Victor J. Stenger
Science, Religion and Culture
...ly 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 were not intended to be philosophical treatises. They are popular books addressed to a public that is becoming increasingly disenchanted with organized religion and its negative influence on society. The new approach takes a harder line in criticizing religion t...
Massimo Pigliucci
Science, Religion and Culture
...m 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 the main points of my earlier paper....
Tom Gilson & Carson Weitnauer (eds), True Reason: Confronting the Irrationality of the New Atheism (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Publications, 2013), 315pp, US$17.99 (paperback), ISBN 978-0-8254-4338-1
Reviewed by Gregory W. Dawes, Associate Professor of Philosophy
Science, Religion and Culture
...e so-called “new atheists” and to offer a defence of the reasonableness of Christianity. Its essays cover an extraordinarily wide range of topics. These include the theological problems posed by religious diversity, the so-called “naturalism” of the modern sciences, the relations between faith and reason and religion and science, the role of religion in supporting our moral convictions, the reliability of the biblical accounts of Jesus&...
Reviewed by Rick Repetti, Kingsborough Community College, CUNY; Email: Rick.Repetti@kbcc.cuny.edu
Science, Religion and Culture
...>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, talking points, dialectical examples and analyses of real-life “interventions” designed to progressively tutor armies of atheist evangelists in the art of demol...
Reviewed by Elly Vintiadis (www.ellyvintiadis.com)
... of faith to a life of atheism or agnosticism. It brings together the so-called ‘deconversion’ stories of 16 people of different gender, race, age, and religion. If, like me, you have never heard of the term “deconversion” before, it is the atheist equivalent to the religious finding of faith – it is a conversion from belief to agnosticism or atheism....
Justin P. McBrayer
...of data that shows that theists do better in terms of happiness, health, longevity, interpersonal relationships, and charitable giving. Hence, most people have a strong reason to believe in God regardless of the evidence....
Justin P. McBrayer
...of data that shows that theists do better in terms of happiness, health, longevity, inter- personal relationships, and charitable giving. Hence, most people have a strong reason to believe in God regardless of the evidence....
Massimo Pigliucci, K.D.
... of a moderate liberal atheist....
Michael Shermer
...nged!” E. “Atheists rule!”
F. “Allahu Akbar!”...
F. “Allahu Akbar!”...
Thomas J. Coleman III
Science, Religion and Culture, Vol. 2, Iss. 2, Pages 39-41
...ed with the “New Atheism” of the Richard Dawkins’s and Sam Harris’s of the world gets to lay claim to the man and his ideas, or at least they have often appropriated him in this fashion. However, J. David Pleins’s book The Evolving God endeavors us to carefully rethink this position, as he attempts to reclaim Darwin from the grasp of the New Atheists by charging him with uncovering “[t]he ...
Thomas J. Coleman III1*, Ralph W. Hood Jr.1 and John R. Shook2
...larity in general, and atheism in particular, has increased significantly. Moreover, these phenomena have been researched, studied and documented by multiple disciplines ranging from cognitive science to religious studies, and from anthropology to sociology. The study of atheism and secularity is of high interest to not only scholars, but also the public in general. In this special issue of Science, Religion & Culture, G...
Jonathan Jong
...including nonreligion, atheism, and secularity) is invariably prefaced by sheepish attempts to define these terms, followed by apologies for the inevitable inadequacy of the proposed definitions. This paper argues that scholars of religion and nonreligion should accept the fact that “religion” and “nonreligion” are, like all social scientific concepts (and some biological ones), fuzzy categories. There is no such thing as religion, such...
Ethan G. Quillen
...ent years the study of Atheism has grown in popularity, leading to both positive and negative results. On one end, this has engendered a polyvocal and polyfocal discourse, garnering perspectives from a number of different methodological and theoretical approaches so as to develop a truly inter- and multi-disciplinary understanding about what we mean when we discuss Atheism. On the other, this myriad of voices has equally led...
Ryan T. Cragun1*, Joseph H. Hammer2, Michael Nielsen3
Luke Galen
...tually guarantees that atheists and agnostics will appear inferior on a variety of outcome variables. However, nonbelief and secular worldviews can also be practiced in social groups such as atheist, humanist, and freethought organizations. Contrary to prevalent stereotypes, organized nonbelief is also associated with well-being and prosociality equivalent to that seen with organized religious belief. Notable areas of relati...
Joseph Langston1*, Joseph Hammer2, Ryan T. Cragun3
...r communities, and the atheist movement in general by dividing nonbelievers (N=1,939) into four groups based on degree of formal affiliation and assessing attitudes, perceptions, and preferences in three areas. First, we examined the preferences of nonbelieving group members (“secular affiliates”), former members, and nonbelieving non-members (“secular nonaffiliates”) on nonbeliever group goals, functions, and activities. Second, we e...
Liz Goodnick
...e greatest challenge to theism is the problem of evil (perhaps better understood as the problem of pain and/or suffering): it is difficult to understand why an all-knowing, all-powerful, and perfectly good being2 would allow his creatures to suffer: “Epicurus’s old questions are yet unanswered. Is he willing to prevent evil, but not able? then is he impotent. Is he able, but not willing? then is he malevolent. Is he both able and willing? whence th...
Marcus Mann
...nown as “The New Atheism,” a term meant to encapsulate a 21st century religious skepticism characterized by its vitriolic and unapologetic stance toward religion and the moral relativism that the new atheists claim protects it. Following Harris’s example, evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins published his book, The God Delusion, cognitive philosopher Daniel Dennett came out with Breaking the Spell and jou...
Elly Vintiadis
...al world and mainstream theistic belief are at ease with each other. It is a main contention of the book that the question of the conflict between science and religion is ill-posed because, properly understood, theism incorporates science since it too, just like science, requires people to seek the truth and to think critically. In order to go about showing why this
is so, Steane embarks ...
is so, Steane embarks ...
Ian von Hegner
...position of heroical apatheism is argued as an alternative to positions such as theism, atheism, and agnosticism. These positions only concern themselves with the ontological or epistemological question of whether the gods exist, whereas heroical apatheism concerns itself with the primary component missing so far, namely democratic rights and dignity. Th...
Dein Simon
... the fact that the new atheists are vehemently opposed to religious fundamentalists and their teachings there are marked similarities between the two groups. In this paper I analyse new atheism in terms of fundamentalist characteristics discussed by the Fundamentalism Project: Reactivity, dualism, absolutism and inerrancy, apocalypticism. Additionally both underscore the role of evidentialism. From my analysis of these chara...
Hafiz Muhammad Tahir*, Arooj Zaheer and Rabia Yaqoob
... obtained from Neoscona theisi, an orb-weaver spider of Araneidae family. Evident inhibition of fungal growth was observed on bread treated with web silk of N. theisi as compared to untreated control. It is concluded that silk of N. theisi possess antifungal property....
Lowell Gustafson
...ost big historians are atheists or agnostics they are still interested in religion because they want to know why people believe what they do; and (3) it is a mark of hubris or pride that a religious person (or even a scientist) would claim total knowledge about ultimate reality. Ted Peters adds to a discussion that is taking place along our current pilgrimage, but he would be the first to say that is not the final word about ultimate reality.
...
Amar Razzaq1, Abdur Rehman4*, Abdul Hassan Qureshi2, Iqbal Javed3, Raheel Saqib5 and Muhammad Nadeem Iqbal6
Hafiz Umar Farid1, Muhammad Zubair2, Zahid Mahmood Khan1, Aamir Shakoor1*, Behzad Mustafa1, Aftab Ahmad Khan3, Muhamad Naveed Anjum4, Ijaz Ahmad5 and Muhammad Mubeen6
Hafiz Muhammad Tahir*, Iram Liaqat*, Junaid Nadeem, Hammad Aamir and Shaukat Ali
...eoscona mukherji and N. theisi egg and web silk. For disk diffusion method, silk was first degummed to form degummed silk solution’ (DgS), then the degummed silk was dissolved to form the dissolved silk solution (DSS). The DgS and DSS solutions were tested against selected common pathogenic bacteria (Esherichia coli, Salmonella typhimurium SJW1102, and Staphylococcus aureus ). According to the study, the DgS and DSS solutions of egg-sac silk exhibited no...
Muhammad Ehsan Safdar1, Muhammad Ather Nadeem1, Abdul Rehman1, Amjed Ali1,
Nasir Iqbal2, Qaisar Mumtaz1, Amir Javed1
