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

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Answering life's persistent questions : do you want stories or reality? -- The nature of reality : the physical facts fix all the facts -- How physics fakes design -- IKEA didn't make natural history : good design is rare, expensive, and accidental -- Morality : the bad news -- The good news : nice nihilism -- Never let your conscious be your guide -- The brain does everything without thinking about anything at all -- Farewell to the purpose-driven life -- You've got to stop taking yourself so seriously -- History debunked -- Living with scientism : ethics, politics, the humanities, and Prozac as needed.
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 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.--From publisher description.

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