Imagine There's No Heaven: How Atheism Helped Create the Modern World by Mitchell Stephens ISBN 9781137002600, 1137002603, B00HY03FVK instant download

Imagine There's No Heaven: How Atheism Helped Create the Modern World by Mitchell Stephens ISBN 9781137002600, 1137002603, B00HY03FVK instant download

The historical achievements of religious belief have been large and well chronicled. But what about the accomplishments of those who have challenged religion? Traveling from classical Greece to twenty-first century America, Imagine There's No Heaven explores the role of disbelief in shaping Western civilization. At each juncture common themes emerge: by questioning the role of gods in the heavens or the role of a God in creating man on earth, nonbelievers help move science forward. By challenging the divine right of monarchs and the strictures of holy books, nonbelievers, including Jean- Jacques Rousseau and Denis Diderot, help expand human liberties, and influence the early founding of the United States. Revolutions in science, in politics, in philosophy, in art, and in psychology have been led, on multiple occasions, by those who are free of the constraints of religious life. Mitchell Stephens tells the often-courageous tales of history's most important atheists― like Denis Diderot and Salman Rushdie. Stephens makes a strong and original case for their importance not only to today's New Atheist movement but to the way many of us―believers and nonbelievers―now think and live.

“[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 sh