Contents
CONTENTS
1. THE DAWN OF THE GOLDEN AGE OF ATHEISM
The Critics of the Gods: Classical Greek Atheism
The Transition to the Modern Era
An Age of Revolution: The Eighteenth Century
PART 1: THE HIGH NOON OF ATHEISM
Voltaire: Critic of a Corrupt Church
The American Revolution: Radical Reform without Atheism
The Failed Philosophical Attempts to Defend God
The Marquis de Sade and the Origins of Erotic Atheism
The Critique of Christianity: The First Phase
Institutional Atheism? The Program of Dechristianization
The French Revolution and Atheism: An Assessment
3. THE INTELLECTUAL FOUNDATIONS: FEUERBACH, MARX, AND FREUD
A Secular Priesthood: The Rise of the Intellectual
God as an Invention: Ludwig Feuerbach
God as Illusion: Sigmund Freud
4. WARFARE: THE NATURAL SCIENCES AND THE ADVANCEMENT OF ATHEISM
The Origins of the Warfare of Science and Religion
Atheism as a Science: The Demand for Religious Proof
The Blind Watchmaker: Darwin and a Godless Universe
5. A FAILURE OF THE RELIGIOUS IMAGINATION: THE VICTORIAN CRISIS OF FAITH
The Birth of Intentional Atheism in Britain
Nature: Affirming the Transcendent without God
Shelley and the Necessity of Atheism
A. C. Swinburne: The Imaginative Appeal of the Profane
A Culture in Crisis: The Loss of Faith
6. THE DEATH OF GOD: THE DREAM OF A GODLESS CULTURE
Dostoyevsky and the Revolt against God
Nietzsche and the Death of God
Camus and the Absurd Silence of God
The Suicide of Liberal Christianity
The Execution of God: The Atheist State
7. THE UNEXPECTED RESURGENCE OF RELIGION
A Loss of Faith: A Personal Narrative
The Stalled Intellectual Case against God
The Suffering of the World and Atheism
The Imaginative Failure of Atheism
The Rebirth of Interest in the Spiritual
The Remarkable Case of Pentecostalism
8. DISCONNECTION FROM THE SACRED: PROTESTANTISM AND ATHEISM
The Divorce of the Sacred and the Secular
The Imaginative Failure of Protestantism
The Atheist Challenge and the Future of Protestantism
9. POSTMODERNITY: ATHEISM AND RADICAL CULTURAL CHANGE
The Postmodern Respect for Diversity
Atheism and the Challenge of Postmodernity
The Embarrassing Intolerance of Atheism
10. THE ATHEIST’S REVOLT: MADALYN MURRAY O’HAIR AND OTHERS
Daughters and Sons: Ivy Compton-Burnett
Mother and Son: Madalyn Murray O’Hair
11. END OF EMPIRE: THE FADING APPEAL OF ATHEISM
Liberators and Oppressors: On Atheist Role Reversal
Religion and the Creation of Community
Institutional Atheism: A Failure of Vision