While I'm here, allow me to fill you in on the current state of play with Voices of Disbelief (working title), the book that Udo Schuklenk and I are co-editing.
We provided the complete manuscript to the publisher, Wiley-Blackwell, in early December 2008. There are long lead times in publishing ... as books go through various phases of copyediting, proofing, indexing (a surprisingly difficult and time-consuming job that I'm not looking forward to), and organising pre-publication publicity. A book like this will keep me occupied, one way or another, all through 2009, with publication currently planned for September.
Udo and I think we have a winner here. We have wonderful contributors and a great diversity of essays. The fifty-odd high-profile non-believers who have contributed to the book have tackled varied subject matter, written at anything from about 500 words to about 6000 words, and taken a range of stances towards religion: from uncompromising hostility to the wish that religion might adapt to modern ways of thinking, to willingness to find common ground with liberal theologians. From the viewpoint of the editors, all of these "voices" provide reasonable alternatives to traditional religious belief.
Without further ado, here's what the table of contents looks like:
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Introduction: Now More Important than Ever – Voices of Reason — Russell Blackford and Udo Schuklenk
Unbelievable! — Russell Blackford
My "Bye Bull" Story — Margaret Downey
How benevolent is God? – An argument from suffering to atheism — Nicholas Everitt
A Deal-breaker — Ophelia Benson
Why Am I a Nonbeliever? – I Wonder... — J. L. Schellenberg
Wicked or Dead? Reflections on the moral character and existential status of God — John Harris
Religious Belief and Self-Deception — Adèle Mercier
The Coming of Disbelief — J.J.C. Smart
What I Believe — Graham Oppy
Too Good to Be True, Too Obscure to Explain: The Cognitive Shortcomings of Belief in God — Thomas W. Clark
How to Think About God: Theism, Atheism, and Science — Michael Shermer
A Magician Looks at Religion — James Randi
Confessions of a Kindergarten Leper — Emma Tom
Beyond Disbelief — Philip Kitcher
An ambivalent nonbelief — Taner Edis
Why Not? — Sean M. Carroll
Godless Cosmology — Victor J. Stenger
Unanswered Prayers — Christine Overall
Beyond Faith and Opinion — Damien Broderick
Could it be pretty obvious there’s no God? — Stephen Law
Atheist, obviously — Julian Baggini
Why I am Not a Believer — A.C. Grayling
Evil and Me — Gregory Benford
Who’s Unhappy? — Lori Lipman Brown
Reasons to be Faithless — Sheila A.M. McLean
Three Stages of Disbelief — Julian Savulescu
Born Again, Briefly — Greg Egan
Cold Comfort — Ross Upshur
The Accidental Exorcist — Austin Dacey
Atheist Out of the Foxhole — Joe Haldeman
The Unconditional Love of Reality — Dale McGowan
Antinomies — Jack Dann
Giving up ghosts and gods — Susan Blackmore
Some thoughts on why I am an atheist — Tamas Pataki
No Gods, Please! — Laura Purdy
Welcome Me Back to the World of the Thinking — Kelly O'Connor
Kicking Religion Goodbye … — Peter Adegoke
On credenda — Miguel Kottow
"Not even start to ignore those questions!" A voice of disbelief in a different key — Frieder Otto Wolf
Imagine No Religion — Edgar Dahl
Humanism as Religion: An Indian Alternative — Sumitra Padmanabhan
Why I am NOT a theist — Prabir Ghosh
When the Hezbollah came to my school — Maryam Namazie
Evolutionary Noise, not Signal from Above — Athena Andreadis
Gods Inside — Michael R. Rose and John P. Phelan
Why Morality Doesn’t Need Religion — Peter Singer and Marc Hauser
Doctor Who and the Legacy of Rationalism — Sean Williams
My non-religious life: A journey from superstition to rationalism — Peter Tatchell
Helping People to Think Critically About Their Religious Beliefs — Michael Tooley
Human Self-Determination, Biomedical Progress, and God — Udo Schuklenk
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Russell Blackford is an Australian philosopher. He has published extensively (novels, short stories, academic monographs and articles, and book reviews) and is editor-in-chief of The Journal of Evolution and Technology. His home blog is Metamagician and the Hellfire Club.
3 comments:
Oooh, tasty! I expect I'll be able to argue with several of the essays — I mean, if I agreed with them all, what sort of unbeliever would I be?
(I note that manuscripts can be made into book-like form quickly, if you don't care about quality control or good, professional publicity. Some of us have lower expectations of ourselves and have to work up to grander things slowly.)
Russell, that is one impressive list of contributors.
I gots to get me a copy of this. I've read something on Stephen Law's blog that I think is similar to his essay. But that list of authors and essays is mouth watering. September you say? Cool. I think I'm allowed to buy books again then. :)
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