Customer Reviews

Why Atheism?

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Once again we are fortunate enough to have a new book from the formidable George H. Smith, one of the greatest free-thinkers of our day. Both of his previous works were excellent, and "Why Atheism?" does not dissapoint. Smith marshals his great learning and wit to deal with a number of important issues surrounding atheism, religious belief, history, ethics, and philosophy. Although he is treading on largely familiar ground, there is little overlap between this effort and his earlier volumes.

Smith begins by discussing the credibility and methodology of atheism, and continues on to examine the relationship of belief with doubt, knowledge, and free will. A great deal of attention is devoted to the history of ideas and those who developed them. Such thinkers as Thomas Aquinas, John Locke, Francis Bacon, Rene Descartes, Benedict Spinoza, and Arthur Schopenhauer, to name a few, are discussed at length. In addition to a chaper paying tribute to the philosophers of the seventeenth century, two others are devoted to a fascinating survey of the roots of modern ideas of atheism and secularism.

Objectivists and others interested in Ayn Rand's philosophy should be particularly interesting in his discussion of Rand's theory of knowledge. Drawing on the work of Rand's supposed "successor" Leonard Peikoff, Smith rejects the Objectivist theory of contextual certainty in favor of a more traditional variant of correspondence theory.

While each chapter is highly stimulating and informative, I particularly enjoyed those which dealt with the lifestyle of the philosopher, the Ontological argument for God's existence, and the atheistical view of death. The penultimate chapter as well, in which Smith discusses several "irreverent" aspects of the concept of God, was highly entertaining, despite, but perhaps because of, the response that it will inspire from the theistic reader.

The book is written in a clear, logical, and lucid prose that is no doubt a reflection of Smith's great talent for communication. While the discussion is kept at a consistently sophisticated level, the intelligent reader should have no trouble keeping up. All in all, "Why Atheism?" is a wonderful book, well worth the attention of anyone interested in the nature, history, and philosophy of nonbelief.

I was first introduced to the author Mr. George H. Smith way back when he was Editor & Chief of Reason Magazine. I purchased his first book called, "Atheism: The Case Against God." It was brilliantly written. May I suggest perchasing this book first. In Why Atheism, Smith, often refers back to philosophies in his first book Atheism: The Case Against God, however, luckly, even though he expects you to have read that book, he still enlightens the reader to his old text, via a short review. The impression I got from Why Atheism was that Smith still had a few things to say about justification of being an Atheist. Why Atheism's concept was very straight forward. Smith wanted to give Atheists a leg to stand on while combating the endless war of being moral even though you're an atheist. Theists believe, through religious propaganda, that all atheists have no morals. This is not true in any way shape or form. Smith explains that the burden of proof is on the theist to prove that God exists. It's not the burden of proof for the atheist to prove that God does not exist. Smith breaks everything down very nicely for the reader. He explains that we must first give God some meaning or definition. In other words, we must first understand what exactly is God. Then if the theist cannot explain what God is, then how can he or she expect the atheist to understand what the theist is talking about. Smith goes on and explains how to view death as an atheist, hwo to live a good life as an atheist, and most improtantly how to use reason as a means to live your life. I say well done Smith! I'm also going to purchase his last book called, "Atheism, Ayn Rand, and other Heresies. Probably as soon as I'm done writing this review. Buy the book, he's ahead of his time...Regards Fellow Atheists....Another book worth reading is Atheism: A Philosophical Justification By Mr. Micheal Martin.

This is a fantastic book. I was impressed with Smith's first two books and I was satisfied once again with his work. If you care about philosophy, you should care about the history of it. Here, Smith does a great job of drawing on the roots of Atheism and of providing an general overview of famous philosophers who examined reason and although found it to be fallible, still seemed to be philosophical optomists (Locke and Bacon for example). In discussing a whole range of philosophers, he ends up presenting nice introductions into various philosophical theories including nominalism, realism, correspondence theory, and others. As well many chapters have extensive footnotes and mention a lot of books for further readings. This is a pro.

Ultimately, the layout is great. Here is why: He lays epistemological ground by defining terms, discussing knowledge, justification, faith, reason, Occam's Razor and burdens. Then he discusses what philosophers such as Locke and Bacon had to say about reason (they said it was fallible whereas Descartes said otherwise) in great detail. His critique of Ayn Rand's (and Leonard Piekoff's) contextual theory of knowledge is excellent in that he effectively refutes it in only a few pages. It's short and to the point!

Then he goes on to explore the Ontological argument which is one of the highlights of the book since it is clearly written and easily understood. Thankfully, draws on a lot of sources for criticisms of the argument as well. Next comes two fairly long chapters on the roots of modern atheism. In the first, quotes a lot of arguments from ancient Greeks, some of which still have validity today. In the second, he has an excellent discussion on Hume and miracles and why one should be able to refuse consideration to miracles as a class instead of wasting time trying to disrpove one miracle at a time. Finally, he has a chapter with some humourous questions that still have philosophical validity.

The final chapter, which is devoted to ethics considers the question of whether ethics without God are possible, and of course they are. He makes a good point in that most theists, in terms of morality, deep down are natural law theologians like Thomas Aquinas since most theists these days would never willingly do anything designated as immoral simply because God demands it.

About the May 8 review: NOWHERE in the first chapter has Smith defined theism solely as belief in the Christian deity. He simply would not do that since he has atheism (correctly) defined as lacking belief in any deity. As well, he made the point in his book that throughout history, people have been deemed atheists for not believing in the god of another person.
"Some theists have been called atheists for disbelieving in the god (or gods) of the orthodox majority. Early Christains, for example were frequently accused of atheism by their pagan critics." (p.19)
Therefore, Smith clearly understands that theism means the belief in any supernatural being, not just the Christian deity. This reviwer should try a little harder to discredit Smith.

Another great book from another great author. I am eagerly awating for his newest book "Happiness in a Godless World," to eventually arrive at the store in my cold Canadian city. Here is a good place one can go where he talks about this book [...] And don't hesitate to check him out on the website of Resources for Independent Thinking.

Keep em' coming George. You keep writing and I'll keep buying.

The book starts out on a fun tone, establishing the rules of the game, going over material that has been covered many places but is there just in case the reader is new to non-belief. For instance, Smith treats at considerable length the difference between positive, impossible to prove atheism ("There is no God") and negative, standard atheism ("I don't believe in God") in order to counter the common attack that atheism is logically impossible. It is this sort of discussion that brings out the conversational strength of Smith's writing.

The bulk of the book is philosophy and history of philosophy. Fascinating, fun and well-developed, but its depth took me by surprise and was sometimes, for this reader, sluggish reading that dwelled on minutae too often. He discusses what it means to have "faith," how "faith" differs from knowledge, and the processes that define how, what, and why we should believe. He does this in a measured pace that goes from the Greeks through Aquinas, Augustine, Francis Bacon, Spinoza, and, of course, Hume. Through this he develops the "History of Modern Atheism."

As a previous reviewer mentioned, the second-to-last chapter may be the funnest, called "Irreverent questions about God." (Is God an atheist? --He doesn't believe in a power higher than himself. He doesn't believe in a "first cause" that made him.) It is fun, at least a little, because of the angry responses that it will evoke from a theist.

The style of easy sections, short chapters, and the lengthy explanatory notes for the interested reader at the chapters' end (rather than in the text itself), make it an easy read that you can finish in a couple of days.

If you are looking for a philosophical and historical trek celebrating how far we've come in the realm of free-thought, this book is a good one. Be careful, though, if you are looking for developed arguments for atheism or reasons to consider atheism (as the title might just suggest), try Smith's former book (Atheism: The Case Against God) instead.

I'm somewhat biased, if I hadn't read "Atheism: The Case Against God," I doubt I'd have ever finished this book. The writting in the book is good, I suppose, but it was beyond my grasp. The book for the most part deals heavily with philosophy, and the understanding of most of the philosophy is beyond the reach of Joe Average.

Most of his 'arguments' in the book seem to be an analysis of 17th and 18th philosophers, and applying their arguments towards his ideas about Atheisms contemporary relevance. This is by no means bad, but for people lacking background the reading is incredibly dense, and somewhat uninteresting.

Where he succeeds the most is near the end of the book in a short chapter where he adresses 'silly' issues. He talks about 'silly issues' like whether God himself is an Atheist (he is!) and whether Satan is actually a Christian. His wit in this very short chapter was great, and I wished he'd written more on the topic of strange concepts like that.

Overall, this isn't a bad book, but unlike "Atheism: The Case Against God" This book is much harder to grasp for people not grounded in philosophy, and is more an analysis of philosophers then a refutation of Christianity.

Over the past few years I've been working on a comprehensive critique of Ayn Rand's epistemology (currently being prepared for publication; an earlier draft version is available on my website). One of the conclusions to which I slowly but surely came is that her "contextual theory of knowledge" amounts to the following: what she has actually done is drop the requirement that knowledge be _true_ and define knowledge as "contextually justified belief."

Imagine my surprise when I cracked open this new book by George Smith and found that Chapter Four ("Belief and Knowledge," pp. 61-78) develops that very same thesis by a slightly different route. Either great minds run in the same channels, or I've reinvented the wheel.

The whole chapter is very well done. Smith also makes some pertinent comments on, e.g., the "correspondence theory of truth," correctly noting (as I note in my own critique) that this theory ordinarily goes along with a "representationalist" or "copy" theory of knowledge. For my money, these eighteen pages alone are worth the price of the book.

(An interesting sidenote: Allan Gotthelf remarks somewhere in his little book _On Ayn Rand_ that Objectivism is different from pragmatism in that Objectivism doesn't _define_ truth by its practical consequences. Maybe not -- but if Smith is right about Rand's theory of truth, as I obviously think he is, then the gap is considerably narrower than Gotthelf would have us believe.)

The rest of the book looks pretty good so far too, although frankly I've only skimmed it looking for items of interest. It looks like a solid history of freethought and atheism, executed with Smith's usual clarity and flair. There is, for example, a nice short discussion of whether or not Spinoza was "really" an atheist; I personally think not, but Smith makes a good case that he couldn't have gotten much closer to atheism without falling in. (I disagree with Smith's own arguments for atheism, but they are at any rate well presented.)

So it looks like a nice book overall. And that fourth chapter is a dilly; if you have any interest in Objectivist epistemology, grab this book ASAP.

I raved on and on about Smith's earlier book "Atheism: The Case Against God", so I thought I could not go wrong with reading another from him...

Sadly, I was mistaken. While this book does have its moments (such as the excellent critique of Ayn Rand and the hilarity of the second-to-last chapter), I must say that overall I was disappointed in this book with respect to his original work. I can't quite place my finger on what I didn't like, but at times the book felt repetitious and mundane.

I highly recommend Smith's earlier work, but only mildly recommend this. It will fill out some gaps of knowledge, but only at the expense of a fairly unexciting read.

For readers seeking an introduction to the basic ideas of atheism this book is probably not what you are looking for. Instead it is more a history of philosophy and the beliefs of the most important philosophers such as Bacon, Descartes, Kant, Spinoza, Locke and Schopenhauer. George Smith attempts to make the case for atheism by challenging those he disagrees with, such as the theist Descartes who attempted to "prove" the existence of God through his theory of knowledge. Others, like the atheist Schopehauer, he obviously agrees with. All of this is interesting enough, especially for the serious student of philosophy.

But I was hoping to find a more accessible book with more widespread appeal. For me, the case for atheism is simply a matter of common sense. There is no logical reason to believe in the existence of an external, creative diety. Of course, theists always fall back on the concept of faith. But faith in God is a weak argument when a person has no factual support to bolster his claim. For example, I can have faith that the moon is made of green cheese. But just because I believe it doesn't make it true or mean that this belief is something other people should take seriously. Darwin's theory of evolution, on the other hand, uses the scientific method, including a large, verifiable fossil record, to prove its case. To say that a person's unsubstantiated belief in God is equal to Darwin's much more verifiable theory of evolution is simply irrational thinking.


Prior to science, people made up mythological stories to explain how the world was created and why we are here. Fortunately, science is now able to explain much of how the natural world functions, how humans and other life forms evolved and even how the universe itself came into being. Of course, this only explains the "how" of existence and not the "why". But, to me, the doctrines of religion are a childish cop out. Instead the truth is that it is ultimately up to each individual to find meaning, purpose and happiness in life. We are now living in the "brave, new world" of secularism. It is our challenge to leave behind the dogmas of religion to create a world of freedom, ethics and community based on reason rather than superstition.

I must admit that I was looking forward to reading this book, as I enjoyed Smith's previous work in Atheism: The Case against God. However, this book failed to deliver anything meaningful. First of all, Smith's goal for the book was quite puny. He claims that it is his intention to show that atheism is a viewpoint that should be considered. But, even with this restrained goal, Smith's book never seems to go anywhere.

Much of this book seems to be a history lesson. However, I fail to see how any of that turns atheism into a credible worldview. These chapters seemed out of place, and they seemed to drag on for way too long.

Smith's chapter, "Some Irreverent Questions About God" was much to short to give atheism any credibility. Smith's refutation of the Ontological Argument may be useful, but again it does not seem to give atheism any credibility.

Smith's work here was very disappointing. I would recommend his earlier book for a much more useful and relevant discussion of atheism.

As good a writer as Smith is, this book was not half what his "The Case Against God" was. It does not offer the same deep insight as I would have expected. It is funny at times and still slightly imformative, but only by a small margin does it justify the time and effort it takes to read it. Sadly, I have to say, it barely makes the cut of getting a recommendation by me at all!

(JH)
www.ministerturnsatheist.org