What is a natural atheist? What is atheism? (Not a religion, not a belief system.) Misconceptions about atheism.
Part One: Foundations
Chapter 1: 12 Steps to Atheism
Theme: Twelve classic and modern arguments for/against god(s) analyzed. Burden of proof. Cosmological Argument. Ontological Argument. Teleological Argument. Argument from Scripture/Authority. Argument from Miracles. Argument from Personal Experience. Argument from Morality. Argument from Benefit. Incoherence or Contradiction of Religious Language. The Problem of Evil. Sociological/Statistical Argument. Conclusion: Claiming Your Natural Atheism.
Chapter 2: Thinking about Thinking: A Short Course on Reason
Theme: What is reason and how to do it. Reason not one type of thinking but thinking itself. The process of reasoning. Premises and truth. Logic and validity. Fallacies of logic. Conclusion.
Chapter 3: Proofs and Principles: Unreason, Religion, and Relativism
Theme: Applying reason to reason, and distinguishing between rational, non-rational and irrational claims. The other burden (of persuasion). True, false, and neither (rational, irrational, and non-rational). Look for the principle (to identify flaws in arguments). On cultural relativism. Conclusion: Is religion rational?
Chapter 4: Anthropology and Freethought: On the Loss of Cultural Certainty
Theme: How anthropology and freethought both arise from the same impulse toward questioning one�s own traditions and truths. What is anthropology? The encounter with the Other. Culture as virtual reality. Culture and human mind and nature. Implications for religion and freethought.
Part Two: Concepts
Chapter 5: Knowing is Not Believing
Theme: Critique of the claim that knowledge is �justified true belief.� To know is to believe? The language of belief. Knowledge and certainty. Conclusion: The venality of conflating knowledge and belief.
Chapter 6: Positive Atheism, Negative Atheism, and Agnosticism
Theme: There is only one kind of atheism, and agnosticism is the basis for it. Are there really two atheisms? Possible and impossible beliefs. Only one atheism. What is agnosticism? Agnosticism and the possibility of religious knowledge. Agnosticism and belief. Conclusion: To believe or not to believe.
Chapter 7: On Science and Religion
Theme: Science and religion are utterly different enterprises, and scientific claims to knowledge always outweight religious ones. Models of science-and-religion interaction. Defining science (the systematic application of reason). Same, separate, or conflicting worlds? Conclusion: Science has no friends, only interests.
Chapter 8: Toleration and Truth
Theme: Toleration is adopted by religion only as a last resort and makes �truth� problematic. No toleration in world religions. Toleration�an all-too-brief history. Toleration in England and America. Why toleration? Alternatives and errors. But what of truth? Conclusion: Atheism intolerable.
Part Three: Applications
Chapter 9: Separation of Church(es) and State: The Best Protection of Everyone�s Freedoms
Theme: How the Founding Fathers arrived at the notion of disestablishment of religion, and how it has served America well. The First Amendment. Separation�an all-too-brief history. Church(es) and state in early America. Principles and professions: What the Founding Fathers really said. Religion and the courts. Why separation is a good thing for everyone (churches, state, and citizens). Conclusion: An atheist agenda?
Chapter 10: Spreading the Unfaith: Atheism as Good News
Theme: Is it desirable�or even possible�to advance atheism? Should atheists proselytize? Should you join an atheist organization, and is there any such thing? Should atheists promote atheism, and is such a thing possible? The good news of atheism. Conclusion: Speak or be silenced.
Chapter 11: Fundamentalism and the Fight for the Future
Theme: Fundamentalism means using conceptions of the past to struggle against the present and create a future. Religion in reaction: the phenomenon of fundamentalism. So many fundamentalisms. What fundamentalists want. The relativity of fundamentalism. Conclusion: The war we did not choose.
Chapter 12: Living in the Disenchanted World: Toward an Atheism of the Future
Theme: What does it mean to live as an atheist? What is disenchantment? On an atheist mythos. On atheist morality. On atheist spirituality. On the incompleteness of atheism. An artistic atheism.