Since you don't like Dawkins

[Phaedrus]

I fear to ask your dislike of other philosophical atheists.

Therefore, inform me of those philosophical atheists you do like.

[brewerb]

I can't because I've never listened to or read any of them. I don't need someone to tell me what I should think as an atheist.

[Phaedrus]

I don't need someone to tell me what I should think as an atheist.

I don't either, but having read just a couple of books allowed me to greatly refine my arguments against theists.

[Alan V]

I fear to ask your dislike of other philosophical atheists.

Therefore, inform me of those philosophical atheists you do like.

I have found Victor Stenger's books helpful.  Although he is now deceased, he was both a philosopher and a scientist.  It helps to be both to avoid errors in both areas of thought.

[GenesisNemesis]

Carl Sagan helped shape my views more than any of the "Four Horsemen" did, personally, and I preferred Dawkins' science books.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

I like the Four Whores, Man!

[Szuchow]

I don't care about famous atheists either way but I liked Dennett book "Breaking the Spell".

[abaris]

Therefore, inform me of those philosophical atheists you do like.

None. I'm indifferent.

To make myself clear. I don't dislike Dawkins. He's got a nice sense of humor and is a very good and pleasant presenter of various documentaries I watched. I just don't need anyone telling me why I disbelieve. I simply don't and I don't need books to confirm it. And I ddon't go around, discussing my atheism either. I just don't care if someone believes or disbelieves as long as they leave me be. And if I were to debate a theist (slim chance for that to happen) it would be using my own arguments, not something borrowed from another's view.

The only vocal atheist I actually dislike is Sam Harris. Not especially for his atheism but for his political views and borderline fearmongering. Such as his dislike for a not even yet developed AI system, where he painted the dangers as if the machines are already set to take over at any moment, Terminator style.

[Tres Leches]

I read Ayaan Hirsi Ali's book Infidel awhile back. She's not a philosophical atheist but she made the path to atheism more clear to me. Especially after I read that Islamists stabbed a written death threat against her into the body of Theo Van Gogh after he was assassinated in 2004.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theo_van_G..._director)

-Teresa

[Dancefortwo]

I've read a couple of books on deconversion.  I wasn't brought up believing in a god so it's fascinating to me how people believe such things.  For some reason I love to read how believers slowly start to ask questions and drip by drip the reality hits them, that what they've been taught to believe isn't true.   One of the best books I've read was called, Why I Believed: Reflections of a Former Missionary by Kenneth Daniels.  It took him the better part of 20 years to deconvert and his account is detailed and very well written.  (I hate badly written books...ick!)   This is a smart guy. 

This book documents  why he believed and why he finally didn't believe including his acceptance of evolution.  After his deconversion one of the things that pops out from from the book is the freedom he found interacting with people of other religious beliefs.  He no longer got an a plane in India thinking that every Hindu on the plane was destined for hell because they weren't Christians.  He wrote about being a better person to all people regardless of their religion.  He was finally  free from the chains that bound him to a religious belief which branded nonbelievers as sinful or "of the devil".   

 https://www.amazon.com/Why-Believed-Refl...B003UNLMRY

[Aegon]

I like Sam Harris.

The only vocal atheist I actually dislike is Sam Harris. Not especially for his atheism but for his political views and borderline fearmongering. Such as his dislike for a not even yet developed AI system, where he painted the dangers as if the machines are already set to take over at any moment, Terminator style.

I don't know what his politics are and I couldn't care less how he feels about AI. But I thoroughly enjoy hearing his philosophy, and him and I align perfectly when it comes to practices like meditation.

[Thumpalumpacus]

I like Hitchens's writing. He's great with language. His book on Orwell is brilliant.

The arguments he and the others have reiterated in their atheist writings are arguments which occurred to me thirty-five years ago. Nothing startling.

[mordant]

I've read a couple of books on deconversion.  I wasn't brought up believing in a god so it's fascinating to me how people believe such things.  For some reason I love to read how believers slowly start to ask questions and drip by drip the reality hits them, that what they've been taught to believe isn't true.   One of the best books I've read was called, Why I Believed: Reflections of a Former Missionary by Kenneth Daniels.  It took him the better part of 20 years to deconvert and his account is detailed and very well written.  (I hate badly written books...ick!)   This is a smart guy. 

This book documents  why he believed and why he finally didn't believe including his acceptance of evolution.  After his deconversion one of the things that pops out from from the book is the freedom he found interacting with people of other religious beliefs.  He no longer got an a plane in India thinking that every Hindu on the plane was destined for hell because they weren't Christians.  He wrote about being a better person to all people regardless of their religion.  He was finally  free from the chains that bound him to a religious belief which branded nonbelievers as sinful or "of the devil".   

 https://www.amazon.com/Why-Believed-Refl...B003UNLMRY

Read that too, and agree it is excellent.

[Minimalist]

Robert Green Ingersoll.

We do not wish to be forgiven, but we wish Christians to so act that we will not have to forgive them. If all will admit that all have an equal right to think, then the question is forever solved; but as long as organized and powerful churches, pretending to hold the keys of heaven and hell, denounce every person as an outcast and criminal who thinks for himself and denies their authority, the world will be filled with hatred and suffering. To hate man and worship God seems to be the sum of all the creeds.”

― Robert G. Ingersoll, Some Mistakes of Moses

https://infidels.org/library/historical/...moses.html

[c172]

My reading comp isn't too good at all, so haven't read much on atheism. I just know I am one, and that's enough. Debating Christians isn't something I have stamina for. Especially passersby who proselytize me because they can't justify my disabled existence on their ableist Earth. They just walk away faster than I can walk and say "whatever" or "fuck you, asshole" after I inform them I am an atheist.

One book I did read was Sam Harris' Letter to a Christian Nation. I thought it was easy and logical. I'm neutral to Harris as a person. I particularly don't remember his stance on meditation (I like it, personally. It's PT for the mind.).

[Cheerful Charlie]

I fear to ask your dislike of other philosophical atheists.

Therefore, inform me of those philosophical atheists you do like.

Anthony Flew.  Who before he got old and hoodwinked in his declining years was a sharp reasoner worth reading.

J.L. Mackie.  The Miracle of Theism.

Kai Nelson.  Under rated thinker.  He long ago championed the idea one could be good without God and wrote popular books on the subject.

Graham Oppy.
Victor Stenger.
Michael Martin.
William Rowe.
John Schellenberg.
Klaas Kraay  https://ryerson.academia.edu/KlaasKraay  Just discovered him.  Academic
George Smith
Stephen Law

There are basically two types of atheist writers.  Academics examining religious arguments very critically.
And popular writers wring for a the general public.

[julep]

Reading Christian philosophers drove me toward atheism.  I’ve never felt the desire to read atheist philosophers (or philosophers in general, as it’s a subject that doesn’t interest me much).  

We have a couple of Dawkins books around, but I haven’t read them beyond a chapter or two.

[Drich]

I fear to ask your dislike of other philosophical atheists.

Therefore, inform me of those philosophical atheists you do like.

I personally had any trouble with dawkins as most of his philosophical objections can be challenged or answered with a topical look at the God described as the bible describes rather than the snow man deity (God delusion) he often creates and knocks down.

[c172]

Any atheist YouTube channels you sub to? What's the feeling on Christina Rad (sp?).

[Bucky Ball]

I fear to ask your dislike of other philosophical atheists.

Therefore, inform me of those philosophical atheists you do like.

Richard Dawkins is an Evolutionary Biologist. He's not a philosopher. He could use some help from one, now and then, but I don't mind him. 
I liked reading the Enlightenment philosophers, even some of the religious ones. 
They just happened to believe in one more god than I do. 

Most Christians don't know it, but their "contemplative saints" (such as Bernard of Clairvaux, Teresa of Avila, John of the Cross) end up in the very same philosophical "place" as Chinese Tao Mysticism, and agnostic atheism, ... the Christian position summarized by the anonymous Medieval author of "The Cloud of Unknowing", ..... and Voltaire ... "il faut cultiver notre jardin".

[grympy]

I fear to ask your dislike of other philosophical atheists.

Therefore, inform me of those philosophical atheists you do like.

Richard Dawkins is an Evolutionary Biologist. He's not a philosopher. He could use some help from one, now and then, but I don't mind him. 
I liked reading the Enlightenment philosophers, even some of the religious ones. 
They just happened to believe in one more god than I do. 

Most Christians don't know it, but their "contemplative saints" (such as Bernard of Clairvaux, Teresa of Avila, John of the Cross) end up in the very same philosophical "place" as Chinese Tao Mysticism, and agnostic atheism, ... the Christian position summarized by the anonymous Medieval author of "The Cloud of Unknowing", ..... and Voltaire ... "il faut cultiver notre jardin".

My French is pretty bad is that; " He fails to cultivate our garden"?

[Bucky Ball]

I fear to ask your dislike of other philosophical atheists.

Therefore, inform me of those philosophical atheists you do like.

Richard Dawkins is an Evolutionary Biologist. He's not a philosopher. He could use some help from one, now and then, but I don't mind him. 
I liked reading the Enlightenment philosophers, even some of the religious ones. 
They just happened to believe in one more god than I do. 

Most Christians don't know it, but their "contemplative saints" (such as Bernard of Clairvaux, Teresa of Avila, John of the Cross) end up in the very same philosophical "place" as Chinese Tao Mysticism, and agnostic atheism, ... the Christian position summarized by the anonymous Medieval author of "The Cloud of Unknowing", ..... and Voltaire ... "il faut cultiver notre jardin".

My French is pretty bad is that; " He fails to cultivate our garden"?

At the end of Candide, ... "We must cultivate our garden(s)"  : meaning "what is left, (practically) is, .. we must tend to our own affairs".

[Cheerful Charlie]

I fear to ask your dislike of other philosophical atheists.

Therefore, inform me of those philosophical atheists you do like.

I personally had any trouble with dawkins as most of his philosophical objections can be challenged or answered with a topical look at the God described as the bible describes rather than the snow man deity (God delusion) he often creates and knocks down.

The God of the OT is savage and brutal.  That God commands murders, massacres and genocides.  As I have discussed here, we now know the OT is faux history, it never happened.  The murders, massacres and genocides existed in the minds of the lying priest who made these tall tales up.  You have two choices, to accept the bible is not history and tells us nothing at all about God, or claim these tall tales are true and and try to spin them away, and for those of us who can read and reason, that won't fly.

Having read Dawkins, I do not always agree with him.  He doesn't go far enough.  Dawkins lets you Christians off far too easy.  For example he claims God cannot be disproven.  As a strong atheist i know that to be wrong.

[Cheerful Charlie]

Richard Dawkins is an Evolutionary Biologist. He's not a philosopher. He could use some help from one, now and then, but I don't mind him. 
I liked reading the Enlightenment philosophers, even some of the religious ones. 
They just happened to believe in one more god than I do. 

Most Christians don't know it, but their "contemplative saints" (such as Bernard of Clairvaux, Teresa of Avila, John of the Cross) end up in the very same philosophical "place" as Chinese Tao Mysticism, and agnostic atheism, ... the Christian position summarized by the anonymous Medieval author of "The Cloud of Unknowing", ..... and Voltaire ... "il faut cultiver notre jardin".

My French is pretty bad is that; " He fails to cultivate our garden"?

At the end of Candide, ... "We must cultivate our garden(s)"  : meaning "what is left, (practically) is, .. we must tend to our own affairs".

Taken from Epicurus.  His school was called "The Garden".

Internet Encyclopedia of Philsophy

A garden near the city of Athens, owned and used by the philosopher Epicurus and his followers. It became a symbol of Epicurean philosophy.

[Bucky Ball]

My French is pretty bad is that; " He fails to cultivate our garden"?

At the end of Candide, ... "We must cultivate our garden(s)"  : meaning "what is left, (practically) is, .. we must tend to our own affairs".

Taken from Epicurus.  His school was called "The Garden".

Internet Encyclopedia of Philsophy

A garden near the city of Athens, owned and used by the philosopher Epicurus and his followers. It became a symbol of Epicurean philosophy.

I think not. Candide is not about Epicurean philosophy. At all.

"After many horrific, over-the-top adventures traveling the world that Pangloss has taught him is "the best of all possible worlds," the naive Candide begins to gain wisdom and rethink his tutor's contention that all is for the best in the best of all possible worlds. Having experienced a panorama of slavery, warfare, rape, dismemberment, execution, torture, disembowelment, and other such horrors, Candide, while staying in Turkey, happens to have dinner at the house of an Old Turk. Candide marvels at the plentitude of the dinner, with its several sherbets and other good food. He assumes the Turk must be very rich, but the Turk tells him he and his daughters live abundantly by cultivating only twenty acres. They keep themselves busy, are content with what they have, and lead a comfortable life.

Candide ponders this and decides that "cultivating one's garden" is a better option than trying to make one's fortune in the wider world. By "cultivating one's garden," Candide means more than just planting and tending to a literal garden of plants. His point is that one should surround oneself with family and close friends and then pursue one's talents. "Cultivating one's garden" is developing one's gifts. An individual should keep busy and do what they do best. The wider world can take care of itself. One does more for the world and stays safer, Candide implies, by concentrating on quietly developing one's own gifts, rather than trying to make an egoistic mark on the world."