Good writing and clear thinking don’t always go hand in hand. It’s a pleasure, then, to find both in a book about going it alone–using rationality rather than supernatural entities to face reality–titled 50 Voices of Disbelief: Why We Are Atheists.
In one volume, edited by Russell Blackford and Udo Schuklenk, idiosyncratic essays by a range of atheists are featured, from science fiction authors and philosophers to scientists and activists. Only a few names were previously familiar to me (Michael Shermer, James Randi, Peter Singer, Dale McGowan). It’s a geographically diverse group, too, with writers from India, Scotland, England, Australia, Germany, Nigeria, and the U.S.
There’s even an enlightening essay by Sean Williams, an Australian speculative fiction author, titled, “Doctor Who and the Legacy of Rationalism.” Williams, noting that the popular television show features “frequent references to the Judeo-Christian faith,” goes on:
So whence arose my burgeoning sense of a-religiosity? The answer is not difficult to find. It resides in the series’ steady commitment to rationalism and the scientific method. ‘Everything that happens must have a scientific explanation,’ the Doctor says, ‘if you only know where to look for it.’ This message is consistently emphasized when church and faith rear their heads, as they do on numerous occasions, along with the show’s other enduring villains.
Other personal turning points in this volume include such incidents as the following:
1. When she read the World Book Encyclopedia from A to Z, Margaret Downey (founder of the Freethought Society of Greater Philadelphia) “discovered the difference between mythology and reality. The many gods that had been created by man became evident.”
2. When Michael Shermer, who had become a “born again” as a high school senior, attended a college class in which it was “okay to challenge any and all beliefs without fear of psychological loss or social reprisal,” he realized how insular his worldview had been. He is now Executive Director of the Skeptics Society and editor of Skeptic magazine.
Available in ebook, too. Read an excerpt and the table of contents from Voices of Disbelief.
Copyright (c) 2013 by Susan K. Perry (Follow me on Twitter @bunnyape)
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Not all atheists “stop believing” Many of us never believed the bullshit to begin with. If it sets you at ease to put your hands together and talk to yourself go ahead, but one hand masturbating can accomplish more than a million hands praying. Seriously do you really believe that there is a supernatural being somewhere? Wow.