Atheist Universe

By: David Mills

Narrated by: David Smalley

Length: 9 hrs and 9 mins

Publisher's Summary

Is there really a God? Or does God exist only in our heads?

Is the Bible truly God's Word? Or is it a jumble of fanciful myths?

Atheist Universe details why God is unnecessary to explain the universe's diversity, organization, and beauty. Using simple, straightforward logic, this audiobook rebuts every argument that claims to "prove" God's existence.

A comprehensive primer for countering today's religious dogma, Atheist Universe addresses all the historical and scientific questions, including:

• What is atheism, and why is it so misunderstood?
• If God is a myth, then how did the universe appear?
• Without God, is there an objective "right" and "wrong"?
• What is the meaning of life without God?
• Is there evidence of Jesus' miracles and resurrection?
• Can atheists explain "near death" experiences and medical miracles?
• Can science and the Bible realistically be reconciled?
• What is the behind-the-scenes relationship between politics and religion?

©2006 David Mills (P)2014 Dogma Debate, LLC

Science trumps magical thinking

Creationist believe silly things based on nothing but intuition and a belief system based on their revealed religion. Even among themselves they will argue about the placement of a comma and will accept what a book written thousands of years ago says over what science, common sense, reason, empirical data and rational thought processes show to be true.

It's incredible that people still reject the fact of evolution (the fossil record exist regardless of what people falsely may believe) and the Theory of Evolution provides the narrative for the explanation of the appearance of design around us. I recently went to a fundamentalist church and the church took it as given the literal truth of Noah's flood and how it explained everything the congregation needed to know about evolution. Yes, there are churches where people actually do believe those kind of things, and books like this one are needed to correct those silly beliefs.

What the book does mostly is show how much funner it is to rely on complicated thought processes to understand than it is to just assume the truth has been revealed to man through magical means and that the same magic never allowed for errors in the translations through millenniums. Give me a world with doubt any day, over a world with certain knowledge based on 2000 year old books. Science only shows things to be less false, but always fascinates. Certainty leads to no growth because nothing else is needed for understanding.

The author goes beyond science and examines what it really means to believe in a holy book such as the bible. He's got a good chapter on "hell" and why it just makes no sense. I would recommend one of my favorite books that dealt with that similar theme and used that as a central character the memoir of Jerry Dewitt "Hope After Faith". It was his non acceptance of hell that led him out of his journey from a Pentecostal Preacher ultimately to an atheist. And does having some one else dying for your sins really make any sense?

I would recommend this as the best book I've read for a fundamentalist who is starting to doubt the revealed truths she's been hearing on Sundays and has started to realize that there is such a thing as science which can explain our place in the universe better than a book which documents a world wide flood and claims animals must come from their 'kind' thus completely rejecting the Theory of Evolution before it was proposed.

I preferred Richard Carrier's book "Sense and Goodness without God" slightly more than this book, but I would rank this book slightly higher for those who haven't read hundreds of science books because this book is definitely less rigorous and more accessible.

10 of 12 people found this review helpful

Strong logical arguments

I found it interesting to realize that this book was one of the first popular books to thoroughly and unabashedly lay out the arguments against theism (specifically Christianity) when it came out in 2004. And as the author points out it was the best selling book on atheism on Amazon for several years until Dawkins's "The God Delusion" came out in 2006. What a short time ago and yet so much progress for atheism has taken place since then and Mills therefore deserves at least some credit for helping to raise the credibility and exposure of the arguments that are becoming part of the discourse. There is not much here that can't be found elsewhere (much produced since this book was published) but he presents the arguments in clear and understandable terms with examples, analogies and metaphors. Like many of the popular atheist authors he clearly uses the book as a platform to launch attacks on individuals who sit on the opposite side of the argument. I never find this constructive and he at times miss construes the points of fundamentalist opening himself up to criticism for use of strawmen. For example his assertion that their only concern for pornography is for youth (vs. also for married people). These quibbles aside, this is a great book for someone looking to get up to speed on a wide range of atheist views particularly if you are looking for very logically structured method (lots of numbered lists of points) versus the conversational style of others like Harris and Hitchens.

2 of 2 people found this review helpful

Terrific, clear, and compelling

David Mills has put together a wonderful book articulating the atheist position. It is mostly about challenging Intelligent Design, but there are several chapters arguing against typical Christian orthodoxy that are very well put together. In the introduction, Mills stresses how much time he spends making his writing clear, concise, and free of jargon and it shows. It is a very tightly organized and efficient book. He covers more in his book than ones twice as long. It also puts him in a solid position to criticize ID and Creation Science advocates for writing in very convoluted ways in order to sound more scientific.

The narrator was quite good, though there were a few mispronunciations that stood out, but didn't detract from the overall message.

Also, Mills spends a fair bit of time criticizing Christian Fundamentalists and frequently lumps them in with overall Christian believers. He lives in the southern US so I have no doubt a large percentage of Christians are fundamentalists. Out here in the more liberal West we don't see that many and the Christians are much more "reasonable", but the overall arguments are very sound regardless.

If you are interested in this kind of book, I definitely would add this to your reading list next to Dawkins and Harris.

4 of 5 people found this review helpful

1 of the best atheist books I've read

And I've read around 35 atheist books. This is in the top 5. Well thought out. Very inspiring, and critical thought provoking.

3 of 4 people found this review helpful

Good Book

What did you love best about Atheist Universe?

Covers most arguments and move my Richard Dawkins' atheist scale from 6.0 to 6.9. Only if this book can be a required reading in Churches then we may have a different and a better world.

Have you listened to any of David Smalley’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

Very Good

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

Yes

Any additional comments?

In the Audio book version I believe there is a mistake in Indian ocean tsunami dates. It should be 26 Dec 2004 and not 26 Dec 2006 I think I heard.

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

Great content, mediocre delivery

I really enjoyed the approach this author took to his subject matter. It was well researched and updated from its original release. I would definitely purchase additional titles by him. My only complaint, and it's a minor one, is the inability of the narrator to pronounce several words correctly. There were several "nails on the blackboard" moments that could have been avoided. All in all, a great book.

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

Ad hominem logic failure

Although organized religion has failures which have attracted this type of opinionated and venomous indulgent nonsense from this pseudo-intellectual, this string of ad hominem fallacies does nothing to diminish intelligent design arguments. I recommend it for those who enjoy listening to sad comedy to sharpen their intellects and strengthen their Deist or theists beliefs. Thank you for that opportunity, Mr Mills.

pretty good

with so many good and simple arguments against fundamentalism he chose a few that are far to complicated to realistically think they will ever come up in casual debate.
that said, a very good book and worth the entertaining and informative read. does a great job of playing devils advocate and teaching a nonbeliever the believer's side of the argument.

No New but Complete, Concise and Well Reasoned Q&A

I heard no new facts but it discusses all the relevant “arguments” raised by mythical believers, with some focus on born-agains, and takes them apart factually and rationally. Great if you have “that” friend or family member.

Intelligent and well researched

If you could sum up Atheist Universe in three words, what would they be?

Take down (of) Christianity

What was one of the most memorable moments of Atheist Universe?

The first chapter when the author is being interviewed.

Have you listened to any of David Smalley’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

Have not listened to other performances, but he was really good. I plan to seek him out in the future.

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

I found the author's arguments extremely compelling. While listening, I couldn't help feel that all of the detailed arguments that he made should not be necessary. It's like spending a lot of time and energy writing a thesis about why Santa Claus really doesn't exist.

Any additional comments?

Highly recommended. One of the best in the genre.

An excellent listen

Really good discussion of current theistic beliefs and their rebuttals. The first chapter was my favorite, but it was entertaining and enlightening throughout.

3 of 3 people found this review helpful

Very little info about atheism

99% of this book is about pulling religion to pieces which, ironically, is preaching to the converted. As far as the prime mover is concerned the author reserves the right to say ‘I don’t know’ Still quite an interesting listen.