Successor to the highly acclaimed "Encyclopedia of Unbelief" (1985), edited by the late Gordon Stein, the "New Encyclopedia of Unbelief" is a comprehensive reference work on the history, beliefs, and thinking of America's fastest growing minority: those who live without religion. All-new articles by the field's foremost scholars describe and explain every aspect of atheism, agnosticism, secular humanism, secularism, and religious scepticism. The topics include morality without religion, unbelief in the historicity of Jesus, critiques of intelligent design theory, unbelief and sexual values, and summaries of the state of unbelief around the world. Over 130 respected scholars and activists world-wide served on the editorial advisory board and over 100 authoritative contributors have written in excess of 500 entries.
In addition to covering developments since the publication of the original edition, the "New Encyclopedia of Unbelief" includes a larger number of biographical entries and much-expanded coverage of the linkages between unbelief and social reform movements of the 19th and 20th centuries, including the labour movement, woman suffrage, anarchism, sex radicalism, and second-wave feminism. The distinguished contributors are philosophers, scientists, scholars, and Nobel Prize laureates. With a foreword by evolutionary biologist and best-selling author Richard Dawkins, this unparalleled reference work provides comprehensive knowledge about unbelief in its many varieties and manifestations.