The Happy Atheist
Cover scans
Click a cover for a larger version.
Synopsis
The Happy Atheist is Myers' first book. Readers familiar with his blog Pharyngula will know what to expect. The book deals with religion and atheism from a lot of different angles, and in essence it's a popular book written for a popular audience, using popular arguments. This is not to say that the book is simplistic, just that it isn't scholarly. If you want a preview of the book, read his essay "Planet of the Hats", which in the book is the chapter called "About the Author".
Review
I half-expected the book (having read Myers' blog) to be much more angry than it is. In fact it's a very funny, lively, and readable book, and at no point was I bored. (In fact, I had trouble putting it down. I didn't read it in one sitting, but two.)
Table of contents
- Morning in the Midwest
- About the Author
- The Joke
- The Great Desecration
- Get a Job
- It's So Easy to Be Outraged!
- I Am Not a Spoiled Child Having a Temper Tantrum
- The Proper Fate for a Holy Book
- Ask but Don't Tell
- Dirty Words
- The Top Ten Reasons Religion Is Like Pornography
- The Purpose-Free Life
- Happy Easter!
- Afterlife? What Afterlife?
- Soulless!
- What Dreadful Price Must We Pay to Be Atheists?
- Imagine No Heaven
- Daughters of eve
- Prometheus's Sin
- So Alone
- One Nation Free of Gods
- An Embryo Is Not a Person
- The Courtier's Reply
- The Big Pink Guy in the Sky
- The Karen Armstrong Diet
- God's Little Crisis of Confidence
- Laugher as a Strategy for Diminishing Religion
- We're Happier out of a Straitjacket than in One
- Marketing Godless Science
- "Science Is What We Do to Keep from Lying to Ourselves"
- Our Brains Are Full of Contradictions
- Ken Miller, Poster Child for Compatibility
- Religion Fails as a Source of Knowledge
- Science as a Lever to Move the World
- The Active Hand
- The Proper Reverence Due Those Who Have Gone Before
- Niobrara
- We Stand Awed at the Heights Our People Have Achieved
- Acknowledgments