| Atheism, Free Will, And
Material Determinism - Wayland Dong - an interesting debate through letters -
positiveatheism.org/mail/eml9160.htm R. Stark (S. W. University of Washington, USA)
Atheism, faith, and the social scientific study of religion
Journal of Contemporary Religion(1999)14,1,41-62
The social "scientific" study of religion originated in atheism, and the basic
theses pursued today, especially by psychologists and anthropologists, are little changed
since they were first proposed by militant opponents of religion in the seventeenth and
early eighteenth century. In this essay I trace these links from major scholar to major
scholar across the centuries. I then examine the remarkable irony that the recent
emergence of a truly scientific approach to religion was accomplished mainly by an influx
of "believers". I sketch why and how this happened before turning to an
assessment of the persistence of atheistic biases. I conclude with suggestions about how a
truly scientific study of religion can be pursued by both believers and unbelievers, if
not by fanatics of either stripe. (author's summary)
Books and journal articles on atheism:
Philosophy & Atheism: In Defense of Atheism - by Kai Nielsen.
Against the Faith: Essays on Deists, Skeptics, and Atheists - by Jim Herrick.
Critiques of God: Making the Case against Belief in God - by Peter A. Angeles.
Naturalism without Foundations (Part Four: "Toward a Nonscientistic Atheism") -
by Kai Nielsen.
The Human Enterprise: An Attempt to Relate Philosophy to Daily Life (Chap. X "The Two
Atheisms") - by M. C. Otto.
American Freethought, 1860-1914 (Chap. 8 "Atheism: Left-Wing of the Freethought
Movement") - by Sidney Warren.
The Philosophy of Paul Ricoeur (Chap. 20 "Ricoeur on Atheism: A Critique") - by
Lewis Edwin Hahn.
Secular Utilitarianism: Social Science and the Critique of Religion in the Thought of
Jeremy Bentham (includes "Conclusion: Atheism and the Secular Utilitarian
Society") - by James E. Crimmins.
Religion and the Enlightenment: From Descartes to Kant (Chap. 6 "From Scepticism to
Atheism") - by James M. Byrne.
God and Secularity (Chap. 7 "The Reality of God") - by John Macquarrie. |