• The Atheist Bible
  • This Book
  • Legal conditions
  • Contents

 

The Atheist Bible

This Book

This book describes an atheist view on the world. Different from a number of other books, it does not merely argue that God does not exist. Rather, it offers a view of the world that covers religion, the universe, ethics, religion, and truth — all from an atheist and secular humanist perpective.

Legal conditions

In all of the following, “I” refers to the author of this book, Fabian M. Suchanek. “You” refers to the reader or listener 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.

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 document 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 this book (or parts of it), you have to give credit to the original by linking to this document at https://suchanek.name/texts/atheism.

Material from other sources has been marked in brackets [ ], with a complete textual source designation and a link to the source. References in parentheses ( ) indicate sources that substantiate a claim.

Contents

This book describes an atheist point of view on the following topics:

• Part 1: Atheism and Atheists
  • Atheism: Describes what atheism is, and responds to common criticisms. The chapter also introduces secular humanism.
  • Atheists: Talks about atheists in general, and addresses stereotypes.
• Part 2: The World
  • Truth: Discusses the abstract concept of truth from an atheist point of view
  • The Universe: Explains an atheist view of the universe.
  • Morality: Discusses ethics from a 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
  • History of Religion: Discusses the history of religions from the early hours of mankind on to today’s UFO 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.
  • Religions: Formally defines religions, gods, and the world’s current main religions.
  • Memes: Discusses the characteristics of religions that make them survive
• Part 5: Discussion of the Abrahamic Religions in particular
  • The Abrahamic God: Discusses the god of Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and the Bahai Faith.
  • Islam: Discusses the Muslim world view in particular. For security reasons, this chapter is not available here.
  • Christianity: Discusses the Christian world view in particular.
• 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 as well as an outlook.

Each part contains several chapters, each of which lives in a different file. Each chapter consist of sections, which can contain subsections. Each of them consists of articles. All articles have a short name. The present article, for example, has the name “TOC”. This is the name by which the article will be referred to throughout the book.

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 of the society, freedom in the choice of a partner, and freedom in general, as long as the freedom of others is not engaged.