Susan Jacoby, amerikansk författare, intervjuas på websajten Five Books om sina synpunkter och argument kring ateism. Några smakprov:
Question: In your view, should everyone be an atheist?
Answer: I don’t even know how to answer that question. Atheism seems to me to be reasonable, but should everyone be an atheist? I don’t know. To me that’s like asking, should everyone appreciate art?
Jacoby har skrivit om Sankt Augustinus och dennes inflytelserika resonemang om gott och ont:
He is the person who most forcefully articulated the concept of free will when coupled with an all-powerful God, a philosophy which makes man solely responsible for bad things, and God and God’s grace solely responsible for everything good. Because there is also this argument that runs through Christianity historically about grace and what enables people to overcome their bad human instincts. In Augustine’s philosophy, which is the philosophy of the Catholic church and much of Christianity for a long time, it is only the grace of God. In other words the good things are attributable to God’s grace, the bad things are not God’s fault. That’s basically it.
Upptäck vilka böcker Jacoby tycker man bör läsa! Själv har jag lagt till Thomas Paines The Age of Reason på min lista.