Several dozen atheists, from Poland and around the world, were recently questioned about the reasons for their disbelief. This proves that there are many ways to disbelieve.
Agnostics, nonbelievers, skeptics, freethinkers, and secular humanists make up a growing group (several, a dozen percent of the population) and increasingly bold public appearances. Theirs to go out They document two books that have just been published. Philosopher and editor of the quarterly “Bez Dogmatu” Piotr Szumlewicz spoke with Polish atheists – an account of these meetings is “The Atheist’s Essentials” published by Czarna Owca (formerly Jacek Santorski&Co). The rest of the world was addressed by the Australian writer and philosopher Russell Blackford and the German-Swedish bioethicist Udo Schuklenk. Blackford and Schuklenk asked 50 intellectuals why they didn’t believe in God. They collected the answers in the book “50 Voices of Disbelief,” published by Wiley-Blackwell (a traditional academic publishing house). Why we are atheists” (50 votes of disbelief. Why we are atheists).
Like all ideologies, religious ideologies should be subject to careful critical analysis and compete in a free marketplace of ideas, Blackford and Schuklenk write in the introduction to their edited anthology. As one might assume, Szumlewicz shares more or less the same intentions. But it more or less makes a big difference.
The essentials of the atheist
“Essentials of the Atheist” and “50 Voices of Unbelief” are not the first books dealing with unbelief on a fundamental issue. The trail was recently opened by Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris, Daniel C. Dennett (the conversation with this philosopher of mind will be published in the next issue of “Intelligentsia Plus” – editor’s note) and Victor J. Stenger , authors of recently published books of an academic nature (except perhaps Hitchens).
Polityka 23/2010 (2759) of June 5, 2010; Science; p.78
Original title of the text: “Voices of this world”
