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Preface to the paperback edition | |
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Preface | |
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A Deeply Religious Non-Believer | |
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Deserved respect | |
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Undeserved respect | |
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The God Hypothesis | |
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Polytheism | |
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Monotheism | |
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Secularism, the Founding Fathers and the religion of America | |
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The poverty of agnosticism | |
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NOMA | |
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The Great Prayer Experiment | |
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The Neville Chamberlain school of evolutionists | |
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Little green men | |
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Arguments for God's Existence | |
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Thomas Aquinas' 'proofs' | |
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The ontological argument and other a priori arguments | |
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The argument from beauty | |
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The argument from personal 'experience' | |
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The argument from scripture | |
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The argument from admired religious scientists | |
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Pascal's Wager | |
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Bayesian arguments | |
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Why There Almost Certainly is No God | |
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The Ultimate Boeing 747 | |
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Natural selection as a consciousness-raiser | |
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Irreducible complexity | |
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The worship of gaps | |
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The anthropic principle: planetary version | |
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The anthropic principle: cosmological version | |
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An interlude at Cambridge | |
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The Roots of Religion | |
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The Darwinian imperative | |
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Direct advantages of religion | |
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Group selection | |
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Religion as a by-product of something else | |
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Psychologically primed for religion | |
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Tread softly, because you tread on my memes | |
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Cargo cults | |
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The Roots of Morality: Why are We Good? | |
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Does our moral sense have a Darwinian origin? | |
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A case study in the roots of morality | |
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If there is no God, why be good? | |
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The 'Good' Book and the Changing Moral Zeitgeist | |
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The Old Testament | |
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Is the New Testament any better? | |
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Love thy neighbour | |
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The moral Zeitgeist | |
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What about Hitler and Stalin? Weren't they atheists? | |
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What's Wrong with Religion? Why Be So Hostile? | |
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Fundamentalism and the subversion of science | |
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The dark side of absolutism | |
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Faith and homosexuality | |
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Faith and the sanctity of human life | |
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The Great Beethoven Fallacy | |
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How 'moderation' in faith fosters fanaticism | |
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Childhood, Abuse and the Escape from Religion | |
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Physical and mental abuse | |
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In defence of children | |
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An educational scandal | |
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Consciousness-raising again | |
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Religious education as a part of literary culture | |
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A Much Needed Gap? | |
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Binker | |
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Consolation | |
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Inspiration | |
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The mother of all burkas | |
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A partial list of friendly addresses, for individuals needing support in escaping from religion | |
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Books cited or recommended | |
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Notes | |
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Index | |