Description

After the surprising publishing success of the so-called New Atheists it has become clear that there is a market for critical discussions about religion. A religion is much more complex than a set of beliefs which cannot be proven, as the New Atheists argue. There is, in fact, much more to religion and much more to the arguments about its truth claims.

This book seeks to bring together a range of discussions, both critical and apologetic, each of which examines some part of religion and its functions. Half of the contributors are critical of some element of religion and the other half are apologetic in nature, seeking to defend or extend some particular religious argument. Covering a wide range of topics, including ethics, religious pluralism, the existence of God, and reasonableness of Islam, these pieces have in common arguments that are made in careful and scholarly ways-they represent reasonable perspectives on a wide swath of contemporary religious debates, in contrast to the unreasonableness that creeps into discussions on religion in American society.

Table of Contents

1 Table of Contents
2 Preface
Chapter 3 1. Worldview is the Brain's Operating System
Chapter 4 2. The God Debates and the Materialist Interpretation of History
Chapter 5 3. Sense and Nonsense in Religion and Belief
Chapter 6 4. All Religions are Cousins: Religion in Human Evolution
Chapter 7 5. Hegel's Metaphysics and Religious Pluralism
Chapter 8 6. Getting "Ought" from "Is": A Practical Solution for Materialists
Chapter 9 7. Towards a Neuropathy of Empathy
Chapter 10 8. Ethics and the Fabric of the Universe
Chapter 11 9. The Cosmological Argument for the Existence of God: An Apologia
Chapter 12 10. God as Moral Praxis
Chapter 13 11. Towards a Materialist Theology, Or, Why Atheists (and Marxists) Should Write Theology
Chapter 14 12. Is Islam Reasonable?
Chapter 15 13. Types of Religious Naturalism

Product details

Published 04 Aug 2010
Format Ebook (Epub & Mobi)
Edition 1st
Extent 232
ISBN 9780739141915
Imprint Lexington Books
Publisher Bloomsbury Publishing

About the contributors

Anthology Editor

Richard Curtis

Contributor

Kevin Barrett

Contributor

Roland Boer

Contributor

James Carse

Contributor

Joseph Chuman

Contributor

Paul Herrick

Contributor

Gary Olson

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