The Atheist's Guide To Reality: Enjoying Life Without Illusions

Description

We can't avoid the persistent questions about the meaning of life and the nature of reality. Alex Rosenberg maintains that science is the only thing that can really answer all of these questions. His bracing and ultimately upbeat book takes physics seriously as the complete description of reality and accepts all its consequences. He shows how physics makes Darwinian natural selection the only way life can emerge, and how that deprives nature of purpose and human action of meaning, while it exposes conscious illusions such as free will and the self. The science that makes us non-believers provides the insight into the difference between right and wrong, the nature of the mind, even the direction of human history. The Atheist's Guide to Reality offers nice nihilism, a surprisingly sanguine perspective atheists can happily embrace.

Reviews

For those of us who have pondered what David Hume might have said, were he to have had the benefit of all the scientific knowledge that succeeded his death, Alex Rosenberg s wonderful new book perfectly satisfies. --Rebecca Goldstein "36 Arguments for the Existence of God"

Author description

Alex Rosenberg is the R. Taylor Cole Professor and chair of the Department of Philosophy at Duke University and the co-director of the Duke Center for Philosophy of Biology.