Atheism: The Basics is a concise and engaging introduction to belief in the non-existence of deities. Atheism has long fascinated people but debate around this controversial position may seem daunting. In this lively and lucid book, Graham Oppy addresses the following important questions:• What does it mean to be an atheist?• What is the difference between atheism, agnosticism, theism and innocence?• How has atheism been distributed over time and place?• Wha...

This book guides readers through an investigation of religion from a naturalistic perspective and explores the very meaning of the term ‘religious naturalism’. Oppy considers several widely disputed claims: that there cannot be naturalistic religion; that there is nothing in science that poses any problems for naturalism; that there is nothing in religion that poses any serious challenges to naturalism; and that there is a very strong case for thinking that naturalism defeats religion....

This Element is an elementary introduction to atheism and agnosticism. It begins with a careful characterisation of atheism and agnosticism, distinguishing them from many other things with which they are often conflated. After a brief discussion of the theoretical framework within which atheism and agnosticism are properly evaluated, it then turns to the sketching of cases for atheism and agnosticism. In both cases, the aim is not conviction, but rather advancement of understanding: the po...

How do religious believers describe God, and what sort of attributes do they attribute to him? These are central topics in the philosophy of religion. In this book Graham Oppy undertakes a careful study of attributes which are commonly ascribed to God, including infinity, perfection, simplicity, eternity, necessity, fundamentality, omnipotence, omniscience, freedom, incorporeality, perfect goodness and perfect beauty. In a series of substantial chapters, he examines divine attributes one b...

All major religions in history have offered hope of some kind of afterlife to answer the perennial interest in the question of life after death.This volume brings together renowned experts in the philosophy of religion, Graham Oppy, David Apolloni, Shyam Ranganathan, Joshua Farris and Steven B. Cowan, to present four key starting points in the life after death debate.Providing a lively and collaborative dialogue between leaders in the field, each thinker de...

Bertrand Russell famously quipped that he didn’t believe in God for the same reason that he didn’t believe in a teapot in orbit between the earth and Mars: it is a bizarre assertion for which no evidence can be provided. Is belief in God really like belief in Russell’s teapot? Kenneth L. Pearce argues that God is no teapot. God is a real answer to the deepest question of all: why is there something rather than nothing? Graham Oppy argues that we should believe that there are none but natur...

Philosophy and Christianity make truth claims about many of the same things. They both claim to provide answers to the deep questions of life. But how are they related to one another? And are they always in conflict?Four Views on Christianity and Philosophy introduces readers to four predominant views on the relationship between philosophy and the Christian faith and their implications for life. Each author identifies the propositional relation between phi...

The early modern period in philosophy - encompassing the 16th to the 18th centuries - reflects a time of social and intellectual turmoil. The Protestant Reformation, the Catholic Counter-Reformation, and the birth of the Enlightenment all contributed to the re-evaluation of reason and faith. The revolution in science and in natural philosophy swept away two millennia of Aristotelian certainty in a human-centred universe. Covering some of the most important figures in the history of Western...

The origins of the Western philosophical tradition lie in the ancient Greco-Roman world. This volume provides a unique insight into the life and writings of a diverse group of philosophers in antiquity and presents the latest thinking on their views on God, the gods, religious belief and practice. Beginning with the 'pre-Socratics', the volume then explores the influential contributions made to the Western philosophy of religion by the three towering figures of Socrates, Plato and Aristotl...

The Medieval period was one of the richest eras for the philosophical study of religion. Covering the period from the 6th to the 16th century, reaching into the Renaissance, "The History of Western Philosophy of Religion 2" shows how Christian, Islamic and Jewish thinkers explicated and defended their religious faith in light of the philosophical traditions they inherited from the ancient Greeks and Romans. The enterprise of 'faith seeking understanding', as it was dubbed by the medievals ...

The nineteenth century was a turbulent period in the history of the philosophical scrutiny of religion. Major scholars - such as Hegel, Fichte, Schelling, Newman, Caird and Royce - sought to construct systematic responses to the Enlightenment critiques of religion carried out by Spinoza and Hume. At the same time, new critiques of religion were launched by philosophers such as Schopenhauer and Nietzsche and by scholars engaged in textual criticism, such as Schleiermacher and Dilthey. Over ...

The twentieth century saw religion challenged by the rise of science and secularism, a confrontation which resulted in an astonishingly diverse range of philosophical views about religion and religious belief. Many of the major philosophers of the twentieth century - James, Bergson, Russell, Wittgenstein, Ayer, Heidegger, and Derrida - significantly engaged with religious thought. Idiosyncratic thinkers, such as Whitehead, Levinas and Weil, further contributed to the extraordinary diversit...