This is a very enjoyable book. It is also far more readable than the other book I’ve read about atheism, which was George Smiths “The Case Against God.” Mill’s doesn’t go into as much detail as Smith, but he covers a wide variety of topics and does each topic well. I have few complaints with this book. One of my only complaints is that it is too short and in some places I wish he could have went into more detail. But overall I would highly recommend this book to anyone who is an atheist/agnostic or anyone who has questions about atheism.
Chapter 1, “An Interview with an Atheist” is one of the best parts of the book. In this chapter Mills goes over the most commonly asked questions about atheism and explains what atheism is. He has the entire chapter set up in a Q&A style, which is much more interesting than just reading boring definitions. If you can only read one part of this book, this is a good chapter to pick.
Chapters 2, 3, and 4 deal with the origin of the universe, the god of the gaps argument, and the “miracle” of planetary clockwork. Essentially these chapters deal with the fine tuning arguments so often used by theists. I don’t know much about physics or cosmology, but I found these chapters to be informative and entertaining.
Chapters 5 and 6 deal with common creationist claims against evolution. He debunks some of the most common claims and explains in a non-technical manner what evolution is and how it works. In chapter six Mills describes how Genesis cannot be reconciled with modern science and how certain theists resort to mental gymnastics to get science and their theology to mesh.
In chapter 7 Mills describes how Christians have limited perception of the world. He gives many examples of how theists will credit any positive action to God and any negative action to nature or humanity. Basically he claims theists are like psychics, they remember the hits and forget the misses.
Chapter 8 was an interesting chapter that dealt with hell. In this chapter Mills argues that hell is a myth created by man to frighten people into staying in line. He describes how eternal punishment for minor transgressions can in no way be considered to be a just punishment by any being claiming to be a loving God.
The next chapter, chapter 9, deals with how religious fundamentalists like to make a big deal out of things like Internet porn. They then use the fear of children being turned into sex fiends by porn so that they can then have an excuse to legislate morality. Not my favorite chapter, but he does make good points about how the religious right tries to legislate what people can do under the guise of public safety. (One topic he didn’t bring up was Prohibition, which was started by religious fundamentalists who were against the consumption of alcohol.)
Chapter 10 deals the often heard claim that America was founded on Christian principles. Mills does a pretty good job of debunking this claim, but this is one chapter that I wish had just a little more information.
The final chapter deals with the Intelligent Design movement. He does an excellent job on exposing the ID movement for the religious charade that it really is. One of the best chapters of the book seeing how the ID movement still has plenty of supporters and political power.
Overall I thought this book was excellent. This is not a deep philosophical book or a heavy science tome. It is a book about atheism for the average person. I think that even atheists who are familiar with most of the theistic arguments will still enjoy this book.
