The Atheist's Primer - Michael Palmer

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Résumé :
Chapter One: The Meaning of Atheism 1. Atheism: A Definition 2. Atheism and Agnosticism 3. Guide to Further Reading Chapter Two: The Origins of Atheism 1. The Age of the Sophists 2. Epicureans & Sceptics 3. The Christian Era and the Re-emergence of religious doubt. 4. Guide to Further Reading Chapter Three: Two Arguments for God's Existence: An Atheistic Critique 1. Introduction 2. The Arguments from Cause and Design 3. The Atheistic Critique Chapter Four: The Problem of Evil 1. Introduction 2. The Logical (or Deductive) Argument from Evil 3. The Evidential (or Inductive) Argument from Evil Chapter Five: Morality and Religion 1. Introduction 2. Criticisms of the Moral Argument 3. Life After Death and Morality 4. Nietzsche's Critique of Religious Morality 5. Guide to Further Reading Chapter Six: Miracles 1. The Meaning of 'Miracle' 2. The Critique of Miracles: Their Impossibility 3. The Critique of Miracles: Their Improbability Chapter Seven: The Motivations of Belief 2. The Impulse to Believe...

Biographie:
Michael Palmer...

Sommaire:
A former Teaching Fellow at McMaster University and Humboldt Fellow at Marburg University, Dr Palmer has taught at Marlborough College and Bristol University. For many years Founding Head of the Department of Religion and Philosophy at the Manchester Grammar School, Dr Palmer is also the author of the best-selling textbook Moral Problems as well as of the two-volume textbook The Philosophy of Religion....

'Hurray for Michael Palmer! The Atheist's Primer is one of the best introductions to Atheism available. Well written and the many pictures of famous philosophers add to its charm - the only introduction to Atheism that I know of that has this!' Dr Michael Martin, Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at Boston University, October 2012. 'In his concise, comprehensive and accessible grand tour d'horizon of atheistical arguments, he surveys the philosophical approach that started 2,500 years ago, in the extraordinary explosion of critical thought in 5th-century BC Athens. [...] Michael Palmer has written not only an elegant summary of 2,500 years of thinking-about-God, but a genuine Primer, locked and loaded for argument, which doubles as a reminder of our intellectual limitations. The arguments it offers are less overweening than the barrage of scientific facts we tend to rely on.' Michael Bywater in New Humanist, Vol. 127 (6), Nov./Dec. 2012. 'If you are a student of philosophy, history and possibly psychology you will find much to interest you in this book.' Dougie Gibbard, Skeptical Adversaria, Winter 2012 'The various logical arguments in favour of atheism contained in this book represent a valid arsenal of munitions very useful for both atheists and agnostics, in order to to be able to rebut in an efficient way all of the pseudo-demonstrations that believers always advance in favour of their divinities...' Enrica Rota, L'ATEO, n. 1/2013 (86) '[The Atheist's Primer] seeks to highlight important philosophical arguments that Palmer believes have been sidelined in contemporary debates between theists and their opponents. He is surely right that the greatest atheist thinkers - Nietzsche, Marx and Freud - often do not receive a full hearing...' Mark Vernon, The Times Literary Supplement, No 5730, January 2013