Atheism: What Everyone Needs to Know®

Since September 11, 2001, the question of religion and its role in society has been more focused on than in the past, especially on the side of negativity. While people like comedian Bill Maher and South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone have always been cynical and critical of religion, religion has seemed to be one of those things that was taboo to criticize. Not so much after the September 11 attacks. From the then graduate student Sam Harris (The End of Faith)to eminent biologist Richard Dawkins (The God Delusion) to my personal favorite writer the late Christopher Hitchens (god is not Great), there has been a plethora of attacks on religion. Most of these books have taken the tone that religion is irrational and needs to be destroyed; even if it need be by violent means as alluded to by Harris in his book "Some beliefs are so dangerous it may be ethical to kill people for believing them." Very enlightened indeed Dr. Harris!As a philosopher who also happens to be a theist, I was interested in a book that talked about atheism, but one that was nuanced and took the theistic arguments and propositions seriously. Luckily, at the behest of my friend who as a professor specializes in philosophy of religion, I was led to such a book : Atheism: What Everyone Needs to Know by Michael Ruse. Ruse, for those who do not know of him, is a philosopher of science at Florida St. University in Tallahassee, Florida. A Quaker by birth, he lost his faith in his youth, but unlike Hitchens who describes himself in his book as a "devout anti-theist", Ruse is an agnostic-atheist who is very respectful of those who believe and takes the position of the theist seriously even if he himself does not believe, a good trait for anyone.Ruse begins the book by giving a historical overview of the atheistic position, citing philosophers such as Lucretius in the past all the way to the New Atheists in the present. He notes that up until the enlightenment, you really couldn't find any atheists. Mostly you had people who would reject organized religion, but would not drop the notion that there was a God of some kind out there. As Penn Jillette said in an interview, it is hard to find an atheist before Darwin. Ruse seems to agree.He then goes over the standard arguments for the existence of God (the ontological, cosmological, teleological, etc) as well as how they have been countered in the past. He then showed charts of the amount of people in the world who proclaim themselves as religious against those who claim to be non-religious. These charts were very telling, and among one of the more interesting parts of the book.He then went on to show whether or not one could reconcile science with religion. This is a contentious point, because while people like Dawkins will say that science has disproved God to a large degree, Ruse begs to differ. He points out that science and religion are different enterprises after different types of things; the former is find out the laws and nature of the material world, while the latter is trying to find out the importance of humans in the cosmos and reconcile themselves to God and put on the divine nature. In effect, Ruse is adapting Stephen Jay Gould's idea of non-overlapping magesteria, although Ruse does point out there is some overlap with science and religion. Don't take this to mean that Ruse thinks everything in the scriptures in scientifically justifiable; he adamantly states that the ideas of a universal flood and a literal Adam and Eve are nonsensical (as a theist I would agree). He also is very critical of Intelligent Design, another area as a theist I would agree with him. But he is very comfortable in saying that one can reconcile science and religion, which is very daring given that he is a non-believer.Perhaps the most telling and touching part of this book is the end, where Ruse points out that teh issue of atheism is a deeply moral one, and unlike Harris thinks that atheism is a bleak worldview. Rather than cheering the fact that God is dead as a Nietzschean would, he states that in the absence of God and religion there is no ultimate purpose to life and one must make up his own values and meaning to live by. Like the existentialists Jean-Paul Satre and Albert Camus, Ruse states that in the absence of God life is absurd. One really gets a sense of Ruse anguish at the end when writing this.Overall, the tone of the book is jovial and funny,like Ruse himself. While Ruse does take the matters at hand very seriously, he does allow room for humor and I confess that several times I had to stop reading as I literally laughed out loud.Whether one is a philosopher or just curious about athisem, I highly recommend Ruse's book. You will not be bored at all, and you will come away enlightened.

Atheism: What everyone needs to know – A Review.In this book Ruse (Professor - Philosophy of Science, FSU) seeks to engage the readers in the “relationship between science and religion”. In this, he does admit to not being a religious studies expert nor a theologian, but has looked into the fields and seems to genuinely want to share his findings with us. He also admits that the question of God and ultimate meaning in life are important to him (as I suspect they are important to many people, believers in a higher power or non believer). In the final portion of the prolog he does want to state a connecting theme to the book, and that is that for followers of religion and its opponents this is a moral issue, not just one of strict facts. One some level I can agree with him on this. Following a higher power (God, Allah or whomever one wishes to follow) or not is of great importance to many people, however this is not the end all, be all of faith for many believers.Ch's 1&2 deal with a history of faith (belief in gods in general or a God in particular). And this is where the trouble starts. The book just seems to leave out some interesting material and fails to bring forth some interesting topics of discussion. And the topics he does bring up are dealt with in such a shallow way it does not appear he has done anything more than a wiki study on the topic (I am aware of the ref. Material he uses and lists in the back of the book, he just seems to have such a shallow understanding of it that I wonder how much time he spends with the subject material). An easy example is in Ch 1 he brings up the position of God's emotions (quote “Along the same lines, suppose God is a person, that is, a creature or, not to put too fine a point on it, an animal. If so, then, then he is going to have animal like features, including emotions” page 14 soft cover edition). Now, as anyone who has studied the philosophy of religion or theology would be able to explain this is not at all what Christians think of when God is described. So, is God vexed by things (as is suggested by Ruse in the same section)? It seems that Mr Ruse here has the incorrect view of what some Christians state when the term emotions is used. If by an emotion Prof. Ruse means some state that comes upon us in episodes, that varies in intensity or form, has many psychological aspects as well as physiological ones (blood pressure, heart rate etc.) then that is not at all what God “feels”. And I would have assumed Mr Ruse would know these things if he had attempted to take the time to learn what Christians (again some, not meaning to sound like this is reflected with what all Christians believe) think on the topic. God wills sins be punished but has given a way out (the blood of the lamb of God) and only is wrathful towards those who are unrepentant towards their sinful ways. God loves all of us, and that means He wants what is best for us and acts in ways that we may attain what is good for us. So no, the Christian has no real issue with God's emotions since Christians do not assume the emotions are the same we feel. Again, this is such an obvious point that I wonder why he (Dr. Ruse) missed it?And that to me, seems to be the theme of the book. Instead of taking the time to learn what it is that theists of various forms think and believe, he just went to a wiki site and decided that was the extent of his research. Again, I understand he is not a philosopher of religion nor a theologian but that is what made this book rather dull to me. Not the topic itself, I am quite interested in what atheists and theists alike think on the subject of God. But if this is what everyone needs to know about atheism, should we conclude that Prof. Ruse thinks atheism is ill informed and uninterested in learning what someone else thinks, I mean actually thinks instead of the most generalized version of the topic at hand? Is atheism nothing more than a research project badly written by a bored undergraduate philosophy student?In his chapter titled “Questions for Christians” I could not help but ask if he had actually asked any Christians these questions. Again, these are the sorts of questions I would expect from a freshman philosophy student, not the sort of questions from a professional philosopher. In the section titled “What about Jesus” he brings forth several areas of study from the early 19th century. Now, as any Biblical scholar can attest, these new views of Jesus were roundly criticized and answered quite a few decades ago (and are still being answered since they are occasionally brought up by people who read internet posts instead of actual scholarly research on the topic). Sadly enough, none of the other “questions” in this chapter seem at all especially challenging for the theist to answer. Roman Catholicism and the Eastern Orthodox church ( as well as many other denominations of the Christian faith) has been asking and answering these questions, and certainty more profound ones for some time now. How much research did Prof. Ruse actually do here? Are not metaphysical considerations at all important here? Is it really the case that human origins are only the realm of biology alone? Modern biology and original sin are not even remotely in conflict, and many differing branches of the Christian faith teach on this (Pope Pius XII's Humani Generis is but one of many examples). He may think they are, or does not find the answers good enough or thought out well enough, and that seems fine, but does he even attempt to tackle them in this? Again, as I keep asking, where is the genuine questioning of the topic at hand? If he is not interested in what Christians think then fine, but then what really would be the point of asking these questions he does in the chapter (Ch 7)? Again, did he actually ask any Christian these questions? And if he did not bother, then can we presume atheism, in Ruse's view, simply does not care what the answers are?Prof. Ruse wonders if the book was indeed boring, and without a doubt it is. Not because the subject matter is itself boring but the slipshod way he seems to have dealt with it. Again, this book seems little more than an undergraduate research project that was about 100 pages longer than it needed to be. Filled with somewhat superfluous information and seemingly little else. I was hoping for more and am disappointed with the (lack of) content more than anything.Prof. Wilson (back cover recommendation) seems to have praised this work, as he states it is “an excellent scholarly yet very readable account of an important subject...). Not sure I could disagree with this more. Not sure if it was just tedious or dull, lackluster, simplistic or all of these combined.Who should read this book? Very simply put, if you are a reader of the “New Atheists” like Dawkins and Harris or the new writers of this genera like Peter Boghossian then you should read this, if for nothing else then to see some better informed writers like Prof Ruse here (yes, he is far more informed than Dawkins). If you are a theist or believer of some sort then I can not imagine how this book would be anything more than a passing hobby for you. Take a weekend to read it and then not think about it again. The book itself offers little in the way of real intellectual thought and even less of a way to get theists to think through their faith.As an aside, the 2 stars seem a bit generous, but I am hopeful that this book may be followed up with one that is written with a bit more care and careful study of the topic. And I do not want to be considered mean, I am simply offering my thoughts on the book, not a personal critique on the man himself.To quote Prof Ruse one more time “And now, at least as far as I am concerned, you have in your hand Atheism, what everyone needs to know!”, and what everyone needs to know is rather shallow in form and weak in its product. If this is the culmination of all that atheism is, I can only feel sad for those who follow this line of belief. :(

Written with humor and not the usual eclectic, boring "mathematical" proofs. Not out to win for his side, almost presented with a smile and intelligence.

Received as advertised.

Marshalls the facts but in rather too personal and idiosyncratic a way. Long on philosophy and short on psychology.

Just a fairly brief review, or rather opinion of this book: I found it good overall. I expected more discussion and a deeper analysis of the philosophical arguments for the existence of God, rather than the wider remit of analysing atheism as a critique of some aspects of Christianity. I am more interested in the philosophical discussions about the existence of God. But the book is a very good overview of the subject, although it does focus heavily on responding to Christianity mentioning other religions pretty much in passing. Ruse is open about this approach and is not claiming to be offering anything else.It's very clearly and well written, well referenced and easy to read. He's clearly a very talented and knowledgeable scholar. I would much rather read his books than say Dawkins, as Ruse seems far, far less vehement in his views and is open to arguments from believers and seems to weigh them up in a far more balanced way.Occasionally, when presenting an argument the author says things as part of one side of the argument and you think for a while that is his own view. I was confused a little by that. I think it would have been better to pop in a few 'they claim' and 'according to' ... to make things a little clearer.Apart from that, so long as you don't expect too deep an analysis of religious issues then I can recommend this book.