosophy, empirical philosophy, continental philosophy, and pragmatism-as well as contextualizing these perspectives in the history of the philosophy of religion. Finally, the book offers a metaphilosophical critique, returning again and again to the question of method. In the end, the author settles upon a modified version of pragmatism that he concludes is best suited for articulating the terms and stakes of the God Debate. Challenging the New Atheism will be of interest to scholars and students of American philosophy and philosophy of religion.