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Philosophers without Gods: Meditations on Atheism and the Secular Life

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Who are atheists? What do they believe? Can life be meaningful without religious belief? Is belief in God necessary to be moral? Should we respect religious views we don't agree with? Is religion dangerous?

Philosophers Without Gods is a collection of essays by twenty leading philosophers from the United States and Britain, all of whom reject traditional religious faith and endorse the secular life.

In the Introduction, editor Louise M. Antony, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, writes, "A naturalistic understanding of the human condition reveals a set of heroic challenges--to pursue our goals without illusions, to act morally without hope of reward--challenges that, if taken up, can impart a durable value to finite and fragile human lives."

Permit me to coin a word: "anthropodicy." Whereas theodicy is "the defense of God's goodness and omnipotence in view of the existence of evil" (Meriam-Webster Dictionary), anthropodicy is the rational defense of non-theistic, secular humanism. The philosophers in this volume present anthropodictic arguments for living without "gods."

Liberal theologians argue that there is no real conflict between science and religion, reason and faith. Many of them also accept the Darwinian theory of evolution and reject the claim made by Fundamentalists that the world was created by God some six thousand years ago.

Many traditional Christians, however, subscribe to a literal, fundamentalist creed that accepts Scripture as verbally inspired and infallible, and that seeks to excuse their God for the evil and suffering in the world, or, even worse, justify the God who perpetuates infinite evil by punishing billions of unbelievers eternally in the fiery, smoke-charred pits of hell.

"Religious faith," writes Jonathan E. Adler in his essay "Faith and Fanaticism," is fertile ground for fanaticism." History has revealed such fanaticism in the tortures inflicted by the Inquisition, the witch hunts, and the cruelties of slavery, all endorsed by religious fanatics. In the present day, we witness religious fanaticism in the form of suicide bombers encouraged by radical Islamic fundamentalists.

Fanatical religious beliefs breeds fanatical political and military actions. Some extremist fundamentalists even look forward with joy and rapture to an imminent Armageddon, and savor the sword-rattlings and military imperialisms as "signs" of the coming desired end--an annihilation of the forces of evil infidels.

"The great unmentionable evil at the center of our culture," Gore Vidal once wrote, "is monotheism. From a barbaric Bronze Age text known as the Old Testament, three anti-human religions have evolved--Judaism, Christianity, Islam." And Havelock Ellis wrote, "The whole religious complexion of the modern world is due to the absence from Jerusalem of a lunatic asylum."

The best chapter in the book is the essay by Elizabeth Anderson, "If God Is Dead, Is Everything Permitted?" The implications of such a question are that atheists are arrogant intellectuals, antagonistic to religion, devoid of moral sentiments, and advocates of an "anything goes" lifestyle.

On the contrary, writes Anderson, "If we take the evidence for theism with utmost seriousness, we will find ourselves committed to the proposition that the most heinous acts are permitted." She gives a lengthy list, a scathing indictment, of the atrocities sanctioned by Scripture, both the Old and New Testaments. Hard-core fundamentalists who accept biblical inerrancy should be appalled by blood-curdling accounts of such an evil, sadistic God.

"I see the celebration of irrationality everywhere in popular culture," writes Louise Antony. "Our struggle as a species [is] to claim our rationality, to confront the harsh realities that constrain us, and to acknowledge our own responsibility." In other words, we need to become clear-thinking individuals, rather than sheep who blindly follow the alleged authority of a book that is more than two millennia old.

If one listens carefully, one can hear these professors of philosophy crying out, "For goodness' sake, people, think! Get a mind of your own! Grow up! Get a real life! We're living in the 21st century, not the superstitious Dark Ages. Get rid of your bizarre, incredible dogmas, miracles, and prophecies, and adopt a rational, scientific world view.

More than an attack on theism, Philosophers Without Gods is an effort to describe the non-religious view of the well-lived life. The writers challenge us to become adults in our thinking and living, to put aside our childish hopes and fears, and to conduct ourselves with intellectual honesty and moral integrity.

The bottom line of these essays is that we should cease to feed on pablum, should throw away our baby strollers and crutches and walk as grown men and women, taking responsibility for our own lives. As the apostle Paul put it so well: "When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways" (1 Corinthians 13:11, NRSV).

For those theists who have recoiled from some of the more bravado criticism of their beliefs in the writings of Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, and Christopher Hitchens, comes a gentler critique. There is real wisdom in this volume, and real empathy, too. Several of the essayists go to great lengths to let the reader know that they understand religion's appeal, that they do not find belief to be ignorant, much less crazy, and that a shared humanity can propel common cause in many areas among persons with or without faith. The New Atheists have focused largely on such topics as science and history, having leap-frogged some legitimate metaphysical questions related to meaning, values, morality, flourishing, etc. Don't misunderstand--I love Dawkins and Hitchens and Harris. This atheist finds their fiery polemic highly entertaining and motivating. But I enjoy this more upbeat and humane writing as well. And there is a Daniel Dennett essay in the volume for those who miss more spirited writing.

The first half of Philosophers Without Gods - Journeys - introduces a range of issues pertaining to the debate between theists and atheists with engaging, first-person narratives of how the philosopher in question moved from faith to atheism. Without saying so explicitly, these autobiographical essays reinforce the connections between philosophy and the lives of the real people from which it emerges. (Interestingly, the beginning point for most of these journeys is faith rather than neutrality or indifference.) For some the movement towards atheism was a source of unmitigated liberation while for others the movement entailed genuine costs. The acknowledgement by atheists that theistic belief, whatever its shortcomings, can nevertheless offer consolation and moral guidance is one of the collection's strengths.

The second half of the collection - Reflections - contains more conventional philosophical essays that raise issues such as how one goes about defining the God in which one does or does not believe, alternatives to theism such as Aristotle's notion of human flourishing, self-deception, and how much "respect" theism deserves. Like all collections, some of these essays are more compelling than others but there are several gems here, such as David Owen's essay "Disenchantment" and Elizabeth Secord Anderson's survey of the morality in the Bible.

Overall, this is a well-written and accessible collection that exposes the issues between theists and atheists largely without philosophical jargon and the unfortunate, but all too frequentr, rancor that typically characteriszes those debates. (The reviewer is the author of The Search for Meaning: A Short History.)The Search for Meaning: A Short History

This anthology contains rich, red meat for the inquiring mind, provender for a feast of thinking. Not all of the twenty essays in it are equally good, but all are written in accessible language; all deal with significant issues; and many of them are full of illuminating, surprising ideas and approaches.

Editor Antony asked nineteen other professors of philosophy to write on some aspect of "Atheism and the Secular Life." Some of the responses were biographical, recounting the passage from childhood devotions to adult atheism. Some delve into the old arguments for and against belief, but always with original slants. A few (and the most interesting) describe a constructive philosophical basis for "the secular life." The following are cursory descriptions of some of these essays.

Stewart Shapiro opens with what could be a downer, "Faith and Reason, the Perpetual War." He examines three possible relations between religion and reason. The first is that they are necessarily and perpetually at war; the second that they are incommensurable (Gould's non-overlapping magisteria); the third a rationalist tradition that they can somehow be interpreted as pulling in the same direction. Shapiro finds good reasons to reject the latter two, so only the stance of perpetual war is left, and Shapiro leaves us no more than a hope for "grudging, mutual respect."

Following this dour start, several writers sketch their passages from different kinds of belief to different kinds of atheism. Joseph Levine describes with feeling and sympathy the satisfactions of being a devout rabbinical student and the comforts of living in a strict orthodox community, and the slow process of divorcing from these. He makes the key observation that, as he now sees it, belief in God is morally wrong because it "expresses a rejection, or denial... of one's humanity [and] ... makes servility to authority the ultimate aim of human life."

Louise Antony describes her childhood struggles with the illogic of Catholic doctrine with a bright humor that reminded me of Julia Sweeney. She found her true calling in her first college philosophy class: "Imagine my delight, then, when I discovered that philosophy was all about arguing! ... I could scarcely believe that I could earn credits just for doing what (to me) came naturally."

Edwin Curly was raised Episcopalian and, at age 16, turned to the back of his prayer book and for the first time gave the Articles of Religion a critical reading. Here he details the many problems he found, arguing that the the doctrines of Original Sin, Predestination, Salvation by Faith, Hell, and Exclusivism (that all but believers go to Hell) -- all of which are well-supported in scripture and are official parts of the creed for at least Catholics and Episcopalians -- are offensive to reason and justice and morally repugnant. He says well-intentioned Christians who downplay or discount these doctrines can only do so by drastically reinterpreting their own scriptures.

Marvin Belzer argues, not against belief in God, but against trust in dogma. He describes how a comforting childhood faith lead him, gradually and by natural stages, to shed all the trappings of Christian practice and dogma as superfluous. He gives clear arguments why no specific creed can ever be what God wants people to focus their lives on.

Where the first half opened with Shapiro's grim analysis, the second opens with two upbeat and constructive essays based in Aristotle. Anthony Simon Laden in "Transcendence without God" interprets Aristotle's Ethics to mean that the virtuous person is so because he pays excellent attention to those things that repay excellent attention. Transcendent experience can arise from expanding and developing our capacity for attention to include the full humanity of others.

Marcia Homiak makes it more explicit: "Aristotle's key idea is that the best life for a human being (the most human of human lives) consists in the full realization of [our] distinctive human powers." She draws out the need for community, for ethical virtue, and for continual effort to improve, all trending toward a life of "Aristotelian flourishing." The benefits of this life are comparable to the similar benefits claimed for the religious life.

Kenneth A. Taylor tackles the concept of Divine Providence, the source of so much of a believer's emotional comforts. The notion that there is a God who loves humanity and guarantees eventual triumph of good over evil turns out to be philosophically empty when combined with the idea of radical free will (required by many Christian philosophers to explain why evil exists). But if there is no Godly guarantee of a future perfection, and if our lives lack the significance they would gain from contributing to that end, what's left to give meaning? In a crucial passage that I find deeply meaningful Taylor writes:

"Suppose we grant that we live in a finite, merely material universe, containing at its core nothing of intrinsic or objective value, governed by no purpose and no universal or absolute moral law. Still, whatever else the universe does or does not contain, we exist in it and through it. And we are creatures who value things. We do not find or discover value in the universe, as if values were antecedently present inpendently of anything that we do or are. ... We create values ... simply by engaging in the merely human and entirely natural activity of taking things to matter to us. ... We may cry out with longing and despair to the cold uncaring universe to embrace our value, to vindicate our right to value what we value. But we will hear only silence in return.... So be it. We do not matter to the universe. Still, we matter to ourselves and sometimes to others who sometimes matter to us in return. And that is all the mattering that it is worth our while to concern ourselves about."

Still, absent a divine lawgiver, how do we avoid a chaotic moral relativism? Taylor details a philosophical basis for the formation of "moral communities." He shows how each person has the ability to choose to bind herself to a given norm; and how that act also grants to others the right to hold one to the self-chosen norm. A web of such reciprocal grants of moral holding and binding creates a stable moral order "entirely of our own constituting.... The work of building from the bottom up an all-encompassing moral order is heroic work, invigorating work, work that calls upon the best of ourselves."

The same moral ground is plowed in a different direction by Elizabeth Anderson, who tackles the issue of how, without God to sanction moral rules, moral rules can be anything but personal opinion (as W. L. Craig holds they would be). Her first approach is to advance a "moralistic argument," namely that if any line of evidence leads to something morally repugnant, that entire line of evidence should be rejected as untrustworthy. Then, taking the Bible with "fundamentalist sincerity," she lists in detail and at length the heinous, unjust, barbarous acts and practices described both in the Old and New Testaments. (Many of these citations will be familiar to the non-believer, but one was new to me: In 2nd Thess. 2:11-12, it is said that God deludes some so they cannot believe. So God deliberately overrides the free will of some, in order to send them to Hell -- which rather weakens the ideas of both free will and divine justice.)

Anderson examines the different strategies believers adopt to explain or justify these "hard sayings," but concludes that there is always a residue that will lead to a moral offense, and so nothing in the Christian line of evidence is trustworthy. And the evidence advanced by every creed since Thor, Baal and Zeus has been of the same kind and is no more reliable.

That still leaves the problem of what can ever make a difference between good and evil and so counter Craig's argument? Anderson, like Taylor in the previous essay, argues that the key is reciprocity. Although none of us have the authority to compel obedience on another, all of us have the authority to make moral claims on others, calling them to account for their acts; but in doing so, we automatically open a reciprocal right for others to call us to account in turn. It is the reciprocity that creates morals. If there is a person who asserts that "all things are permitted," as Craig claims they should do, that person, in denying others the ability to call him to account, also resigns any ability to judge others. We deal with such people with physical deterrence -- and they cannot complain when we do, because they have opted out of all moral claims!

Anderson concludes that "morality, understood as a system of reciprocal claim making ... does not need its authority underwritten by some higher, external authority.... Far from bolstering the authority of morality, appeals to divine authority can undermine it."

To end an over-long review I want to give a (surely inadequate) summary of the late David Lewis' "Divine Evil," in which he advanced what was to me a novel twist on the well-known Argument from Evil: that we should at least be skeptical of the existence of a benevolent God in the light of the suffering that billions of sentient beings have endured for millions of years and continue to endure. Add up all of that suffering that God has permitted to happen, Lewis says, and it is yet trivial beside another kind of suffering: a type which God not only permits but positively decrees. There is in all varieties of (Bible-based) theisms some concept of damnation, a punishment for those who are in some fashion insubordinate to the divine. This punishment is promised to consist of eternal suffering. There is ample biblical support for this idea; Lewis cites several passages (Matt. 13:49-50, Matt. 25:41ff, etc. etc.).

Damnation is the promised lot of a considerable fraction of humanity, but even if it were only for a single soul, it is eternal; ergo the sum of it will, in the infinity of time, add up to more than all the suffering of mortal lives since time began. Thus the evil of damnation is immeasurably greater than the evil of ordinary suffering -- and it is not merely permitted, but positively decreed by God. Lewis writes of God that "He places people in a situation in they must make a judgment that binds them for eternity, and he knows that some will be so inadequately informed that they will opt for an eternity of torment... It is hard to distinguish between God and the parent who equips the nursery with sharp objects galore and plenty of matches, fuses, and dynamite."

Lewis examines the arguments of "incompatibilist" free will (that God must let people choose to damn themselves) and finds injustice remains; and the arguments that, despite the explicit texts, damnation is not a barbeque but a state of being isolated from God, saying if it is a state of suffering in any sense, it is still infinite in sum, and an unjustly permanent punishment for transient error. If the biblical texts are granted any credibility at all, it has to be that God intends to deliberately create more suffering in the future than has ever occurred in the past. Well, so what? So this, Lewis says: would you have respect for a person who professes to admire the careers of Hitler or Stalin? No? Then consider: Christians profess to admire God, who (they have to admit) intends to hurt far more people, infinitely longer than Hitler or Stalin could have dreamed of doing. Should you then respect Christians?

Unlike books by the celebrated "New Atheists" this book does not contain colorful, slashing language and easy pejoratives against religion. Instead, it contains powerful ideas, many of them positive, all carefully worked out with measured langauge. It is a demonstration of the value of philosophy and the use of philosophers: to really think things through in an original way, and show us how to do the same.

One of the readers complains in his review that this book presents no new arguments against the existence of God. Well, that's asking a bit too much. Throughout history all the arguments have been clearly stated - it would be like wondering why nobody has invented a pair of trousers with three legs. There are the standard proofs for the existence of God and the refutations of these. But let's not in the rush forget what the word `atheist' actually entails. To my understanding it means nothing more than the absence of belief in God. You can also have a positive belief that God does not exist, but to actually deny his existence is untenable. Not even Richard Dawkins goes further than to say that `God almost certainly does not exist'. (The God Delusion p.158)
PHILOSOPHERS WITHOUT GODS is a wonderful collection of essays. Some are more philosophical than others. Personally I enjoyed the first part, `Journeys', the most. Here the writers describe their departure from belief into a secular life. Most of them hold no grudge against religion but rather lost their faith through youthful inquiry or perhaps a change of environment. One writer describes the clash of influences when he left the Jewish `yeshiva' and went to public school in Los Angeles. After years of studying the Talmud he found himself making friends with the hippies of the 1960s counterculture.
Most reviewers point out that the tone is milder than in many other books and even if that's generally true, it's not always the case. In part two, `Reflections', you'll find some more rigid reasoning and the essay by David Lewis is uncompromising, to say the least. He argues that a theist has to take Scripture literally to be able to call himself a Christian. There is no middle ground for a more liberal or modern interpretation. You just cannot explain away God's evil ways in especially, but not exclusively, the Old Testament. And here it is; not a `new' argument, but what Lewis presents as a `neglected' one. Usually when considering the question of evil, we focus on the evil that God fails to prevent. But Lewis turns it around and concentrates on the evil that God himself perpetrates. He compares God with the Führer and concludes that the good people he knows to be Christians, must be smitten to follow such a leader. He talks, Dawkins-like about these believers as being `infected' and states that ecumenicism will only make things worse because it engenders tolerance, for example towards a literal reading of the horrors of Scripture. Uncompromising stuff indeed.
Then Georges Rey gives us eleven reasons why believing in God is actually a form of self-deception. It seems to me, that no matter how well you argue this case, it's bound to be fruitless to anyone of faith.
Apart from this, PHILOSOPHERS WITHOUT GODS is a book for believers and non-believers alike.

Intended largely for a general audience, this is a collection of essays on atheism written by a group of philosophers who are themselves atheists. The essays fall into three categories, reflections on the life of atheists, with both its costs and benefits, psychologically satisfying atheistic alternatives to theism, and critiques of religion. The authors are a broad spectrum of philosophers, some whose professional work is directly related to philosophy of religion and most whose work is in other fields. Among the authors is the late David Lewis, regarded widely as one of the most important philosophers of the last half century. All the essays are written well and thoughtful. Recurrent themes are the general incoherence of theistic views and the danger of religion in authorizing immoral acts. While written in a much less polemical tone than popular works by Dawkins and others, the basic points are much the same.

The first half of the volume consists of mostly personal stories by atheist philosophers, starting with stories of 'coming out' and gradual de-conversion, then expanding into other tales of life as an atheist. All were decently written (Daniel Dennet's brush with death was the most perfunctory, but I assume the editors got what they could from a big name). Most were reasonably enjoyable, and brought forth empathy from me, though none stand out in the mind now. I imagine these would be consoling for a new or isolated atheist who wonders if others are like him (though with the internet, are any such people left?). They might be useful for theists trying to understand unbelievers.

The second half is more philosophical per se. While there was one clumsy piece of academese, most were lively, and several were deeply provoking; especially those on religious disagreements and the unethics of belief.

None of the items here could be described as standard atheist writings. I have been reading about atheism for many years, and found new ideas. There are no dry, tired lists of arguments against god from overly literal-minded bores. Rather, it is intellectual in bent, not combative. This is refreshing to me, but should also recommend it to any theists who, even if curious, are turned off by the "New Atheists" (and I say that despite liking most of them). These are indeed "meditations," various and not forming any great whole, but worthwhile individually.

I bought this work because it was the only place I could find David Lewis's "Divine Evil" paper. I was not disappointed by it. It is among the two best philosophy of religion papers I have ever read (the other is Alan Hajek's Wagering War on Pascal's Wager which is sadly not in this anthology). Having only heard of Lewis's paper, I could not wait to read it as I thought the remarks I've heard about it suggests that it comes surprisingly closest the views I've always held.

I will get to the other papers in this collection but a little more about this remarkable Lewis paper. It's got an interesting background. Lewis died in 2001 and it was a huge loss for philosophy has he is considered among the top 5 greatest philosophers of the 20 century by many professional philosophers. He wrote a rough draft of this paper and was consulting other philosophers near the time of his death about this project he had. He died before he could complete it but Philip Kitcher (also an outstanding philosopher) decided to reconstruct the paper and complete it based on Lewis's notes and conversations he had with others.

Most philosophical arguments against god are epistemological. They seek to find arguments that show that believing in god is irrational or incoherent. But Lewis argues that a belief (actually an admiration, endorsement or faith) in the Christian Islamic (Abrahamic god) is downright immoral. Arguments that the Christian god is very evil has been around for a very long time (Elizabeth Anderson's paper in this collection adds to that literature) but Lewis's argument is that those who worship him in "clear eyed" recognition of his evil becomes vicariously evil themselves; in fact so evil they are far worse than some kinds of Nazis. That would surprise and upset a lot of people but good philosophy should do that to just the right kinds of people.

Anyway, the other papers are sometimes dull and sometimes entertaining. The autobiographical papers are sometimes entertaining and explain the paths some philosophers took to jettison their faith and explain what made them develop their mature views on religion and god. But they are mostly philosophically light, rehashing the old arguments against belief in god (which I actually think are quite sound such as the argument from evil) but not much more substance is added to the already existent literature. These arguments may be interesting to those who are not familiar with them but once you've heard them, it's like preaching to the choir (no pun intended!). So if you're new to the philosophy of religion, these arguments may be interesting to you but if you're already familiar with the basics, you won't learn much here.

Other papers including Elizabeth Anderson's paper take a careful textual analysis of the Bible and she argues that because the Bible advocates things we know to be evil (genocide, child killing, rape, etc) we should abandon it as a moral guide. The paper "Disenchantment" was rather drawn out but somewhat interesting. Another paper I thought was good was Simon Blackburn's paper.

I haven't read all of the papers (I've read 12 in all and the introduction) but other than Lewis's paper the rest are a mixed bunch and rather philosophically light but I thought the buy was worth it just for the Lewis paper (at least for the price of 10 bucks for the kindle version).

These essays are thoughtful, engaging, compelling, personal, and sometimes quite profound. A wonderful collection. Touches on so many aspects of secularity, from the deeply philosophical to the vividly every-day. Insightful. A damn pleasure to read.

Essays, written by Atheist-Philosophers, which convinced me that human beings can be Spiritual without a God.
The essays are written with great respect for the beliefs of religious people who are inclined, mostly, to be good and kind people. But since individual religions conflict in some respects it would be better to use the human being and the latent good in him/her as the common denominator. No God can fix the dysfunctional (man-made) aspects in the world - only we as humans can.