University of Cambridge: Investigating Atheism - "Atheism" - from the greek 'a' - without, 'theos' - god

You are here: Home » Atheist Arguments

Atheist Arguments

In this section

Contents
For Disbelief
Religion as Natural

Atheists may be said to defend their position in two broad ways. First, by bringing forward good reasons for disbelieving religious claims; second, by offering naturalistic explanations of religion.

In the contemporary context, academic philosophy is not short of robust philosophical defences of theism to which atheistic philosophers must constantly address themselves. Philosophers such as Michael Martin, Daniel Dennett, Paul Kurtz, Kai Nielsen, the Churchlands, A.C.Grayling and Julian Baggini have ably defended philosophical atheism; on the other side, philosophical theologians such as Alvin Plantinga, Richard Swinburne, and D.Z.Phillips have equally ably defended theism.

This has tended to lead to intellectual stalemate, and for this reason many atheists have chosen to turn away from direct intellectual refutations of religion and towards reductionist explanations of religion. Dennett, for example, having 'decided some time ago that diminishing returns had set in on the arguments about God's existence,' offers precisely such an explanation in his Breaking the Spell (2006).[1] Dawkins also runs briefly through the arguments for God's existence in chapter 3 of his book The God Delusion but his chief strategy appears to be his biological reductionism.

References

Dennett, Daniel. Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon. New York: Penguin, 2006.

Footnotes

[1]↑ Daniel Dennett, Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon (New York: Penguin, 2006), 27.

Top of Page