The Varieties of Atheism

“What does it mean to be an atheist? It’s not just one thing, it’s not just disbelief in god. There’s a positive expression connected to ideas of ethics, our relationship with authority, how reason and experience and the material world inform our lives, when does science become moral–these are big questions that we have to ask. This book points the way to a positive belief.” * Beyond Atheism Podcast *
“Fundamental for anyone interested in the study of atheism.” * Reading Religion *
“The strength of Varieties of Atheism is its imaginative reach. We are invited to enter into the atheist mind and heart; in many cases, this means getting in touch with the atheist within: the atheist not as the antagonist but as the fellow-traveler… . Varieties of Atheism represents a curious and attractive faith community in itself, one that embraces belief and non-belief simultaneously, rather like Browning’s Bishop Blougram… . [The conversation is] a kind of drama, implying that to hold affirmation and negation in tension (to use Newheiser’s phrasing) is dynamic and purposive. To move from the battlefield onto the stage would be progress indeed.” * Heythrop Journal *
“A convincing case for the ways religious and secular thinkers alike have labored under simplistic misapprehensions of nonbelief. The collective argument of this volume is not only that atheism has not been treated with sufficient credulity, but also that such incredulity comes at the expense of a richer theological appraisal.” * Theological Studies *
“Full of insights, this study helps grasp the phenomenon of the recent decline in religious identification and the growing popularity of nonreligious ways of life.” * The Muslim World Book Review *
“The book’s chapters link atheism with the following topics: science, society, power, ethics, metaphysics, politics, literature, and the affirmation of life. The range is remarkably wide.” * American Journal of Theology and Philosophy *
“Sophisticated and satisfying. Insights abound… .All contributions laudably advance the volume’s central aim: to impel readers to appropriate the task that the contributors perform, to find access points for new, non-polemical interaction between Christians and atheists, to encourage life’s affirmation.” * Missiology *
“What is atheism? Neither a mere negation, nor a single (self-evident?) truth: this book makes clear that it is as rich, varied, and nuanced as religion itself. To call yourself an atheist is not to state a position, but to start a conversation—a conversation for which this book is an excellent primer.” – Alec Ryrie, author of ‘Unbelievers: An Emotional History of Doubt’
“An excellent collection of essays by well-established and up-and-coming voices in religious studies, this book is both critical of New Atheism’s reductive critique of religion and constructive with new possibilities—theological, philosophical, ethical, and political. It enriches the debates by giving atheism histories and subtleties that debates themselves frequently lack.” – Graham Ward, University of Oxford
“Just as contemporary scholars of religion have pushed us to move beyond simplistic equations between religion and belief, this stimulating collection of essays urges us to recognize that atheism also comes in many varieties. By exploring the implications of different forms of atheism and their relation to different conceptions of science, politics, power, ethics, literature, and, indeed, life, this book is a major contribution to the study of religion and its critics. Anyone interested in the relation between religion and the modern world will have much to learn from this exciting collection.” – Leora Batnitzky, Princeton University

David Newheiser is a senior research fellow in the Institute for Religion and Critical Inquiry at Australian Catholic University. He is the author of Hope in a Secular Age: Deconstruction, Negative Theology, and the Future of Faith.

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