Atheism is Global Atheism
Jack David Eller
Vol. 2, No. 2
Fall 2020
Pages: 66-86
$1.99
DOI: 10.33929/sherm.2020.vol2.no2.05
Philosophical Research
Accepting Diller’s challenge to justify “global atheism,” despite its supposed crushing burden of knowledge, this paper argues that the global atheist bears no extraordinary burden. In fact, all atheism is global atheism, as an atheist lacks any and all god-beliefs; while a local theist, who accepts one of the myriad god-beliefs over all others, has a special burden to account for that choice. Surveying the diversity of god-concepts across religions and how atheists dismiss and discard them, this paper provides an inductive and philosophical foundation of global atheism—as well as illustrating that local theisms are more prone to blending and overlapping than allowed in Diller’s scheme.