Atheist Manifesto

The Case Against Christianity, Judaism and Islam

Michel Onfray

From the twenty-first century’s Nietzsche, a work that is sure to stir debate on the role of religion in Australian society and politics.

Opinion

‘A wonderful, invigorating blast of sanity delivered against the fog of high-toned mumbo-jumbo we have to endure everywhere today. A passionate and coolly reasoned advocacy of atheism.’
–William Boyd, Times Literary Supplement

‘a powerful antidote to the tsunami of religious fanaticism that is engulfing the Western world as well as the Islamic countries’
–Doug Ireland

About this Title

Not since Nietzsche has a work so groundbreaking and explosive appeared, to question the role of the world’s three major monotheistic religions. If Nietzsche proclaimed the death of God, French philosopher Michel Onfray starts from the premise that not only is God still very much alive but increasingly controlled by fundamentalists who pose a danger to the human race.

Documenting the ravages from religious intolerance over the centuries, Onfray makes a strong case against the three religions for their obsession with purity and their contempt for reason and intelligence, individual freedom, desire and the human body, sexuality and pleasure, and for women in general. In their place, all three demand faith and belief, obedience and submission, extol the “next life” to the detriment of the here and now. Tightly argued, this is a work that is sure to stir debate on the role of religion in Australian society—and politics.

The bibliography for The Atheist Manifesto is available as a PDF download from www.mup.unimelb.edu.au

Table of Contents

Preface
Introduction
Part One: Atheology
I. Odyseey of the Freethinkers
II. Atheism and the Escape from Nihilism
III. Toward an Atheology

Part Two: Monotheisms
I. The Tyranny of Afterlives
II. Bonfires of the Intelligence
III. Seeking the Opposite of the Real

Part Three: Christianity
I. The Construction of Jesus
II. The Pauline Contamination
III. The Totalitarian Christian State

Part Four: Theocracy
I. Selective Exploitation of the Texts
II. In the Service of the Death Fixation
III. Toward a Post-Christian Secular Order

About the Author

Michel Onfray was born in France in 1959. The prolific author of more than 30 books, he teaches philosophy at the People’s University of Caen, and lives in Normandy.

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978-0-522-85396-4