50 Voices of Disbelief - Why We Are Atheists

A stimulating collection of original essays from a wide variety of contributors, some well-known and others less so. Among the best-known are A.C Grayling, Susan Blackmore and Michael Shermer, and there is an interesting mix of philosophical argument and personal reflection. Each comes at the topic from their own background and experience. The issue of evil and suffering is prominent and there are strong reactions, which I myself share, to religious fanaticism. Many contributors see themselves as the voice of reason, and this is based on materialistic premises which also reject any evidence for parapsychological phenomena, which to me is a false conflation. Thus, disbelief in God is thought to entail disbelief in telepathy, a position which involves rejecting a great deal of evidence out of hand. I found Michael Shermer's essay interesting in describing his journey from Christian fundamentalist to militant agnostic - he is quite right to assert that man creates God in his own image, and that there are many cultural constructions reflected in the Bible, such as myths involving floods, virgin birth and resurrection. However, he confidently expects the paranormal to be eventually susceptible to naturalistic explanations, which itself is an article of faith. He has had many arguments with Rupert Sheldrake on precisely this issue.