The Atheist's Guide to Reality: Enjoying Life without Illusions

by Alex Rosenberg

A book for nonbelievers who embrace the reality-driven life. We can't avoid the persistent questions about the meaning of life-and the nature of reality. Philosopher Alex Rosenberg maintains that science is the only thing that can really answer them―all of them. His bracing and ultimately upbeat book takes physics seriously as the complete description of reality and accepts all its consequences. He shows how physics makes Darwinian natural selection the only way life can emerge, and how that deprives nature of purpose, and human action of meaning, while it exposes conscious illusions such as free will and the self. The science that makes us nonbelievers provides the insight into the real difference between right and wrong, the nature of the mind, even the direction of human history. The Atheist's Guide to Reality draws powerful implications for the ethical and political issues that roil contemporary life. The result is nice nihilism, a surprisingly sanguine perspective atheists can happily embrace.

Genres: Philosophy, Atheism, Science, Nonfiction, Religion, Spirituality, Evolution

368 pages, Hardcover

First published September 26, 2011

About the author

Alex Rosenberg's first novel, "The Girl From Krakow," is a thriller that explores how a young woman and her lover navigate the dangerous thirties, the firestorm of war in Europe, and how they make sense of their survival. Alex's second novel, "Autumn in Oxford" is a murder mystery set in Britain in the late 1950s. It takes the reader back to the second world war in the American south and England before D-day, France during the Liberation and New York in the late '40s. It will be published by Lake Union in August.

Before he became a novelist Alex wrote a large number of books about the philosophy of science, especially about economics and biology. These books were mainly addressed to other academics. But in 2011 Alex published a book that explores the answers that science gives to the big questions of philosophy that thinking people ask themselves--questions about the nature of reality, the meaning of life, moral values, free will, the relationship of the mind to the brain, and our human future. That book, "The Atheist's Guide to Reality," was widely reviewed and was quite controversial.

When he's not writing historical novels, Alex Rosenberg is a professor of philosophy at Duke University.

Reviews

[Travis · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book argues unapologetically and brazenly for scientism, physicalist reduction, and complete nihilism. There is little nuance here and a flippant dismissal of the humanities as irrelevant because they do not examine their subject matter in scientific terms.

The book is too long, the prose is often stolid and boring, and the examples used are all too well known to anyone who reads popular science books on biology, evolution, physics, and cosmology. There is really nothing new in this book other than the extremism of its materialistic conclusions.

The author--who chairs the philosophy department at Duke University--denigrates, to a great degree, his own profession and enthrones science as the only epistemologically legitimate enterprise for us to learn about ourselves.

The author also launches a sustained attack on intentionality: he denies that our thoughts are about anything at all: rather, he argues in behavioristic terms that thoughts are just neural activities in response to various stimuli. Granted, thoughts may be these neural activities, but I disagree strongly with his assertion that they are not "about" anything: the author seems to be using the term "about" in a most idiosyncratic way, and if we take him seriously, all his own arguments are undercut and even this book is completely meaningless.

I think that many atheists--even Dawkins and Hitchens--would find this book too extreme in its dismissal of the humanities and actually even philosophically (and I hate to say this because the author certainly must be a first-rate philosopher in order to have attained his position at Duke) simplistic and just plain wrong in its treatment of intentionality.

[Adam Omelianchuk · Rating 3 out of 5]

Alex Rosenberg's The Atheist's Guide to Reality is a hard-nosed and unsentimental answer to "the persistent questions," the sort of questions that keep one awake at night in a state of wonder or terror. The eminent philosopher of science from Duke University unhesitatingly offers the following answers to these softs of questions:

1. Is there a God? No.
2. What is the nature of reality? What physics says it is.
3. What is the purpose of the universe? There is none.
4. What is the meaning of life? Ditto.
5. Why am I here? Just dumb luck.
6. Does prayer work? Of course not.
7. Is there a soul? Is it immortal? Are you kidding?
8. Is there free will? Not a chance!
9. What happens when I die? Everything pretty much goes on as before, except us.
10. Why should I be moral? Because it makes you feel better than being immoral.
11. Is abortion, euthanasia, suicide, paying taxes, foreign aid, or anything else you don't like forbidden, permissible, or sometimes obligatory? Anything goes.
12. What is love, and how can I find it? Love is the solution to a strategic interaction problem. Don't look for it; it will find you when you need it.
13. Does history have any meaning or purpose? It's full of sound and furry, but signifies nothing.
14. Does the human past have any lessons for our future? Fewer and fewer, if it ever had any to begin with.

Through twelve delightfully written chapters, Rosenberg unflinchingly explains why our scientific knowledge-the only kind of knowledge we can trust-ought to lead us (especially those of us who call ourselves `atheists') to these answers. He has little patience for `New Atheist' writers like Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, and Sam Harris as he thinks there is little point in wresting unbelief out of believers through rational argument. And why should he when he is committed these propositions?

1. The methods of science are the only reliable ways to secure knowledge of anything.
2. The physical facts fix all the facts.
3. Evolution conditioned us to believe stories rather than the deliverances of science.
4. There are no objective moral facts-nihilism is the case.
5. Introspection is an unreliable source of knowledge.
6. There is no intentionality-one clump of matter cannot be ABOUT another.
7. The mind is identical with the brain and mental states are just brain states.
8. Hard determinism is true and therefore there is nothing we deserve; meriting praise or blame makes no sense.
9. Existential despair (and other problems) can, in principle, be cured through taking Prozac and other psychotropic drugs.
10. All the "soft sciences" like economics, psychology, and sociology are hopelessly unreliable and offer nothing of value to guide us through life.

This unusual embrace of "scientism" sets Rosenberg apart from other atheists that are content to remain "naturalists"-the sort of atheists who try to hang on to things like morality and intentionality. Or so says Rosenberg. His is the path atheists must take to live a life "without illusions," though, he tacitly admits, he is glad that are some of them still around.(It would be very bad if there weren't a "core morality" in place to keep us from raping and pillaging each other!)

All this raises the question: is Rosenberg's book a good guide to reality for the atheist? If it is, then I think it provides some very good reasons to reject atheism. For all his bluster about scientism, there is not a single page that deals with this intuitive argument:

1. The methods of science are the only reliable ways to secure knowledge of anything (premise).
2. Premise 1 cannot be secured by the methods of science (1 is ranged over by "anything").
3. Therefore, the the methods of science are not the only reliable ways to secure knowledge (MT 1, 2).

The closest Rosenberg comes to justifying premise 1 is by appealing to the stunning technological success we have achieved through the physical sciences, but this is an absurdly weak inductive inference for such a strong claim. There simply is no good reason to believe premise 1 is true.

His treatment of morality is more interesting as I largely agree that the Euthyphro dilemma can applied to ethical naturalism. What makes our `core morality' moral? Either it is moral because the Darwinian mechanism selected it, or it is selected because it is moral. If it is the latter, ethical naturalism is false because there would be a set of nonnatural moral facts that stand independent of the physical facts that select them. If it is the former, then morality is arbitrary. Therefore, there is no objective morality, and whatever core morality we have is in place just because it was selected for survival (but things could have been very different).

Well and good, but then what to make of the argument from evil? Rosenberg, like any atheist worth his salt, deploys the problem of evil by noting that the horrors of the 20th century make reality rough enough already without God, and much worse if we add "a moral monster who arranged it all to happen." But the problem of evil is a problem precisely because evil is a part of reality, yet Rosenberg's metaphysics (which is just a commitment physics) leaves no room for an objective evil. If there is no objective evil, then there is no problem of evil! If this is not the case, then the following response is available to the theist:

1. If God did not exist, then objective values would not exist.
2. Evil exists.
3. Therefore, objective values exist (from the definition of evil)
4. Therefore, God exists.

In either case the problem of evil is a problem or it is not. If it is, then scientism is false; and if not, then it is not available as an objection to theism.

There is more that could be said about Rosenberg's elimination of intentionality and the claim that introspection is unreliable, but will suffice to say that if he is right about these, then it is not clear why science would be a helpful guide to understand reality. Do we not rely on introspection to recall scientific facts and theorems and do we not think ABOUT the things we are observing? If it really is the case that no clump of matter thinks ABOUT another clump of matter, then neither does a clump of matter do science ABOUT another clump of matter, nor does one clump of matter come to know anything through science ABOUT another clump of matter. Certainly atheists can find a more reliable guide to reality than this.

At any rate, Rosenberg's romp through life's ultimate questions is as fun as it is infuriating and for that reason alone he should be read widely by anyone who takes no comfort in illusions.

[Socraticgadfly · Rating 1 out of 5]

Alex Rosenberg is a poor man's Sam Harris, and friends of mine who know what I think about Harris know just how much of an insult this is.

This is hardcore scientism, which then leads to greedy reductionism within the sciences, according to Rosenberg. (All sciences lead to physics.)

Next, the head of the philosophy department of a major university makes half of a hash out of nihilism.

But, wait, it gets worse!

Rosenberg then claims that because introspection about ourselves is inaccurate that that, per David Hume, consciousness as understood by folk psychology doesn't exist, determinism is the only option. This false dilemma, which is a false dilemma whether classical ideas of consciousness exist or not, should have been shot dead long ago. Even worse, a philosopher who gives a clear hat tip to Dan Dennett should have entertained something like an idea of "something like free will" for subconscious subselves.

I wouldn't let a dog read this if it were trying to teach itself Buddha nature.

If you want sound philosophical thinking, including on the sciences, without scientism, from someone with graduate degrees in both philosophy and biology, I heartily recommend Massimo Pigliucci instead of this.

[Marjorie Elwood · Rating 1 out of 5]

This was a difficult book to rate since I agree with his conclusions but was unimpressed by his arguments which I found repetitive and impenetrable. He seemed fond of fobbing off the answers of difficult questions on what will be discovered by neuroscientists in the future. I also had questions about the accuracy of some of his facts, as have others, apparently: in the copy I read of the book, there were notes written in pencil by readers who questioned his facts.

There was the occasional (to me) surprise, such as the information about blindsight - "seeing things when you don't have a conscious visual experience of them". And reading the philosophical arguments he presented was interesting. However, I downgraded my rating of this book near the end of it, as his pompous take on both the humanities and humans ("Games are fun, and gamesmanship is the (naturally selected) function of many of the disagreements that divert the chattering classes.") was a little difficult to take.

[Bob Pearson · Rating 3 out of 5]

For the first half of this book, Rosenberg seems right on track. No fact that is known about the workings of the universe exists outside the laws of physics. Physics and physics alone explains all that we count as knowledge of the universe. Of course, there are a vast number of things we can't explain about the universe, but so far, every time an explanation has been found, that explanation has come from physics. "Everything in the universe is made up of the stuff that physics tells us fills up space and can explain how everything in the universe works, in principle and in practice, better than anything else" to paraphrase Rosenberg's approach. Further, that physics has produced everything that exists in the world of chemistry, down to all that fills the animate and inanimate world, and, of course, including us humans. As he puts it, physics explains chemistry and chemistry explains biology. I am still trying to grasp what the "Second Law of Thermodynamics" really is, but the import of it for Rosenberg seems to be that energy is always used and never re-created and thus time can only move in the one direction which leads to all energy's final exhaustion, in all its dimensions. All this is logical, if decidedly unpleasant to accept.

Then, for me, he derails. He gets perilously close to saying that since the brain/mind is just chemistry, all our thoughts and behavior are pre-determined and human culture has no means of moving beyond the efficient randomness of evolution that gave rise to homo sapiens. Grudgingly, he admits that we may be able to learn from our mistakes, but insists that morality has no higher call on humans than does destructive behavior. In not making room for the very thing he represents -- humans delving into the deepest questions of existence -- he denies the power of humans to discover the Divine and to aspire to draw closer to that Divinity in behavior and in thought.

In choosing Epicurus as his model, Rosenberg fails to offer much more than "enjoy yourself" as the model for an good life. Alain de Botton in "Religion for Atheists" presents a much better approach -- stressing a theme that Bibilical scholars will instantly recognize -- true knowledge must lead to greater wisdom. In this case, despite some very interesting ideas, the author failed to offer much wisdom for us to draw from his extensive knowledge.

[Tucker · Rating 3 out of 5]

A take-no-hostages approach that I wanted to like but found significantly flawed.

To begin with, take a look at the author's statement in the Preface that the answers to the existential questions "are all as certain as the science on which our atheism is grounded. An unblinking scientific worldview requires atheism." Looks like a circular statement: Atheism is grounded on science which requires atheism.

Toward the end, he distinguishes between the strong view of "fatalism" (e.g. you will eventually die no matter what) and the weaker view of "determinism" (e.g. the manner of your death hangs on your choices). Yet he also says that there is no free will. If we do not freely control our behavior relating to health and safety (or anything else), then what's the difference between fatalism and determinism? You can say that a person's death by gang violence was "determined" by their choice to run with gangs, but if they never had a "choice" who they befriended because there is no such thing as free will, then their manner of death was really "fated," not just "determined." This is never flagged by the author.

I appreciate some elements of the chapter on morality. On a high-level overview, I agree with what he had to say. Thoughts, feelings, and social behaviors evolved through natural selection because they contribute to fitness for survival and reproduction. Morality is a subset of thoughts, feelings, and social behavior. Therefore, morality, too, is a product of natural selection. This explains why there is a more or less universal "core morality," generically referencing kindness, fairness, and so on, intuitively shared by all humans. On this analysis, it is nonsensical to say that any specific moral approach is "right" or "true" from an objective, aerial view. There is no way to judge, apart from how real people actually think, feel, and act – and we think, feel, and act in accordance with the way we have evolved. We are not impartial judges. We only have access to our own introspection, which is only a mess of illusions generated by our brains that have evolved to craft illusions in a certain way because those illusions benefit the survival of the species. Humans generally object to causing gratuitous harm to small children (especially those within our own groups) because it damages prospects of group survival to do so, so, through the process of natural selection, we have evolved strong emotions such as "moral outrage" that spur us to discourage behaviors that would harm small children. This is not the same as saying that there are actual moral truths about how to treat small children, or about anything else. (Where would actual moral truths exist – pinned on skyhooks?) Moral thought and feeling, like everything else in our conscious mind, is an illusion. I rather agreed with this part of the book, and, although the author never mentioned it, it is consistent with some Eastern philosophy. All thought is a kind of illusion. Fine. What else would it be made of, peanut butter?

What bothered me in this exposition was a failure of terminology or conceptual distinction. Having claimed that the physical brain is an illusion-generator, the author alternates between saying that (a) our illusions have a certain kind of reality within their own internal logic and in the way that we act them out, and (b) that illusions are flat-out nonexistent and that there is no way to judge them as true or false. He needed to define some vocabulary to distinguish these two realms. There certainly is – I would say, though many would disagree with me – a level apart from humanity on which it is impossible to make sense of human behavior or take sides in what people "ought" to do. It would be like a person looking at an ant colony and attempting to judge what the ants "ought" to do, rather than simply observing what the ants are doing. We humans are physical beings just as ants are. There is a level on which some hypothetical non-human observer could see us as nothing more than that, and absent their own prejudice, would have no way to judge us. On the other hand, we humans don't operate on that non-human level. We are within the system. We can refer to "right and wrong" as evaluated by different methods within our own systems of various kinds (cultural, legal, religious, philosophical, and so forth), and when we do so, it is a pragmatic way of for us to understand and control our behavior. It is probably essential for us to do so. We wouldn't want to be nihilists in this respect. We can assess "right and wrong" on the ground level regardless of our opinion about whether it has a reality on some greater metaphysical level. Only when we more fully succumb to the illusion that there is a "right and wrong" hanging on skyhooks – unverifiable, unfalsifiable, and useless – have we erred, been led astray and been consumed by our once-useful illusion. It is probably a good idea to be nihilistic about these fanciful skyhooks, but not about the more modest morality-in-context. Again, I agreed with the author's point in this regard, but I don't think he presented it clearly. I saw it and was able to tease it out only because I've spent many hours attuning myself to this particular kind of claim.

I did appreciate that Rosenberg distinguished his view from the one presented by Sam Harris in The Moral Landscape. Harris argued that science can help us arrive at the correct moral answers, insofar as morality is about meeting or maximizing welfare and insofar as science is best positioned to evaluate what actually contributes to welfare. Rosenberg is saying, more radically, that there are no correct moral answers about anything, because once you step back far enough and take a scientific worldview, science reveals morality itself to be an illusion and the notion of moral correctness to be wholly inapplicable. This, to me, seems to be the better position. It is not obvious to me that there are facts about human welfare, since it seems to be a fuzzy, movable, subjective thing. It seems truer to observe that a scientific approach is likely to explode the concept of welfare, at least outside of the limited realm of fitness according to natural selection.

The other thing I struggled with was his general claim that science, particularly physics, tells us what actually exists, while the humanities are a waste of time because they are concerned with things like human purpose and motive as expressed in stories, which science can show to be illusory. Physics shows that the world is made of elementary particles that are either fermions (matter) or bosons (force). On the interpretation of physics, when people storytell, they are just percolating fermions in their head and shoving bosons out their mouth. I was bothered by this because I sense that the observation is used selectively to cast as nonsense and thereby shut down any speech he doesn't care for. (It didn't stop him from releasing his own book.)

Never mind the irritating, unsupported claim that scientists generally have a much better understanding of the humanities than vice versa. His statement that a clever scientist pulled the word "quark" from James Joyce does not, as he seems to think, serve as a knock-down argument that physicists know literature better than scholars of literature know physics. And, even if that generalization is true, it isn't shocking. Many branches of science are specialized and require dedicated study, while the humanities are so called because they aim to describe and appeal to human experience in a more universal way.

I am somewhat receptive to the possibility of, but not convinced by, his claim that science is the best way to accurately understand human nature and find solutions to existential questions while the humanities are just voluntary wallows in the morass of mental illusion. There are some fundamental assumptions here that he failed to examine. First, science does not issue pronouncements in a non-human vacuum; it is practiced by humans who must contend with their biases, hopes, interests, and other mental illusions that drive their pursuit, understanding, and communication of scientific fact. Furthermore, the idea that the best way to understand a living being or system is to reduce it to a dead thing that can be dissected and catalogued has historically been a Western scientific assumption and it may not be correct. What if the exploration of what it feels like to be an existential being, from the inside out, can provide information that physics cannot? Especially given the option that someone can (if they try) engage in stories, art, music, and so forth with the conscious, ironic awareness that their own consciousness is a kind of illusion? And what if, aside from the fact of the matter about our existential questions, the type of answers that will make us happiest are those that we can generate from the experiential point of view of a human being and not those arrived at by an inscrutable equation? One might answer that we ought to recognize our happiness as simply another kind of illusion, and this we can do, but why would it be an illusion that we would want to discard?

[Jason Mahoney · Rating 5 out of 5]

A compelling defense of materialism supported by science no tougher than that which you learned in high school. Rosenberg can be a flip wiseass at times, but I say this to compliment him.

[Beauregard Bottomley · Rating 4 out of 5]

In a lot of ways this book is the summation of the 100 plus science, evolution, and philosophy books I've read over the last three years. To understand our place in the universe the author asserts you must let the "physical facts fit the facts". No need to assume any items not in evidence. We don't any where else in life except in the spiritual realm and so why should we accept those premises while thinking about the universe.

To understand the universe and our place in it one most first understand the second law of thermodynamics and the author does a wonderful job in explaining it and why it is so special. He then gives a detail explanation for why evolution through natural selection can explain the world and why we exist in contrast to Kant's assertion "that there will never be an Newton for a blade of grass".

The author attacks the theory of mind by explaining how are thoughts are not real and our introspection are at most just a model we play with but gives us great evolutionary advantage. He's really getting at attacking Descarte's "cogito ergo sum", "I think therefore I am" and Descartes' homunculus or Lebnitz's monads are not facts necessary for understanding the world. He embraces 'scientism' and he convinced me not to run away from the word. He's right on consciousness but sometimes I don't says it as well as Daniel Dennett does.

He also embraces 'nice nihilism', but I would not because there is really too much preexisting baggage with the word 'nihilism'. The author also gives many statements for which I disagreed with. For example, I don't think "history is Bunk with a capital B" (that is a direct quote). The author would probably agree with Protagoras that "man is the measure of all things" and since who we are can explain why we are I'm not too quick to dismiss history. I think he's really getting at the teleology historical approach that Hegel or Toynbee would bring (he mentioned Toynbee but doesn't elaborate). He also seems to dismiss economics. I would recommend Picketty's book "Capital in the 21st Century" for why I would not reject economics so quickly as the author does. He fumbles somewhat in explaining consciousness and Dennett does a better job by describing our consciousness as the final draft of an ever changing edit that is only captured when we speak the thought or think it actively. The author is right consciousness is an illusion, but it's an illusion we accept. And does everyone who has depression really need to take Prosaic? as the author suggest.

Dennett's books "Consciousness Explained", "Darwin's Dangerous Ideas", and "Freewill" cover the same topics as this short book, but I'm always reluctant to recommend Dennett because he can be dense reading for others but I do love him so. Dennett explains almost every concept within this book, but he does it much better and more nuanced.

Overall a very good book, but I really would recommend Dennett instead.

[Todd Martin · Rating 1 out of 5]

I found The Atheist's Guide to Reality to be unbearable (as a disclaimer, I found it to be so pointless I quit about a quarter of the way through, so maybe it picks up later on … but I doubt it).

Rosenberg, a Professor of Philosophy at Duke University, argues that science in general (and physics in particular) is the only true path to understanding the world (a world view he dubs ‘scientism’). Via a series of pedantic and mind-numbingly dull steps he claims to show that:
- Life has no intrinsic meaning
- Morality is whatever we decide it is
- Free will is an illusion
- Consciousness and human behavior are products of natural selection

I have no issue with the conclusions Rosenberg draws, but the approach he takes to making his case is to use the basic concepts of physics (namely the 2nd law of thermodynamics, which he seems to fetishize in an unseemly fashion) to derive his conclusions from the bottom up. Thus he spends pages and pages attempting to reinvent Darwin’s theory of natural selection using entropy as a starting point. The point of such an exercise escapes me.

First – this is a terrible way to explain natural selection.
Second – it serves no purpose … an off-the-wall pen and paper philosophical explanation of natural selection isn’t needed when mountains of physical and theoretical evidence exists that support the theory.
Third – the tedium of the explanation is matched only by the level to which it bored me to death (which, by the way, is a product of the 2nd law of thermodynamics … as your body decays it breaks down into its constituent molecules, becoming less ordered, thereby increasing entropy).

Yes, the book is just like that.

Rosenberg also claims that Darwin erred when he named his theory ‘natural selection’ and should, instead, have gone with the title ‘environmental filtration’ (despite the fact that it sounds like a function that might be performed by the colon or kidney). Perhaps Rosenberg isn’t aware that Darwin used the term ‘natural selection’ to distinguish his theory from ‘artificial selection’ which was (and is) commonly used to create desirable plant and animal traits through selective breeding. Also, he may not be aware that he didn’t do the hard work of coming up with an original and revolutionary theory that serves as the foundation of the entire field of biology and therefore doesn’t get to name it.

The New Republic dubbed The Atheist's Guide to Reality the worst book of 2011. Although it is indeed bad, I have a hard time believing this claim given the fact that this was also the year in which Dick and Liz Cheney’s In My Time: A Personal and Political Memoir was released.

Since I was getting nothing from the book and am even bored by the act of writing this review, I’ll move on.

[Petr · Rating 4 out of 5]

CZ/EN
Nejsme nic víc, než složitě uspořádaná hmota, fyzika (a materiální svět) určují vše co je a zbytek jsou jen ptákoviny. Nějak podobně (a velmi hrubě) by šlo knihu shrnout. I sám autor někdy své názory představí celkem v rychlosti, ale alespoň je kniha čitelná a nepříliš dlouhá. Komu by to nestačilo, v závěru je uvedeno mnoho literatury ze které Rosenberg vycházel.

Osobně se domnívám, že však pro kohokoliv, kdo se považuje za ateistu, materialistu nebo prostě věří, že fyzika je základem našich znalostí o světě, by si tohoto průvodce měl přečíst.

EN:
"There is no God, Summer. Gotta rip that band-aid off now you’ll thank me later." Rick

I think I liked the book because it hit the strings that already sounded a few times in the past but instead of just playing a nice tune on them rocked away with a guitar solo.

This book is quite mind bending. It might be not that much convincing for someone who is a deep believer in some religion or mystic arts, but for someone who believes in science and did not go too deep into philosophy Rosenberg presents a harsh case for a Rick&Morty style view of life - we are nothing else than complex matter systems. We do not have introspection, actually there is not even a me. Basically it reminded me of a buddhist message without any mysticism.

Some parts of the book bring forth very controversial statements (e.g., for me sending the whole of humanities to the bin is too harsh and in some aspects seems to show a lack of understanding of some of them).

[Otto Lehto · Rating 3 out of 5]

Is Prozac+nihilism the antidote to the existential pain that comes from living a life without illusions? It is according to Dr. Rosenberg. Despite the hedonistic reference to "enjoyment" in the title, the book offers little guidance to secular enjoyment and pleasure. The only pleasure in the book is the merciless glee with which the author ridicules lofty theological pretensions and common sense fallacies that run counter to Rosenberg's reductionist reading of naturalism. In his quest to provide a guide to reality, Rosenberg demolishes all sacred cows and arguably even a few sacrificial lambs that didn't need to be demolished (but more on that later). The negative vibe of the author acts as a stopgap for positive psychology. Perhaps this is exactly what people need to hear in an age of comfortable illusions. The harsh pill to swallow is sometimes the only cure.

I fully agree with the Epicurean message that gives priority to physics as the foundation of everything else. However, I am not sure that Rosenberg does full justice to the beauty and majesty of that world view and its capacity to generate feelings of awe, elation, happiness, and optimism in our nervous system(s). Rosenberg dismisses the positive side of "secular humanism" and thereby cuts the cord of one of the most potent memes capable of stirring human souls to cooperation and transcendence. In so doing, he abolishes one of the few remaining bastions of a natural high available to a naturalist. No wonder, then, that he turns to Prozac as the antidote. This choice of Prozac, too, is in bad taste, since it ignores the superior powers of illicit and controlled substances like LSD to elicit positive change in patients suffering from depression and meaninglessness. In this regard, Harris, Dawkins, and Hitchens - all in their own way - offer a sweeter deal: you can abandon your God delusions and still enjoy a life full of meaning, pleasure, and glory. I think we need a bit more Spinoza and Nietzsche to give us that extra oomph of naturalistic pleasure.

That said, there is one regard in which Rosenberg does a better job than any of the above writers. In this age of sugar coated truths and secular illusions, it is absolutely refreshing to read a book that pulls no punches and goes all the way towards a reductionist world view. Rosenberg's pithy answers to the Big Questions are outrageously to the point and unencumbered by nuance. Going all the way towards nihilism feels like a breath of fresh air when even most of the atheistic community claims to believe in some form of moral goodness. And fighting hard for the eliminativist view according to which mental states are not and cannot be "about" anything is brave if not wholly convincing. A lack of sentimental attachment might be a necessary step to truth.

80% of Rosenberg's claims might be hard to swallow to most people but unfortunately they follow from the scientific evidence: There is no God, afterlife, free will, or moral truth. The 20% where I disagree is also where I don't think the scientific evidence is quite so clear. In rejecting the humanities and social sciences as "unscientific" and therefore as of little theoretical value seems to me to be unwarranted. This is not to deny that much of what is currently being taught in those fields is miserable. But to dismiss history, economics, and the humanities as mostly uninteresting is to underestimate the instructive power of those disciplines. I don't think that studying "bosons and fermions" or Darwinian natural selection is going to "fix all the facts" when we think about the cause and effect relationships in social evolution. There is a lot to be learned by developing better psychological and sociological models to analyse and predict the causal relationship between, say, human propensity to warfare and the development of nuclear weaponry. Or to analyse our moral intuitions and economic incentives when we design a fair system of proportional representation. Or when we analyse Greek poetry for guidance in developing a healthy business environment.

Overall, the book is very useful as a hard-nosed atheist manifesto. It dares to point out several facts that need to be pointed out. And it dares to go beyond most previous attempts at doing so. However, it understates the importance of agnosticism and skepticism as methodological tools to keep our hubris in check. Any scientific method worthy of the name will need to be more humble about its claims in all domains of life since we know so little about the nature of the universe. Some pills are hard to swallow, yes, but if the patient refuses to swallow a pill that that would have saved him simply because the doctor's attitude struck him as unconvincing, the doctor is to blame. Every hospital requires one Dr. Rosenberg to administer the nihilism+Prozac (step 1 of the therapy) and one Dr. Non-Rosenberg to administer the secular humanism+LSD (step 2 of the therapy). Perhaps you may be able to ditch the Prozac if you offer people the latter. But keep the nihilism.

[Al Bità · Rating 4 out of 5]

Right from the beginning Rosenberg states that his book is only for atheists. He advises the reader that he takes basic atheistic concepts as being just that: fundamental to what reality is all about. Thus: there is no god; reality is what physics tells us it is (there is no such thing as metaphysics — just physics); there is no purpose to the universe; we do not have souls; there is no ultimate purpose to our lives; we do not have free will. The book, therefore, does not argue about these things, but takes them as the current status. The last section of the book sets out what Rosenberg calls the Backstory: publications which set out the established scientific arguments which render this stance a fait accompli, and the interested reader can follow these up at their leisure — they do not otherwise appear as arguments in the book but as facts. Rosenberg wants to push the idea of science and scientism as the only possible way forward.

While some might quibble about this stance, there is some justification for it. Too often we find authors arguing that they find this approach too hard, and somehow too dismissive of history as we know it. Rosenberg suggests that this is too timid an approach; that often our fears are based on a no-longer-tenable distinction between matter and 'spirit'; that crossing the line between this arbitrary line and looking at the situation from the other side (as it were) is not as devastating as we might think. Maintaining the distinction, however, prevents us from truly exploring a full scientific understanding of ourselves and the world we live in, and merely delays the further evolution of scientism.

To assist waverers, Rosenberg suggests some hard decisions that need to be made: we need, he argues, to free ourselves from the tyranny of stories — they merely affirm mostly unscientific beliefs such as souls, spirits, vampires, werewolves, ghosts, individualism, purpose, free will, etc. The history of humanity so far indicates that story-telling is something innate; however that innateness is not something spiritual, but something resulting from millennia of surviving on our planet: i.e. it is an evolutionary development of our brains and our bodies to assist us in our survival. Thus all these beliefs are illusions of the body which the body has evolved, and are therefore products of matter. Once that position is established, one then needs to work out how and why this has happened — and contemporary developments in such things as neuroscience is for the first time ever, providing some clues. So: 'stories' should be eschewed, and facts established. Similarly history — all history — is bunkum: alternative histories show us that and one history is merely one way of viewing far more complex situations than any one individual history can provide.

On the charge that this leads to a kind of nihilism (something we all 'fear') this is answered by asserting that there exists what Rosenberg calls a 'nice nihilism', one based on facts that, when put into social and individual contexts, will help us all the more to be more tolerant, understanding and humane towards one another than we have been so far. So essentially, Rosenberg dares us to step through the walls of illusions we have erected about ourselves and others, and we will all be better off as a result. There is nothing to be afraid of except fear itself…

[Peter · Rating 5 out of 5]

Stunning, of you are new to philosophy or atheism, try something gentle first , then come back to this. Otherwise, hold on for a wild ride.

[Erika · Rating 3 out of 5]

As much as I appreciate a lot of the work then went into formulating the argumentation for the thesis, primarily in the first half of the book, I do have some issues.

Rosenberg's claims about consciousness as non-existent felt a tad bit too rushed, considering how much about the human mind remains unexplained by neuroscience, and relying on a very literal almost primitive understanding of "aboutness" and purpose. Even if the science was in fact entirely correct, a lot of my issues with this book stemmed from the total dismissal of human phenomenological reality. One cannot simply reject the "illusion of consciousness" and continue to operate in ordinary life, which is entirely premised on this illusion. Illusory or not, there is an extent to which our perception of reality is more valid than the scientific truth. The real questions should concern precisely how to approach those contradictions. However, in lieu, this book offers nothing but smug well actuallys and prozac.

Similarly, although I really enjoyed the explanation of the Darwinian development of core morality, the dismissal of fascism as mere inevitable variations in the gene pool just doesn't sit right with me.

Finally, the author entirely dismisses the humanities and to a large extent social sciences, merely on the basis of their inability to make predictions within a scientific framework, which is a questionable value system at best. As another reviewer put it: "studying "bosons and fermions" or Darwinian natural selection is going to "fix all the facts" when we think about the cause and effect relationships in social evolution." Of course, the value of humanities particularly lays far more in developing empathy and critical thinking (though I suppose, since it is apparently impossible to have conscious thoughts and unless you are a moral monster, empathy is hardwired by evolution anyways, those do not matter to Rosenberg.)

Though quite a lot of the book carries in the smug tone of a pretentious 14yo who just read Nietzche's Wikipedia page, I could get passed this, if any solid conclusions were offered. Unfortunately, in the last chapter "Living with Scientism", after for one last time jerking off on the shocking conclusions he just made, Rosenberg in all seriousness prescribes the reader a number of anti-depressive drugs. How does such an approach to ignoring the meaninglessness of life differ from the Sunday church or the occasional visit to the chakra healer, in terms of entertaining delusions, he fails to explain. As convinced of an atheist as I am, if the choice is between believing in illusions, or widely medicalizing ourselves in order to accept this stripped-down, entirely physical view of reality - our father who art in heaven...

Just read the Myth of Sysiphus, I beg of you

[Jc · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a book that is NOT for people thinking about whether or not there is a god. The author assumes you already made that decision. As he states "[t]his is a book for atheists." I really enjoyed reading the book, and arguing with his details. If this work has a flaw, it may be that he attempted to do too much with it -- basically covering every major division of basic disciplines (e.g., science, history, philosophy, communication arts), and tries to show how each is affected by the same philosophical underpinning [i.e., centered in the basic physics of the universe] once gods are out of the picture. To quote, "Reality is rough. But it could have been worse. We could have been faced with reality in all its roughness PLUS a God who made it that way." I only took away one star because I thought a couple of his connective arguments were a bit forced (with some slight philosophical fallacies marring the logical flow). But, my complaints were very minor, and considering the width of what he was trying to accomplish, it is amazing that the flaws are so few.

[Jeff Powers · Rating 4 out of 5]

Probably closer to a 3.75/5. A good primer for a lot of topics on how our understanding of our physical reality does a decent job of explaining the natural world and our place in it. It isn't about refuting religious belief or spending ages trying to point out the problems in those belief systems. Instead it is an in depth look at why a world without god makes more logical sense. And there is a simple beauty in that. Understanding and appreciating the complexity of the real world for what it is, not what we pretend it to be. Enjoyable and well written. While not a stellar standout like the big names of the field, it is still worthwhile.

[Ondrej Havlicek · Rating 4 out of 5]

Since I myself have wanted to write a similar paper (implications of nonexistence of God, soul, afterlife, metaphysical free will & truth of Darwinism etc. for ethics), I was mostly sympathetic to Rosenberg's approach regarding the topic of ethics and nice nihilism. However, I cannot agree with the supposed meaninglessness of intentionality, the self or free will. During the reading of those passages, two titles kept popping up in my mind: The Intentional Stance and Real Patterns. I wonder what he would have to say about them.

[j_ay · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's a shame Rosenberg (or the publisher) needed to place the word Atheist in the title. While believeing you have a little friend up in the sky is...crazy, much of this book has little to do with religion. It's so much more BEYOND religion.
Which is where we SHOULD be, as a society, let alone as a species.
I am very lost as to why Rosenberg uses terminoly like "BC" and "AD", though.
Well worth a read, and something I may retun to some day, as it really took me off guard, as I was just expecting abother "atheist" book.

[Blair Hodgkinson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I admit it: at times reading this book, I was at sea. Science is not always my strong suit, but to the author's credit, it's pretty accessible here. Particularly interesting to me was the explanation of how evolution processed to create our core morality through natural selection, right down to our predilection for creating narratives and stories to "explain" what was unexplainable in our benighted early millennia.

[Rogério Alvarenga · Rating 1 out of 5]

Nazi Germany was a scientific behemoth. The URSS was a bureaucratic machine never before seen or even imagined. The USA dropped the A-Bomb on japanese civilians. All technologically anabolized and all trying to be on top of the Darwinian food chain.

The atheist reliance on modern science is a house of cards. Their "humanism" may turn into nihilism all of a sudden. We're all doom to be human, even the... bright... atheists.

[Hariharan Gopalakrishnan · Rating 1 out of 5]

I agree with some of Rosenberg's conclusions and reject the others. But, looking at the larger picture, that doesn't matter. It is the weakness of the arguments that are made to support them (especially regarding scientism, free-will etc.) and the author's insufferable voice and flippant dismissal of other positions that made it impossible for me to continue reading this book.

[Daniel · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting read and a great example of how to take scientific reductionism to its logical ends. Perhaps a slightly misleading title because it would be better called 'A Guide to Scientistic Reality' since he is more interested is persuading the reader of the truths of scientism and why we should be nice Nihilists.

[Mike Cross · Rating 4 out of 5]

The author does the book a disservice by calling it prejudicially "an atheist's guide", it is really an enlightened guide to reality. It gets a little heavy in the hard-core science areas and I can't connect all the dots as well as the author thinks I can, but very eye opening and comprehensive. Worth reading again.

[Frederic · Rating 2 out of 5]

In spite of interesting and provocative insights on ethics and what the author calls "Nice Nihilism", this book is seriously flawed by the smug,fatuous and condescending attitude that he evinces toward any school of thought other than "Science"...

[Noah Richardson · Rating 1 out of 5]

Don't let the title sway you. Atheists should probably pass this book up. The author's stance that, in a nutshell, atheism's ultimate fate leads to nihilism (no matter how nice the nihilism is), was pretty hard to swallow. I don't forsee a desolate moral landscape in the future.

[Danny Barulli · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rosenberg is a very good writer. As much as he derides it is very difficult for science to convey a story, he does (because he is being philosophical and not scientific). He provides a good history of science. His style is enjoyable.

[Shannon Kline]

It was a real struggle for me to get through this book. I skimmed most of the second half (my version of DNF). I wanted it to be something it wasn’t—approachable, well-argued, indisputable. The author lost me when he started writing about how thinking can’t be “about” anything. Ouch, my brain!

[Amy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Provocative, got me thinking. But ultimately his argument is pretty narrow-minded.

[Gena · Rating 2 out of 5]

Simply not fun.

[Justin Wishart · Rating 1 out of 5]

Easily the worst book on Atheism written. Poorly written and argued.