The History Of Scientific Atheism

Author : Jan Tesař
Publisher : Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht
Page : 0 pages
File Size : 49,5 Mb
Release : 2019-07-15
Category : History
ISBN : 3525310862

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The History of Scientific Atheism by Jan Tesař Pdf

The book analyses under what conditions was it possible to develop scientific atheism which was by the contemporaries in the Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia understood not only as a branch of propaganda but as a specific scholarly discipline. It maps out not only the state of affairs before the organizational changes allowed the emergence of research but also analyses the motivation which led the historical actors to make such decision in both national contexts. One of the key findings is undoubtedly the fact that scientific atheism developed as a new type of thinking about religious phenomena within the context of Marxist-Leninist epistemological doctrine. Moreover, if the socio-political conditions were favorable, it also contributed to the rethinking of the key aspects of Marxist doctrine. The comparative analysis allows to draw conclusions about the existence of specifically Soviet and Czechoslovakian scientific atheism and questions the level of sovietization in this context.

Author : James Thrower
Publisher : Walter de Gruyter
Page : 529 pages
File Size : 53,6 Mb
Release : 2011-04-20
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9783110838589

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Marxist-Leninist 'Scientific Atheism' and the Study of Religion and Atheism in the USSR by James Thrower Pdf

Since its founding by Jacques Waardenburg in 1971, Religion and Reason has been a leading forum for contributions on theories, theoretical issues and agendas related to the phenomenon and the study of religion. Topics include (among others) category formation, comparison, ethnophilosophy, hermeneutics, methodology, myth, phenomenology, philosophy of science, scientific atheism, structuralism, and theories of religion. From time to time the series publishes volumes that map the state of the art and the history of the discipline.

Author : Jan Tesař
Publisher : Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht
Page : 356 pages
File Size : 48,5 Mb
Release : 2019-07-15
Category : History
ISBN : 9783647310862

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The History of Scientific Atheism by Jan Tesař Pdf

The book analyses under what conditions was it possible to develop scientific atheism which was by the contemporaries in the Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia understood not only as a branch of propaganda but as a specific scholarly discipline. It maps out not only the state of affairs before the organizational changes allowed the emergence of research but also analyses the motivation which led the historical actors to make such decision in both national contexts. One of the key findings is undoubtedly the fact that scientific atheism developed as a new type of thinking about religious phenomena within the context of Marxist-Leninist epistemological doctrine. Moreover, if the socio-political conditions were favorable, it also contributed to the rethinking of the key aspects of Marxist doctrine. The comparative analysis allows to draw conclusions about the existence of specifically Soviet and Czechoslovakian scientific atheism and questions the level of sovietization in this context.

Author : Tim Whitmarsh
Publisher : Faber & Faber
Page : 213 pages
File Size : 49,5 Mb
Release : 2016-02-02
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9780571279326

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Battling the Gods by Tim Whitmarsh Pdf

How new is atheism? In Battling the Gods, Tim Whitmarsh journeys into the ancient Mediterranean to recover the stories of those who first refused the divinities. Long before the Enlightenment sowed the seeds of disbelief in a deeply Christian Europe, atheism was a matter of serious public debate in the Greek world. But history is written by those who prevail, and the Age of Faith mostly suppressed the lively free-thinking voices of antiquity. Tim Whitmarsh brings to life the fascinating ideas of Diagoras of Melos, perhaps the first self-professed atheist; Democritus, the first materialist; and Epicurus and his followers. He shows how the early Christians came to define themselves against atheism, and so suppress the philosophy of disbelief. Battling the Gods is the first book on the origins of the secular values at the heart of the modern state. Authoritative and bold, provocative and humane, it reveals how atheism and doubt, far from being modern phenomena, have intrigued the human imagination for thousands of years.

Author : Nick Spencer
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
Page : 321 pages
File Size : 55,6 Mb
Release : 2014-05-08
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9781472902979

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Atheists by Nick Spencer Pdf

The clash between atheism and religion has become the defining battle of the 21st century. Books on and about atheism retain high profile and popularity, and atheist movements on both sides of the Atlantic capture headlines with high-profile campaigns and adverts. However, very little has been written on the history of atheism, and this book fills that conspicuous gap. Instead of treating atheism just as a philosophical or scientific idea about the non-existence of God, Atheists: The Origin of the Species places the movement in its proper social and political context. Because atheism in Europe developed in reaction to the Christianity that dominated the continent's intellectual, social and political life, it adopted, adapted and reacted against its institutions as well as its ideas. Accordingly, the history of atheism is as much about social and political movements as it is scientific or philosophical ideas. This is the story not only of Hobbes, Hume, and Darwin, but also of Thomas Aitkenhead hung for blasphemous atheism, Percy Shelley expelled for adolescent atheism, and the Marquis de Sade imprisoned for libertine atheism; of the French revolutionary Terror and the Soviet League of the Militant Godless; of the rise of the US Religious Right and of Islamic terrorism. Looking at atheism in its full sociopolitical context helps explain why it has looked so very different in different countries. It also explains why there has been a recent upsurge in atheism, particularly in Britain and the US, where religion has unexpectedly come to play such a significant role in political affairs. This leads us to a somewhat paradoxical conclusion: we should expect to hear more about atheism in the future for the simple reason that God is back.

Author : Jan Tesař
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 128 pages
File Size : 44,7 Mb
Release : 2019
Category : Electronic
ISBN : 3666310869

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The History of Scientific Atheism by Jan Tesař Pdf

The book analyses under what conditions was it possible to develop scientific atheism which was by the contemporaries in the Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia understood not only as a branch of propaganda but as a specific scholarly discipline. It maps out not only the state of affairs before the organizational changes allowed the emergence of research but also analyses the motivation which led the historical actors to make such decision in both national contexts. One of the key findings is undoubtedly the fact that scientific atheism developed as a new type of thinking about religious phenomena within the context of Marxist-Leninist epistemological doctrine. Moreover, if the socio-political conditions were favorable, it also contributed to the rethinking of the key aspects of Marxist doctrine. The comparative analysis allows to draw conclusions about the existence of specifically Soviet and Czechoslovakian scientific atheism and questions the level of sovietization in this context. ...

Author : Steve Fuller
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 176 pages
File Size : 48,7 Mb
Release : 2014-12-05
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9781317488330

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Science by Steve Fuller Pdf

In this challenging and provocative book, Steve Fuller contends that our continuing faith in science in the face of its actual history is best understood as the secular residue of a religiously inspired belief in divine providence. Our faith in science is the promise of a life as it shall be, as science will make it one day. Just as men once put their faith in God's activity in the world, so we now travel to a land promised by science. In "Science", Fuller suggests that the two destinations might be the same one. Fuller sympathetically explores what it might mean to live scientifically. Can science give a sense of completeness to one's life? Can it account for the entirety of what it is to be human? And what does our continuing belief in scientific progress say about us as a species? In answering these questions, Fuller ranges widely over the history of science and religion - from Aristotle and the atomists to Dawkins and the neo-Darwinists - and takes a close look at what science is, how its purpose has changed over the years, and what role religion and in more recent years atheism have played in its progression. Science, argues Fuller, is now undergoing its own version of secularization. We are ceasing to trust science in its institutional forms, formulated by an anointed class of science priests, and instead we are witnessing the emergence of what Fuller calls Protscience' - all sorts of people, from the New Age movement to anti-evolutionists, claiming scientific authority as their own. Fuller shows that these groups are no more anti-scientific than Protestant sects were atheistic. Fearless and thought-provoking, Science questions some of our most fundamental beliefs about the nature and role of science, and is a distinct and important contribution to debates about evolution, intelligent design, atheism, humanism, the notion of scientific progress, and the public understanding of science.

Author : Elaine Howard Ecklund,David R. Johnson
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 225 pages
File Size : 42,7 Mb
Release : 2021
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9780197539163

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Varieties of Atheism in Science by Elaine Howard Ecklund,David R. Johnson Pdf

Why study atheism among scientists? -- "Tried and found wanting" : how atheist scientists explain religious transitions -- "I am not like Richard:" modernist atheist scientists -- Ties that bind : culturally religious atheists -- Spiritual atheist scientists -- What atheist scientists think about science -- How atheist scientists approach meaning and morality -- From rhetoric to reality : why religious believers should give atheist scientists a chance.

Author : Stephen LeDrew
Publisher : Oxford University Press, USA
Page : 275 pages
File Size : 47,9 Mb
Release : 2016
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9780190225179

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The Evolution of Atheism by Stephen LeDrew Pdf

The concept of evolution is widely considered to be a foundational building block in atheist thought. Leaders of the New Atheist movement have taken Darwin's work and used it to diminish the authority of religious institutions and belief systems. But they have also embraced it as a metaphor for the gradual replacement of religious faith with secular reason. They have posed as harbingers of human progress, claiming the moral high ground, and rejecting with intolerance any message that challenges the hegemony of science and reason. Religion, according to the New Atheists, should be relegated to the Dark Ages of superstition and senseless violence. Yet Darwin did not see evolution as a linear progression to an improved state of being. The more antagonistic members of the New Atheist movement who embrace this idea are not only employing bad history, but also the kind of rigid, black-and-white thinking they excoriate in their religious opponents. Indeed, Stephen LeDrew argues, militant atheists have more in common with religious fundamentalists than they would care to admit, advancing what LeDrew calls secular fundamentalism. In reaction to fundamentalist Christianity and Islamism, this strain of atheism has become an offshoot of the religion it tries so hard to malign. The Evolution of Atheism outlines the essential political tension at the heart of the atheist movement. The New Atheism, LeDrew shows, is part of a tradition of atheist thought and activism that promotes individualism and scientific authority, which puts it at odds with atheist groups that are motivated by humanistic ethics and social justice. LeDrew draws on public relations campaigns, publications, podcasts, and in-depth interviews to explore the belief systems, internal logics, and self-contradictions of the people who consider themselves to be atheists. He argues that evolving understandings of what atheism means, and how it should be put into action, are threatening to irrevocably fragment the movement.

Author : Victoria Smolkin
Publisher : Princeton University Press
Page : 360 pages
File Size : 54,5 Mb
Release : 2019-10-29
Category : History
ISBN : 9780691197234

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A Sacred Space Is Never Empty by Victoria Smolkin Pdf

When the Bolsheviks set out to build a new world in the wake of the Russian Revolution, they expected religion to die off. Soviet power used a variety of tools--from education to propaganda to terror—to turn its vision of a Communist world without religion into reality. Yet even with its monopoly on ideology and power, the Soviet Communist Party never succeeded in overcoming religion and creating an atheist society. A Sacred Space Is Never Empty presents the first history of Soviet atheism from the 1917 revolution to the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. Drawing on a wealth of archival material and in-depth interviews with those who were on the front lines of Communist ideological campaigns, Victoria Smolkin argues that to understand the Soviet experiment, we must make sense of Soviet atheism. Smolkin shows how atheism was reimagined as an alternative cosmology with its own set of positive beliefs, practices, and spiritual commitments. Through its engagements with religion, the Soviet leadership realized that removing religion from the "sacred spaces" of Soviet life was not enough. Then, in the final years of the Soviet experiment, Mikhail Gorbachev—in a stunning and unexpected reversal—abandoned atheism and reintroduced religion into Soviet public life. A Sacred Space Is Never Empty explores the meaning of atheism for religious life, for Communist ideology, and for Soviet politics.

Author : Gerald Tilley
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 152 pages
File Size : 51,9 Mb
Release : 2019-01-16
Category : Electronic
ISBN : 179156755X

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The Absurdity of Atheism by Gerald Tilley Pdf

Atheists claim that science and reason destroy the credibility of belief in God and the Christian Faith. However, if one can temporarily lay aside one's biases and assumptions in regard to these issues that person may be surprised at the actual evidence. Honestly examining the evidence indicates there is a Creator, as even Einstein came to recognize. We find that that it is atheism that lacks the support of scientific facts. Many atheists attempt to hide this evidence through censorship of what is published in science journals and what is allowed to be taught in the colleges and universities. They also seek to removes scientists who doubt Darwinism from positions of influence. Other tactics of atheists are also exposed. In addition the book contrasts the assumed outcome of a nation or culture embracing atheism with the repeated historical realities. When the truth receives a fair hearing(seldom done in this country) the evidence supports not only the existence of God, but of a God who has communicated to humanity and desires us to relate to Him. The premise of the book is that when the evidence is actually consulted, atheism will prove to be absurd.

Author : Amir D. Aczel
Publisher : Harper Collins
Page : 258 pages
File Size : 53,9 Mb
Release : 2014-04-15
Category : Science
ISBN : 9780062230614

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Why Science Does Not Disprove God by Amir D. Aczel Pdf

The renowned science writer, mathematician, and bestselling author of Fermat's Last Theorem masterfully refutes the overreaching claims the "New Atheists," providing millions of educated believers with a clear, engaging explanation of what science really says, how there's still much space for the Divine in the universe, and why faith in both God and empirical science are not mutually exclusive. A highly publicized coterie of scientists and thinkers, including Richard Dawkins, the late Christopher Hitchens, and Lawrence Krauss, have vehemently contended that breakthroughs in modern science have disproven the existence of God, asserting that we must accept that the creation of the universe came out of nothing, that religion is evil, that evolution fully explains the dazzling complexity of life, and more. In this much-needed book, science journalist Amir Aczel profoundly disagrees and conclusively demonstrates that science has not, as yet, provided any definitive proof refuting the existence of God. Why Science Does Not Disprove God is his brilliant and incisive analyses of the theories and findings of such titans as Albert Einstein, Roger Penrose, Alan Guth, and Charles Darwin, all of whose major breakthroughs leave open the possibility— and even the strong likelihood—of a Creator. Bolstering his argument, Aczel lucidly discourses on arcane aspects of physics to reveal how quantum theory, the anthropic principle, the fine-tuned dance of protons and quarks, the existence of anti-matter and the theory of parallel universes, also fail to disprove God.

Author : Richard Dawkins
Publisher : Random House
Page : 314 pages
File Size : 50,6 Mb
Release : 2019-10-08
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9781984853912

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Outgrowing God by Richard Dawkins Pdf

Should we believe in God? In this brisk introduction to modern atheism, one of the world’s greatest science writers tells us why we shouldn’t. Richard Dawkins was fifteen when he stopped believing in God. Deeply impressed by the beauty and complexity of living things, he’d felt certain they must have had a designer. Learning about evolution changed his mind. Now one of the world’s best and bestselling science communicators, Dawkins has given readers, young and old, the same opportunity to rethink the big questions. In twelve fiercely funny, mind-expanding chapters, Dawkins explains how the natural world arose without a designer—the improbability and beauty of the “bottom-up programming” that engineers an embryo or a flock of starlings—and challenges head-on some of the most basic assumptions made by the world’s religions: Do you believe in God? Which one? Is the Bible a “Good Book”? Is adhering to a religion necessary, or even likely, to make people good to one another? Dissecting everything from Abraham’s abuse of Isaac to the construction of a snowflake, Outgrowing God is a concise, provocative guide to thinking for yourself. Praise for Outgrowing God “My son came home from his first day in the sixth grade with arms outstretched plaintively demanding to know: ‘Have you ever heard of Jesus?’ We burst out laughing. Maybe not our finest parenting moment, given that he was genuinely distraught. He felt that he had woken up one day to a world in which his peers were expressing beliefs he found frighteningly unreasonable. He began devouring books like The God Delusion, books that helped him formulate his own arguments and helped him stand his ground. Dawkins’s new book is special in the terrain of atheists’ pleas for humanism and rationalism precisely since it speaks to those most vulnerable to the coercive tactics of religion. As Dawkins himself says in the dedication, this book is for ‘all young people when they’re old enough to decide for themselves.’ It is also, I must add, for their parents.”—Janna Levin, author of Black Hole Blues “When someone is considering atheism I tell them to read the Bible first and then Dawkins. Outgrowing God—second only to the Bible!”—Penn Jillette, author of God, No!

Author : Victor J. Stenger
Publisher : Prometheus Books
Page : 282 pages
File Size : 43,7 Mb
Release : 2009-12-04
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9781615923441

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The New Atheism by Victor J. Stenger Pdf

In recent years a number of bestselling books have forcefully argued that belief in God can no longer be defended on rational or empirical grounds, and that the scientific worldview has rendered obsolete the traditional beliefs held by Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. The authors of these books—Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, and Victor J. Stenger—have come to be known as the "New Atheists." Predictably, their works have been controversial and attracted a good deal of critical reaction. In this new book, Victor J. Stenger, whose God: The Failed Hypothesis was on the New York Times bestseller list in 2007, reviews and expands upon the principles of New Atheism and answers many of its critics. He demonstrates in detail that naturalism—the view that all of reality is reducible to matter and nothing else—is sufficient to explain everything we observe in the universe, from the most distant galaxies to the inner workings of the brain that result in the phenomenon of mind. Stenger disputes the claim of many critics that the question of whether God exists is beyond the ken of science. On the contrary, he argues that absence of evidence for God is, indeed, evidence of absence when the evidence should be there and is not. Turning from scientific to historical evidence, Stenger then points out the many examples of evil perpetrated in the name of religion. He also notes that the Bible, which is still taken to be divine revelation by millions, fails as a basis for morality and is unable to account for the problem of unnecessary suffering throughout the world. Finally, he discusses the teachings of ancient nontheist sages such as Buddha, Lao Tzu, and Confucius, whose guidelines for coping with the problems of life and death did not depend upon a supernatural metaphysics. Stenger argues that this "way of nature" is far superior to the traditional supernatural monotheisms, which history shows can lead to a host of evils. The New Atheism is a well-argued defense of the atheist position and a strong rebuttal of its critics.

Author : Dimitry V Pospielovsky
Publisher : Springer
Page : 361 pages
File Size : 51,6 Mb
Release : 1988-07-29
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9781349193578

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History Of Soviet Atheism In Theory And Practice And The Believer - by Dimitry V Pospielovsky Pdf