Articles
117 open-access articles · page 6 of 6
Book ReviewBeyond an Absence of Faith: Stories About the Loss of Faith and the Discovery of Self by Jonathan M.S.Pearce and Tristan Vick
Reviewed by Elly Vintiadis (www.ellyvintiadis.com)
Beyond an Absence of Faith is an edited anthology that consists of the autobiographical accounts of the journey of ex-believers from a life of faith to a life of atheism or agnosticism. It brings together the so-called ‘deconversion’ stories of 16…
17 Jul 2014- Author Meets Critic: Session 1
Meaning in Life Does Not Exist and Would Not Focus on Rationality If It Did
Stephen Kershnar
Thad Metz offers some insightful responses to my criticisms of his important book, Meaning in Life: An Analytic Study (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013), on meaning in life. Here I argue that his responses do not succeed. Earlier I provided two objectio…
17 Jul 2014 - Book Review
Science and Religion: 5 Questions by Gregg Caruso
Reviewed by John Shook, University at Buffalo, USA, Email: jshook@pragmatism.org
If you could ask some of the most prominent scholars across the humanities and sciences the same five ques- tions about science and religion, what would you ask? This opportunity came to philosopher Gregg D. Ca- ruso, thanks to a publisher whose “5 Quest…
27 Jun 2014 - Book Review
A Manual for Creating Atheists by Peter Boghossian
Reviewed by Rick Repetti, Kingsborough Community College, CUNY, Email: Rick.Repetti@kbcc.cuny.edu
A Manual for Creating Atheists (hereafter, “the Manual”) is a training guidebook for curing those “contaminated” with what Boghossian calls “the faith virus.” It is replete with pithy aphorisms, guidelines, strategies, talki…
27 Jun 2014 - Book Review
Why Tolerate Religion? by Brian Leiter
Reviewed by David Svolba, Fitchburg State University, USA email: dsvolba@fitchburgstate.edu
One way in which our society ‘tolerates’ religion is by exempting citizens from laws that compel them to act in ways their religions forbid, or that forbid them from acting in ways their religions require. According to Brian Leiter, religious toler…
7 Jun 2014 - Book Review
Dealing with Darwin. Place, Politics, and Rhetoric in Religious Engagements with Evolution, by David N. Livingstone
David N. Livingstone, Dealing with Darwin. Place, Politics, Rhetoric in Religious Engagements with Evolution, Johns Hopkins University Press, University Professor et al.
The eminent evolutionist, Theodosius Dobzhansky wrote in 1973 that “Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution.” But it was only in the middle decades of the twentieth century that Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural…
27 May 2014 - Articles
Metaphysics for a World in Evolution
Joseph Andrew Bracken
Metaphysics as theoretical framework for more empirically oriented research in science and in the humanities seems to be either ignored or regarded with great suspicion at the present time. Natural scientists, for example, by and large employ an instrumentalis…
25 May 2014 - Articles
In a Mirror Dimly: Anthropology and Restoring a Sense of Presence to an Empty World
Timothy Helton
In this essay, I argue that, in the anthropology of religion, everything depends on the lens through which the ethnographers gaze at the objects of their study. Scholars that approach religion as an object fit only for analysis discover in it a model of an obj…
9 May 2014 - Book Review
True Reason: Confronting the Irrationality of the New Atheism
Tom Gilson, Carson Weitnauer (eds), True Reason: Confronting the Irrationality of the New Atheism (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Publications, Associate Professor of Philosophy
The present work is quite openly a work of Christian apologetics. Its aim, as the title suggests, is both to counter the work of the so-called “new atheists” and to offer a defence of the reasonableness of Christianity. Its essays cover an extraord…
1 May 2014 - Book Review
Reviewed by H. Bruce Rinker, Ph.D. Biodiversity Research Institute, 652 Main Street, Gorham, ME 04038 USA
Ruse, Michael, The Gaia Hypothesis: Science on a Pagan Planet, The University of Chicago Press
Decades ago, in an adolescent fit of rebelliousness, I stumbled upon the writings of Henry David Thoreau, particularly Civil Disobedience (1849) and Walden (1854). Respectively, Thoreau’s well-reasoned politics and his keen observations of the natural wo…
19 Apr 2014 - Articles
Scientific Atheology
John Shook
Atheology is the term for exploring unbelief and explaining its reasonableness. Scientific atheology specifically appeals to current sciences and scientific methodologies to help explain why no gods are real. Folk religions and anthropomorphic gods can’t…
8 Apr 2014 - Book Review
Essential Readings in Evolutionary Biology
Francisco J. Ayala, John C. Avise (eds.) Johns Hopkins University Press
This book is Ayala and Avise’s attempt to address a serious oversight in the scientific literature – no volume of essential readings in evolutionary biology exists, despite the fact that evolution remains central to and is the unifying principle of…
11 Mar 2014 - Articles
Where in This World is the Human Soul?
Robert E. Pollack
Where is the soul in this world? I could go to the Sages for an answer from my religious tradition, but for a person like me — a scientist for fifty years and at seventy three already in Biblical terms 13 years an elder — it is easier instead to le…
11 Mar 2014 - Editorial
Science, Religion and Culture: New Beginnings
Gregg D. Caruso
The relationship between science, religion, and culture has been a subject of profound interest for philosophers, scientists, theologians, and cultural historians for centuries. In fact, as far back as the ancient Greeks, when Thales of Miletus and other pre-S…
3 Mar 2014 - Commentary
The Grand Design: The Elimination of Mind
Keith Ward
In his book, ‘The Grand Design’ (with Leonard Mlodinow, Bantam Books, London, 2010), Stephen Hawking agrees that we should attempt to answer the questions ‘Why is there something rather than nothing? Why do we exist?’ and ‘Why thi…
3 Mar 2014 - Articles
A Muddled Defense of New Atheism: On Stenger's response
Massimo Pigliucci
Victor Stenger (this issue) has responded to my recent criticism of the so-called New Atheism movement (2013). Here I endeavor to counter Stenger’s note and highlight several of the ways in which it goes astray. To begin with, however, let me summarize t…
3 Mar 2014 - Articles
A Defense of New Atheism: A Reply to Massimo Pigliucci
Victor J. Stenger
Philosopher Massimo Pigliucci has written an article highly critical of the new atheists and accusing them of scientism. He implies that only professional philosophers like himself are qualified to discuss the subject. However, the books Pigliucci criticizes w…
3 Mar 2014