Reddit reviews A Short History of Atheism (I.B.Tauris Short Histories)

There is a lot of discussion here about what ‘teaching Atheism’ might look like, and since there a few of us who actually do that I thought it might be interesting for people to see what we do.

A good friend of mine teaches at the University of Edinburgh on the subject of non-religion, and in the UK there is also the Non-religion and Secularzation Research Network, the Understanding Unbelief research program at the University of Kent, the International Society of Historians of Atheism Secularism and Humanism, and the International Society for Heresy Studies:

As well, many of us have recently published books on Atheism and non-religion, and there is a growing number of people researching Atheism at the academic level.

Here’s a good short bibliography.

History of Atheism

Atheism and the US Supreme Court

New Atheism

Cambridge Companion

Oxford Handbook

Definitions

Nonreligion

In conjunction with that book, I would also recommend taking a peak at this one. Hyman's thesis, in brief, is that the post-Scholastic period witnessed a very gradual slope towards what Feser calls "theistic personalism." First a gradual reconception of God as part of creation rather than transcendent to it, and then a slide from there into "big invisible man" territory. God then became one more thing to be scientifically investivated, and of course because there is no "big invisible man," the evidence never comes and atheism follows almost inevitably. And that modern atheism is a reaction against this "big invisible man" theism. You'll see in the Road From Atheism article that Feser still finds this conception of God to be just as implausible as he did in his atheist days.

Anyway, regardless, it's all very interesting and gets the old gears turning...

:)