(Houghton Mifflin, Oct. 2006, 406pp, including 26pp of appendix, books cited, notes, and index)
(Post 1; Post 2; Post 3; Post 4; Post 5)
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Here are glosses on the Preface and 10 chapters of the book, followed by some general comments.
The Preface points out four consciousness-raising aspirations. First, you don’t have to live with the religion you grew up with. Second is the power of ‘cranes’ in understanding the cosmos. Third is the issue of childhood indoctrination, as in assuming a child belongs to the religion of their parents. And four is atheist pride; it’s not something to be apologetic about.
Chapter 1 explains how awe and wonder are available from the wonders of the universe, and how scientists who express such awe are not religious is the supernatural sense. This book concerns supernatural gods. Author is amazed by the deference religion is given, especially in America, and while he’s aware many will take offense by his arguments, he will not go out of his way to offend, yet will speak plainly.
Chapter 2 considers the ‘God hypothesis,’ the plausibility of a supernatural intelligence who designed the universe and everything in it. Polytheism is more common than strict monotheism, e.g. the Roman Catholic church with its trinity and saints and angels. The three major religions all derive from Judaism, the cult of a desert tribe obsessed with sexual restrictions and charred flesh. Paul of Tarsus founded Christianity. Islam added violent conquest. The American founders were deists and secularists. The existence of God is a scientific question, and can be considered as such on grounds of probability. If a god exists who can suspend natural laws it would be a quite different universe than one without. Studies of prayer show no effects.
Chapter 3 considers the standard arguments for God’s existence, and dismisses them as vacuous (Aquinas) or illogical or subjective. The gospels are inconsistent, and only four of them were retained; there were others. Pascal’s wager is about feigning belief. Bayesian arguments can be fudged. Religious people generally believe what they wish to be true. All sorts of rationalizations for the existence of evil. And anyway, who made God?
Chapter 4 takes the opposite perspective, explaining reasons why there is almost certainly no God. Creationists are impressed by the apparent design of the world, but natural selection is the consciousness raiser to explain that, and to explain so-called ‘irreducible complexity.’ Author calls such arguments failures of imagination, or ‘arguments from personal incredulity.’ Arguments from anthropic principles can be explained without resort to gods. And the Templeton Foundation is disingenuous, paying scientists to offer ideas that can be twisted in support of religion. Summary: the appearance of design in the universe is explained by natural selection, a crane, not a skyhook intelligent designer.
Chapter 5 expands the perspective to explore the roots of religion, why it would have evolved, what it’s ‘good’ for. Some ideas invoke group selection to explain why groups united by religion out-survive those that don’t. Or religion may be a by-product of something else, perhaps from the instinctive and necessary gullibility of children to believe everything their parents tell them. Religion appeals to the mind’s tendency to perceive purpose, even consciousness, in inanimate objects. These become ‘memes’ that spread across many minds, with occasional mutations. We can see how easily new religions appear and evolve, from Mormonism, Scientology, and cargo cults.
Chapter 6 considers the roots of morality, asking why we are good. The religious think religion is necessary to be moral, while in fact there are obvious Darwinian explanations for ideas of compassion and altruism. Most people claim they would be good anyway, even if there were no God watching over them. Criminals are more likely to be religious, more educated people less so. How do we decide what’s good and what isn’t? Through various applications of universalist principles and the practical consequences of various behaviors.
Chapter 7 concerns why morals do not derive from scriptures (given the many bizarre things that happen in the OT); how the NT is no better, or even worse; how Biblical rules apply only to the in-group; how the moral zeitgeist has moved on since Biblical days despite religion, not because of it; and how being an atheist is unrelated to people being evil.
Chapter 8 addresses why author is so hostile to religion; why not just dismiss it, like astrology? Because submission to a holy text subverts science, and an understanding of the real world. Examples of blasphemy laws, of attitudes toward homosexuality, of abortion and the conflation of embryos with fully grown adults, of the false Beethoven fallacy, and of how ‘moderation’ in faith fosters fanaticism.
Chapter 9 address childhood inculcation, how children are automatically assigned the religion of their parents, and how this is a kind of mental abuse. How it’s more important to teach children how to think [which is exactly what the parents don’t want them to do]. How the price of maintaining such cultural diversity is the lives of children. How teaching comparative religion, and teaching the Bible as literature, would be valuable.
Chapter 10 is about whether religion fills a “gap” in the brain, providing consolation and inspiration. But atheists are not more depressed than believers, and despite the promise of an afterlife, believers are just as afraid of dying as anyone. And how presuming that the only reason your life has meaning is because God exists is infantile. Science is much more inspiring; our brains evolved in a world of limited range, and science allows is to see a far greater reality.
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Here’s a comment I wrote down upon finishing a reread of this book in 2022:
Honestly, no one seems to spell this out, but the ‘traditional values’ of religious faith and ‘family values’ that place the highest priority on generating as many children as possible, are merely the protocols of the most basic tribal values for perpetuating the species—i.e. for winning the game of ‘natural selection’. The reason people (especially parents) fear homosexuality, is because it reduces potential grandchildren; the reason they fear atheism is because it threatens the social cohesion and common purpose of the tribe. To think that the only ‘purpose’ of sex is reproduction is to limit human experience to the most basic animal functions. To deny the discoveries of rationality and science in the face of religious faith is to limit human experience to the most basic tribal protocols. Is that all being human is? Ironically, in denying evolution and proscribing social roles outside narrow reproductive functions, fundamentalists are being as animalistic as they possibly can be—not transcending their animal heritage at all, but perpetuating it.
