Atheist Universe: The Thinking Person's Answer to Christian Fundamentalism

Even as a spiritualist, a nondenominational believer in God, a creator. This book does help a great deal in understanding the scientific facts of the universe vs. the ideological, theistic philosophies being ministered and preached in a misconstrued manner to the masses. This book is brilliant but misses out on the spiritual aspect of the individual human. I recommend this book to everyone, no matter what your beliefs. As one does not need a religion to believe in God and enjoy a fabulous relationship without indoctrination, this book provides some answers yet to be confronted by humanity. Great Book,,,read it..

Some of this book was pretty good, and there are other parts that could have been omitted to make it better. If you purchase the book and you decide to skip chapters, I'd recommend reading chapters 2, and 4-8, maybe 11. The others are pretty useless, and if you are a Christian, you are going to hate the whiny, hateful tone Mills has throughout much of the book, which progressively gets worse as you flip through the pages. It would have been better if the author left his personal feelings out of the writing as it becomes sorta laughable/distracting, especially if you try to read a lot in one sitting. Definitely would recommend skipping chapters 1 and 9; chapter 1 can be summarised as "Christians hurt my feelings" which does not really contribute to the point of the book, and chapter 9 seems like just a random tangent. TL;DR: Not too bad except for chapters 1 and 9. Too much emotion by the author, which would be especially distracting for Christian readers.

At the beginning of the book Mr. Mills says he will try to write in the clearest, most easy to understand style possible. He is successful in that and this is one of the reasons why this might very well be the best book advocating atheism. There are some very good books about this subject but they tend to be confusing, with a dry, hard-to-read style. And some of the books which defend atheist position tend to be arrogant, reflecting an air of superiority over the people of faith, an air of "I am smart and right, you are wrong and stupid". In Atheist Universe, however, Mr. Mills' style reflect a warm, likeable character and he explains his ideas without being disrespectful to the opposition. There is another, very important reason that this book is different however. It always resorts to science for guidance. On a certain level, Mr. Mills takes some beliefs in Christianity (some of which are common to Judaism and Islam as well) and examines them from a scientific point of view. Creation of the universe in 6 days versus the scientific evidence for billions of years, creation of the Earth only about 6000 years ago according to the Bible versus numerous scientific evidence for much longer, creation of the first human from dirt just in one step versus very long gradual process of natural selection according to science are some of the examples. Reading these parts of the book makes one conclude, at the very least, that science is completely irreconcilable with established theistic religions. On another level the book takes a more abstract definition of God, not necessarily the god of scriptures, and examines questions such as creation ex nihilo (out of nothing). Mr. Mills' way of tackling with such issues is again resorting to science. He explains the big-bang theory, the law of conversation of mass-energy, and shows that the idea of creation out of nothing is impossible, or inconsistent with science. Finally he takes the issue of ethics and develops his view that people don't have to be religious to be moral. He shows that religion itself caused the most unethical, immoral conduct of human behavior in history (inquisition, which burnings, torture chambers, Crusades etc.) and he uses modern statistics which show that European countries have a lower percentage of people who believe in God, but they give more to charity, help more for humanistic purposes and have a lower crime rate. Furthermore, he shows statistics that confirm that within the United States, the more "religious" states have a higher crime rate. Atheist Universe is unique in its use of science to develop and defend its arguments to such a degree of effectiveness. There is no inconsistency in its arguments, no logical fallacy. It is an important book, a book that should be read by any thinking person, regardless of their religious beliefs. Even faithful people should read this book, so they can think through the arguments presented here and perhaps reach their own synthesis.

The following review of Atheist Universe was written by R. Leland Waldrip and posted on the website of the Washington Area Secular Humanists: The book lives up to Mills' promise in the introduction to challenge conventional wisdom and use extreme conciseness and clarity for his message. He describes his writing style as slow and deliberate, taking years to complete the book. He quotes Thomas Jefferson, who, in a letter to John Adams, wrote "I apologize to you for the lengthiness of this letter; but I had no time for shortening it." With this book David Mills has delivered a coup d'etat to any thought of reconciling religion and science. Post-modernist apologies and attempts to bridge the gap between religion and science he gives no quarter. He very carefully and methodically attacks every religious argument outside the realm of human invention for the existence of a god. His favorite target is the irrationality of Christian belief and the Bible's contention of a young earth, Noah's flood, Genesis genealogies, etc. One rather interesting point he made in an almost casual manner was an observation that the genealogies in Matthew and Luke of the New Testament describe (contradictory) detailed male lineages of Jesus back to King David, and thereby create a trap for the writers of those books: the virgin birth would preclude any blood relationship through Joseph, so how could there be a lineage between Jesus and David? In debunking the prophesy of the Bible, Mills describes an absence of accuracy, noting that as far as accuracy is concerned, the Bible is a non-prophet organization. He clarifies a number of scientific terms abused by religionists. For example, Physical Laws he defines as human descriptions of observed phenomena, rather than universal truths, and therefore subject to revision as new observations warrant. He tackles head-on the idea that the universe was created from nothing into something at the Big Bang. Rather, he offers proof through the Laws of Thermodynamics (conservation of mass/energy) that the universe was always here in one form or another. This argument had a particular resonance with me, as I have long had problems with the something from nothing idea of a single Big Bang jump-starting the universe. Mills says he wrote this book for the forty percent of Americans "... open-minded readers who are not afraid to learn - in fact who are eager and fascinated to learn - about the many conflicts and controversies between science and the Christian Bible." My atheist and freethought friends will highly appreciate his hard-hitting candor and rock-solid enthusiasm for the scientific method, and will put this book at the very top of their arsenal of argument material for combat with religionists. Many of my theist friends who accidentally are exposed to it will probably have major heartburn and relegate it to the trash bin, if they dont outright burn it. But perhaps a few of them will be swayed by Mills flawless logic and lucidit

This is simply an excellent book for those who share its views; or for anyone who has doubts and wonders what the "infidels" are thinking. I don't think I noticed any negative reviews (I bought this book based on the reviews), but I really wouldn't expect any. Most people wouldn't be caught dead reading a book with the word "atheist" in the title. If any devout believer actually condescended to try it (like they were stranded on a desert island and there was nothing else to do), they would likely be quickly offended by the contents on any random page. I'll bet not 1 out of 100 devout believers would finish this book. Among the author's offerings are: "Americans believe 58% to 40% that it is necessary to believe in God to be moral. By contrast, only 13% of Europeans agree with the US view...I don't believe in God because I don't believe in Mother Goose (from Clarence Darrow)...I've always considered atheism to be a very positive philosophy in that, by eliminating a very burdensome obligation to appease a non-existent God, an individual thereby gains maximum freedom to choose his own goals and ideals for a satisfying life...(about public prayer in school) Let's remember that Jesus warned the Pharisees NOT to pray publicly because such prayers were usually pretentious, insincere efforts to showboat...My own observation is that those most terrified of death are not atheists, but believers, uncertain whether they are going to Heaven or Hell...Historically, whenever primitive man lacked scientific understanding of an observed event, he created a 'God of the Gaps' to fill the intellectual vacuum...The wider the gaps in scientific understanding, the greater the historic need for a miracle working 'GOTG'...As a general historic observation, each step forward taken by science has further distanced the hand of God from perceived intervention into natural events. As humanity's gaps of knowledge were slowly replaced by scientific understanding, a GOTG found fewer and fewer caverns of intellectual darkness in which to live...Believers create the illusion of answered prayer by systematically employing the fallacy known as 'Selective Observation,' a perceptual error also referred to as 'Counting the hits and ignoring the misses.'...The more tragic the event - and the higher the body count - the more inclined are the media to feature 'Miracle Survivors' on the six o'clock news...When, however, everyone dies in a catastrophe, such as a Jumbo Jet crash, the newspaper headline never reads 'Jehovah Out To Lunch During Doomed Flight.'...In plain English, we don't know why specific individuals live or die in disasters. We know that Christians are no more likely to survive than non-Christians; and the virtuous are just as likely to perish as thy corrupt...The Christian Church wholeheartedly believes this 'Divine' biblical prophecy, which announces that the vast majority of humanity will follow the wrong road in life and will, as a result end up in Hell instead

Mills' book is an outstanding book that looks at the Atheistic universe. The book, which will be a smorgasbord of information for the beginning Atheist, a delight to read for the lifetime Atheist, and a resource for the questioning theist, has it all. Mills' book dives in full-tilt into subjects like "fine tuning," the "god of the gaps," the "miracle" of life, creationism, Hell, miracles, and many others. Mills' creative writing style, which doesn't require a PhD to understand, mixed with his use of humor and witty sarcasm (where appropriate) makes the book fun to read. Mills also leaves nothing to be desired when tackling the issues in his book. Mills does not hold back in discrediting creationism's claim to be scientific and says what needs to be said. In other words, Mills gets straight to the point. The book includes an "Interview with an Atheist" that covers a lot of the questions that people have when they first meet an Atheist. Mills then goes into chapter after chapter breaking these questions down further and expanding greatly on the answers to give the reader a greater idea of what Atheism is, what Atheism is not, and why Atheism is a justified and rational position for anyone to hold. You may or may not agree with everything that Mills has to say in his book, but you will not be lacking when it comes to a read that is both thought provoking and entertaining. Blair Scott Alabama State Director, American Atheists Director, Alabama Atheist Creator, Atheism Awareness Columnist, Bible Belt Blasphemy