50 Voices of Disbelief: Why We Are Atheists presents a
collection of original essays drawn from an international group of
prominent voices in the fields of academia, science, literature,
media and politics who offer carefully considered statements of why
they are atheists.
* Features a truly international cast of contributors, ranging
from public intellectuals such as Peter Singer, Susan Blackmore,
and A.C. Grayling, novelists, such as Joe Haldeman, and heavyweight
philosophers of religion, including Graham Oppy and Michael
Tooley
* Contributions range from rigorous philosophical arguments to
highly personal, even whimsical, accounts of how each of these
notable thinkers have come to reject religion in their lives
* Likely to have broad appeal given the current public
fascination with religious issues and the reception of such books
as The God Delusion and The End of Faith
Table of Content
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction: Now More Important than Ever – Voices of
Reason 1
Russell Blackford and Udo Schüklenk
Unbelievable! 5
Russell Blackford
My ‘Bye Bull’ Story 10
Margaret Downey
How Benevolent Is God? – An Argument from Suffering to
Atheism 16
Nicholas Everitt
A Deal-Breaker 23
Ophelia Benson
Why Am I a Nonbeliever? – I Wonder . . . 28
J. L. Schellenberg
Wicked or Dead? Reflections on the Moral Character and
Existential Status of God 33
John Harris
Religious Belief and Self-Deception 41
Adèle Mercier
The Coming of Disbelief 48
J. J. C. Smart
What I Believe 50
Graham Oppy
Too Good to Be True, Too Obscure to Explain: The Cognitive
Shortcomings of Belief in God 57
Thomas W. Clark
How to Think About God: Theism, Atheism, and Science 65
Michael Shermer
A Magician Looks at Religion 78
James Randi
Confessions of a Kindergarten Leper 82
Emma Tom
Beyond Disbelief 86
Philip Kitcher
An Ambivalent Nonbelief 97
Taner Edis
Why Not? 105
Sean M. Carroll
Godless Cosmology 112
Victor J. Stenger
Unanswered Prayers 118
Christine Overall
Beyond Faith and Opinion 123
Damien Broderick
Could It Be Pretty Obvious There’s No God? 129
Stephen Law
Atheist, Obviously 139
Julian Baggini
Why I am Not a Believer 145
A. C. Grayling
Evil and Me 157
Gregory Benford
Who’s Unhappy? 161
Lori Lipman Brown
Reasons to be Faithless 165
Sheila A. M. Mc Lean
Three Stages of Disbelief 168
Julian Savulescu
Born Again, Briefly 172
Greg Egan
Cold Comfort 177
Ross Upshur
The Accidental Exorcist 182
Austin Dacey
Atheist Out of the Foxhole 187
Joe Haldeman
The Unconditional Love of Reality 191
Dale Mc Gowan
Antinomies 197
Jack Dann
Giving Up Ghosts and Gods 200
Susan Blackmore
Some Thoughts on Why I Am an Atheist 204
Tamas Pataki
No Gods, Please! 211
Laura Purdy
Welcome Me Back to the World of the Thinking 220
Kelly O’Connor
Kicking Religion Goodbye . . . 226
Peter Adegoke
On Credenda 230
Miguel Kottow
‘Not Even Start to Ignore Those Questions!’ A Voice
of Disbelief in a Different Key 236
Frieder Otto Wolf
Imagine No Religion 252
Edgar Dahl
Humanism as Religion: An Indian Alternative 259
Sumitra Padmanabhan
Why I Am NOT a Theist 263
Prabir Ghosh
When the Hezbollah Came to My School 270
Maryam Namazie
Evolutionary Noise, not Signal from Above 274
Athena Andreadis
Gods Inside 279
Michael R. Rose and John P. Phelan
Why Morality Doesn’t Need Religion 288
Peter Singer and Marc Hauser
Doctor Who and the Legacy of Rationalism 294
Sean Williams
My Nonreligious Life: A Journey From Superstition to Rationalism
300
Peter Tatchell
Helping People to Think Critically About Their Religious Beliefs
310
Michael Tooley
Human Self-Determination, Biomedical Progress, and God 323
Udo Schüklenk
About the Contributors 332
Index 338
About the author
Russell Blackford is a freelance writer, critic, and editor,
based in Melbourne, Australia. He teaches part-time in the School
of Philosophy and Bioethics at Monash University, where he
specialises mainly in philosophical bioethics and legal/political
philosophy. He is Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Evolution
and Technology, an on-line peer reviewed journal devoted to
rigorous consideration of future prospects for the human species or
its possible descendants.
Udo Schüklenk is a German-Australian philosopher. He
has written or edited five books and published over one hundred
articles in peer reviewed journals and books. His latest books are
the co-edited volumes The Power of Pills (2006) and The
Bioethics Reader (Blackwell, 2007). He is the Joint
Editor-in-Chief of the international journal Bioethics and
currently the Ontario Research Chair in Bioethics at Queen’s
University in Canada. His current research focuses on ethical and
policy issues in drug research and development.
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