Category: Bullshit Beliefs

The Four Horsemen of Atheism


The “Four Horsemen” Clockwise from top left: Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Daniel Dennett, and Sam Harris. According to Richard Dawkins, “We are all atheists about most of the gods that societies have ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further.”

Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion, 2006.
Christopher Hitchens, God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything, 2007.
Daniel Dennet, Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon, 2006.
Sam Harris, The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason, 2004.

Francis Bacon on bullshit beliefs

Francis Bacon (1561-1626), in his Novum Organum (1620), classifies the sources of false beliefs (i.e. bullshit beliefs) into four categories or idols:
idols of the tribe (idola tribus),
idols of the cave (idola specus),
idols of the market (idola fori), and
idols of the theater (idola theatri).

See also:

and

C. D. Broad, The Philosophy of Francis Bacon, 1926.