Abstract
Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes 1. Like Christopher Hitchens (2007 Hitchens, C. 2007. God is not great: How religion poisons everything, New York, NY: Twelve. [Google Scholar]), I too would call my atheism “a Protestant atheism” (p. 11), formed in reaction to the specific tradition in which I was raised. But it is not of the dogmatic variety that confidently proclaims, “There absolutely is no God.” Michael Shermer (2011 Shermer, M. 2011. The believing brain: From ghosts and gods to politics and conspiracies—How we construct beliefs and reinforce them as truths, New York, NY: Times Books. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]) is right in referring to such “strong atheism” as an untenable—and unprovable—position (p. 176). Although I find the existence of the Christian God in any of his guises highly improbable, I do leave open the possibility that a deity of some kind may exist (see also Dawkins, 2006 Dawkins, R. 2006. The God delusion, New York, NY: Houghton Mifflin. [Google Scholar], pp. 50–51). 2. I know of no Jewish or Christian community that would deny God this title. 3. For readers in the United States, women's suffrage and civil rights are probably the best known recent examples. 4. See, for example, “To Lucilius on Providence” (Seneca, 1970 Seneca, L. A. 1970. Moral essays (Vols. 1–3), Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. J. W. Basore, Trans. [Google Scholar], Vol. 1). 5. See his seminal volume on theodicy, Evil and the God of Love (1977). 6. This is far and away the most prevalent “theory” of human suffering in the Bible. 7. The term is borrowed from John Dominic Crossan's many books and articles on the historical Jesus.
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