podcast 105 – Dr. James Spiegel on The Making of an Atheist

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In his 2010 book The Making of an Atheist: How Immorality Leads to Unbelief, Dr. James Spiegel, professor of Philosophy and Religion at Taylor University, argues that unbelief results more from the will than from the mind. Drawing on the Bible, Plantingian epistemology, and contemporary psychology, in this book he builds a theory of the source of atheistic belief. We discuss

• how he draws on Plantingian epistemology
• what the reaction to this book has been by Christians and by atheists
• the relevance of the fact that most people say they believe in God
• the differences between an average unbeliever and a fire-breathing public spokesman for atheism such as Richard Dawkins
• psychological theories relating atheism to a “fatherless” childhood or to a sexually immoral lifestyle
• whether or not he accepts Dr. Rauser’s rebellion thesis about atheism
• whether or not these sort of critiques poison the possibility of rational discourse and dialogue between Christians and atheists.

In modern times, many atheists, such as Freud have given similar critiques of the origin of belief in God. In this book, Dr. Spiegel tries to turn the tables on them. Does he succeed? Let us know what you think in the comments, or by audio feedback (see below).

A terminological note on this episode: at around 15 minutes we discuss what he means by “atheism.” He means this as “rejection of theism.” Many philosophers use “theism” as belief that there is a God, and “atheism” as belief that there is no God. But he’s using “atheism” more broadly, to include also what are often called “agnostics” – people who neither believe that there is a God, nor that that there is no God (or in popular discourse, people who believe that there is or isn’t a God, but are hesitant to say they know it). In Dr. Spiegel’s terminology, they are “rejecting” theism not in that they hold it to be false, but in resisting their natural tendency to believe it. But he doesn’t used “atheism” to mean mere non-theism, mere lack of belief in God, which would include babies.

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Links for this episode:

• Dr. Spiegel’s home page
  • Dr. Spiegel’s page at Taylor University
  • Wisdom & Folly blog
  • The Making of an Atheist: How Immorality Leads to Unbelief (kindle)
    • themakingofanatheist.com – where you can download the table of contents and introduction to the book
  • The Love of Wisdom: A Christian Introduction to Philosophy (kindle)
    
• the problem of other minds
• Alvin Plantinga, God and Other Minds
• Alvin Plantinga, Warranted Christian Belief (kindle)
• Alvin Plantinga, Knowledge and Christian Belief (kindle)
• Dale’s introductory lecture on Freud’s psychological critique of belief in God – Freud’s The Future of an Illusion as discussed by atheist philosopher William Rowe
• Paul C. Vitz, Faith of the Fatherless (kindle)
• Paul Johnson, Intellectuals: From Marx and Tolstoy to Sartre and Chomsky, Revised Edition (kindle)
• E. Michael Jones, Degenerate Moderns: Modernity as Rationalized Sexual Misbehavior
• Hellen Keller
• This week’s thinking music is “It’s Always Too Late to Start Over” by Chris Zabriskie.