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Suspicion and Faith: The Religious Uses of Modern Atheism » (1st Edition)

Book cover image of Suspicion and Faith: The Religious Uses of Modern Atheism by Merold Westphal

Authors: Merold Westphal, Kelly James Clark
ISBN-13: 9780823218769, ISBN-10: 0823218767
Format: Paperback
Publisher: Fordham University Press
Date Published: January 1999
Edition: 1st Edition

Author Biography: Merold Westphal

Book Synopsis

"An illuminating and powerful reading of three of the most important contemporary professedly antireligious thinkers... stinging critiques of Freud, Marx, and Nietzsche."-C. Stephen Evans, Society of Christian Philosophers

	Foreword
	Preface
I	The Hermeneutics of Suspicion
1	Atheism for Lent	3
2	On Learning When Not to Refute Atheism	10
3	Help from Gilbert and Sullivan	18
4	Religious Fictions Too?	25
II	Freud and the Psychoanalysis of the Believing Soul
5	Freud's Pessimism	33
6	Freud's Scientism	38
7	Freud's Suspicion I: Dreams and Wish Fulfillment	43
8	Freud's Suspicion II: Doctrines and Wish Fulfillment	50
9	On Remembering When Not to Refute Atheism	55
10	Freud's Suspicion III: Doctrines and Distortion	61
11	The Paranoid Dr. Schreber as Victim	65
12	The Paranoid Dr. Schreber as Redeemer	71
13	The Atheist Dr. Freud as Theologian of Original Sin	77
14	Ceremonial as Defense	83
15	Ceremonial as Compromise	89
16	They Know Not What They Do	96
17	Of Savages and Salieri	103
18	Of Obedience and Sacrifice	110
19	Willful Renunciation and the One-Way Covenant	115
III	Marx and the Critique of Religion as Ideology
20	Feuerbach's Bourgeois Atheism	123
21	Feuerbach's Radical Atheism	130
22	Marx's Radical Atheism	134
23	Religion and the Christian State	141
24	Religion and the Secular State	147
25	Marxian Materialism	154
26	Religion as Ideology	159
27	Religion as Critique	166
28	Techniques of Neutralization	172
29	More Techniques of Neutralization	180
30	One Last Technique of Neutralization	186
31	Mixing Religion and Politics	193
32	Who Is the God of the Bible? Ask Pharaoh!	199
33	Third Commandment Idolatry	205
34	A "Marxist" Sermon Against the Baalization of Yahweh	210
IV	Nietzsche and the Critique of Religion as Resentment
35	Squintingly Yours, Friedrich Nietzsche	219
36	Distinctively Yours, Friedrich Nietzsche	225
37	The Big Lie	232
38	Jews and Priests	238
39	Glittering Vices	246
40	Justice and the Fascists	252
41	Pity and the Pharisees	259
42	Jesus and the Pharisees I: The Sinners	265
43	Jesus and the Pharisees II: The Sabbath	275
44	In Conclusion: The Dangers of Suspicion	283
	Index	291