Religious Skepticism Research Articles

PROPERLY BASIC THEISTIC BELIEF: A SESAME STREET OBJECTION

Christian philosopher Alvin Plantinga wants everyone to agree that while sceptics will always be with us, no one is irrational in accepting what only the stubborn sceptic denies. Plantinga claims no one should be considered irrational for accepting what the religious sceptic denies either. Rather, the claim goes, belief in God should be as uncontroversial as any other properly basic belief sensible people happily hold without absolute proof sufficient to silence the sceptic. The legitimacy of placing theistic belief alongside other properly basic beliefs is challenged by the Sesame Street Objection: ‘one of these things is not like the others’.

Do Religious Skeptics Differ from Religious Believers in their Interest in Celebrities?

Given the prejudice directed toward religious skeptics, it is imperative that we learn as much as we can about this minority group. We administered the Celebrity Attitude Scale (CAS), and some brief additional measures of attitudes about celebrities to a sample of 91 religious believers and 92 skeptics recruited throughout the US from Mechanical Turk. We predicted that skeptics would have less favorable attitudes toward celebrities in general and feel less strongly attached to their own favorite celebrity, as compared to the believers. The first prediction was confirmed but not the second. We also compared believers with skeptics on choices of an “entertainer” vs. “non-entertainer” favorite celebrity, and found no significant difference. The results are discussed in light of current research on religious skeptics and celebrity worshipers.

Parallels in Search of an Intersection: The Manifold Marcus Aurelius Resonances in Walt Whitman's 'Song of Myself'

While Whitman’s knowledge of and affinity to Epictetus are well-known, the profound roots of Song of Myself in Marcus Aurelius’ To Myself (better known as Meditations) were not researched to date even though it is known that Stoicism was a powerful influence upon the autodidact poet. Through classical hermeneutical methodology, this paper shows how stoic practice and training in daily reflection, cosmopolitanism, pantheism, religious skepticism, public service, but most importantly its Platonic legacy of “doing one’s own thing” through fluxes and flows reach far beyond coincidences in Whitman’s work and may be traced through scores of sometimes verbatim parallels in Whitman’s magnum opus. Even if one leaves use of paradigms, vignettes, examples and transcendentalism aside, the study still shows that these parallels extend to a shared platform of individualism and higher-level virtue that cannot be reduced to the poet’s early love of classical motives and Greek culture. Epicurean materialistic atomism and its doctrine of interchangeability of all matter in metamorphosis came to him through the influence of German chemist Justus von Liebig in the perception of Fanny Wright’s novel Ten Days in Athens. This research traces Whitman’s stance opposed to slavery directly to Seneca and points out multiple parallels between the reflections of Marcus Aurelius on Rome and the words Whitman found for New York—each the metropolis of its day, slightly past its apex of historical power, yet peerlessly vibrant as a melting pot, engaged in cultural wars on multiple levels with forces labeled “barbaric.”

Hume’s Religious Skepticism and Happiness - As a Way to Relieve Religious Conflicts -

Hume’s Religious Skepticism and Happiness - As a Way to Relieve Religious Conflicts -

Parallels in Search of an Intersection: The Manifold Marcus Aurelius Resonances in Walt Whitman’s “Song of Myself”

<p>While Whitman’s knowledge of and affinity to Epictetus are well-known, the profound roots of <em>Song of Myself</em> in Marcus Aurelius’ <em>To Myself</em> (better known as <em>Meditations</em>) were not researched to date even though it is known that Stoicism was a powerful influence upon the autodidact poet. Through classical hermeneutical methodology, this paper shows how stoic practice and training in daily reflection, cosmopolitanism, pantheism, religious skepticism, public service, but most importantly its Platonic legacy of “doing one’s own thing” through fluxes and flows reach far beyond coincidences in Whitman’s work and may be traced through scores of sometimes verbatim parallels in Whitman’s <em>magnum opus</em>. Even if one leaves use of paradigms, vignettes, examples and transcendentalism aside, the study still shows that these parallels extend to a shared platform of individualism and higher-level virtue that cannot be reduced to the poet’s early love of classical motives and Greek culture. Epicurean materialistic atomism and its doctrine of interchangeability of all matter in metamorphosis came to him through the influence of German chemist Justus von Liebig in the perception of Fanny Wright’s novel <em>Ten Days in Athens</em>. This research traces Whitman’s stance opposed to slavery directly to Seneca and points out multiple parallels between the reflections of Marcus Aurelius on Rome and the words Whitman found for New York—each the metropolis of its day, slightly past its apex of historical power, yet peerlessly vibrant as a melting pot, engaged in cultural wars on multiple levels with forces labeled “barbaric.”</p>

Dziecko ofiarą antykultury przemocy

Violence against children has different forms and calls for various measures to eliminate it. However, this will be possible, when will determine not only the symptoms, but also the source of violence. These sources should be seen not only in the material conditions of the family, but also in the contemporary culture, that by creating the space for violence, it rather becomes an anticulture. The child becomes the victim of a „culture” based only on the material values, moral relativism and religious skepticism. Violence is also born of lies, manipulation, selfishness, consumerism, utilitarianism, extreme liberalism.

An inadvertent missiologist: Edward Gibbon and the science of mission

Edward Gibbon unintentionally inaugurated the science of mission ( Missionswissenschaft), when he published in 1776 the first volume of his celebrated History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Gibbon included in his groundbreaking work a new approach to mission history that emphasized social analysis and cultural change, rather than theology. Gibbon’s secular discourse on the establishment, growth and “triumph” of early Christianity over paganism is highly critical of the faith, in line with his own stance of religious skepticism, but is insightful nevertheless, as he shows how the study of mission from a sociological perspective can shed light on the social processes that often shape evangelistic outcomes. In the Decline and Fall, Gibbon also defined a style of speaking or a discourse about Christian mission that has come to dominate the secular academy today.

David Hume: Historical Thinker, Historical Writer, edited by Mark G. Spencer

David Hume: Historical Thinker, Historical Writer, edited by Mark G. Spencer. University Park, Pennsylvania State University Press, 2013. xii, 282 pp. $69.95 US (cloth). This book is a fine collection of essays addressing an under-explored topic, namely relation between Hume philosopher and Hume historian. Mark G. Spencer notes in introduction that apart from scattered remarks on history in Hume's philosophical treatises and essays, and general comments on development of English constitution in his History of England, philosophical content in Hume's historical writings and historical content of his philosophy are not fully apparent. And while Hume's History of England was widely read in his day, his historical work tended to be neglected thereafter relative to his philosophical texts. Although some of claims made by authors in this volume may be questioned, in terms of their various attempts to unify philosophical and historical sides of David Hume, collection as a whole represents a significant contribution to growing scholarship on this important aspect of Hume's thought. The essays employ a diversity of approaches. Roger L. Emerson argues that Hume was potentially interested in writing an ecclesiastical history (as did his successor Gibbon), given often rich accounts of ecclesiastical affairs in The History of England. His hesitance arose from not wanting his peace disturbed by both offended religious authorities and radical Enlightenment philosophes. In contrast, Jennifer A. Herdt is critical of Hume's distinction between natural moral sentiments, and artificial lives as influenced by superstition and enthusiasm. In fact, she argues, a sympathetic understanding of religious belief and practice underpins Hume's writing; Hume's own historiography can be interpreted as endorsing a kind of providentialism (of human progress). The following chapters focus on Hume's History of England. Philip Hick nicely traces development of concepts of from Machiavelli to Bolingbroke. He argues that Hume broke from republican and Whig views on freedom in his analysis of its entanglements with religious fanaticism, and need to balance with authority. Nevertheless Hume's employment of rhetoric of the spirit of liberty helped fuel revolutionary politics of late eighteenth-century America. Mark Towsey turns to eighteenth-century Scottish readership of The History of England. He shows that despite misgivings over Hume's religious skepticism, and complicated and controversial political learnings, work nevertheless enjoyed great success in his homeland. David Allan looks southward to ascertain who Hume's English readers might have been, and how they discussed and obtained copies of his History--again despite or because of its controversial content. In his examination of medieval volumes of History, Jeffrey M. Suderman explores Hume's nuanced reflections on English kings of Middle Ages. For Hume greatest monarchs were those who transcended barbarism of their times, thus reinforcing not only superiority of modem civility but also surprising role of powerful monarchs in making of modem English constitutional liberty. …

Barack Obama and the Habit of Hope

Books Reviewed:The Irony of Barack Obama: Barack Obama, Reinhold Niebuhr, and Problem of Christian Statecraft. By R. Ward Holder and Peter B. Josephson. Burlington, Vt.: Ashgate Publishing Co., 2012. 232 pp. $119.95 (cloth).Reading Obama: Dreams, and American Political Tradition. By James T. Kloppenberg. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2011. 344 pp. $24.95 (cloth).The Audacity of Faith: Christian Leaders Reflect on Election of Barack Obama. Edited by Marvin A. McMickle. Valley Forge, Pa.: Judson Press, 2009. 192 pp. $17.00 (paper).Religion, Race, and Barack Obamas New Democratic Pluralism. Edited by Gaston Espinosa. New York: Routledge, 2013. 296 pp. $140.00 (cloth).Fundamentalism in American Religion and Law: Obama's Challenge to Patriarchy's Threat to Democracy. By David A. J. Richards. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010. 326 pp. $31.99 (paper).Barack Obama's America: How New Conceptions of Race, Family, and Religion Ended Reagan Era. By John Kenneth White. Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan Press, 2009. 320 pp. $28.95 (paper).Barack Obama burst onto national stage with The Audacity of Hope, his inspiring speech at 2004 Democratic National Convention that anticipated his 2006 book Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming American Dream. Obamas theme echoed his pastor Jeremiah Wrights 1988 sermon The Audacity to Hope, as he sought to shed light on spiritual dimension of Democratic politics in contrast to religious skepticism of some on Left and more conservative religious stance of some on Right.Like all contemporary politicians, Obama has employed the God strategy, eponymous title of an excellent study by David Domke and Kevin Coe that tracks in detail evolution of religio-political language from Dwight Eisenhower to present. concern that arises with use of God strategy is that of authenticity of a candidate's faith as opposed to politically expedient use of God language. Domke and Coe recognize that question of a candidate's personal faith is unknowable, but emphasize that there is little doubt that strategic use of religious sentiments is one of the realities of modem American politics.1 Clearly, religious pluralism and secularism are challenges no politician can ignore. Obama, whose rhetoric of hope has driven his political career, has been forced to embrace a centrist position that has placed him between religion and politics. A spiritually committed leader must enter rough-and-tumble world of secular values and legislative realities, of technological methods and gridlock that by necessity divides statecraft from faith.One of Obama's greatest efforts has been attempt to instill of hope within an American society battered by Bush-era despair resulting from an unjust war, governmental approval of torture, advancement of wealthy one-percenters, and loss of trust, which is fabric of society. By habit I do not mean a repeated behavior, but something closer to hexis, a dispositional energy that interacts with wider environment, testing ideas and actions for their faithfulness. of hope is a vague yet pragmatic reality in which hope transforms persons and communities, making it essential to deliberative democracy. person's experience of hope dis-positions self, creating a new center of value and a new focus of action through experience of an expanded sense of trust, confidence, and possibility. Hope must be pragmatically tested in world of beings and things in order to build networks of community. After all, hope is about realization of a more fulfilling future through action necessary for amelioration of flawed humanity. It is fulcrum of history that counters despair, determinism, and retrospective thinking with a propulsive interaction with wider environment in which human flourishing can grow. …

Arab Religious Skeptics Online: Anonymity, Autonomy, and Discourse in a Hostile Environment

The Arab atheist community is largely an online phenomenon, with limited visibility offline and with virtually no umbrella groups. It exists in unfriendly, if not hostile, political, social, religious, and legal environments. This paper aims to deepen our understanding of virtual space by analyzing the Arab atheist community online: its content, discourse, and structure. The research examines the relationship between the networked information economy and the emergence of religious skeptics as manifested in Arab cyberspace. A central question is whether the Internet enhances individual autonomy in matters of faith. Given that the Arab atheist community online is prevailingly anonymous, the paper assesses the potential and limitations of anonymous and pseudonymous speech online and the extent to which this facilitates or hinders sharing, debating, community building, and collective action.

O Método de Racionalização de Weber e a Não Institucionalização de Dumont: Uma Visão sobre o Hinduísmo e o Vedanta

Weber descreve que o “racionalismo” concerne à rejeição de todas as formas irracionais de busca do sagrado e que o ascetismo indiano foi o “mais racionalmente desenvolvido no mundo”. O ponto que Weber defende é que o “laicismo culto” da Índia antiga desenvolveu uma “soteriologia livre de padres”, parcialmente entregue a um ceticismo religioso. Essa parece ter sido a pista de Weber da qual partiu Dumont a fim de desenvolvê-la em “homo hierarchicus”, e é com esta intenção que desenvolvo o pensamento deste último autor sobre o poder nas sociedades tradicionais de castas e a consequente desinstitucionalização do Hinduísmo. Busco compreender em que sentido Dumont afirma existir uma democratização da instituição e o significado do renunciante como dotado de uma individualidade

Superstitionis Malleus: John Toland, Cicero, and the War on Priestcraft in Early Enlightenment England

SummaryThis paper explores the role of the Ciceronian tradition in the radical religious discourse of John Toland (1670–1722). Toland produced numerous works seeking to challenge the authority of the clergy, condemning their ‘priestcraft’ as a significant threat to the integrity of the Commonwealth. Throughout these anticlerical writings, Toland repeatedly invoked Cicero as an enemy to superstition and as a religious sceptic, particularly citing the theological dialogues De Natura Deorum and De Divinatione. This paper argues that Toland adapted the Ciceronian tradition so that it could function as an active influence on the construction of his radical discourse. First, it shows that Toland championed a particular interpretation of Cicero's works which legitimised his use of Cicero in this rational context. Then, it shows the practical manifestations of this interpretation, examining the ramifications for how Toland formed three important facets of his campaign against priestcraft: his identification of priestcraft as a superstition; his argument for a rational religion in which priestcraft could play no role; and his portrayal of anticlericalism as a service to the Commonwealth.

Religious Skepticism: A Reservation Regarding the American Academy of Religion's Guidelines

Recently the American Academy of Religion (AAR) published “Guidelines for Teaching About Religion in K–12 Public Schools in the United States” (Guidelines) as a resource for educators. Among the AAR's expressed goals is the “exposing [of] students to a diversity of religious views, but not imposing any particular view.” The author is afraid, however, that the AAR may not succeed in this endeavor because it explicitly and implicitly favors, in the Guidelines, a particular view on religion: religious skepticism.

Religious Skepticism

Abstract: Is belief in God intellectually viable? That is, is belief in an all-knowing, all-powerful, perfectly good supernatural being the kind of belief that has credible support that strongly suggests that it is true? There is a long tradition of religious skepticism according to which the answer to these questions is no. This is an interesting and important query for those who do believe in God, for there are (and should be) moments when reflective believers wonder how or why they should think some specific religious claim is true. In this article, I will present skepticism about religious claims as a species of a broader kind of epistemological skepticism. Then I'll explore some reasons that are often cited in support of religious skepticism. In the final section, I'll present some responses to skepticism about the intellectual viability of belief in God.

Hume the Sociable Iconoclast: The Case of the Four Dissertations

Though each of its four constituent essays has received scholarly attention in itself, Hume’s Four Dissertations (1757) has received virtually no consideration from scholars as a unified whole. This article offers such an assessment, and argues that two crucially Humean themes link the four texts. First, they show the applicability of Hume’s theory of the passions to a wide range of questions: to the philosophy of religion, to psychology, and to aesthetics. Second, they show Hume grappling with the tension between his iconoclastic religious skepticism and his valorization of tolerant and sociable exchange between thinkers with differing views.

Another look at divine hiddenness

AbstractIn his fine book The Wisdom to Doubt, J. L. Schellenberg builds a case for religious scepticism by advancing a version of the Hiddenness Argument. This argument rests on the claim that God could not love, in an admirable way, those who seek God while also remaining hidden from them. In this article, I distinguish two arguments for this claim. Neither argument succeeds, I contend, as each rests on an unsatisfactory understanding of the nature of admirable love, whether human or divine.

The Absence of God and Its Contextual Significance for Hume

Hume's thoroughgoing religious scepticism is set within the context of the Scottish Enlightenment. Against some interpreters, it is argued that, although elusive, his ‘attenuated deism’ (Gaskin) is not wholly dismissive of all forms of religious thought and practice. His position is further compared with contemporary expressions of ‘new atheism’. Despite some obvious similarities, Hume's position is judged more nuanced both in terms of content and rhetorical strategy.

Conceived in Doubt: Religion and Politics in the New American Nation

Amanda Porterfield's book seeks to explain “the massive shift in the early republic from deism to evangelical religion” (p. ix). While pursuing that historiographical task, the book also tacitly poses two questions of ongoing political relevance: When did religious skepticism become the kiss of death in the politics of the United States? How did American evangelicalism acquire its antipathy to an activist federal government? Porterfield locates her answers in the Jeffersonian ascendancy. Prior to that moment of Democratic-Republican dominance, she argues, Americans across the social spectrum felt relatively free to subject both traditional forms of governmental authority and biblical Christianity to critical scrutiny. This spirit of open inquiry was sustained by the Revolution's high hopes for human reason. However, as the new nation divided into rival political camps, faced the uncertainties of a speculative economy, wrestled with the dangers of racial division, and feared the full implications of democracy, self-doubting Americans looked for a transcendent source of stability and assurance. Evangelical Christianity fit the bill.

Belief bias during reasoning among religious believers and skeptics

We provide evidence that religious skeptics, as compared to believers, are both more reflective and effective in logical reasoning tasks. While recent studies have reported a negative association between an analytic cognitive style and religiosity, they focused exclusively on accuracy, making it difficult to specify potential underlying cognitive mechanisms. The present study extends the previous research by assessing both performance and response times on quintessential logical reasoning problems (syllogisms). Those reporting more religious skepticism made fewer reasoning errors than did believers. This finding remained significant after controlling for general cognitive ability, time spent on the problems, and various demographic variables. Crucial for the purpose of exploring underlying mechanisms, response times indicated that skeptics also spent more time reasoning than did believers. This novel finding suggests a possible role of response slowing during analytic problem solving as a component of cognitive style that promotes overriding intuitive first impressions. Implications for using additional processing measures, such as response time, to investigate individual differences in cognitive style are discussed.

Conceived in Doubt: Religion and Politics in the New American Nation (review)

Conceived in Doubt: Religion and Politics in the New American Nation. By Amanda Porterfield. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2012. Pp. 252. Cloth, $40.00.)Reviewed by Cynthia A. KiernerIn the post-Revolutionary decades, as Americans became a nation, they also became a churchgoing people. Historians have long noted the spread of religious fervor and church institutions during this period, and especially the growth of the Baptists, Methodists, and other evangelical denominations. In a landmark study, The Democratization of American Religion (1989), Nathan O. Hatch argued that the rise of as a mass movement was a direct consequence of the American Revolution. Focusing primarily on the democratizing effect of the theory and practice of popular sovereignty on American Christianity, Hatch viewed the intersection of the popular culture of religion and politics in an overwhelmingly positive light.Conversely, Amanda Porterfield's new book assesses the impact of American religion on the politics of the early republic. Although she, too, believes that religion and political culture became intertwined in the post- Revolutionary era, she sees the influence of on politics as far from salutary. While Hatch lauded the antiauthoritarian impulse of post- Revolutionary evangelicals, Porterfield contends that religion, however voluntary and individualistic its origins, stepped into a cultural vacuum to shape, and suppress, public discourse in the early American republic. Promoting the supreme authority of God's law, she writes, not only exerted moral authority as interpreters of divine governance, but also fostered distrust of secular reason and (3) and in so doing secured a privileged place for religion in American society (5).Porterfield reassesses a crucial transitional period in American religious history in light of three decades of path-breaking scholarship on the politics of the early republic. Her book is long on original thought, but less so on primary research, and - like Hatch, interestingly - she focuses mainly on elites. Porterfield begins with a fascinating assessment of the reception of Paine's Age of Reason, which, she argues, popularized and politicized (16) religious skepticism among non-elite Americans, many of whom also embraced Paine's iconoclastic distrust of government. Paine's wide appeal distressed leaders across the political spectrum, regardless of their own religious beliefs (or lack thereof). Seeing religion mainly as a system of social control, Porterfield argues that the churches restored order by convincing Americans to disavow religious skepticism and trust in God, leaving political parties to compete for the support of pious voters. Downplaying region, class, and other bases of party affiliation, Porterfield notes that Presbyterians and Congregationalists, with their civic humanist commitment to education and social improvement, tended to be Federalists. Baptists, Methodists, and others who disliked government generally and who emphatically rejected its involvement in religion (though not vice-versa) became core constituencies of the Jeffersonian Republicans.Intellectual historians may question Porterfield's tendency to conflate doubt, skepticism, and rationalism, while religious scholars may want a more precise definition of evangelicalism and wonder about the complete absence in her book of Episcopalians, Lutherans, and some other major and lesser denominations. A more general question about Porterfield's thesis, however, concerns timing. Porterfield asserts that became a dominant force after 1800, but the rise of the Baptists and Methodists antedated the Revolution in some locales, most notably in Virginia. …