Atheism - A Very Short Introduction

It has been a pleasure and a privilege to write this book for the (until now at least) excellent Very Short Introductions series. In keeping with the ethos of this series I have aimed to keep the book readable and enjoyable, avoiding academic dryness, whilst at the same time endeavouring to maintain a high standard of intellectual rigour and integrity. It is for others to judge whether I have succeeded. To avoid scholastic sterility, I have not followed strict academic conventions of referencing and footnotes. Instead, I have listed at the end of the book my main sources along with suggestions for further reading. I hope that these provide sufficient credit to the many writers and thinkers whose ideas have informed this work. This book is intended for a variety of different readers, including atheists looking for a systematic defence and explanation of their position, agnostics who think that they might be atheists after all, and religious believers who have a sincere desire to understand what atheism is all about. The guiding idea has been to produce a book which atheists will be able to give to their friends by way of explanation for their beliefs, after having used it themselves to help organize their thoughts. There are many people to thank for their contributions to making this book happen. Primarily, they are Marilyn Mason for her initial suggestion that I might give it a go, Shelly Cox for commissioning it, and Katharine Reeve and Emma Simmons for seeing it through to publication. Marsha Filion deserves special mention for fighting the flab in the penultimate draft. Colleagues in the Humanist Philosophers' Group have also helped enrich my understanding of positive atheism over recent years. I would also like to thank David Nash and Roger Griffin for their advice on reading for the history chapter. Preface viii List of illustrations x 1 What is atheism? 1 2 The case for atheism 12 3 Atheist ethics 37 4 Meaning and purpose 57 5 Atheism in history 73 6 Against religion? 91 7 Conclusion 108 References and further reading 113 Index 117