• The Atheist Bible
  • This Book
    • Legal conditions
    • Structure
    • Content
  • Atheism and Atheists
    • Atheism
    • Atheists
  • The World
    • Truth
    • The Universe
    • Morality
    • Sense of Life
  • Gods
    • Proofs
    • God of the Gaps
    • Gods
  • Religion
    • Religion
    • The World Religions
    • Founding of Religions
    • Following Religions
    • Memes
  • The Abrahamic Religions
    • The Abrahamic God
    • Islam (not available here)
    • Christianity
  • Effects of Religion
    • Criticism of Religion
    • Positive Effects of Religion
    • Conclusion
   

This Book

This book describes a view on the world without the supernatural. Different from a number of other books, it does not merely argue that God does not exist. Rather, it offers a view on the universe, ethics, religion, and truth — all without gods and without the supernatural.

Legal conditions

In all of the following, “I” refers to the author of this book, Fabian M. Suchanek. “You” refers to the reader of this book. “We” is the author’s “we”, and refers to this book.

Since I have no education in philosophy or theology, I cannot guarantee the correctness or completeness of the information given here. If you find any factual error in this text, please let me know. Loyal to its own principles , this book may change over time, and definitions and theories may be updated. I am very grateful to the people who have read this book, and who have given me their feedback. It has been taken into account condignly.

When this book talks of “an atheist point of view”, it describes the point of view of an atheist (namely myself). This does not mean that all atheists would share my point of view.

Religion is a controversial issue. Hence, I cannot assume responsibility for personal unease resulting from reading this book. Should you disagree with this condition, please abstain from reading this text.

All text and images of this book have been created by myself unless otherwise noted. The provenance of an image from another source is indicated either in the image itself, or below it. Text from other sources is accompanied by a reference in brackets [ ] and a link to the source. References in parentheses ( ) indicate sources that substantiate a claim.

This book is available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License. This means that you can freely use this text, except for commercial purposes. If you re-use parts of this book, you have to give credit to the original by linking to this document at https://suchanek.name/texts/atheism.

This book is also available as an EPUB e-book and as PDF.

Structure

The book consists of 6 parts. Each part contains several chapters. Each chapter lives in a different file, and contains several sections. Each section consists of several articles.

The articles are self-contained: every article can be read in isolation from the others. For this, the articles have to contain a certain redundancy, and the book may thus not be suitable for reading it cover to cover. Not all chapters may be interesting to all readers. Rather, you can jump directly to the articles or chapters that you find interesting. You can also share links to individual articles rather than to the entire book if you want to make a particular point. The necessary background for each article is provided in the cross-references.

The cross-references always refer to the short unique name of each article. The present article, for example, has the name “Struc”. This name is displayed when you hover over the little cross-references in the Web version of this book. The cross-references are not visible in the printed version of this book.

Contents

Part 1: Atheism and Atheists

• Atheism: Describes what atheism is, and responds to common criticism. The chapter also introduces secular humanism.
• Atheists: Talks about atheists in general, and addresses stereotypes.

Part 2: The World

• Truth: Discusses the concept of truth.
• The Universe: Gives an overview of what science knows about the universe.
• Morality: Discusses ethics from a secular humanist point of view.
• The Sense of Life: Treats “the” principal question of humanity: What is the meaning of life? We also discuss where atheists go when they die.

Part 3: Gods

• Proofs: Discusses proofs for the existence of gods.
• God of the Gaps: Discusses the idea that God would be the explanation for the unexplained.
• Gods: Introduces an atheist view on gods.

Part 4: Religion

• Religion: Formally defines religions and gods, and shows the diversity of today’s religions.
• The World Religions: Traces the history of religion from ancient rites to today’s world religions.
• Founding of Religions: Discusses factors that may lead to the creation of a religion.
• Following Religions: Discusses factors that may make people believe in religious statements.
• Memes: Analyses strategies that religions have developed in order to survive.

Part 5: The Abrahamic Religions

• The Abrahamic God: Discusses the god of Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Spiritualism, and the Bahai Faith.
• Islam: Discusses the Muslim world view. For security reasons, this chapter is not available here.
• Christianity: Discusses the Christian world view.

Part 6: The Effects of Religion

• Criticism of Religion: Criticises the effects of religion on people, society, and mankind.
• Positive Effects of Religion: Discusses positive effects of religion on people, society, and mankind.
• Conclusion: Contains a summary of this book, as well as an outlook.

In times of rising fundamentalism and fanatism, this book wants to remind the reader of the values of the Enlightenment. The Enlightenment has given us the rule of law, tolerance towards other creeds, freedom of thought, freedom of speech, freedom of science, freedom of religion, freedom of the arts, the emancipation of disadvantaged groups, freedom in the choice of a partner, and freedom in general, as long as the freedom of others is not engaged.