This is a philosophy bites with me David Edmonds and me Nigel War Burton

philosophy bites is available at www philosophy bites. com

A.C. Graling is an author so prolific that the suspicion in the philosophy world is that he runs a secret team of underlings

churning out essays, reviews and books on his behalf.

Never want to duck controversy, he's a prominent public intellectual,

commenting as a philosopher on an extensive range of issues.

A recent book is entitled Against All Gods.

That gives a subtle clue to his uncompromising stance on religion.

Anthony, welcome to Philosophy Bites.

We're focusing on atheism for this discussion and I just

wondered if you could give a brief definition of what you understand by that.

Well atheism is a rejection of the idea that there are gods or supernatural agencies in the world of any kind,

even a rejection of the idea that there might have been supernatural agencies at some early

point in the universe's history, which is what deism says.

I don't actually like the term very much, although I am an atheist.

I don't like it for this reason.

It looks as though there is something worth denying the existence of.

And I much prefer the term naturalist.

It means somebody who thinks that the universe

is a realm of natural law, one

where the concepts of physics and chemistry really apply and describe what there is in this universe of ours.

Is that consistent with agnosticism?

...