Russell Blackford & Udo Schüklenk 
50 Voices of Disbelief 
Why We Are Atheists

50 Voices of Disbelief: Why We Are Atheists presents a
collection of original essays drawn from an international group of
prominent voices in the fields of academia, science, literature,
media and politics who offer carefully considered statements of why
they are atheists.

* Features a truly international cast of contributors, ranging
from public intellectuals such as Peter Singer, Susan Blackmore,
and A.C. Grayling, novelists, such as Joe Haldeman, and heavyweight
philosophers of religion, including Graham Oppy and Michael
Tooley

* Contributions range from rigorous philosophical arguments to
highly personal, even whimsical, accounts of how each of these
notable thinkers have come to reject religion in their lives

* Likely to have broad appeal given the current public
fascination with religious issues and the reception of such books
as The God Delusion and The End of Faith

Table of Content

Acknowledgments ix

Introduction: Now More Important than Ever – Voices of
Reason 1

Russell Blackford and Udo Schüklenk

Unbelievable! 5

Russell Blackford

My ‘Bye Bull’ Story 10

Margaret Downey

How Benevolent Is God? – An Argument from Suffering to
Atheism 16

Nicholas Everitt

A Deal-Breaker 23

Ophelia Benson

Why Am I a Nonbeliever? – I Wonder . . . 28

J. L. Schellenberg

Wicked or Dead? Reflections on the Moral Character and
Existential Status of God 33

John Harris

Religious Belief and Self-Deception 41

Adèle Mercier

The Coming of Disbelief 48

J. J. C. Smart

What I Believe 50

Graham Oppy

Too Good to Be True, Too Obscure to Explain: The Cognitive
Shortcomings of Belief in God 57

Thomas W. Clark

How to Think About God: Theism, Atheism, and Science 65

Michael Shermer

A Magician Looks at Religion 78

James Randi

Confessions of a Kindergarten Leper 82

Emma Tom

Beyond Disbelief 86

Philip Kitcher

An Ambivalent Nonbelief 97

Taner Edis

Why Not? 105

Sean M. Carroll

Godless Cosmology 112

Victor J. Stenger

Unanswered Prayers 118

Christine Overall

Beyond Faith and Opinion 123

Damien Broderick

Could It Be Pretty Obvious There’s No God? 129

Stephen Law

Atheist, Obviously 139

Julian Baggini

Why I am Not a Believer 145

A. C. Grayling

Evil and Me 157

Gregory Benford

Who’s Unhappy? 161

Lori Lipman Brown

Reasons to be Faithless 165

Sheila A. M. Mc Lean

Three Stages of Disbelief 168

Julian Savulescu

Born Again, Briefly 172

Greg Egan

Cold Comfort 177

Ross Upshur

The Accidental Exorcist 182

Austin Dacey

Atheist Out of the Foxhole 187

Joe Haldeman

The Unconditional Love of Reality 191

Dale Mc Gowan

Antinomies 197

Jack Dann

Giving Up Ghosts and Gods 200

Susan Blackmore

Some Thoughts on Why I Am an Atheist 204

Tamas Pataki

No Gods, Please! 211

Laura Purdy

Welcome Me Back to the World of the Thinking 220

Kelly O’Connor

Kicking Religion Goodbye . . . 226

Peter Adegoke

On Credenda 230

Miguel Kottow

‘Not Even Start to Ignore Those Questions!’ A Voice
of Disbelief in a Different Key 236

Frieder Otto Wolf

Imagine No Religion 252

Edgar Dahl

Humanism as Religion: An Indian Alternative 259

Sumitra Padmanabhan

Why I Am NOT a Theist 263

Prabir Ghosh

When the Hezbollah Came to My School 270

Maryam Namazie

Evolutionary Noise, not Signal from Above 274

Athena Andreadis

Gods Inside 279

Michael R. Rose and John P. Phelan

Why Morality Doesn’t Need Religion 288

Peter Singer and Marc Hauser

Doctor Who and the Legacy of Rationalism 294

Sean Williams

My Nonreligious Life: A Journey From Superstition to Rationalism
300

Peter Tatchell

Helping People to Think Critically About Their Religious Beliefs
310

Michael Tooley

Human Self-Determination, Biomedical Progress, and God 323

Udo Schüklenk

About the Contributors 332

Index 338

About the author

Russell Blackford is a freelance writer, critic, and editor,
based in Melbourne, Australia. He teaches part-time in the School
of Philosophy and Bioethics at Monash University, where he
specialises mainly in philosophical bioethics and legal/political
philosophy. He is Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Evolution
and Technology, an on-line peer reviewed journal devoted to
rigorous consideration of future prospects for the human species or
its possible descendants.

Udo Schüklenk is a German-Australian philosopher. He
has written or edited five books and published over one hundred
articles in peer reviewed journals and books. His latest books are
the co-edited volumes The Power of Pills (2006) and The
Bioethics Reader (Blackwell, 2007). He is the Joint
Editor-in-Chief of the international journal Bioethics and
currently the Ontario Research Chair in Bioethics at Queen’s
University in Canada. His current research focuses on ethical and
policy issues in drug research and development.