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"Since the turn of the twenty-first century, naturalism has become one of the most prominent philosophical orthodoxies in the Western academy. Yet naturalism is more often assumed than defended. The Blackwell Companion to Naturalism offers a systematic introduction that defines, discusses and defends philosophical naturalism. Essays tackle naturalism's role in existing cultural conversations, from Libertarianism to Confucianism, and provide detailed examinations of philosophical concepts like metaphysics, realism, feminism, science, free will, and ethics as viewed through a naturalist lens. With contributions from an international array of established and emerging scholars from across the humanities, the collection encapsulates contemporary debates in the field. The Blackwell Companion to Naturalism provides an enlightening and accessible guide for self-identified naturalists and philosophy students who are new to naturalism alike"--

This introduction to religion and the science of origins focuses on Christianity and modern Western sciences of origins with chapters on evolution in Islam and Judaism. The issues discussed are the origin of science, human origins, the origin of the cosmos, the nature of humanity, the origin of religious belief and ethic

Part I. Abraham's Jewish children -- Calling Abraham's children / Kelly James Clark -- The peoples of the earth and the tents of Jacob : humanity in the image of God / Einat Ramon -- Dance of the spirit : the land of Israel and the Jewish soul / Dov Berkovites -- Revisiting the Holy Rebellion / Leah Shakdiel -- Does Judaism teach universal human rights? / Arik Ascherman -- The intolerance of Israeli education / Nurit Peled-Elhanan -- Part II. Abraham's Christian children -- Religious tolerance / Jimmy Carter -- Religious intolerance and the wounds of God / Nicholas Wolterstorff -- Caring for the 'other' as one fo 'us' : religious freedom for all / Ziya Meral -- A minority with the majority opinion / Hanna Siniora -- 'Honor Everyone!' Christian faith and the culture of universal respect -- Part III. Abraham's Muslim children -- God needs no defense / Abdurrahman Wahid -- The middle way / Hedieh Mirahmadi -- Islam as the embodiment of divine mercy and tolerance / M. Fethullah Gülen -- The historical and religious seeds of 'honor' / Rana Husseini -- An Islamic treatise on tolerance / Absolkarim Soroush

In Branden Thornhill-Miller and Peter Millican's challenging and provocative essay, we hear a considerably longer, more scholarly and less melodic rendition of John Lennon's catchy tune—without religion, or at least without first-order supernaturalisms (the kinds of religion we find in the world), there'd be significantly less intra-group violence. First-order supernaturalist beliefs, as defined by Thornhill-Miller and Peter Millican (hereafter M&M), are "beliefs that claim unique authority for some particular religious tradition in preference to all others" (3). According to M&M, first-order supernaturalist beliefs are exclusivist, dogmatic, empirically unsupported, and irrational. Moreover, again according to M&M, we have perfectly natural explanations of the causes that underlie such beliefs (they seem to conceive of such natural explanations as debunking explanations). They then make a case for second-order supernaturalism, "which maintains that the universe in general, and the religious sensitivities of humanity in particular, have been formed by supernatural powers working through natural processes" (3). Second-order supernaturalism is a kind of theism, more closely akin to deism than, say, Christianity or Buddhism. It is, as such, universal (according to contemporary psychology of religion), empirically supported (according to philosophy in the form of the Fine-Tuning Argument), and beneficial (and so justified pragmatically). With respect to its pragmatic value, second-order supernaturalism, according to M&M, gets the good(s) of religion (cooperation, trust, etc) without its bad(s) (conflict and violence). Second-order supernaturalism is thus rational (and possibly true) and inconducive to violence. In this paper, I will examine just one small but important part of M&M's argument: the claim that (first-order) religion is a primary motivator of violence and that its elimination would eliminate or curtail a great deal of violence in the world. Imagine, they say, no religion, too.Janusz Salamon offers a friendly extension or clarification of M&M's second-order theism, one that I think, with emendations, has promise. He argues that the core of first-order religions, the belief that Ultimate Reality is the Ultimate Good (agatheism), is rational (agreeing that their particular claims are not) and, if widely conceded and endorsed by adherents of first-order religions, would reduce conflict in the world.While I favor the virtue of intellectual humility endorsed in both papers, I will argue contra M&M that (a) belief in first-order religion is not a primary motivator of conflict and violence (and so eliminating first-order religion won't reduce violence). Second, partly contra Salamon, who I think is half right (but not half wrong), I will argue that (b) the religious resources for compassion can and should come from within both the particular (often exclusivist) and the universal (agatheistic) aspects of religious beliefs. Finally, I will argue that (c) both are guilty, as I am, of the philosopher's obsession with belief.

While the cognitive science of religion is well-trodden ground, atheism has been considerably less scrutinized. Recent psychological studies associate atheism with an intellectual virtue, inferentiality (Shenhav 2011; Norenzayan, Gervais, and Trzesniewski 2012; Norenzayan and Gervais 2013; Pennycook 2012). Theism, on the other hand, is associated with an intellectual "vice", intuitive thinking. While atheism is allied with the attendant claim that atheism is the result of careful rational assessment of the relevant evidence, theism is considered the result of a lack of reflection on the relevant evidence (or careless disregard of the evidence). Atheism, then, is rational, but theism, then, is irrational. In this essay, we will assess the import of these studies and the attendant claims that these differences in thinking styles entail differences in rationality.

Marx, Nietzche, and Freud are among the most influential of modern atheists. The distinctive feature of their challenge to theistic and specifically Christian belief is expressed by Paul Ricoeur when he calls them the "masters of suspicion." While skepticism directs its critique to the truth or evidential basis of belief, suspicion asks two different, intimately intertwined questions: what are the motives that lead to this belief? and what function does it play, what work does it do for the individuals and communities that adopt it.What suspicion suspects is that the survival value of religious beliefs depends on satisfying desires and interests that the believing soul and the believing community are not eager to acknowledge because they violate the values they profess, as when, for example, talk about justice is a mask for deep-seated resentment and the desire for revenge. For this reason, the hermeneutics of suspicion is a theory, or group of theories, of self-deception: ideology critique in Marx, genealogy in Nietzsche, and psychoanalysis in Freud.Suspicion and Faith argues that the appropriate religious response ("the religious uses of modern atheism") to these critiques is not to try to refute or deflect them, but rather to acknowledge their force in a process of self-examination

A large chorus of voices has grown around the claim that theistic belief is epistemically suspect since, as some cognitive scientists have hypothesized, such beliefs are a byproduct of cognitive mechanisms which evolved for rather different adaptive purposes. This paper begins with an overview of the pertinent cognitive science followed by a short discussion of some relevant epistemic concepts. Working from within a largely Williamsonian framework, we then present two different ways in which this research can be formulated into an argument against theistic belief. We argue that neither version works.

"COVER" -- "TITLE PAGE" -- "COPYRIGHT" -- "CONTENTS" -- "TABLES, MAPS, ILLUSTRATIONS" -- "ABBREVIATIONS" -- "PREFACE" -- "INTRODUCTION" -- "The chronology and geography of Irish food protest,c.1700–c.1860" -- "Patterns of food protest" -- "The structure of food protest" -- "The response of the authorities and public to food protest" -- "Was there an Irish 'moral economy'?" -- "Epilogue: the subsistence crisis of 1861–2" -- "BIBLIOGRAPHY

The identification of the involvement of young boys in cleaning chimneys as a social problem in the late eighteenth century, and its effectual elimination in the second half of the nineteenth, provides a yardstick against which one can measure changing attitudes to child labour during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The involvement of children as young as five in this trade and the injuries and illness to which they were subject prompted an incrementally more vigorous demand for its elimination that was fuelled by the increasing societal influence of the respectable. Based on an analysis of the practice, the abuses it permitted and the efforts of reformers to convince the public and politicians that the invention of the sweeping machine meant it was no longer necessary to involve children in this dangerous trade, the article explains how the combination of revulsion at the mistreatment of climbing boys, organised opposition and an attitudinal shift brought about a change in the law that effectively brought it to an end and established the principle that child labour was immoral as well as unnecessary.