This chapter takes a closer look at three cognitive frameworks that are conducive to atheism: evidentialism, distantionism, and, particularly, scientism. It also explores whether scientism can rightly be considered a variety of fundamentalism.

This chapter explains why we need a new approach to atheism. This new approach goes beyond arguing for or against the existence of God, seeks to understand motivations for atheism, and explores what we can learn from atheism.

This chapter studies several arguments directed against religious faith. It investigates what conception of faith underlies these arguments and what we can learn from them.

This chapter explains why most atheists are probably not primarily motivated by arguments for atheism and explore what atheists’ nonargumentative motivations could be; things such as intellectual independence, moral repugnance, skepticism, and traumatic experiences.

This chapter examines a number of arguments against God’s existence and identifies what conception of God underlies them. It explores how these arguments can inform a theologically healthy image of God.

The final chapter provides an exploration of where this outsider’s look at atheism leaves us: Is agnosticism a good option, and how should we go about seeking truth on whether or not there is a God?

This chapter investigates whether there is a presumption of atheism, that is, whether atheism can be the default position even independently of any atheistic arguments.

This chapter explores why we should think common sense has epistemic authority. First, it lays out exactly what common sense and the supposed epistemic authority of common sense amount to. It then assesses seven proposals that we find in the literature as to why common sense has epistemic authority. They say, respectively, that common-sense beliefs are irresistible; that there are no serious epistemic alternatives to thinking that common-sense beliefs have epistemic authority; that common-sense beliefs are certain, or at least more certain than any alternatives; that common-sense beliefs are instances of knowledge; that common-sense beliefs are vague and ambiguous and, therefore, likely to be true; that common-sense beliefs are the product of a reliable process of cultural evolution; and, finally, that God would not deceive us on such a large scale. The chapter argues that the first five answers are not convincing, not even jointly, but that the sixth answer is and that the seventh reply may well be combined with it.

This introduction shows why and how common sense matters to philosophy, thus lighting up the terrain that subsequent chapters explore in much greater detail. First, it explains briefly what common sense is, and next, what common-sense philosophy is. Then it considers whether, and if so, how, common sense should matter to philosophy; can we not do without common sense? Subsequently, it turns to criticisms of the idea that common sense matters to philosophy, and of the very idea of common-sense philosophy. It concludes with a short note on the organization of the book.