The Atheist's Guide to Reality: Enjoying Life without Illusions by Alex Rosenberg

Readers of my blog may consider that it is weird for me to recommend a book defending naturalistic atheism. And it seems to be more weird when the book in question is not available yet (it is available for pre-order in Amazon.com).

However, I don't recommend this book because I think that naturalistic atheism is true (on the contrary, I think it's clearly false). I recommend this book for other reasons:

1-The author, Alex Rosenberg, is a prominent philosopher of science and philosopher of biology (whose works on these fields are a must read).

2-In contrast to other naturalist philosophers, Alex Rosenberg is an INTELLECTUALLY honest metaphysical naturalist.

3-Consequence of point 2 is that he openly concedes the actual and true implications of the basic premises of metaphysical naturalism. Therefore, he is not afraid of defending nihilism, the non-existence of objective moral values, the non-existence of beliefs (at least, of beliefs in the propositional and intentional sense as they are usually understood) and other (obviously false, in my opinion) doctrines that are implicit in the metaphysical naturalist's basic ontological premises (like determinism, the causal closure of the physical universe, the commitment to physicalism, the non-teleological and largely random process of Darwinian evolution, the ontological dependence of consciousness on the brain, the non-efficacious of consciousness, etc.).

Reading carefully the naturalistic literature is a frustrating experience, since in general naturalists asserts a bunch of ontological premises but (due to intellectual dishonesty or lack of logical rigour) they try to avoid the devastating implications of atheistic naturalism for concepts like moral values, moral responsability, freedom, self, normativity, life's purposes and so forth. Many naturalists actually see and draw these implications, but other (the dishonest and charlatans) employ a bunch of verbal sleight-of-hand, logical fallacies and misdirections in order to avoid the actual implications of naturalism. Reading people like that feels like a Myke Tyson's punch on the face, and the only thought that passes on my mind is "Shame on them!".

This is not the case of Rosenberg's book. At least, jugding from the product description in Amazon, we can know that "We can't avoid the persistent questions about the meaning of life-and the nature of reality. Philosopher Alex Rosenberg maintains that science is the only thing that can really answer them—all of them. 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 nonbelievers provides the insight into the real difference between right and wrong, the nature of the mind, even the direction of human history. The Atheist's Guide to Reality draws powerful implications for the ethical and political issues that roil contemporary life. The result is nice nihilism, a surprisingly sanguine perspective atheists can happily embrace." (emphasis in blued added).

For years, critics of naturalism (like me) have pointed out that IF naturalism is true, THEN several versions of ontological and epistemic nihilism, the subjetivity and relativity of morality, the meaningless of life, etc. follow as necessary (or highly plausible) corollaries. In my opinion, these conclusions are irrefutable.

However, some naturalistic charlatans, more interested in winning the argument than in being logically consistent in the search for the truth, just deny these conclusions (in part for the sake of contradicting critics and in part because they want to believe that such devastating conclusions are false).

I hope Rosenberg's book, which is supposed to be a rigorous philosophical defense of precisely the same points made by many critics of naturalism regarding the latter's implications, will bring honesty and clearity in discussions about metaphysical naturalism.

I look forward to read Rosenberg's book and, probably, I'll review it in my blog.

If you're a naturalist, theist, pantheist, agnostic or whatever, don't miss the chance to understand what contemporary scientific atheism (= metaphysical naturalism) actually is and entails from the hands of one of its most sophisticated, erudite, competent, honest, logically coherent and best defenders.