The Good Atheist: Living a Purpose-Filled Life Without God

by Dan Barker, Julia Sweeney (Foreword)

How Does an Atheist Respond to the Question, What Is the Purpose of Life?

For a Christian, it is faith that gives their life purpose. In his best-selling book The Purpose Driven™ Life: What on Earth Am I Here For?, Rick Warren says, “You must begin with God. You were born by his purpose and for his purpose.”

But as a non-believer, your purpose resides in yourself; it is yours alone to discover and develop. It’s about choosing to live your own life for your own reasons. No one can dictate your purpose. You decide.

This book will help you understand and appreciate why freely choosing to help and cooperate with others is the true path to finding purpose. Life does not need purpose: Purpose needs life. To punctuate this point, The Good Atheist includes inspiring biographies of humanity’s true heroes—men and women who did not waste their lives as slaves to a God, but rather found purpose in enhancing life on this Earth for all of us.

Genres: Nonfiction, Atheism, Philosophy

240 pages, Paperback

First published July 1, 2010

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

[Terri Lynn · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really admire Dan Barker so much and am a member of the Freedom From Religion Foundation ( www.ffrf.org ) where he is co-president with his brilliant wife Annie Laurie. His book Godless: How an Evangelical Preacher Became One of America's Leading Atheists is wonderful and inspirational. Dan had been a Christian all his life and even attended seminary and became a very popular evangelist, Christian songwriter, and writer of Sunday School and Vacation Bible School programs. One day after learning that members of a church he was to guest preach at didn't think the bible was literally true, he set out to collect proof that the bible was historically true. After doing the deep research (and not just reading books by Christian apologists) he became an Atheist.

This book is a critique of Rick Warren's book for gullible Christians called The Purpose Driven Life and oh my, Dan is able to do this beautifully in only a few pages, leaving the rest of the book as a tribute to great Atheists. Rather than write my opinion of the book, let me share some nuggets from the book that I hope will inspire you to want to read it.

"I finally realized that faith is a cop-out, a defeat, an admission that the truths of religion are unknowable through evidence and reason. It is only undemonstratable assertions that require the suspension of reason and weak ideas that require faith.Biblical contradictions became more and more discrepant, apologist arguments more and more absurd."

"Why does he (god) need to be glorified? If he does, his life lacks something and that would be an embarrassing admission for a perfect being to make. Striving to fulfil that need in HIS empty life might give HIM purpose but not us. To glorify is to fatten up someone's ego. Why do that? Are you afraid of being killed , hurt, or denied a blessing if you don't help the lord and master feel great? If so, you are being manipulated to meet someone else's need. Glorifying is placating, pleading, begging "

"Since the real world is the only world that matters, preaching a nonexistent fantasy world is a huge waste of time."

Quoting Robert Price's "Reason Driven Life",



The Reason Driven Life: What Am I Here on Earth For?
"On the other hand, there is Rick Warren's type of christian morality: the morality of the slaves, of the huddling herd. This is the code of the cringing, those who herd together for mutual sympathy and comfort, who dare not rise above the common level of mediocrity lest they be struck down. They want to play it safe. They worship the tyrant that enslaves them , being infected with what we now call the Stockholm syndrome, the pathetic transfer of affections to one's captors and tormentors."

The list of prominent Atheists is huge and comes with quotes from them. One of my favorites is the brilliant physicist Albert Einstein who lived to regret using the term "god" when he meant "science" and "scientific laws" because religious people were so ignorant, they misunderstood and to this day try to claim him as one of their own. In a letter written to philosopher Eric Gutkind a year before his death which was sold for $404,000 on May 15, 2008 in London, Einstein said ," The word god is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible ,a collection of primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish." About being born into a Jewish family, Einstein wrote, "For me, the Jewish religion, like all others, is an incarnation of the most childish superstitions."

In 1930 in a column in the New York Times, Einstein also wrote that he did not believe in any god and further said of believers, "Neither can I believe that the individual survives the death of his body, although feeble souls harbor such thoughts through fear or ridiculous egotism."

Indeed, Einstein, Barker, and I as well as all other Atheists are in excellent company with other Atheists such as Stephen Hawking, Richard Rodgers (the composer, Rodgers & Hammerstein), Cole Porter, Ira Gershwin, George Gershwin, Madame Marie Curie, Dr. Richard Dawkins, Clarence Darrow, B.F. Skinner, Ulysses S. Grant, Robert Louis Stevenson, Percy Shelley, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, John Keats, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Voltaire, Oscar Wilde, Julia Sweeney, George Bernard Shaw, Eugene O'Neill, Henrik Ibsen, John Lennon, Yoko Ono, Ingmar Bergman , Dr. Carl Sagan, Dr.Anne Sagan, Frederick Douglass, W.E.B. Dubois, Langston Hughes, Gloria Steinem, Helen Gardner, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Lucy Colman, Mary Wollstonecraft, Ernestine Rose, Annie Besant, Ella Gibson, Margaret Fuller, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Margaret Sanger, Susan B. Anthony, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Sergei Prokofiev, Claude Debussy, Johannes Brahms, Ludwig Beethoven, Mark Twain, Isaac Asimov, Henri Matisse, Auguste Rodin, and scads more. Look at the book to see information and quotes from these and many many more.

[Angelique · Rating 3 out of 5]

This wasn't really what I was expecting. The book really should be called profiles in nonbelief because it is entirely made up of testimonials by succesful and/or well known atheists and agnostics. It is a great resource/compilation. I did not know many of the people listed were atheists. It had some great quotes!

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

The title was very misleading. It only had a brief commentary by Barker about The Purpose Driven Life and then quotes from famous atheists throughout history- interesting stuff, but not what I was expecting from the title. I expected an instruction book on how to find purpose in life, this was nothing like that. But it was interesting.

[John Michael Strubhart · Rating 5 out of 5]

This isn't so much a book about how to be a good atheist as it is a collection of examples of people of some note being good atheists. By being "good," I mean doing things and living in such a way that results in positive contributions to the betterment of mankind. "Huh?" you ask. "You can't be good if you don't believe in God/Allah/Krishna/Thor/Marduk/FSM!" I think you might see the beginnings of the problem there. Which god has the followers that are good? His god? Her god? Your god? How about no god? I've heard it said that integrity is doing the right thing when no one is looking. If that's true, then theists (meaning Christians mostly) can never have true integrity, because their god is always looking. Stalker god. If you can be readily forgiven by a god for your wrongdoings, how can you ever really take personal responsibility for those actions? Dan Barker makes these kinds of points in the book's introduction, but the rest of it is the aforementioned collection. It's skimmable. I have it in my reference collection so that when I need an example of a good atheist, I can easily look one up. They're listed by category and Barker supplies ready references as evidence of his examples, because, you know - atheists must be liars - they don't believe in a god. As if theism ever stopped anyone from lying - ha! Check it out if you need convincing that there are many nontheists who make great contributions to the betterment of real, live people. The lives of people matter. The lives of the gods - not so much.

[Ike · Rating 1 out of 5]

I was very unimpressed with this book. Like so many others said, only about 40 pages of it were actual writing, the rest was just quotes and short biographies of famous/important atheists. What really bothered me was the anger and bitterness in those 40 pages. Instead of putting forth his opinion on how to live purposefully as an atheist, he spends most of the time railing against religion and specifically Christianity. It came across as a vicious mean spirited rant. It also seemed like a vast stretch to pluck 'Robinson Crusoe' out of nowhere as a major point of why Christianity is about slavery. I get it, the church has done countless awful things throughout history. 'Robinson Crusoe' however is not one of them, and really makes no sense whatsoever to bring into the discussion. I felt like I really had to bear down to slog through the tedious biographies, quotes, anecdotes, and jabs that was the majority of the book. Anyone with any serious desire to glean something from this book had to be quite disappointed.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lively precis of god-free ethics, with capsule bio's of many notable nonbelievers whose names you'll recognize. With better copy-editing, this would be a "5".

[Angel · Rating 1 out of 5]

I’m so disappointed. I’m not sure what I thought this book would be but … once I got to read page after page of ‘people who don’t believe in God or religion and here’s why’ I started skipping it thinking.. well, that there was something more to the book. Imagine my surprise when I flipped right along and hit the end. *sigh* I don’t need to know everyone who doesn’t believe in religion or God and what their thoughts about it are. It’s their personal decision, that’s all anyone needs to know.

[Mark · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is an interesting project. It really is a book that aims to allow new-atheists or atheistic-leaning readers into the community of atheism, which is awesome! It really is not a book for people who are already pretty set in their ways. Disclaimer: I did not finish, but the last 150+ pages are just quotes of other people, and, as an atheist, I don't need to be convinced by seeing all the atheists of the world.

[Blair Hodgkinson · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first part of the book is an encouraging essay on the positivity of the atheist outlook on life, empowered by the knowledge that one must use the only life there is for the most good and best purpose one can give to it. The second part of the book is a long series of profiles of atheists and agnostics in which their views and contributions to life and culture are explored.

[Terri Downey · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book started out pretty well. It was interesting and felt like a discussion with the author. Then it turned into a list. A list of quotes and mini biographies. It was ridiculous. I do not care about today’s “famous” people’s opinions nor this from the past. I do not put any more stock in their opinion than a strangers. Waving famous names around isn’t the way to sell a book.

[Melissa · Rating 1 out of 5]

The title is extremely misleading and the whole book is like something from BuzzFeed. Dan just wrote a couple of snarky pages about religion as slavery, then Googled "famous people atheism quotes", to fill the next 200-odd pages, and sent the lot to his publisher as is. I wish I was joking.

[Pamela Kellim · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a confirmation that I am not alone in this world and at any time would not have been.

[Bear · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is simply quotes from fellow atheists. Not much beyond that.

[Abby C · Rating 2 out of 5]

I did not really enjoy this book. First of all- the format is tiny biographies and quotes by accomplished atheists in history. That was interesting at first but not what was advertised. The monotony of this format as I continued to read was just downright painful, there was nothing to break up the structure, no personal interjections, no nothing. I guess an upside is that I was surprised by some of the names I recognized as atheists, challenging my assumptions about parts of the past where I assumed everyone in a given time and place must have been Christians. Other than the biography section (which took up the majority of the book), there was a first person introduction by the author, who seemed very bitter about the time he wasted on the pastor part of his life. I think he has some internalized self anger for wasting so much of his own time that he is projecting it out onto the religious people of the world. There was a lot of talk about how stupid it is to believe in “God” without any acknowledgment of any of the perfectly legitimate reasons that theism is comforting to people. To me, it seems as though this book was compiled as a personal reaction rather than a true desire to inform, and you can just feel it throughout the whole book.

[Tom Roche · Rating 3 out of 5]

First, I had a slight bias going into this book – I hear Dan Barker weekly on Freethought Radio, enjoyed his book Godless, and got to speak to him when he addressed the Secular Student Alliance at Farleigh Dickinson University. Very nice guy, and his story of becoming an atheist after almost two decades of being an evangelical preacher is a good one. I looked forward to reading his latest work, and he had me at the title, which is a dig at Rick Warren’s The Purpose-Driven Life. For the first 30 or so pages, Dan rejects Warren’s view that life without God has no purpose or meaning. I enjoyed what Dan had to say, even though I didn’t need convincing that you could find purpose in life without a belief in god or gods. The thing that surprised me about the book (not negative or positive, just surprised), was that Dan’s words filled just the first 30 pages or so. The remaining 160-170 pages are profiles in freethought – famous atheists, agnostics and freethinkers throughout history in every field from music to philosophy to art to science. Now, having been immersed in the freethought world for a few years, many of them were familiar to me already – only one or two names were a surprise to me, the rest I knew of their philosophy or thoughts on religion. So as a new read for me, I would give it one less star than if I had come into it not knowing many of the people in there. But, as a reference book for my “freethought” shelf – a quick go-to guide for great quotes or ammunition for anyone who doubts non-theists can contribute to the world - I would add that star back on.

[Vanessa · Rating 1 out of 5]

Not really a book worth reading in my opinion. The first part, which is only 37 pages of a 204 page book is all you need to read. The last part is simply several quotes from agnostic/atheist celebrities, authors, composers, journalists, etc of what they believe. It’s a waste of time.

If I was only reviewing the first 37 pages I would have given it 3 stars. I did like the reflection on Robinson Crusoe and his man [slave] Friday which is actually about a white slavetrader/owner. Crusoe is originally a slave himself and another slave helps him escape. He ends up selling that person to someone to get money. Friday is the name he gives to a man whose life he saves later on and becomes Crusoe’s slave willingly (uh huh).

Extremely gross in retrospect although I never read the book; I have only memory of the general whitewashed story.

I also enjoyed the author’s commentary of how much slavetalk is in the Bible and how it’s presented to be a virtuous thing to want to be a slave of Christ. I grew up with this kind of language so in a way it sounds natural and good. But being around 10 years now an atheist I can recognize it for the harmful disgusting doctrine that it is.

[Kelly Wagner · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is mostly a series of short biographical sketches illustrating that many of the people who have made some of the most meaningful contributions to civilized arts and sciences have done so without the need of being driven by a god to do so. People do good without the threat of hell, and act ethically without being told to do so by an omnipresent god.

Some of the bios are surprising: the composers who have written some of the great Masses and Requiems had rejected at least organized religion, often any religion, and sometimes specifically had rejected God? Brahms left any mention of Jesus out of his Requiem, and there's barely any mention of God; when asked to revise it so that it would more reflect Good Friday, he refused. Mozart got kicked out of one job for neglecting religion. Elgar rejected his religion toward the end of his life and stated that he regretted having wasted so much of his time writing religious music.

Of course among authors and scientists we have lots of examples; it was the plethora of them in the arts that I found more surprising.

[Cody Lewin · Rating 4 out of 5]

TL;DR Synopsis: If the following thoughts have come to your mind, then pick up this book and give at least the first half (30 pages) a read. "Is what I've chosen to do a purposeful task?" "After leaving my faith I feel like something is.. missing." or "I've always thought folks who said you can't be good without god were wrong."

I'll be honest.. I didn't actually "finish" the book due to the monotonous biographical tone that the last 170 pages were (out of 200). The biographies were definitely nice and help those who are beginning to question or unsure of how to proceed as an atheist (like myself) know that they're in good company.

The meat comes in the first 30ish pages, which are really all Dan Barker needs to convey what purpose is and why it isn't serving a master. I think I've read this at a time in my life where I needed to read it (time will tell) and helped me solidify that I'm making good choices without a god "telling" me so.

[M · Rating 2 out of 5]

A brief introduction of the author about his switch from evangelicalism to atheism which he admits is a summation from his previous book. Followed by four fifths the book being a catalog of famous freethinkers throughout the years including a mix of biographies and quotes. Kind of disappointed in the book, was expecting more writing and less indexing.

[Corbin · Rating 1 out of 5]

Expecting something else, this book was a huge disappointment. The first chapter is basically an opposition to the Christian book "The Purpose Driven Life", and not very good writing at that.

The ENTIRE rest of the book is comprised of quotes by other people. None of them by the author himself. Do yourself a favor and DON'T waste your time reading this book.

[Annie · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book was okay, mostly it wasn't quite was I was expecting. I thought there was going to be more "book" and less a list of famous nonbelievers and some of their quotes. It was a quick read, but I felt like it was lacking in the end.

[Cindy · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wanted more than yet another book filled with quotes from famous people.

[Erin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Meh. It's not what I expected. It was actually just loads of testimonials from famous agnostics, atheists, and the non-religious.

[Peter · Rating 4 out of 5]

Warren Looks even worse, so does Crusoe, doh, I should have read this earlier

[Rodney Hinds · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is mostly quotes from other authors.

[Misha · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great book, with alot of great quotes.