ABSTRACT
‘On the road again’ looks at the future of atheism. After considering the ‘new’ atheism and some of its vociferous critics, the chapter turns to some thoughts about the unpredictability of human futures. Given the data that we have, it is very hard to know what will be the ‘market share’ for atheism in ten, or twenty, or fifty years. Certainly, there are many parts of the world in which the ‘market share’ for atheism has been growing steadily for more than a century. But it is not entirely clear why this is the case, and, partly in consequence, it is not entirely clear whether this will continue to be the case. There is no shortage of ideologues who are prepared to make confident predictions about the imminent demise, or the surging rise, of atheism. I doubt that any of these predictions are well founded.
