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This book presents an historical and critical interpretation of Hume's rejection of the existence of a deity with moral attributes. It argues that 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. This book 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 sceptical attitude toward traditional forms of cosmological and theological speculation.

More and more Americans are opting out of religion. Who are these people that reject religion, and what motivates them? What actually causes a person to lose his or her faith? This book offers an in-depth exploration of the reasons, experiences, and values of people who were once religious but are no longer. By analyzing their personal stories of how they transitioned from religiosity to secularity, key patterns are explored and many insights provided. Rather than living up to the cliché of the angry, nihilistic atheist, apostates are life-affirming, courageous, highly intelligent and inquisitive, and deeply moral. It is predicted that this trend toward nonbelief will likely continue and 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 book discusses numerous wide-ranging, topical issues of faith, using various illustrations from contemporary life. It provides a historical, social, and rhetorical context for the ‘new atheism’, and evaluates in depth, the relationship of religion to science, including a theological and scientific critique of both creationism and intelligent design theory. Critics of religion, such as Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennet, and Sam Harris, are heralded as the exponents of a ‘new atheism’, and the book explains each of their work in its historical perspective, drawing comparisons with earlier forms of atheism. Responding to the critics through dialogue on the credibility of religious belief, Darwinism, morality, fundamentalism, and our approach to reading sacred texts, it establishes a compelling case for the practical and theoretical validity of faith in the contemporary world. This book supports an informed and constructive exchange of ideas rather than a contest between two sides of the debate. It encourages faith communities to undertake patient engagement with their critics and acknowledge the place for development in their self-understanding, whilst resisting the reductive explanations of the ‘new atheism’.

This book is an annual volume offering a regular snapshot of state-of-the-art work in this longstanding area of philosophy that has seen an explosive growth of interest over the past half century. Under the guidance of a distinguished editorial board, it publishes work in any area of philosophy of religion. Topics covered include secular belief, theories of analogical predication, nominalism and divine aseity, meticulous providence and gratuitous evil, many-one identity and how it relates to the Trinity, atheism and theistic belief, the Epistemology of the Agape struggle, Wittgensteinian Quasi-Fideism, the semantics for blasphemy, and grounding and omniscience.

Rejecting the assumption of theism as the African American orientation, and in response to a central question—What is the look of a nontheistic theology?—Pinn provides the first systematic African American nontheistic theology. It expands the range of theological resources to include more of the mundane materials generally overlooked in African American theology. Through an appreciation of a complex sense of community that extends beyond a simple location of the like-minded, The End of God-Talk offers a new center for theological inquiry and ties this to a sense of the human much more scientifically grounded than the imago Dei ideas that dominate African American theistic theologies. Pinn explores the importance of symmetry as a new marker of meaning, one that rejects traditional notions of salvation—even those posed by the more materially grounded liberation theologies. Furthermore, Pinn proposes a turn to Thoreau, Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, and Alice Walker as a way of forging a sense of ethical conduct consistent with African American nontheistic humanism. The book ends with an exploration of the religious significance of ordinary spaces and activities as the locations for humanist theological engagement. Through a turn to embodied human life as the proper arena for and content of theologizing, Pinn's book opens a new theological path with important implications for ongoing work in African American religious studies.

This book uncovers something more radical than atheism: hostility against God. Misotheists are not anti-religious, nor do they question God's existence; however, they do deny his competence and goodness. The author marshals an impressive array of evidence to demonstrate that this stance has a history of its own, although few people are aware of it. Indeed, misotheists tend to conceal their hostility to God, even while they hint at it obsessively. Hating God contains both a sweeping historical overview of the hostility against God and compelling case studies of six major authors who explore misotheistic themes: Algernon Swinburne, Zora Neale Hurston, Rebecca West, Elie Wiesel, Peter Shaffer, and Philip Pullman.The author's focus on literary artists is no coincidence, as literature has served as the principal vehicle for expressions of God-hatred over the last two hundred years. By probing the deeper mainsprings that cause rational, talented, moral people to become blasphemers, he offers answers to some of the most vexing questions that beset the human relationship with the divine. In a provocative finding the author concludes that misotheists have no morbid or perverse inclinations but instead number among them humanists of the highest caliber.

This book shows how contemporary French philosophy is rethinking the legacy of the death of God in ways that take the debate beyond the narrow confines of atheism into the much broader domain of post-theological thinking. The argument traces its way through the different approaches of Alain Badiou, Jean-Luc Nancy and Quentin Meillassoux, showing how each thinker elaborates a distinctive account of the ‘post-theological’, each moving beyond atheism and seeking to follow the death of God in a different way. The term ‘post-theological’ is used to describe a position that has moved beyond the twin poles of an ‘ascetic’ or residual atheism shorn of radical political potential and a ‘parasitic’ or imitative atheism still relying on theological categories. The three positions considered in the book all seek to locate themselves differently in relation to the spectrum between the ascetic and the parasitic as they seek to occupy the territory of post-theological thought. After examining each position carefully and exposing them to a three-way mutual critique, the book concludes that, while Badiou, Nancy and Meillassoux are each sensitive in different measure to the dangers of the ascetic and the parasitic, and while they each gesture towards a post-theological thinking no longer defined in terms of imitative and residual atheisms, they each also struggle to do justice to the death of God.

There are many who believe Moses parted the Red Sea and Jesus came back from the dead. Others are certain that exorcisms occur, ghosts haunt attics, and the blessed can cure the terminally ill. Though miracles are immensely improbable, people have embraced them for millennia, seeing in them proof of a supernatural world that resists scientific explanation. Helping us to think more critically about our belief in the improbable, The Miracle Myth casts a skeptical eye on attempts to justify belief in the supernatural, laying bare the fallacies that such attempts commit. Through arguments and accessible analysis, Larry Shapiro sharpens our critical faculties so we become less susceptible to tales of myths and miracles and learn how, ultimately, to evaluate claims regarding vastly improbable events on our own. Shapiro acknowledges that belief in miracles could be harmless, but cautions against allowing such beliefs to guide how we live our lives. His investigation reminds us of the importance of evidence and rational thinking as we explore the unknown.