The Atheist Who Didn't Exist: Or: the dreadful consequences of bad arguments

by Andy Bannister

Publisher:

Monarch Books

, 2015

Overview

"A breath, a gust, a positive whoosh of fresh air. Made me laugh, made me think, made me cry." Adrian Plass

In the last decade, atheism has leapt from obscurity to the front pages: producing best-selling books, making movies, and plastering adverts on the side of buses. There’s an energy and a confidence to contemporary atheism: many people now assume that a godless scepticism is the default position, indeed the only position for anybody wishing to appear educated, contemporary, and urbane. Atheism is hip, religion is boring.

Yet when one pokes at popular atheism, many of the arguments used to prop it up quickly unravel. The Atheist Who Didn’t Exist is designed to expose some of the loose threads on the cardigan of atheism, tug a little, and see what happens. Blending humour with serious thought, Andy Bannister helps the reader question everything, assume nothing and, above all, recognise lazy scepticism and bad arguments. Be an atheist by all means: but do be a thought-through one.

Contents

Contents
Foreword by Ravi Zacharias 11
Chapter
1 The Loch Ness Monster’s Moustache
(or: The Terrible Consequences of Bad Arguments) 13
2 The Scandinavian Sceptic
(or: Why Atheism Really is a Belief System) 30
3 The Aardvark in the Artichokes
(or: Why Not All Gods are the Same) 47
4 The Santa Delusion
(or: Why Faith in God Does Not Mean You’re Insane) 66
5 Aim for That Haystack!
(or: Why Psychological Arguments Against Religion Fail) 82
6 Sven and the Art of Refrigerator Maintenance
(or: Why Religion Doesn’t Poison Everything) 98
7 The Lunatic in the Louvre
(or: Why Science Cannot Explain the Entirety of Reality) 118
8 Humpty Dumpty and the Vegan
(or: Why We Really Do Need God to Be Good) 140
9 The Peculiar Case of the Postmodern Penguin
(or: Why Life Without God is Meaningless) 164
10 The Panini Poisoner of Pimlico
(or: Why Everybody Has Faith) 187
11 The Reluctant Eunuch
(or: Why We Really Can Know a Lot About Jesus) 209
Acknowledgments 234
Text Credits 237

Product Details

• Title : The Atheist Who Didn't Exist: or the dreadful consequences of bad arguments
• Author: Bannister, Andy
• Publisher: Monarch Books
• Publication Date: 2015
• ISBN: 9780857216113