Progressive Atheism shows how atheism can make progress in humanity's future. It presents a new way of arguing that God doesn't exist, based on a portrayal of God so positive that you may sometimes wonder whether you're reading the thoughts of a believer. Starting with the simple idea that our understanding of what it takes to be a good person has changed and grown over time, J. L. Schellenberg argues that our understanding of the goodness of God must now change too. Masculine images of God as haughty King or distant Father have to be replaced by God as a paragon of nonviolence and relational openness. This more evolved conception of God is incredibly attractive and admirable. But by the same token it has become less believable. Each moral advance, applied to God, makes it even clearer that such a being would never create a world like ours. Atheists have often approached the subject of God with disdain. Progressive Atheism proves that admiration will be far more powerful.
Author
J. L. Schellenberg (born 1959) is a Canadian philosopher best known for his work in philosophy of religion. He has a DPhil in Philosophy from the University of Oxford, and is Professor of Philosophy at Mount Saint Vincent University and Adjunct Professor in the Faculty of Graduate Studies at Dalhousie University, both in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Schellenberg’s early development of an argument from divine hiddenness for atheism has been influential.[2] In a subsequent series of books he has arrived at a form of religion called ‘skeptical religion’ which he regards as being compatible with atheism.[3] In 2013 the Cambridge University Press journal Religious Studies published a special issue devoted to critical discussion of Schellenberg’s philosophy of religion.
