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Atheist's Handbook

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We need no God – not for explaining the world, not for acting right, not for living happily, and not for shaping our society in a peaceful and just form. The scientific method – first in line the minimalistic principle called "Occam's Razor" – provides us with all insights and means to better serve all areas which religion claims.

The Book

The Atheist's Handbook is a personal book project of mine as an author which evolved over several years. I present my personal position and develop this point based on its arguments. The core proposition claims that atheism provides the best basis for a modern society and for living in such a society.

In the book I first assert that scientific thinking is the most successful method to address reality. Outstanding is the core principle of "Occam's Razor" stating that unneeded elements in a model of any phenomenon must be disposed of. Subsequently, on this basis it is shown that scientific explanations are to be preferred over religious ones when focusing on explanatory power in an unbiased way. Science delivers the more conclusive and convincing accounts of creation of the universe, our world, life, and the human mind. More scrutiny even proves that scientific explanations go a lot more into detail, but also openly show their limits despite actually covering more.

This way of thinking continues to show that this reasoning can also generally provide the foundation of ethical acting and a happy and fulfilling personal life. The principles even can be transferred to be the basis of an open, free, and peaceful society.

Thus, the book exceeds the limits of other atheist publications which mostly just demand some new enlightenment and social change without actually guiding it. I show extensively how scientifically substantiated atheism can guide and shape such a change.

The project itself, however, is a personal project I pursued in my free time without any backing. Therefore, the book cannot go to the desired depth for every topic. Otherwise, I would not have been able to publish it for a much longer time. The ideas presented, on the other side, should be subjected to discussion even though the presentation could be improved in many ways.

For example, the question how the physical substrate of our thinking processes can be associated with the philosophy of mind is rather abbreviated in the book. After publication of the book I wrote an essay explicating this relation in more detail. The essay (in German only) can be found on my blog:

This German text can be read online there as well as it can be downloaded as a PDF document. In the navigation category "Essays" there you can find other texts in German relating to the topics of the book.

The book as it currently is can be found in the "Download" section in different file formats (see the site navigation to the left) for free although I know well that it could be improved in multiple ways.

I still hope that it can offer an interesting read and I would be happy, if this may provoke a thought or two in some of you. Definitely I would enjoy any feedback. You can use the email address listed in the "Imprint" section linked on the left. Thank you for your interest!

Thomas Schall
Munich in October 2013, extended in September 2016, revised in November 2022.