Download Imagine There's No Heaven: How Atheism Helped Create the Modern World

Imagine There's No Heaven: How Atheism Helped Create the Modern World

Author: Visit Amazon's Mitchell Stephens Page | Language: English | ISBN: 1137002603 | Format: EPUB

Imagine There's No Heaven: How Atheism Helped Create the Modern World Description

Review

“[The] story of atheism as an articulate movement. We learn an enormous amount about figures censored out of history, and about the persecution that freethinkers suffered until shockingly recently. His martyrs fill our hearts; his heroes inspire….moving.”

 

—The New Yorker

 

“Stephens provides an intriguing take on a topic that has sparked much discussion and will surely spark more to come.”

 

—Publishers Weekly

 

“Provocative, deeply researched and enlightening.”

 

—Kirkus Reviews

 

"The only thing new about the New Atheists are the names. As Mitchell Stephens reveals in this gripping narrative history of atheism, many brave souls have come out of the atheist closet over the centuries to challenge the religious dogma of their day, and many paid the ultimate price for so doing. We all stand on the shoulders of these giants so artfully brought to life—along with their ideas—in this important contribution to the burgeoning literature on unbelief."

 

—Michael Shermer, Publisher of Skeptic magazine, monthly columnist for Scientific American, and author of The Believing Brain, and The Science of Good and Evil

 

“An intriguing book, presenting a magnificent cast of characters who helped shape modernity. It helps us all measure even those we disagree with most in terms of their creativity and moral worth rather than what they do, or do not, believe.”

—Jonathan Israel, Professor of History, Institute for Advanced Studies, Princeton University

 

“Imagine There’s No Heaven is a landmark study of the role played by atheism and other forms of religious doubt in the development of Western civilization. Mitchell Stephens strides through history as deftly as he steps across disciplines, uncovering a dramatic chronicle of unbelief as a goad to innovation that centuries of more devout scholarship tended to obscure. This book invites atheists to celebrate — and others to acknowledge — the outsized role that unbelievers have played in shaping the West.”

—Tom Flynn, editor of Free Inquiry magazine, and editor, The New Encyclopedia of Unbelief

 

"Mitchell Stephens’ new book “Imagine There’s No Heaven” is smart, evenhanded, and full of personality. He has a great eye for the important details, which is particularly evident in his evocative portraits of individuals, such as Sartre and Camus. Deserves to be on every skeptic’s bookshelf and we can hope it reaches many among the faithful as well."

 

—Jennifer Michael Hecht, author of Doubt: A History.

 

About the Author

Mitchell Stephens is a historian and journalist who has been researching the history of atheism for a decade. A professor in the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute at New York University, his books include A History of News, a New York Times "Notable Book of the Year" and the rise of the image the fall of the word. He has written on media, thought and culture for Daedalus, The New York Times Magazine, The Washington Post and many other publications.

• Product Details
• Table of Contents
• Reviews

• Hardcover: 336 pages
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan (February 25, 2014)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1137002603
• ISBN-13: 978-1137002600
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 6.4 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)

In “Imagine There’s No Heaven: How Atheism Helped Create The Modern World” author Mitchell Stephens delivers a readable, vibrant history of disbelief and atheistic thought, and argues persuasively that intellectual challenges to religious belief were a major catalyst to increasing knowledge in the modern world.
Stephens’ book is first and foremost a history of disbelief, from the Greeks and Romans, though the low points of the Dark Ages where it was institutionally repressed, then into the Renaissance where it fought to maintain a foothold and finally into the Enlightenment where atheism (and its more prevalent, slightly religious cousin, deism) finally became a valid viewpoint, at least among intellectual circles. He then follows disbelief through the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and into our own, before suggesting where atheism might be heading based on his historical analysis up to now.
The history of disbelief is much more prevalent and rich than traditional history has portrayed, as atheism’s role has usually been downplayed or outright denied by conventional histories. Stephens brings out the role of many often overlooked personages, such as Denis Diderot, Jean Meslier and Charles Bradlaugh – the first open atheist elected to Parliament (in 1880) but who was denied his seat until he was re-elected several times.
While primarily a history, as the subtitle of his book suggests Stephens’ also argues that disbelief and the progress of knowledge have gone hand in hand throughout history. Whenever knowledge was taking great leaps forward, religious doubters were right there, stoking the intellectual fires.

Its so ironic that an atheist would still present some of these anti-religion fairy tale stories as fact. I would suggest reading other well researched books by atheist and theist historians alike. A few good examples of books dealing with the history of science is Galileo Goes to Jail and Other Myths about Science and Religion, God's Philosophers, God and Reason in the Middle Ages, Medieval Technology and Social Change, and numerous others.

I just don't see why one can write a great book about atheist scientists like Feynman or Dirac and their wonderful contributions to humanity, without having to spin tales and create myths regarding religions monolithic anti-science stance. I mean trying to use Newton as an example of almost an closet atheist is just absurd. Many scientists and engineers to this day are inspired by religion, which does not interfere or conflict with a rational outlook on the universe.

Things like the "Dark Ages", people believing the world is flat, and the real motivations behind the Galileo affair have been debunked. Some religions, and conservatives for that matter, have greatly supported the sciences both financial and philosophically. Additionally, there have been numerous scientists who have been everything from the devout to deists. Unlike what the author suggests, religion has largely received no credit for its role in scientific achievements and for that matter has only received blame for just about everything in the modern day western educational system.

Unless you like the 19th century Draper & White largely fictional version of history, or just hate religion, you have a lot better options from all different spectrum's and viewpoints out there.

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