(December 28, 2015 at 3:33 am)Delicate Wrote:

(December 28, 2015 at 12:28 am)Sara0229 Wrote: I need a book, or even a good website that can help a Christian understand atheism. So much I see just trashes Christianity and that's not what I want to do I just want to show how my world makes sense with no god.

Any one have any suggestions?

This might be the wrong place to ask.

Sophisticated atheism that has matured beyond infantile trash talk is sadly not very popular here.

If you want to really understand a philosophically defensible, rigorous defense of atheism I suggest The Atheists Guide to Reality by Alex Rosenberg.

Rosenberg begins with the assumption that the reader is an atheist. What he advocates is how to live well with "nice nihilism." His book is not a defense of atheism.

Here are some good books on the subject by atheist philosophers: 

Daniel Dennett offers a brilliant and illuminating presentation of the atheistic worldview known as reductionist materialism in his Darwin's Dangerous Idea. 

J.L. Mackie goes through all the major arguments for God's existence, which number to around fifteen or so, and then dismantles them, in his The Miracle of Theism.

Friedrich Nietzsche's witty though fiery polemic The Anti-Christ is one the best, and most devastating, critiques of the Christian religion from one of the most fascinating and first openly proud atheists.

David Hume's Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion is a throwback to the dialogue format so popular among the ancients and goes through the main three arguments for God's existence (ontological, cosmological, and teleological), offering their antimonies through the characters Philo, Cleanthes, and Demea, who respectively take the positions of skeptic, deist, and theist.

Hope that helps!

(December 28, 2015 at 4:02 am)Jenny A Wrote:

(December 28, 2015 at 3:33 am)Delicate Wrote: This might be the wrong place to ask.

Sophisticated atheism that has matured beyond infantile trash talk is sadly not very popular here.

If you want to really understand a philosophically defensible, rigorous defense of atheism I suggest The Atheists Guide to Reality by Alex Rosenberg.

Rosenberg begins with the assumption that the reader is an atheist. What he advocates is how to live well with "nice nihilism." His book is not a defense of atheism.

I think the set of views he lays out is the most philosophically defensible picture of atheism on tap.

If someone wants to "understand atheism", or see a " worldview without God", the nice nihilism he describes is certainly intellectually defensible.

(December 28, 2015 at 4:45 am)Delicate Wrote:

(December 28, 2015 at 4:02 am)Jenny A Wrote: Rosenberg begins with the assumption that the reader is an atheist. What he advocates is how to live well with "nice nihilism." His book is not a defense of atheism.

I think the set of views he lays out is the most philosophically defensible picture of atheism on tap.

If someone wants to "understand atheism", or see a " worldview without God", the nice nihilism he describes is certainly intellectually defensible.

Once again you miss the point. A defense of atheism is a defense of the position that there is no credible evidence of god. Rosenberg does not do that. What he does do is present a single possible world view in the absence of a belief in god. In other words, he assumes victory in the battle Dawkins is waging over whether there is a god, and moves on to the philosophical questions Dawkins does not address. Whether you agree with him or not, he is addressing how to live in, and obtain knowledge in a godless world, not defending the view that it is indeed godless world. Humanism is another possible world view for a godless world. Neither is "the" atheist world view. There is no single atheist world view. And there are yet others.

Harris and Dennett address both questions: is there a god; and since there is not, how do we live in god's absense? They go on to address the third and fourth questions. What are te consequences of belief in god and how should atheists deal with those consequences?

(December 28, 2015 at 12:28 am)Sara0229 Wrote: I need a book, or even a good website that can help a Christian understand atheism. So much I see just trashes Christianity and that's not what I want to do I just want to show how my world makes sense with no god.

Any one have any suggestions?

I suggest "Small Gods" by Terry Pratchett. It skewers religion and is a very good read in it's own right.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_Gods

Having never been religious I have never needed to explain atheism. It would be like having to explain why I don't believe there are fairies in my garden, or that Bigfoot really doesn't live in my basement.

I'm going to be sarcastic and recommend Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

Going to be really sarcastic and recommend the Old Testament.

You might enjoy Michael Martin's Atheism: A Philosophical Justification. I also recommend his The Case Against Christianity.

The virtue of Martin's books, aside from the rigorous manner in which he approaches his subjects, is the complete lack of histrionics that does, unfortunately, mar the works of some other atheists. He lays his subjects on ice and quietly, patiently begins dissecting.

[Edited to add]: It's been a while since I read Martin, so I might be misremembering, but it seems to me that Atheism: A Philosophical Justification was published before apologists began trotting out modal-based arguments for the existence of God. So there is that one omission of an argument now making the rounds in an otherwise comprehensive treatment.

I have always thought that philosopher/logician Bertrand Russell's speech Why I Am Not A Christian, given in 1927, is a very reasonable, understandable explanation of one's personal atheism addressed to a christian point of view.  It is a little dated, though if someone looks at the examples he gives and says "the Catholic Church doesn't do that any more!", they're rather missing the point.

My favorite passage:

Quote:Moreover, if you accept the ordinary laws of science, you have to suppose that human life and life in general on this planet will die out in due course: it is merely a flash in the pan; it is a stage in the decay of the solar system; at a certain stage of decay you get the sort of conditions and temperature and so forth which are suitable to protoplasm, and there is life for a short time in the life of the whole solar system. You see in the moon the sort of thing to which the earth is tending -- something dead, cold, and lifeless.

I am told that that sort of view is depressing, and people will sometimes tell you that if they believed that they would not be able to go on living. Do not believe it; it is all nonsense. Nobody really worries much about what is going to happen millions of years hence. Even if they think they are worrying much about that, they are really deceiving themselves. They are worried about something much more mundane, or it may merely be a bad digestion; but nobody is really seriously rendered unhappy by the thought of something that is going to happen in this world millions and millions of years hence. Therefore, although it is of course a gloomy view to suppose that life will die out -- at least I suppose we may say so, although sometimes when I contemplate the things that people do with their lives I think it is almost a consolation -- it is not such as to render life miserable. It merely makes you turn your attention to other things.

(December 28, 2015 at 6:17 am)Jenny A Wrote:

(December 28, 2015 at 4:45 am)Delicate Wrote: I think the set of views he lays out is the most philosophically defensible picture of atheism on tap.

If someone wants to "understand atheism", or see a " worldview without God", the nice nihilism he describes is certainly intellectually defensible.

Once again you miss the point. A defense of atheism is a defense of the position that there is no credible evidence of god. Rosenberg does not do that. What he does do is present a single possible world view in the absence of a belief in god. In other words, he assumes victory in the battle Dawkins is waging over whether there is a god, and moves on to the philosophical questions Dawkins does not address. Whether you agree with him or not, he is addressing how to live in, and obtain knowledge in a godless world, not defending the view that it is indeed godless world. Humanism is another possible world view for a godless world. Neither is "the" atheist world view. There is no single atheist world view. And there are yet others.

Harris and Dennett address both questions: is there a god; and since there is not, how do we live in god's absense? They go on to address the third and fourth questions. What are te consequences of belief in god and how should atheists deal with those consequences?

Keep in mind I'm not just talking about atheism narrowly as a claim about the existence of God. Rather I'm referring to a whole atheistic worldview ( where I agree there can be more than one).

But as such Humanism is not a viable atheistic worldview.

What Rosenberg describes is pretty much the most viable view out there. And it answers exactly the question the OP asks.