Atheism: The Case Against God

During the last couple of decades there has been a whole succession of loud books on this subject—if you want to read Hitchens or Dawkins you just stroll into the nearest library or bookshop—but Smith’s is less well-known and harder to track down. Which is a shame, because it’s far better and very different in tone.
   There are four parts: first, ‘God’ considered in the abstract, purely as a concept; second, two ways of looking at life—reason and faith—compared and contrasted; third, an analysis of historical attempts at using reason to prove the existence of God; and finally, the effects of organised religion on morality and behaviour. This is very much a philosophy book; it’s about ideas (there’s relatively show more little here about the Bible for example) and also lacks the outright hostility, the polemics, of those more recent works. This one is as detached, observant and analytical as a diagnosis, as meticulous as a dissection, as solemn as a burial. For me, one of its more surprising details was how much it changed my view of the two words ‘agnosticism’ and ‘scepticism’, both of which I see in a different light since reading this. Smith only falters near the end, in a short section dealing with ethics; I don’t know what happened there—it’s almost as if someone else stepped in and wrote that part—because it’s suddenly woolly and indecisive. That does, though, only serve to point up the sheer clarity—both of the writing itself and the mind behind it—of the rest.
   In fact, this is the best thing I’ve read on the subject: no duff logic, just clear thinking expressed in such crystal-clear language I wish all philosophy books, on all philosophical subjects, could be like this. show less

Yes, I am an atheist, and was before I ever opened this book. I guess the reason I rate this book so highly is because it's a philosophical approach dealing with the various arguments for a God. Too often what I've seen dubbed "The New Atheism" comes across as hectoring, shrill, even, dare I say, evangelical, with all the sophistication of a three-year-old stamping their feet and screaming "Religion sucks."

There are a couple of chapters on the consequences and "sins" of religion, yes, but at the very end--it's not where the emphasis of the book lies. Part One, "Atheism and God" defines atheism and treats the whole concept of "God." Part Two, "Reason, Faith, and Revelation" deals with why reason and faith are opposed. And finally, in show more Part Three, "The Arguments for God" Smith refutes the most common arguments for God, the Cosmological and Design arguments. A third, the Ontological (that God by his nature as a perfect being must exist) is in a way dealt with in the early chapter about the unintelligibility of the very concept of God.

I was exposed to all these arguments for God in my Catholic high school and Jesuit College--so I believe Smith does cover all the bases and presents the arguments for God fairly--and demolishes the idea that religion has any intellectual respectability. show less

OK, below is my original review -- which I wrote here by mistake. Just leaving it so the comments make sense.Frankly, I thought this book by Smith was sort of unmemorable, and as such, I don't remember much about it. At the time I thought it was OK, but now, years later, I can't really recommend it. Read the Martin book (in the comments) instead.--- Read this a number of years ago. Smith dismantles and demolishes all of the various arguments of the existence of God. If you want to believe, don't appeal to reason.

I suppose I probably rate this higher than I might because it is the first freethought work I ever read; for this reason, I am inclined to remember it with a great deal of fondness. I do remember, however, that it was characterized by the dense, obfuscatory language that so often plagues philosophers in the modern world.

OK, below is my original review -- which I wrote here by mistake. Just leaving it so the comments make sense.

Frankly, I thought this book by Smith was sort of unmemorable, and as such, I don't remember much about it. At the time I thought it was OK, but now, years later, I can't really recommend it.

Read the Martin book (in the comments) instead.

--- Read this a number of years ago. Smith dismantles and demolishes all of the various arguments of the existence of God. If you want to believe, don't appeal to reason.

A great introduction to the philosophical refutation of religious claims.