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

Rosenberg does an excellent job of revealing what atheists are actually committed to believing. And, I think he is right that atheists pretty much have to accept a scientistic world view and I commend Rosenberg for reclaiming this term. We (atheists) sometimes like to sweep certain problems under the rug like morality. When theists claim that atheists "have no moral values," in a certain sense, the theists are right. As Mackie famously argued (I think successfully), "there are no objective moral values." Of course, the theist answer to the problem of morality is no answer at all or, at least, one of the most terrible answers ever given, but many atheists also tend to answer questions about morality in evasive and dishonest ways. Atheists tend to ignore "the bad news" (used in a chapter heading) about morality.Rosenberg also provides a nice survey of some of the most important scientific (and philosophical?) discoveries from various fields like psychology, neuroscience, and biology (molecular and evolutionary). We don't have free will. Introspection is incredibly unreliable (what I take to one of the book's main theses). And, from philosophy, the brain can't be *about* anything at all. (On a negative note, Rosenberg's discussions about history, politics, and economics are not as convincing about his discussions about the fields mentioned earlier. But, I think Rosenberg is right that the problems with these latter fields (social sciences) result because of the some of the startling conclusions uncovered by the former fields (physics, neurosceience, biology, and some psychology).The worst part of this book is the subtitle. Rosenberg provides us with an excellent atheist's guide to reality, but he doesn't help us enjoy life without illusions. Rosenberg doesn't deal effectively with the emotional impact that some of these truths can have. This is the one thing that existentialist philosophers understood that contemporary analytic philosophers don't. Reality is depressing. Rosenberg's solution? Rosenberg's only tip to enjoying life without illusions? Prozac. This answer is so unsatisfying that I'm apt to believe it's a joke. To be fair to Rosenberg, the problem of how to deal with reality is difficult, but I think he should have avoided the issue raised by the subtitle completely.(P.S. I haven't tried Prozac, but I've tried numerous other antidepressants including talk therapy. They haven't helped in the slightest with my existential dread.)

Alex Rosenberg makes one simple thesis that is the foundation of his Scientism: "all physical facts (facts of physics) fixes all other facts". Rosenberg expounds on this by showing how the second laws of thermodynamics (entropy) fixes natural selection from the molecular level to the more complex organism that Charles Darwin observed.Rosenberg also argues that neurobiology or neuroscience fixes many facts about beliefs, behavior, attitudes, etc. As Rosenberg explores some of the crucial facts from neuroscience he draws to the bold conclusion that there is no free-will, there is no self (or soul), our introspection is extremely flawed, and our thoughts are essentially neurons that are not about anything. He also draw to another conclusion from his understanding of modern physics that there is no purpose or meaning (no teleology) in the Universe. Furthermore, Alex Rosenberg tries to relate neurobiology with natural selection to explain why most human beings rely on introspection to interpret reality and human behavior in terms of narratives, meaning, and purpose, rather than understanding reality from the more scientific-mathematics point of view. Not to mention, Alex Rosenberg openly admits that he (including scientism) is a moral nihilist, but he makes an interesting argument that given the evolutionary facts about human nature moral nihilism isn't so bad since most of us are "moral" creatures to begin with. With supported scientific evidences, human beings are cooperative, altruistic, and simply nice social creatures. The real disagreement in moral issues usually lies in topics that involves facts which many of us do not have (such as the religious anti-abortionist).The irony behind it all is that through out the book Rosenberg expresses and articulates his views as if it really is no big deal at all. He makes assertions that majority of the human population would feel existentially disturbed by, especially the most religious among us. He would simply put it as the matter of fact that there is no purpose, no free-will, no self, no independent moral system, etc. His ideas are really the worst nightmare for both Atheists and Theists. Atheists because they are trying to avoid the accusation from Theists that Atheism implies the very things that Alex Rosenberg believes in. Theists, because Rosenberg's ideas (including his light-hearted attitude) is so irreverent and affront to their prescientific theological sentiments that is grounded on the very things Rosenberg lightly rejects (with good humor, that is).His conclusions is even more humorous, eccentric, yet disturbing: if you want to solve your emotioinal problems, take Prozac. Of course, Rosenberg is not suggesting that Prozac literally solves every problem, but his point is that it is far better to cope with our life through effective means rather than to depend on the very thing that gets us nowhere, which is introspection. Most of our human values derive from introspection, yet because introspection deals less with causality and more with interpretation, feelings, common-sense, intuitions, science just looks boring and impenetrable to us. Because of this, most of us decide not to study science, and many times we find humanities interesting. Rosenberg's point is not that we should suspend ourselves from introspection, that is clearly implausible. What Rosenberg argues is that we shouldn't take life too seriously through introspection, or navel-gazing. Just simply enjoy life as it is (especially by taking Prozac!).While I may not agree with everything Rosenberg says, I admire him for having a very consistent view that surprisingly coheres fairly well with certain things which we think wouldn't cohere well with nihilism. When it does not cohere with many of our cherished common-sense values, all it requires is to re-think or re-describe them in a very different perspective, and many times they are fairly interesting. I especially was interested when Rosenberg recommended Epicureanism as a way of life to cope with some of our deep-seated anxieties against death and meaninglessness of the universe; otherwise, the only other solution is to probably take Prozac. I commend this book for not only being consistent, but also for providing a fairly systematized over-view of scientism along with the memorable insights, which potentially vindicates scientism from many of the accusations against it.

Great book, well worth reading. However… his claims about meaning are ultimately self-refuting. He’s aware of this problem, but he has yet to provide a solution.The chapters on ethics are great.

This is the book I was ready to read. Belief in Santa Claus is as plausible as belief in God. But the science,I was convinced, however cold and calculated, is our only irrefutable reality. This book has piqued my interest in a fascinating way of looking at the world.I understood little of the science which was exposed at length but still I couldn't put it down. If you have a strong faith don't bother but if you are atheist, be proud. As Rosenberg said, we atheists will still find a reason to get up of a morning!

A thorough working out of the implications of "physical facts fix all the facts". It may make you uncomfortable, and you may not like it much, but if you're committed to following the facts, then this is a journey you need to undertake.

A wonderful book. A distillation of what science has revealed about our world and our place in it. Not for the weakhearted. I loved this book.

At last,someone other than a big name scientist or evolutionary biologist(dont get me wrong,I have the greatest respect and admiration for Dawkins,Hitchins,Dennett,et al) has come out with the way it really is. Good on you,Alex.