Life Driven Purpose: How an Atheist Finds Meaning

by Dan Barker, Daniel C. Dennett (Foreword)

Every thinking person wants to lead a life of meaning and purpose. For thousands of years, holy books have told us that such a life is available only through obedience and submission to some higher power. Today, the faithful keep popular devotionals and tracts within easy reach on bedside tables and mobile devices, all communicating this common Life is meaningless without God. Former pastor Dan Barker eloquently, powerfully, and rationally upends this long-held belief in Life Driven Purpose . Offering words of enrichment, emancipation, and inspiration, he reminds us how millions of atheists lead happy, loving, moral, and purpose-filled lives. Practicing what he preaches, he also demonstrates through his own personal journey that life is valuable for its own sake-that meaning and purpose come not from above, but from within.

Genres: Atheism, Philosophy, Nonfiction, Religion, Spirituality

216 pages, Paperback

First published September 16, 2014

About the author

Daniel Edwin Barker is an American atheist activist and musician who served as an evangelical Christian preacher and composer for 19 years but left Christianity in 1984. He and his wife Annie Laurie Gaylor are the current co-presidents of the Freedom From Religion Foundation. He has written numerous articles the organization's newspaper Freethought Today. He is the author of several books including Losing Faith in Faith: From Preacher to Atheist. Barker has been an invited speaker at Rock Beyond Belief. He is on the speakers bureau of the Secular Student Alliance.

Reviews

[Bradley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well written with many good ideas for finding meaning and purpose in life without having to cater to a Narcissistic Sociopath Daddy figure.

[Peter · Rating 5 out of 5]

Life... Driven ... Purpose

Wonderful book, refreshingly honest and clear , not an apologetic Charlatan . "Theology - a subject with no object ". Makes Warren's book look empty

[Beauregard Bottomley · Rating 5 out of 5]

The weakest arguments for the existence of God are 1) life would have no meaning without God (therefore God must exist) and 2) how can something come from nothing if there isn't a God to make it happen (an ontological argument). This book refutes those two arguments. As he says in the book it's a rare person who acquires a belief in God because of those arguments, but usually a person believes in God first and then adopts those arguments.

This book firstly demolishes the premise that the purpose for life must come from outside of us since we can be inspired from within and don't need to be "out spired" to find our meaning. The author doesn't just state things but steps the listener through on how to get past the sophistry foisted upon us by fundamentalist who can't get past their slave/master mentality inherent within their self referential religious belief system, Adam sinned, Jesus died for your sin of Adam, and forgiveness must be asked for and submission to God must be asked for the sin which you have for which you were born in and you must only accept this so you can be forgiven. And the fundamentalist say morality must come from this revealed book based on this revealed religion. The religious book written by men but claimed to be inerrantly written by God or Gods unlike any other book tells us LGBT are abominations and women are second class citizens and even mentions how all the tombs of Jerusalem opened up and the Saints walked the streets of the city (the first Zombies! Matthew 27:52) and our morality and ethics are selectively chosen from this book.

Understanding morality is hard, the author makes it easy, "do no harm". There are nuances and there are ethics to consider but first the author starts there. He develops it better than most authors do (much better than Michael Shermer did in his latest book). He'll even tells us we need to consider our intuition, our reason and the law. It's tough being a "good" human but much more profitable than believing a book based on magic can answer such complex questions.

The second thrust of the book deals with why the question "why there is something rather than nothing" is as flawed as saying twelve divided by zero. The question needs context, 'nothing' only has meaning contrasted with something. In our universe virtual particles are created all the time and as the author states when this happens on the boundary of a black hole matter is created. Even stipulating to the premise that 'God did it' how do we know that God is not a machine with advanced AI and it too realizes morality is complex and has been programmed to never interfere.

There are two ways of discovering the truth about revealed religions. One is to read science books (I've read over a hundred science books in the last four years), such as Dennett's "Darwins Dangerous Idea" which was referenced in this book, the other is with books like this one which demonstrate that our purpose in life can come about by learning about the universe by reading books like this one.

I really like the author. I enjoy watching his debates online. He's always polite in his debates as he is in this book. I liked this book so much that I'll end up getting one of his other books (even though it's not on Audible and I'll have to actually read it) in order to understand how he got out of the narrow minded fundamental trap he was in before realizing truths such as happiness (subjective well being) comes from within us not outside of us instead of some imaginary transcendent plane which is undefinable.

For me, there is no greater compliment to an author that I like him so much that I'll read his other books even though there not available on Audible.

[Jeff Koeppen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dan Barker is a former evangelical minister and current atheist. He has authored a number of books, is the co-president of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, co-host of Freethought Radio, and has appeared on a number of TV and radio shows. He has debated a number of true believers. In Life Driven Purpose: How and Atheist Finds Meaning, he takes on the myth that life is meaningless without gods and points out how all people have a purpose and need to live life to its fullest as our time on earth is not some transitional phase prior to eternal life. He also spends time directly refuting the popular book The Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren.

The five chapters touch on the following subjects: the real purpose of life, the meaning of life, view on human behavior, the mind of fundamentalists, and why are we here? Spoiler alert: there is NO purpose of life! As Dan states, "Life is its own reward. You should not want there to be a purpose of life. You are not a subject. You don't have an assignment to live up to. You don't have a cosmic task to accomplish. You don't have a duty to fulfill. You are not being managed or judged by an overlord. Unshackle from the chains of a master, you are truly free to live."

I really enjoyed this book. Dan is an excellent communicator. I enjoy his video and audio broadcasts, and his weekly Freedom from Religion podcast (with wife Annie Laurie Gaylor). He has inspired me. My favorite part of this book was the chapter Religious Color Blindness in which he tries to explain the minds of true believers / fundamentalists, as he was one himself. I have highlighted large swathes of this chapter and will go back and revisit some of his statements, they are so well put together and meaningful. I'm looking forward to reading more of Dan's books.

[Hugo Demets · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dit boek is bedoeld als antwoord op het in Amerika mens populaire boek van Rick Warren, “A purpose Driven Life”. Dit laatste beweert dat een goed leven enkel een leven kan zijn in dienst van God.

Dan Barker was zelf ooit een dominee, maar is nu een activistische atheïst, die waarschuwt hoe godsdienst mensen kan verknechten: door geen kritiek toe te laten op het opperwezen en deze als perfect voor te stellen, kan de kerk controle verwerven over de gelovigen, zoals een dictator dat kan. Het Christendom is eigenlijk een heel raar verhaal, aldus Barker: omdat de Joden God niet meer eren, stuurt hij zijn zoon naar de aarde en laat hij die sterven; zoals iemand die voorbijgangers aanspreekt en zegt “Ik heb goed nieuws voor u! U hoeft niet in mijn kelder te kijken, want daar heb ik een martelkamer van de ergste soort gebouwd. Ik heb daar mijn zoon in opgesloten, en nu is mijn woede gestild. U kan nu binnenkomen en met mij naar de zolder gaan - als u mij aanbidt, hoeft u niet bang te zijn voor de kelder!"

We moeten aanvaarden dat het leven niet meer is dan een toevallige chemische reactie, en dat het leven verder geen doel heeft; doel VAN het leven is gewoon het leven zelf, het overleven. Zelfs welzijn en gelukkig zijn (wat een doel kan zijn) zorgt voor een grotere kans van overleving. Er is wel een doel IN het leven, waarbij de mens zichzelf een zingeving kan vinden.
Dat doel dient zich vaak zelf aan, door de ervaringen die je beleeft. Het ligt in het oplossen van real-life problemen. Het echte leven zit vol problemen die wachten om opgelost te worden: een medicijn tegen kanker, het stoppen van de klimaatopwarming, het ontwerp van duurzame steden, ... Onzekerheid is gewoon een deel van het leven. Verwacht niet van een god dat hij de onzekerheid wegneemt. Het zoeken naar een oplossing voor een probleem, en het niet willen opgeven… dàt geeft een doel in het leven.

Hoe kunnen atheïsten goede mensen zijn, vraagt Dan Barker zich nog af. “Goed zijn” is deels instinctief. Het is gevormd door natuurlijke selectie, en zit zo in de genen ingebakken. Door wederkerige goedheid overleeft de soort gemakkelijker. Niet omdat een god het van ons verlangt.

Hoewel lang en sommige hoofdstukken me minder aanspraken, vond ik het een fijn boek over de zingeving van je leven die je zelf moet zoeken.

[Danial Tanvir · Rating 5 out of 5]

i have talked to Dan Barker many times on the email and he sent this book from america to my house in lahore.
i liked this book , i really wanted to read it after reading his other book.

[Pat · Rating 5 out of 5]

First book I've read on life purpose from a humanist perspective. I was just curious. I have no problem finding secular purpose to my life.

[Kahawa · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 stars. This was good. I'm really appreciating learning more about humanist ideas on morality, ethics, purpose and meaning. The godless, temporal life really is so much more meaningful and beautiful because of its brevity and freedom. Theistic ethics is bankrupt. Dan's analogy of god's torture basement is apt. A god who would make hell, or even just allow it, is wicked. And a god who kills his son so that he doesn't have to torture others is a psychophant. Run away Christians while you can!

The god hypothesis fails Occam's razor. The problem of evil, the problem of scriptural errors, triunity, evolutionary biology, hell, failed prophecy, etc, it all makes simple sense with no god, and yet requires clunky ad hoc fixes to make it all work with a god.

LDP sometimes gets pretty philosophical, especially when discussing the origin of the cosmos, but it's necessarily complex because the arguments for god are already complex and plethora, so a decent response has to cover all that theism has raised.

Another great book, Dan. Thanks for TCP.

[Cindy X · Rating 4 out of 5]

did not enjoy this book, but will not let that affect my rating too much because it's partly due to my false expectations.

if you're a fallen religious person like me searching for solace in a potentially godless world after being raised to think of everything through a religious lens, this book may do nothing for you but reiterate atheistic explanations you've heard zillions of time before. if you're already an atheist that believes that the world is meaningful without God, then this book will be a nice summary of things you probably believe already. it will probably make you very happy.

before i go into an expanation of my personal disastisfaction with this book (which i will not hold against the author in my rating) i will explain why i feel like this book is only four stars, not five. it's pretty solidly written and coherent. its logic is a bit shaky, but i won't hold that against it because this isn't supposed to be a philosophy book but something more of a memoir/personal reflection, i think. however, barker's writing is very repetitive and inefficient. i found skimming over paragraphs and even pages of the same arguments explained in different ways as if i were a child. at many times, what he took many pages to say he could've said in one paragraph. i surmise that this whole entire book could've perhaps been written in a ten page essay and i would have taken the same points away, no problem.

also, its not very compassionately written (this will connect to some more points i have to make later on). it has a lot of problems that i see in christian apologetics such as lots of mocking and lack of sensitivity to nuance. this does not always devalue a book's message. however, it is a red flag for bad arguments due to its already apparent oversimplification of a concept or group of people. i always try to be charitable when reading books that especially involve an author's personal feelings and opinions etc. but an insensitive, sarcastic tone always makes it more difficult to do.

my personal takes:
i found this book to be disastisfying probably because i expected too much out of it. i wanted to be told that it would be possible for me to believe in a reason to live even after faith. i wanted to be enlightened, proven wrong about what i had been taught growing up which is that without God there is no meaning. unfortunately, it read more like a beginner's manual on how many atheists see the world, which i didn't need. i could just go online or in person to talk to one. it didn't tell me anything new that i hadn't heard from the atheists i grew up with.

the problem, which barker himself talks a lot about throughout this book, is to do with semantics. oftentimes, he'd define things like "meaning" or "purpose" or "purpose of life" entirely on his own terms. this is perfectly fine, usually, outside of these contexts, but sir, you're dealing with a potential audience (religious folk) that have completely different ways of defining these! is it possible to explain why your definition is superior to theirs without appealing to some higher order of principle or logic (which he does not do, which makes sense given his argument that absolutes make life boring, but this still brings up problems)? i'm not exactly sure if i'm articulating what i'm trying to say adequately, but think about it this way: i completely throw away (or worse, neglect) someone's definition of what is "meaningful" or "purposeful" or "good." then, i make up my own definition of those terms . how do i convince them that my definition are better without adhering to some sort of shared ideal? he never establishes any shared ideals and ignores the topic completely, but the book as a result can come off as echo-chambery and only has the chance to resonate with people of an already set certain value system. how can you say "life is beautiful" without defining what beautiful is to you and distinguishing it from how others may perceive beauty? for some, without the prospect of God, beauty falls straight into the water. how do you make a completely new definition and expect it to hold the same implications and features? how do you define harm without appealing to an ideal? is that ideal the same for you as for christians? like he mentions multiple times throughout the book, words just becomes sounds at a certain point. the myriad of ways one can see things that this book does not address leaves it feeling like crumbly pie crust. i don't think i articulated that completely right, but oh well. this might to be too much to ask of what is at most one man's personal life experiences, heuristics etc. but these are just my personal takes.

overall thoughts: book is kinda echo-chambery, (from the self-defensive tone this may have been the intention?). probably does not have the potential to reach to people who do not already share some sort of world view. downfall is it markets itself as a man's personal opinion and life, but attempts to write itself as logical and philosophical and absolute in many parts, which it is not. focuses only on one version of christianity which can make many of the arguments seem like strawmans (or arguments that don't even exist or are irrelevant) to several christians and other religious folk.

**MOST VALUABLE READ IF YOU'RE AN ATHEIST WHO WANTS MORE CONFIRMATION OR ARTICULATION OF YOUR VIEWS OR LOOKING FOR A COOL MEMOIR-ISH THING

[Jason Coleman · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of my favorite authors. A fun read and directly confronts many ideas regarding the myths that atheists can't find meaning and purpose in their life without belief in the metaphysical. If this is your first experience with Barker, I strongly recommend reading "Losing Faith in Faith" before tackling this book.

[Jonathon Moore · Rating 4 out of 5]

Just what I was needing to read. I read Rick Warren's book when I was a kid. Now that I'm older, I don't want to read books that revolve around a fairy tale as your "purpose" in life. A great rebuttal to my fundy-religious family who thinks me being godless heathen means I have no purpose. It actually rather sad that they don't understand this non-sequitur.

[Brad Rees · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a well thought out book that raises a lot of important questions for theist and atheists alike:

1- what is morality? Is morality absolute?
2- does life come with a prescribed meaning? Or is the meaningful of life developed by the individual organism?
3- origins of the universe: can something come something? Can something come from nothing? Can nothing come from something? Can nothing come from nothing?
4- Theocratic government: which type of government is more like to Maximize the happiness, safety, and prosperity of its people? A Theocratic or secular government?
5- how can I maximize my time of life in the here and now?
6- what is holy text/scripture? What role should it play in my life?


Initially, the author came off as a bit contentious, and seemed to have a chip on his shoulder. By the end, that demeanor evolved into something much more respectful and peaceful.

I did find that he liked to “put words in the mouths” of believers. And it’s very easy to win such an argument. He also quoted Christian scripture out of context, which for me weakened some of his arguments.

While the book intends to provide the perspective of how an atheist finds meaning in life, much of these arguments actually strengthened my faith.

This is a valuable book I’d recommend to believers and non-believers and the issues listed above are critical in one’s wrestle for finding or creating meaning in life.

[Dan Graser · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a somewhat mixed review in that personally speaking, this had little new to tell me and most of his conclusions are what the majority of skeptics, atheists, and agnostics will have discovered for themselves and already accept. On the other hand, this is a fine introduction to those who perhaps don't already share this perspective on religion (or maybe are new to it) and wish to see, in short form but very clear language, what the aforementioned groups think, in a general sense, about such concepts as, "ultimate meaning," or, "your life's purpose." Personally I think Barker spends a little too much time saying what his point-of-view is not, as opposed to positing his own, however, his background as a former fundamentalist/literalist understandably necessitates some opposition based thinking when it comes to several important concepts. If you are new to this type of thinking then this will be a fine outline and intro to these concepts, if you have lived this thinking then you likely have already engaged with these concepts in greater detail than is presented here.

[John Michael Strubhart · Rating 5 out of 5]

In response to Rick Warren's book, Dan has written a thoughtful treatment of the issue of The Meaning Of Life and what Life's Purpose is. For us nonbelievers, life is life. The natural world is enough. We humans make our own meaning and purpose. So, if you're thinking, "Well it can't be all that simple!" read this book. It really isn't all that simple. Dan explains how language gets in the way and how seriously effed up thinking that some sky daddy gives life meaning and determines our purpose is. The Kindle edition is excellently formatted. The Audible version you will want to listen to at a speed of at least 1.5x (unless you're going all Bob Ross with it and wanting to just chill). Dan is a slow, deliberate reader. Dan has an interesting family history that some folks will enjoy reading. In any case, Rick Warren is just messed up! Ignore him. Be like Dan. Make your own meaning and purpose by living the only life you'll ever have.

[Lexxie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Being a person who has ossilated between athiest and not for the past 5 years, this book helped answer some of the most bothersome questions I have about being an athiest. Namely, without God what's the point? After reading this book, I realize that being raised Roman Catholic trained me to look at life through a very small and very specific lens, the lens of having this overarching purpose. This book showed me that that doesn't have to be the question I pose and made strong arguments for why it's a bad one.

Barker does spend some time discussing the ontological arguments for and against God and reviews some of the other arguments for and against. Nevertheless, this work does achieve what it sets out to.

[Deyth Banger · Rating 5 out of 5]

"June 15, 2019 –
100.0%
June 15, 2019 –
90.0% "This book explains that and being atheist there is point in life... you don't need God for social moral and what not to do and what to do..."
June 15, 2019 –
90.0%
June 15, 2019 –
70.0% "139 pages out of 155"
June 14, 2019 –
70.0% "Nothing more great than than talking from stand point of a preacher... Dan Baker... has been theist for a long time and now he is atheist."
June 14, 2019 –
70.0% "It's well said and well formed book... placing the best arguments about "meaning"... and "purpposeness" in life..."
June 14, 2019 –
70.0% "Great Book
.
great arguments!"
June 14, 2019 – Shelved
June 14, 2019 – Started Reading"

[Noah Wiles · Rating 5 out of 5]

Considering the horrible things happening these days, driven by extreme conservatism and Christian Nationalism, my hope for humanity has been faltering. As a lifelong atheist, this book didn’t necessarily teach me a lot, but it reminded me of and framed in enjoyable and meaningful ways many things I really needed to hear right now. Things that helped me recapture a bit of that lost hope. Thank you Dan!

[Troy Walker · Rating 4 out of 5]

👍🏿👍🏿👍🏿👍🏿👍🏿😁

[fredgay · Rating 3 out of 5]

Why did you waste so much time writing so much. About nothing

I think TBE man is brilliant, however he obviously knows it. He brings out some things that I have not thought about.

[Hamid · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Life is meaningless without God!”
How many times have I heard that? I have listened to many arguments for the existence of God, and often the people involved throw in this nonargument during closing statements. “You may not be convinced by the evidence and arguments,” they admit, “but you should believe anyway because otherwise your life is empty and worthless.”
That rhetoric may work for some, but not for me. Tens of millions of people in the United States, and hundreds of millions around the world, lead happy, loving, productive, moral, and meaningful lives without believing in a god. We atheists have immense purpose—life-driven purpose—thank you, and are not starving for anything more.

To be sure, a small handful of atheists (including some well-known philosophers) are existential nihilists who think life has no meaning and ultimately ends in despair and emptiness. Many religious people like to quote those pessimists, pretending that they speak for all of us. The cheery Schopenhauer, for example, said that the only thing better than suicide is never to have been born in the first place. I don’t share that view, and I don’t know any atheists who do. The atheists I know, virtually all of whom are happy and mentally healthy, might more properly be called anti-nihilists. We are mainly optimists who love our lives and find them to be full of meaning and purpose.

Asking, “If there is no God, what is the purpose of life?” is like asking, “If there is no Master, whose slave will I be?” If the purpose of life is to become a submissive slave, then your meaning comes from flattering the ego of a person whom you should despise.

Here is the good news we atheists offer to the world:
There is no purpose of life.
It may sound counterintuitive, but that is truly great news! Life is its own reward. You should not want there to be a purpose of life. You are not a subject. You don’t have an assignment to live up to. You don’t have a cosmic task to accomplish. You don’t have a duty to fulfill. You are not being managed or judged by an overlord. Unshackled from the chains of a master, you are truly free to live.

But to say there is no purpose of life is not to say there is no purpose in life.

Life has immense purpose, not from outside, but from inside. Look what a huge difference a tiny preposition makes: purpose of life versus purpose in life. Your life has purpose because it is endowed not by someone else’s mind, but by your own. One is bondage; the other is liberty.

[Maggie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I received this book for free through Goodreads First Reads.

Life-Driven Purpose is undoubtedly a fascinating and entertaining read. The book is a minister-turned- atheist’s refute to Rick Warren’s bestselling Christian book entitled The Purpose-Driven Life. Dan Barker argues that real purpose and meaning in life come not from the outside but from within ourselves. He argues that morality is defined as “using instinct, law, and reason as guides, try to act with the intention of minimizing harm” (pp. 46) and that while charity work is nice, it is not necessary to morality. Then he talks about how “truth” is not black and white (as he says many Christians believe) but includes shades of grey as well as all the colors of the rainbow…and Christians themselves are blind to it all. He follows with a creation/evolution argument (how can something come from nothing?) and closes with a talk about the meaning of life coming from inside the mind (rather than from a higher source outside the mind). He says the meaning and purpose in your life is that which you give it...and that none of it has anything to do with God.

Dan Barker is an articulate writer, an eloquent philosopher, and a master debater and his arguments are thorough, forceful, passionate, and provocative. It is clear that he fully and wholeheartedly believes the assertions presented in this book….and he wants the reader to believe them too. However, let me be clear that the book has not convinced me to abandon my Christian faith. (Barker claims at the beginning of the book that his aim is not to persuade readers of the “reality” of atheism but to explain how God and religion are unnecessary for leading a life of purpose and meaning. Nevertheless, I personally found that much of the text seems to be a written decimation of Christianity (and other religions) in general along with a sales pitch for atheism itself.) Still, I found that the book inspired me to some deep thinking and introspection about the subjects he brought up – why I feel the way I do and what my responses to the author’s philosophical assertions might be. (Though I am not particularly good at thinking on my feet, I would love to put my husband in the same room with Dan Barker and watch them go at it...lol.) I am very interested in reading the author’s other books to learn more about his journey from faith to nonbelief.

[Jo · Rating 2 out of 5]

Hm, I really am not sure how to rate this book. It was not quite what I expected. This is one of the problems that arises sometimes when buying a book on Kindle instead of being able to browse through it in a shop. I think I expected some more tools to help me reflect on the non religious construction of meaning/purpose, perhaps something affirming of the journey I have been making. What Dan Barker offered was far more general, and included a good deal of familiar atheist 'apologetics', and although I found nothing particularly drastic to disagree with, it was sometimes a bit repetitive and a bit too 'certain', and didn't take me further than my own research and conclusions thus far.

As a relatively recent 'ex-' minister, it can be quite challenging sometimes constructing 'meaningfulness' in the wake of 25 years of doing a job I started off believing was a calling from god! Over many years I felt my concept of god becoming decreasingly literal and increasingly out of synch with the wider church environment to which I was accountable. Living now in South East Asia, my concept becomes daily more fluid and my curiosity is excited by the fascinating variety of narratives with which people order their worlds. I also feel extremely conscious of the perspective of privilege/choice which shapes my existential questions and permeates this book all the way through.

It was quite useful however, to stand back and question the very idea of 'meaningfulness' and what it does to us. Also to have validated the sheer joy of creative activity and learning and loving and living and social justice that has/is its own point.

[William Nist · Rating 3 out of 5]

Barker's book reads like a sermon (he was a preacher in his early life). That was slightly off-putting to me as one who has sat through so many insufferable homilies.

The book addresses the meaning and purpose of life as well as morality and ethics. It boils down to: there is no purpose or meaning of life, but there are purposes and meanings IN life (which you discover for yourself although some may be hard wired). And for morality: act to do minimum harm is a good rule. While I agree with these precepts, I do find them mildly un-nerving and this book did not do much to eliminate those anxieties. I don't know if they can be eliminated.

The discussion on genetic inheritance was especially unsatisfying as a person who will not be leaving a genetic deposit, and thus end up propagating 'other peoples' genes, which is not much of a consolation.

The chapter on morals was much stronger with a good analysis of reason vs heredity vs law as the trinity of moral concepts that establishes a basis for one's personal actions.

I have read broader theories of morality which look to all life including planetary as the matrix for moral decision making...which I feel is important in the age of climate change and species extinction. I sort of am drawn in this direction and wish the author would be including some of these approaches.

Anyway, I do accept personal and universal finitude and think reason tempered with the evolutionary tendency to empathy is probably true, and to the extent this book fosters that position, I find it valuable.

[Sam · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really enjoyed one of Barker's other books (Godless), and parts of this book were interesting (I particularly like his discussion of the three different 'guides' we have to making ethical decisions: instinct, rationality, and law). However, large chunks of this book were devoted to a re-hashing of familiar atheist themes, such as the idea that the universe can exist without a creator, and these sections seemed both unnecessary to the book as a whole, and rather badly written. For example:

If it is true that nothing comes from nothing— that something cannot come from nothing, that something has to come from something— then a god, being something, had to come from something else. If a god came from nothing, then it can’t be said that nothing comes from nothing. If a god did it, why can’t a universe? They are both something. If nothing comes from nothing, and if God came from nothing, then God is nothing. (Loc 2108)


I don't find that sort of argument compelling or interesting, and my opinion of the book never really recovered after wading through the chapter on the origins of the universe. Eventually, I abandoned this book as a DNF.

[Chris Burd · Rating 1 out of 5]

Atheism is not a single point of view or set of beliefs, and I do appreciate that the author expressed this in the forward to his book. That's pretty much the only positive feedback I can provided.

I didn't finish reading this one. I didn't even get too far, to be honest. Maybe there is an audience who can gain something positive from this book. Perhaps there are those out there who are being victimized in some way by the Christian community in which they live, and they need to know that there is an alternative way to view life.

From my perspective, however, this was everything that I dislike about other atheists. This book was intensely negative, pointing not only why Christianity* is not the only way to live a moral, purposeful life, but going further to liken Christians to slaves.

I make an effort to read books with viewpoints that are different than mine, so that I can understand the world better. However, when that viewpoint is so negative and condescending to others, I need to walk away.

*I focus on Christianity versus all religion because the author did so in the part of the book that I managed to make it through.

[Terri Lynn · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you have read Dan's excellent book Godless: How an Evangelical Preacher Became One of America's Leading Atheists then this book might seem a bit dry and boring to you as it did me. As an Atheist, I do support Atheist authors but I feel that this felt like reading some graduate student's philosophy dissertation or thesis and I didn't get that much out of it.

[Eugene · Rating 5 out of 5]

this book explodes with information on the real meaning and purpose in life, and what if feels to be human after all. Its an exploration of the mind of a person and his or her outlook towards life without believing in something that is in question and that which relies on utmost faith. I particularly like the concept of the 3 moral minds - instinct, law and reason. our decisions in life may not be perfect, but we thought it out properly and put it into perspective as goodness and kindness and not just judging on whats ahead of us. We learn from our mistakes and thats where we put meaning and our purpose IN life. We only have one life to live and by this idealogy we strive to make this world ( the only real world) a better place to live in.

[Ryan · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first half of the book I found rather dull - it was mostly arguments I've heard before and didn't do much for me. The second half tho was actually quite good, however. I enjoyed his unique discourse about the cultures not having words for colors and how that could be more broadly applied to observing. but not really seeing.

Avoid the audio book. I listened to it on audio book and the author's narration is dull and painfully slow- I had to listen to it on 1.25x speed to be able to tolerate it.

[Marie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Although I do not agree with all of his views, and face it, who really agrees with anyone on everything?, I thought this book was well written. His arguments are well thought out and detailed. I know many present day religious people will object to being compared to ancient Romans, Greeks, and Native Americans on viewing their God in the same category as other mythos, but from an outsider's view, they can all be compared. This is an Apologetics book for Atheists.

[Ullrich Fischer · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent philosophical work. Deep thoughts expressed in plain language

Dan has produced another amusing, insightful, and very readable book refuting many myths around what meaning atheists find in life and how we find it. The book is liberally sprinkled with quotable one-liners which deflate common misconceptions about atheism which theists promote in an increasingly futile effort to keep their flock on side.