Atheism: A Philosophical Justification 0877226423, 9780877226420

Table of contents :
Cover
Inside Flaps
Back Cover
Title
Contents
PREFACE
INTRODUCTION
┣━ The Scope of Nonbelief
┣━ A Brief Defense of Atheism Against Some Common Criticisms
┗━ Purpose
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
NEGATIVE ATHEISM
1. The Justification of Negative Atheism: Some Preliminaries
┣━ A Presumption of Atheism
┣━ The Ethics of Belief
┣━ The Evil Demon and Objectivist Epistemology
┗━ Conclusion
2. The Meaningfulness of Religious Language
┣━ Overview of the Problem
┣━ Incoherence and Meaninglessness
┣━ Nielsen's Critique of God Talk
┣━ Swinburne's Defense
┣━ The Choice of an Observational Language
┣━ Attempts to Show the Confirmability of Theological Statements
┗━ Conclusion
3. The Ontological Argument
┣━ Anselm's Ontological Argument
┣━ Malcolm's Ontological Argument
┣━ Hartshorne's Ontological Argument
┣━ Kordig's Ontological Argument
┣━ Plantinga's Ontological Argument
┗━ Conclusion
4. The Cosmological Argument
┣━ Traditional Deductive Cosmological Arguments
┣━ Three Contemporary Defenses of the Cosmological Argument
┗━ General Conclusion
5. The Teleological Argument
┣━ Background to the Teleological Argument
┣━ Tennant's Cosmic Teleology
┣━ Schlesinger's Teleological Argument
┣━ Swinburne's Teleological Argument
┣━ Taylor's Teleological Argument
┗━ General Conclusion
6. The Argument from Religious Experience
┣━ Religious Experience Defined
┣━ Types of Religious Experience
┣━ Mystical Experience
┣━ Swinburne's Principle of Credulity and Religious Experience
┗━ Conclusion
7. The Argument from Miracles
┣━ The Argument in General
┣━ The Concept of Miracles
┣━ The Probability That God Exists, Given the Existence of Miracles
┣━ Naturalism versus Supernaturalism and the Existence of Miracles
┣━ The Difficulty of Showing the Existence of Miracles
┣━ Evidence of Miracles in One Religion as Evidence Against Contrary Religions
┣━ Miracles at Lourdes
┣━ Indirect Miracles
┗━ Conclusion
8. Some Minor Evidential Arguments for God
┣━ The Argument from Common Consent
┣━ The Moral Argument
┣━ The Argument from Reward
┣━ The Argument from Justice
┣━ Arguments from Scripture
┣━ The Argument from Consciousness
┣━ The Argument from Providence
┗━ The Argument from Cumulative Evidence
9. Beneficial Arguments for God
┣━ Pascal's Argument
┣━ William James and the Will to Believe
┗━ Conclusion
10. Faith and Foundationalism
┣━ A Traditional Concept of Religious Faith
┣━ Existential Faith
┣━ Wittgensteinian Fideism
┣━ Are Avowals of Religious Faith True or False?
┣━ Could an Atheist Have Faith in God?
┣━ Religious Beliefs and Basic Beliefs
┗━ Conclusion
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
POSITIVE ATHEISM
11. The Justification of Positive Atheism: Some Preliminaries
┣━ The Justification of Negative Atheism as a Justification for Positive Atheism
┣━ The Strength of the Case Needed for A Posteriori Arguments
┗━ The A Priori Arguments and the Possibility of Rebuttal
12. Divine Attributes and Incoherence
┣━ Omniscience
┣━ Divine Freedom
┣━ Omnipotence
┗━ Conclusion
13. Atheistic Teleological Arguments
┣━ Salmon's Argument
┣━ Expansion of the Argument
┣━ The Universe as a Created Object
┗━ Conclusion
14. The Argument from Evil
┣━ A Direct Inductive Argument from Evil
┣━ An Indirect Inductive Argument from Evil
┣━ Criticisms of a Probabilistic Argument from Evil
┗━ Conclusion
15. The Free Will Defense
┣━ Background
┣━ The Justification in General
┣━ The Assumption of the Importance of Freedom
┣━ Free Will and Contracausal Freedom
┣━ Contracausal Freedom and Statistical Laws
┣━ Compatibilism and World Preference
┣━ Free Will and Evil
┣━ Possible Worlds and God's Ignorance
┣━ The Responsibility of God
┣━ Is the Free Will Defense Relevant to the Problem of Moral Evil?
┗━ Conclusion
16. Natural Evil
┣━ Three Contemporary Attempts to Solve the Problem of Natural Evil
┗━ Conclusion
17. Soul Making Theodicy
┣━ Some General Problems with the Soul Making Defense
┣━ Hick's Soul Making Theodicy Explained
┗━ Hick's Soul Making Theodicy Evaluated
18. Some Minor Theodicies
┣━ The Finite God Theodicy
┣━ The Best of All Possible Worlds Theodicy
┣━ The Original Sin Theodicy
┣━ The Ultimate Harmony Theodicy
┣━ The Degree of Desirability of a Conscious State Theodicy
┣━ The Reincarnation Theodicy
┣━ The Contrast Theodicy
┣━ The Warning Theodicy
┗━ Conclusion
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
CONCLUSION
APPENDIX: Atheism Defined and Contrasted
┣━ Atheism Defined
┣━ Atheism Distinguished and Contrasted
┗━ Conclusion
NOTES
INDEX