Philosophers without Gods: Meditations on Atheism and the Secular Life [Hardcover]

Who are atheists? What do they believe? Can life be meaningful without religious belief? Is belief in God necessary to be moral? Should we respect religious views we don't agree with? Is religion dangerous?

Philosophers Without Gods is a collection of essays by twenty leading philosophers from the United States and Britain, all of whom reject traditional religious faith and endorse the secular life.

In the Introduction, editor Louise M. Antony, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, writes, "A naturalistic understanding of the human condition reveals a set of heroic challenges--to pursue our goals without illusions, to act morally without hope of reward--challenges that, if taken up, can impart a durable value to finite and fragile human lives."

Permit me to coin a word: "anthropodicy." Whereas theodicy is "the defense of God's goodness and omnipotence in view of the existence of evil" (Meriam-Webster Dictionary), anthropodicy is the rational defense of non-theistic, secular humanism. The philosophers in this volume present anthropodictic arguments for living without "gods."

Liberal theologians argue that there is no real conflict between science and religion, reason and faith. Many of them also accept the Darwinian theory of evolution and reject the claim made by Fundamentalists that the world was created by God some six thousand years ago.

Many traditional Christians, however, subscribe to a literal, fundamentalist creed that accepts Scripture as verbally inspired and infallible, and that seeks to excuse their God for the evil and suffering in the world, or, even worse, justify the God who perpetuates infinite evil by punishing billions of unbelievers eternally in the fiery, smoke-charred pits of hell.

"Religious faith," writes Jonathan E. Adler in his essay "Faith and Fanaticism," is fertile ground for fanaticism." History has revealed such fanaticism in the tortures inflicted by the Inquisition, the witch hunts, and the cruelties of slavery, all endorsed by religious fanatics. In the present day, we witness religious fanaticism in the form of suicide bombers encouraged by radical Islamic fundamentalists.

Fanatical religious beliefs breeds fanatical political and military actions. Some extremist fundamentalists even look forward with joy and rapture to an imminent Armageddon, and savor the sword-rattlings and military imperialisms as "signs" of the coming desired end--an annihilation of the forces of evil infidels.

"The great unmentionable evil at the center of our culture," Gore Vidal once wrote, "is monotheism. From a barbaric Bronze Age text known as the Old Testament, three anti-human religions have evolved--Judaism, Christianity, Islam." And Havelock Ellis wrote, "The whole religious complexion of the modern world is due to the absence from Jerusalem of a lunatic asylum."

The best chapter in the book is the essay by Elizabeth Anderson, "If God Is Dead, Is Everything Permitted?" The implications of such a question are that atheists are arrogant intellectuals, antagonistic to religion, devoid of moral sentiments, and advocates of an "anything goes" lifestyle.

On the contrary, writes Anderson, "If we take the evidence for theism with utmost seriousness, we will find ourselves committed to the proposition that the most heinous acts are permitted." She gives a lengthy list, a scathing indictment, of the atrocities sanctioned by Scripture, both the Old and New Testaments. Hard-core fundamentalists who accept biblical inerrancy should be appalled by blood-curdling accounts of such an evil, sadistic God.

"I see the celebration of irrationality everywhere in popular culture," writes Louise Antony. "Our struggle as a species [is] to claim our rationality, to confront the harsh realities that constrain us, and to acknowledge our own responsibility." In other words, we need to become clear-thinking individuals, rather than sheep who blindly follow the alleged authority of a book that is more than two millennia old.

If one listens carefully, one can hear these professors of philosophy crying out, "For goodness' sake, people, think! Get a mind of your own! Grow up! Get a real life! We're living in the 21st century, not the superstitious Dark Ages. Get rid of your bizarre, incredible dogmas, miracles, and prophecies, and adopt a rational, scientific world view.

More than an attack on theism, Philosophers Without Gods is an effort to describe the non-religious view of the well-lived life. The writers challenge us to become adults in our thinking and living, to put aside our childish hopes and fears, and to conduct ourselves with intellectual honesty and moral integrity.

The bottom line of these essays is that we should cease to feed on pablum, should throw away our baby strollers and crutches and walk as grown men and women, taking responsibility for our own lives. As the apostle Paul put it so well: "When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways" (1 Corinthians 13:11, NRSV).

For those theists who have recoiled from some of the more bravado criticism of their beliefs in the writings of Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, and Christopher Hitchens, comes a gentler critique. There is real wisdom in this volume, and real empathy, too. Several of the essayists go to great lengths to let the reader know that they understand religion's appeal, that they do not find belief to be ignorant, much less crazy, and that a shared humanity can propel common cause in many areas among persons with or without faith. The New Atheists have focused largely on such topics as science and history, having leap-frogged some legitimate metaphysical questions related to meaning, values, morality, flourishing, etc. Don't misunderstand--I love Dawkins and Hitchens and Harris. This atheist finds their fiery polemic highly entertaining and motivating. But I enjoy this more upbeat and humane writing as well. And there is a Daniel Dennett essay in the volume for those who miss more spirited writing.

The first half of Philosophers Without Gods - Journeys - introduces a range of issues pertaining to the debate between theists and atheists with engaging, first-person narratives of how the philosopher in question moved from faith to atheism. Without saying so explicitly, these autobiographical essays reinforce the connections between philosophy and the lives of the real people from which it emerges. (Interestingly, the beginning point for most of these journeys is faith rather than neutrality or indifference.) For some the movement towards atheism was a source of unmitigated liberation while for others the movement entailed genuine costs. The acknowledgement by atheists that theistic belief, whatever its shortcomings, can nevertheless offer consolation and moral guidance is one of the collection's strengths.

The second half of the collection - Reflections - contains more conventional philosophical essays that raise issues such as how one goes about defining the God in which one does or does not believe, alternatives to theism such as Aristotle's notion of human flourishing, self-deception, and how much "respect" theism deserves. Like all collections, some of these essays are more compelling than others but there are several gems here, such as David Owen's essay "Disenchantment" and Elizabeth Secord Anderson's survey of the morality in the Bible.

Overall, this is a well-written and accessible collection that exposes the issues between theists and atheists largely without philosophical jargon and the unfortunate, but all too frequentr, rancor that typically characteriszes those debates. (The reviewer is the author of The Search for Meaning: A Short History.)The Search for Meaning: A Short History