In recent analytic literature on the Trinity we have seen a variety of "social" models of the Trinity. By contrast there are few "non-­‐social" models. One prominent "non-­‐social" view is Brian Leftow's "Latin Trinity." I argue that the name of Leftow's model is not sufficiently descriptive in light of diverse models within Latin speaking theology. Next, I develop a new "non-­‐social" model that is inspired by Richard of St. Victor's description of a person in conjunction with my appropriating insights about (...) indexicals from David Kaplan and John Perry. I point out that the copula in tokens of statements like, "I am the Father," is an ambiguous term and when used by a certain divine person a different proposition is affirmed. Central to this model is the claim that the copula bears the "is of identity" and the "is of numerical sameness without identity." Further, I show that Leftow's model employs two concepts of "person," a Lockean one and a Boethian one, and mine employs Richard of St. Victor's. I describe Leftow's model as a "hard non-­‐social" model and mine as a "soft non-­‐social" model that is nearer to some social models. I conclude that Leftow's model is not the lone candidate among "non-­‐social" models and that the variety of "non-­‐social" models has yet to be exhausted. (shrink)

There are two general routes that Augustine suggests in De Trinitate, XV, 14-16, 23-25, for a psychological account of the Father's intellectual generation of the Word. Thomas Aquinas and Henry of Ghent, in their own ways, follow the first route; John Duns Scotus follows the second. Aquinas, Henry, and Scotus's psychological accounts entail different theological opinions. For example, Aquinas (but neither Henry nor Scotus) thinks that the Father needs the Word to know the divine essence. If we compare the (...) theological views entailed by their psychologies we find a trajectory from Aquinas, through Henry, and ending with Scotus. This theological trajectory falsifies a judgment that every Augustinian psychology of the divine persons amounts to a pre-Nicene functional Trinitarianism. This study makes clear how one's awareness of the theological views entailed by these psychologies enables one to assess more thoroughly psychological accounts of the identity and distinction of the divine persons. (shrink)

Introduction: -/- It is likely that Boethius (480-524ce) inaugurates, in Latin Christian theology, the consideration of personhood as such. In the Treatise Against Eutyches and Nestorius Boethius gives a well-known definition of personhood according to genus and difference(s): a person is an individual substance of a rational nature. Personhood is predicated only of individual rational substances. This chapter situates Boethius in relation to significant Christian theologians before and after him, and the way in which his definition of personhood is a (...) particular answer to the question, “Jesus has two natures, a divine nature and a human nature, but is one what?” Among Greek (and Syriac) speaking theologians, the typical answer is that Jesus is one ‘hypostasis’. Among Latin speaking theologians, the typical answer is that Jesus is one ‘persona’. It is Boethius’s definition of ‘persona’ that inaugurates personhood as such in Latin speaking theology. Although the Greek and Syriac theologians that I survey come close to a concept of personhood as a distinct category, they do not have such a concept and did not need it for their theological purposes. I show that Rusticus the Deacon is an early witness to this Latin theological invention, and also show that for later Latin theologians, the rationality condition for personhood does very little metaphysical work for their Trinitarian theology or Christology. -/- Further, this chapter surveys Patristic and Medieval Christian theologians’ answers to the question, “God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit are one God, but each is one what?” The same replies as above are typically given by Christian theologians. These two theological questions frame the discussion about personhood (and ‘hypostasis’) and put a boundary around what a satisfying account of personhood (and ‘hypostasis’) would be. -/- In contemporary philosophy, there is a lot of attention paid to the rationality condition for personhood. But if we look at the text in which Boethius defines a person, we do not find any precise criteria for it. In other texts, he says that a rational being is one compatible with (capable of) thought and free choice of the will. What we find is that detailed discussion of personhood shows up in theological questions about the Trinity and Incarnation, but not in e.g., applied ethics. The intrusion of personhood into contemporary applied ethics with a focus on detailed and disputed criteria for rationality as a condition for personhood seems to be a modern development. From a Patristic and Medieval Christian theology point of view, trying to find just the right detailed criteria for rationality in order to define personhood is a wild goose chase. This chapter makes clear another contribution that Christian theology had for personhood. Given the theological issues at play in developing a notion of personhood, Christian theologians came to posit that e.g., an individual human is a person contingently (i.e. not essentially), but God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit are each a person essentially. The contingency for created persons is not based on whether e.g., an individual human has conscious acts (as might be the case for John Locke) but on the possibility of a divine person’s assuming e.g., an individual human nature. -/- This sampling of Christian intellectual history spans over one thousand years. I make no claim of being exhaustive. The chapter consists of six sections, where each section covers significant historical conversation partners who together represent the sorts of things that Patristic and Medieval Christian theologians where concerned with in theorizing about ‘persona’ or ‘hypostasis’. -/- 1. Origen of Alexandria and the Cappadocians: Basil of Caesarea and Gregory of Nyssa 2. Miaphysites: Severus of Antioch, John Philoponus, and Peter of Callinicum 3. Boethius and Rusticus the Deacon: Rationality, Subsistence, and the Invention of Personhood 4. Neo-Chalcedonians (II): Leontius of Byzantium 5. Scholastic Neo-Chalcedonians (I): Gilbert of Poitiers, Richard of St. Victor, William of Auxerre, Alexander of Hales, Bonaventure, Thomas Aquinas, and William of Ware 6. Scholastic Neo-Chalcedonians (II): Henry of Ghent, John Duns Scotus, and William of Ockham . (shrink)

The tradition descending from Frege and Russell has typically treated theories of meaning either as theories of meanings, or as theories of truth conditions. However, propositions of the classical sort don't exist, and truth conditions can't provide all the information required by a theory of meaning. In this book, one of the world's leading philosophers of language offers a way out of this dilemma. Traditionally conceived, propositions are denizens of a "third realm" beyond mind and matter, "grasped" by mysterious Platonic (...) intuition. As conceived here, they are cognitive-event types in which agents predicate properties and relations of things--in using language, in perception, and in nonlinguistic thought. Because of this, one's acquaintance with, and knowledge of, propositions is acquaintance with, and knowledge of, events of one's cognitive life. This view also solves the problem of "the unity of the proposition" by explaining how propositions can be genuinely representational, and therefore bearers of truth. The problem, in the traditional conception, is that sentences, utterances, and mental states are representational because of the relations they bear to inherently representational Platonic complexes of universals and particulars. Since we have no way of understanding how such structures can be representational, independent of interpretations placed on them by agents, the problem is unsolvable when so conceived. However, when propositions are taken to be cognitive-event types, the order of explanation is reversed and a natural solution emerges. Propositions are representational because they are constitutively related to inherently representational cognitive acts. Strikingly original, What Is Meaning? is a major advance. (shrink)

In an important and widely cited paper, Zerilli, Knott, Maclaurin, and Gavaghan (2019) argue that opaque AI decision makers are at least as transparent as human decision makers and therefore the concern that opaque AI is not sufficiently transparent is mistaken. I argue that the concern about opaque AI should not be understood as the concern that such AI fails to be transparent in a way that humans are transparent. Rather, the concern is that the way in which opaque AI (...) is opaque is very different than the way in which humans are opaque. What matters is the degree to which the opaque processes of a class of decision makers are stable, uniform, and safe. The degree to which such processes have these features in humans is higher than the degree to which such processes have these features in opaque AI. And therefore we should require AI to be more transparent than humans. (shrink)

This article critically interrogates contemporary forms of addiction medicine that are portrayed by policy-makers as providing a ‘rational’ or politically neutral approach to dealing with drug use and related social problems. In particular, it examines the historical origins of the biological facts that are today understood to provide a foundation for contemporary understandings of addiction as a ‘disease of the brain’. Drawing upon classic and contemporary work on ‘styles of thought’, it documents how, in the period between the mid-1960s and (...) the mid-1970s, such facts emerged in relation to new neurobiological styles of explaining and managing social problems associated with drug abuse, and an alliance between a relatively marginal group of researchers and American policy-makers who were launching the ‘War on Drugs’. Beyond illustrating the political and material conditions necessary for the rise of addiction neuroscience, the article highlights the productivity of neurobiological thought styles, by focusing on the new biological objects, treatments and hopes that have emerged within the field of addiction studies over the last several decades. (shrink)

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An original interpretation of Merleau-Ponty on subjectivity, drawing from and challenging both the continental and analytic traditions.

It is widely believed that Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca’s theory of argumentation is vulnerable to the charge of relativism. This paper provides a more charitable interpretation of Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca’s normative views, one that properly considers the historical trajectory of their work and a wider range of texts than existing interpretations. It is argued that their views are better characterized as a form of “contrastivism about arguments” than any kind relativism. This more accurate depiction contributes to ongoing efforts to revive interest (...) in Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca’s work as well as build bridges with trends in contemporary argumentation theory. (shrink)

_An original interpretation of Merleau-Ponty on subjectivity, drawing from and challenging both the continental and analytic traditions._.

For anyone approaching the Encheiridion of Epictetus for the first time, this book provides a comprehensive guide to understanding a complex philosophical text. Including a full translation and clear explanatory commentaries, Epictetus's 'Encheiridion' introduces readers to a hugely influential work of Stoic philosophy. Scott Aikin and William O. Stephens unravel the core themes of Stoic ethics found within this ancient handbook. Focusing on the core themes of self-control, seeing things as they are, living according to nature, owning one's roles (...) and fulfilling the responsibilities that those roles entail, the authors elucidate the extremely challenging ideas in Epictetus's brisk chapters. Divided into five distinct parts, this book provides readers with: -/- - A new translation of the Encheiridion by William O. Stephens. - A new introduction to ancient Stoicism, its system of concepts, and the ancient figures who shaped it. - A fresh treatment of the notorious and counter-intuitive 'Stoic paradoxes'. - An accessible overview of the origin and historical context of the Encheiridion. - Detailed commentaries on each chapter of the Encheiridion that clarify its recurring themes and highlight their interconnections. - Careful attention to the presentation of the arguments embedded in Epictetus's aphoristic style. - A thoughtful discussion of serious criticisms of Epictetus's Stoicism and replies to these objections. -/- Written with clarity and authority, Epictetus's 'Encheiridion' provides a foundation from which readers can understand this important text and engage with the fundamental questions of Stoic philosophy and ethics. This guide will aid teachers of Epictetus, students encountering Stoicism for the first time, and readers seeking a greater understanding of Stoic ethics. (shrink)

Albert Einstein's bold assertion of the form-invariance of the equation of a spherical light wave with respect to inertial frames of reference became, in the space of six years, the preferred foundation of his theory of relativity. Early on, however, Einstein's universal light-sphere invariance was challenged on epistemological grounds by Henri Poincaré, who promoted an alternative demonstration of the foundations of relativity theory based on the notion of a light-ellipsoid. Drawing in part on archival sources, this paper shows how an (...) informal, international group of physicists, mathematicians, and engineers, including Einstein, Paul Langevin, Poincaré, Hermann Minkowski, Ebenezer Cunningham, Harry Bateman, Otto Berg, Max Planck, Max Laue, A. A. Robb, and Ludwig Silberstein, employed figures of light during the formative years of relativity theory in their discovery of the salient features of the relativistic worldview. (shrink)

Canada has followed the pattern of Benelux nations by legislating sufferingSuffering as the pivotal eligibilityEligibilitycriterionCriterion for euthanasiaEuthanasia/assisted death without requiring terminal prognosis as is needed in most permissive jurisdictions. This chapter will explore the relationship between sufferingSuffering and Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID) and the ways in which sufferingSuffering is understood in the Supreme Court of Canada, the federal Criminal Code legislation and by health care assessors. Based on this analysis, we will argue that the resulting sufferingSufferingeligibilityEligibilitycriterionCriterion leaves the law (...) open to unintended forms of interpretation, thus instituting perhaps the most unbounded and risk-prone form of assisted death in the world. A review of the literature on sufferingSuffering, the wish to dieWish to die, and reasons for MAIDReasons for MAID requests found sufferingSuffering of severe illness to be frequently associated with unstable mental health, social, and existentialExistential variables that are often amenable to therapy or remediation. While sufferingSuffering remains a powerful motivating force to seek opportunities to relieve distress, its use as an eligibilityEligibilitycriterionCriterion for MAID has significant ambiguity in its’ characterization of ‘enduring’ and ‘irremediable’ and thus fails to protect against abuse for the vulnerable. (shrink)

This study renders the complex corpus of the Guodian texts into a more easily manageable form, incorporating the past several years of scholarly activity on these texts and providing them with a comprehensive introduction along with a complete and well-annotated translation into English.

René Girard, Theology, and Pop Culture provides a fresh and engaging introduction to and the application of René Girard's mimetic theory. From movies to social media, television to graphic novels, the contributors explore popular culture's theological depths and challenge readers to consider what culture reveals about them.

Two important debates have characterized mainstream epistemology in recent years. The first is the debate between foundationalists and anti-foundationalists. The second is the debate over the details of a naturalized epistemology. Both debates have meant that traditional concepts of rationality and justification are now understood in a new light. Both debates have helped focus attention on the future direction of epistemology, its goals and its limitations.

An English translation of John Duns Scotus's The Questions on Aristotle's "De Interpretatione" including an extensive commentary on some of Scotus's more difficult ideas.

An examination of the history and arguments behind W.K. Clifford and William James's landmark essays and subsequent impact on the importance of knowledge-based evidence.

I defend the view that moral properties are identical to properties that can be expressed without using moral vocabulary.

The paper is an attempt to explain what a transcendental argument is for Kant. The interpretation is based on a reading of the 'Discipline of Pure Reason', Sections 1 and 4 of the first Critique. The author first identifies several statements that Kant makes about the method of proof he followed in the 'Analytic of Principles' which seem to be inconsistent. He then tries to remove the apparent inconsistencies by focusing on the idea of instantiation and drawing a distinction between (...) the intension and the extension of a concept. Finally, the results are applied to the second 'Analogy of Experience' for the purposes of illustration. The paper should be seen as an attempt to provide an historical answer to a question that has been treated thematically in much of the recent literature. (shrink)

A new collection of essays highlighting the wide range of Buber's thought, career, and activism. Best known for I and Thou, which laid out his distinction between dialogic and monologic relations, Martin Buber (1878-1965) was also an anthologist, translator, and author of some seven hundred books and papers. Martin Buber: Creaturely Life and Social Form, edited by Sarah Scott, is a collection of nine essays that explore his thought and career. Martin Buber: Creaturely Life and Social Form shakes up (...) the legend of Buber by decentering the importance of the I-Thou dialogue in order to highlight Buber as a thinker preoccupied by the image of relationship as a geode to spiritual, social, and political change. The result is a different Buber than has hitherto been portrayed, one that is characterized primarily by aesthetics and politics rather than by epistemology or theology. Martin Buber: Creaturely Life and Social Form will serve as a guide to the entirety of Buber's thinking, career, and activism, placing his work in context and showing both the evolution of his thought and the extent to which he remained driven by a persistent set of concerns. (shrink)

Ricœur lectured and wrote for over twenty years on negation (‘Do I understand something better if I know what it is not, and what is not-ness?') and never published his extensive writings on this subject. Ricœur concluded that there are multiple forms of negation; it can, for example, be the other person (Plato), the not knowable nature of our world (Kant), the included opposite (Hegel), apophatic spirituality (Plotinus on not being able to know God) and existential nothingness (Sartre). Ricœur, working (...) on Kant, Hegel and Sartre, decided that all these forms of negation are incompatible and also fatally flawed because they fail to resolve false binaries of negative: positive. Alison Scott-Baumann demonstrates how Ricœur subsequently incorporated negation into his linguistic turn, using dialectics, metaphor, narrative, parable and translation in order to show how negation is in us, not outside us: language both creates and clarifies false binaries. He bestows upon negation a strong and central role in the human condition, and its inevitability is reflected in his writings, if we look carefully. Ricœur and the Negation of Happiness draws on Ricœur's published works, previously unavailable archival material and many other sources. Alison Scott-Baumann argues that thinking positively is necessary but not sufficient for aspiring to happiness - what is also required is affirmation of negative impulses: we know we are split by contradictions and still try to overcome them. She also demonstrates the urgency of analysing current socio-cultural debates about wellbeing, education and equality, which rest insecurely upon our loose use of the negative as a category mistake. (shrink)

Scott Yenor argues that David Hume's reputation as a skeptic is greatly exaggerated. In David Hume's Humanity, Yenor shows how Hume's skepticism is a moment leading Hume to defend a philosophy that is grounded in the inescapable assumptions of common life. Humane virtues reflect the proper reaction to the complex mixture of human faculties that define the human condition. These gentle virtues best find their home in the modern commercial republic, of which England is the leading example. Hume's defense (...) of both common life philosophy and humanity are, however, flawed by his secretly dogmatic assumptions about the nature of history and his Enlightened approach to religious teachings and psychology. This study makes the case for Hume's manner of grounding philosophy in common life is essential to any reinvigoration of the humanities. It ultimately holds that Hume's practice of that philosophy is seriously flawed, but that a more philosophic philosophy of common life is available. (shrink)

This book is a radical plea for the centrality of experience in the social and human sciences. Scott Lash argues that a large part of the output of the social sciences today is still shaped by assumptions stemming from positivism, in contrast to the tradition of interpretative social enquiry pioneered by Max Weber. These assumptions are particularly central to economics, with its emphasis on homo economicus, the utility-maximizing, instrumental actor, but they have infiltrated the other social sciences too. Lash (...) argues for a social sciences based not in positivism’s utilitarian a priori but instead in the a posteriori of grounded and embedded subjective experience. This features a politics of Hannah Arendt’s public sphere, which begins with the particular experience of Aristotle’s polis and moves - via Rome, Augustine and Kant - to a modernity that acknowledges the fragility of political worlds. Yet modernity is also a matter of technological experience and technological forms of life. Lash - starting from Aristotle’s technics and working through Turing’s and Shannon’s computer mediation – develops a novel account of technological experience, of how objects themselves experience. And here he finds a surprising convergence with Chinese cosmology’s ethos of dao, qi and li: the experience of the embedded multiplicity of the ‘ten thousand things’. This original book by a leading social and cultural theorist will be of interest to scholars and students across the social sciences, from sociology and cultural studies to anthropology and politics. (shrink)

In A Secular Age, Charles Taylor, faced with contemporary challenges to belief in God, issues a call for "new and unprecedented itineraries" that might be capable of leading seekers to encounter God. In Spiritual Exercises for a Secular Age, Ryan G. Duns demonstrates that William Desmond's philosophy has the resources to offer a compelling response to Taylor. To show how, Duns makes use of the work of Pierre Hadot. In Hadot's view, the point of philosophy is "not to (...) inform but to form"--That is, not to provide abstract answers to abstruse questions but rather to form the human being such that she can approach reality as such in a new way. Drawing on Hadot, Duns frames Desmond's metaphysical thought as a form of spiritual exercise. So framed, Duns argues, Desmond's metaphysics attunes its readers to perceive disclosure of the divine in the everyday. In this way, Desmond's metaphysics is not about conjuring a different reality but instead leads readers to behold reality itself in a different way by helping them to encounter the presence of God, who abides in, and is disclosed through, all things in the world. Spiritual Exercises for a Secular Age offers a readable and engaging introduction to the thought of Charles Taylor and William Desmond, and demonstrates how practicing metaphysics can be understood as a form of spiritual exercise that renews in its practitioners attentiveness to God in all things"-- Back cover. (shrink)

Cognitive science proposes that we have evolved to build mental maps of the world not according to its actual, physical nature, but according to what allows us to thrive. In other words, our individual and collective realities are fictions - carefully constructed to enable us to maintain our particular perspectives. It used to be that our fictions were rooted to reasonably solid things: to people, places and memories. Today, in an age of online personas, alternative truths, constant surveillance and an (...) increasingly hysterical news cycle, our realities are becoming more flimsy and more vulnerable than ever before. Ours is now a zoomed-in perspective, where the backstage is centre stage. We are both camera person and subject, with new powers and new weaknesses. Our personal and political spheres are dangerously merging. How will the form and grammar of our feelings have to change in this over-exposed environment? Should any of our stories remain secret? How are these phenomena changing the way we live? How do we maintain a sense of reality in an increasingly fantastic world? Picnic Comma Lightning is an innovative examination of the nature of reality in the twenty-first century, one that explores the key ethical, political and neurological forces contouring our inner selves, but also the old influences of grief and desire, memory and imagination. In it, award-winning author Laurence Scott provides a lively and accessible new philosophy for this epoch in Western civilisation, one that will change the way you see the world, and your place within it."--Publisher description. (shrink)

We're in an ethical mess! -- Is there a moral law we can know? -- If we know what's right, can we do it? -- What does it mean to be human? -- Ethics in the marketplace -- Ethics in public life.

Women and religion -- Reproductive futurism -- Political emancipation -- From the Cold War to the clash of civilizations -- Sexual emancipation.

The brief, practical texts in the Essentials of Qualitative Methods series introduce social science and psychology researchers to key approaches to capturing phenomena not easily measured quantitatively, offering exciting, nimble opportunities to gather in-depth qualitative data. In this book, Scott D. Churchill introduces readers to existential phenomenological research, an approach that seeks an in-depth, embodied understanding of subjective human existence that reflects a person's values, purposes, ideals, intentions, emotions, and relationships. This method helps researchers understand the lives and needs (...) of others by helping identify and set aside theoretical and ideological prejudgments. About the Essentials of Qualitative Methods book series: Even for experienced researchers, selecting and correctly applying the right method can be challenging. In this groundbreaking series, leading experts in qualitative methods provide clear, crisp, and comprehensive descriptions of their approach, including its methodological integrity, and its benefits and limitations. Each book includes numerous examples to enable readers to quickly and thoroughly grasp how to leverage these valuable methods. (shrink)

Many fans of Diogenes of Sinope laud his parrhesia, free speech used for critique. However, Diogenes abused not only the powerful but also the socially marginalized. We argue that interpreters of Diogenes cannot explain away the undeniably troublesome things that Diogenes said about those at the margins. But we also argue that Diogenes ought nonetheless to be preserved. Some of his chreiai can be reminders of how to be courageous and fight for the downtrodden, and others can serve as reminders (...) of how easily those aspirations can be forgotten. We offer a variety of ways to interpret Diogenes, especially since the figure of Diogenes is an historical composite from centuries of sources. But we arrive at a position of loving antagonism toward Diogenes, loving Cynic commitments to autarkeia and against wealth and power, and disapproving when Cynics fell short of their commitments and critical aspirations. (shrink)

I present a counterexample to Kirk-Giannini’s Dilemmatic Theory of gaslighting.

According to Pew Research studies, most Americans think religion always conflicts with science. The popular writings of scientists such as Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and Lawrence Krauss reinforce this idea, as do books by writers such as Christopher Hitchens and Daniel Dennet. Furthermore, the two versions of the enormously popular television show Cosmos, hosted by Carl Sagan in 1980 and Neil deGrasse Tyson in 2014, present a history of science in which religion has always acted as a barrier to scientific (...) development, with scientists frequently persecuted or even executed for their work. "Gods, Philosophers, and Scientists" shows that just because an idea is popular, doesn't mean it's correct. By examining the historical record from the time of the Ancient Greeks to today, readers are able to see that religion and science have been allies more often than enemies, and when conflict does occur it's too simplistic to view it as coming from something inherent to either science or religion. Instead, as with the case of Greek philosophy or the reception of Darwinian evolution, complex social forces are to blame, and in cases such as the infamous one of Galileo's conflict with the Catholic Church, clashing personalities are at least as important as those social forces. Anyone interested in the history of science or religion, who is curious about how science works, or who wants to have a better understanding of the world should read this book. (shrink)

Literary and philosophical reflections combine with true-life farm anecdotes to offer commentary on seeking the good life in the modern age.

Starting at the beginning: what's so good about being good? -- Theological ethics: where does morality come from? -- Cultural views of morality: why can't we make up our own moral rules for ourselves? -- Making ethical decisions: when I'm in a moral dilemma, what do I do? -- Abortion: how can you say that a pregnant seventeen-year-old, for whom having the baby will ruin her life, is doing something wrong by having an abortion? -- Reproductive technologies: what do you (...) say to infertile couples about the hi-tech ways to have a baby? -- Genetics and biotechnology: what do you tell couples who want to use biotechnology to produce designer children? -- Death, dying, and assisted suicide: don't people have a fundamental right to die? -- Capital punishment: isn't the death penalty a barbaric holdover from uncivilized cultures that should be done away with today? -- War and morality: in view of the Bible's teaching to love your enemies, why isn't every Christian a pacifist? -- Sexual ethics: shouldn't people be able to love and have sex with whomever they choose? -- Christian ethics, economics, and the workplace: how does my work connect to my spiritual life and my service to God? (shrink)

The life fantastic -- Bedtime stories -- The end of things -- Optical disillusions -- Double vision -- Backstage pass -- Romance languages -- Fellow-feeling -- Bolts from the blue -- Final fantasies.

Prominent atheists claim the Bible is a racist text. Yet Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. read it daily. Then again, so did many ardent segregationists. Some atheists claim religion serves to oppress the masses. Yet the classic text of the French Revolution, What is the Third Estate?, was written by a priest. On the other hand, the revolutionaries ended up banning religion. What do we make of religion's confusing role in history? And what of religion's relationship to science? Some scientists (...) claim that we have no free will. Others argue that advances in neurobiology and physics disprove determinism. As for whispering to the universe, an absurd habit say the skeptics. Yet prayer is a transformative practice for millions. This book explores the most common atheist critiques of the Bible and religion, incorporating Jewish, Christian, and Muslim voices. The result is a fresh, modern re-evaluation of religion and of atheism. (shrink)