Michael L. Martin is an American philosopher and professor emeritus at Boston University

Boston University

Boston University is a private research university located in Boston, Massachusetts. With more than 4,000 faculty members and more than 31,000 students, Boston University is one of the largest private universities in the United States and one of Boston's largest employers...

. He obtained his PhD from Harvard University

Harvard University

Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...

 in 1962.

Martin specializes in the philosophy of religion

Philosophy of religion

Philosophy of religion is a branch of philosophy concerned with questions regarding religion, including the nature and existence of God, the examination of religious experience, analysis of religious language and texts, and the relationship of religion and science...

, though he has also worked on the philosophies of science

Philosophy of science

The philosophy of science is concerned with the assumptions, foundations, methods and implications of science. It is also concerned with the use and merit of science and sometimes overlaps metaphysics and epistemology by exploring whether scientific results are actually a study of truth...

, law, and social science. He is the author or editor of a number of books, including Atheism: A Philosophical Justification (1989), The Case Against Christianity (1991), Atheism, Morality, and Meaning (2002), The Impossibility of God (2003), The Improbability of God (2006), and The Cambridge Companion to Atheism (2006). He sits on the editorial board of the philosophy journal, Philo

Philo (journal)

Philo is a peer-reviewed academic journal with a focus on the discussion of philosophical issues from an explicitly naturalist perspective. The journal publishes articles, critical discussions, review essays, and book reviews in all fields of philosophy, and welcomes work on the philosophical...

.

Atheism

In his Atheism: a Philosophical Justification, Martin cites a general absence of an atheistic response to contemporary work in philosophy of religion, and accepts the responsibility of a rigorous defense of nonbelief as his "cross to bear:"

The aim of this book is not to make atheism a popular belief or even to overcome its invisibility. My object is not utopian. It is merely to provide good reasons for being an atheist. … My object is to show that atheism is a rational position and that belief in God is not. I am quite aware that atheistic beliefs are not always based on reason. My claim is that they should be.

See also

• American philosophy
  American philosophy
  American philosophy is the philosophical activity or output of Americans, both within the United States and abroad. The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy notes that while American philosophy lacks a "core of defining features, American Philosophy can nevertheless be seen as both reflecting and...
  
  
• Christ myth theory
• Historicity of Jesus
  Historicity of Jesus
  The historicity of Jesus concerns how much of what is written about Jesus of Nazareth is historically reliable, and whether the evidence supports the existence of such an historical figure...
  
  
• List of American philosophers
• Verificationism

External links

• Martin's homepage, Boston University
• Martin's page from infidels.org, which contains a number of his critiques of theism
• Biography, philosophyofreligion.info.