Evidential atheism, as espoused by various philosophical atheists, recommends belief that God does not exist on the basis of not just the evidence of which we are aware, but also our overall available evidence. This article identifies a widely neglected problem from potential surprise evidence that undermines an attempt to give a cogent justification of such evidential atheism. In addition, it ...

Although most people are religious, there are hundreds of millions of religious disbelievers in the world. What is religious disbelief and how does it arise? Recent developments in the scientific study of religious beliefs and behaviors point to the conclusion that religious disbelief arises from multiple interacting pathways, traceable to cognitive, motivational, and cultural learning mechanis...

among the modern methods propounded in linguistics in which they scientifically study the concept and is called semantics. in semantics, the meanings of words are explained via discovering the semantic field of words based on their relations in the semantic networks. in the context of the verses of holy quran, by help of this method, they research for the meanings of quran words. the concept of...

Catherine Caldwell-Harris provides a stimulating review of the psychological correlates of atheism. The broad conclusion is compelling evidence in support of the hypothesis that atheism results from natural variation along a continuum of belief (hypothesis 2 in my target article of this issue). I called this my ‘‘null hypothesis’’ because it just seems the most likely and least complicated or s...

In what may be his best book to date, Victor Stenger (Professor Emeritus of Physics) provides a much needed summary, elaboration, and defense of the main theses of the so-called “New Atheists” (NAs), known for their widely-publicized, unrelenting, and passionate critiques of theism and religion in general. Among these NAs, Stenger includes authors of recent bestsellers in the United States: Sam...

What do we currently know about atheists and secular people? In what ways are atheism and secularity correlated with positive societal outcomes? This article offers a thorough presentation and discussion of the latest social scientific research concerning the identities, values, and behaviors of people who don’t believe in God or are non-religious, and addresses the ways in which atheism and se...

We have already stated summarily what the punishment should be for temple-robbing, whether by open force or secretly. But the punishments for the various sorts of insolence in speech or action with regard to the gods, which a man can show in word or deed, have to be proclaimed after we have provided an exordium. Let this be it: "No one believing, as the laws prescribe, in the existence of the g...