Atheist Universe

The Thinking Person's Answer to Christian Fundamentalism

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

Very clear and concise

The author brings up countless facts that completely destroy theistic ideas. Easy to understand and comprehensive.

Thank you!
Forrest Munden

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.

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.

Fantastic! So validating

I enjoyed the content and delivery of this book very much. The author echoes many of the misgivings that I've had over the past 20 years about Christianity. This is a wonderful book they completely and thoroughly debunks Christian apologetics.

Great Book

This book was a refreshing change from most books on religious topics I've encountered. The author eagerly attacks whatever objections come his way. As soon as I started wondering if he could be proven wrong by some argument he had already started knocking it down. I would recommend this book to anyone who is doubting their current viewpoints and would like to finally be talked to in a straightforward, comprehensive manner.

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.

Worst recording ever

Great book, but the voice over person sucks. Imagine someone doing a poor impression of a cheesy disc jockey introducing love songs on the overnight shift, that's how this guy sounds.

Splendid

I thoroughly enjoyed David Smalley's narration of this well constructed explanation of fact verses fiction on the controversial topics of atheist and theist world views.

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.

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.