Criticism of religion developed from the 17th century onwards. For example, in Asia, no one before the 19th century self-identified as a "Hindu" or other similar identities. With the existence of diverse modern categories of religion such as monotheism, polytheism, pantheism, nontheism and diverse specific religions such as Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Taoism, Buddhism and many others, it is not always clear to whom the criticisms are aimed at or to what extent they are applicable to other religions. Some criticisms of monotheistic religions have been: Dennett and Harris have asserted that theist religions and their scriptures are not divinely inspired, but man made
The Religion of the Future stated that he considered the book, alongside Ronald Dworkin’s "Religion Without God", to be an example of “religious atheism,” that is, a “new attitude to God” that “presents a new horizon for Christianity.” While strongly criticizing the book from a theistic standpoint, Chapman allows that this new religious atheism may represent a “maturing of the infantile atheism offered by the scientific naturalism perspective: it looks at the world and finds moral truth, objective value, and goodness.” Reviewing "The Religion of the Future" in "Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews", Jeremy David Bendik-Keymer considered the book as the second part of the project