Currently reporting from a tiny, hip hotel at an undisclosed location on the West Coast. Of the various ways in which this establishment brands itself as edgy and unconventional, there is no standard-issue Gideon Bible tucked in a drawer somewhere in each room. Instead, one is presented with a small laminated Spiritual Menu — a list of texts that can be fetched up to your room by a quick call to the front desk. Options include:
- Bhagavad Gita: A New Translation
- Book of Mormon
- Buddhist Bible
- KJV Gift and Award Bible: Revised Edition, King James Version
- The Koran
- New American Bible
- Tao Te Ching
- The Torah: The Five Books of Moses, Standard Edition
- Book on Scientology
Probably, like me, you are wondering why there aren’t any options available for atheists. (Tedious explanatory note, since this is the internet: I am not really serious. Therefore, please to not respond with a lecture on why, when faced with a “Spiritual Menu,” the proper response for an atheist is simply to fast.) I mean, there have to be more of us than Scientologists, right? Although perhaps not among people who matter.
On the other hand, it’s not clear what would constitute an appropriate choice, as atheists have never been very big on sacred texts. I can think of a few possibilities. Something like The God Delusion wouldn’t be right, regardless of its various warts and charms, as it’s essentially reactive in nature — talking about why one shouldn’t believe in God, rather than celebrating or elaborating how to live as a cheerful materialist. Something like On the Origin of Species or Galileo’s Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems would be interesting choices, although they are too specialized to really fit the bill. You could make a very good case for a modern post-Enlightenment book like Richard Rorty’s Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity, as a serious (if not especially systematic) attempt to figure out how we should deal with a contingent world free of any guidance from outside.
But I would probably vote for Lucretius‘s De Rerum Natura (On the Nature of Things). As good empiricists, we should recognize that a classic text doesn’t have to get everything right, as our understanding continues to be revised and improved. So why not go for a true classic? Writing in the first century BCE, Lucretius (a Roman admirer of the Greek philosopher Epicurus) took materialism seriously, and thought deeply about the place of human beings in a world governed by the laws of nature. He advocated skepticism, dismissed the idea that life continued after death in any form, preached personal responsibility, and thought hard about science, especially the role of atoms and statistical mechanics. (Slightly ahead of his time.) And the book itself comes in the form of an occasionally-inscrutable poem, originally in Latin. Which adds a certain gravitas, if you know what I mean.
And, verily, those tortures said to be
In Acheron, the deep, they all are ours
Here in this life. No Tantalus, benumbed
With baseless terror, as the fables tell,
Fears the huge boulder hanging in the air:
But, rather, in life an empty dread of Gods
Urges mortality, and each one fears
Such fall of fortune as may chance to him.
It’s far from a perfect book — when it comes to sexuality, in particular, Lucretius stumbles a bit. But I’ll take it over any of the Spiritual Menu offerings, any day.
Shall we take up a collection to leave copies of Lucretius in hotel rooms around the world?
It’s not, for people like Sean. It is, for people like Richard Dawkins.
I’m not an atheist, so it’s a bit strange for me to be offering an opinion. But I appreciate Sean’s call for discussion of what might be considered timeless atheist texts. One might reach for Hume’s “An Inquiry Concerning Human Understanding,” but of course he was really agnostic. Maybe that shouldn’t bother atheists, I don’t know.
I would strongly recommend “The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark” by Carl Sagan and “On Human Nature” by E. O. Wilson as the two texts that most perfectly encompass Atheism today. I was shocked that no one had mentioned them before.
Additionally in answer to the Buddhist bible question I would suggest The Bodhichary?vat?ra, which is a fascinating read.
I am not an atheist either: I simply do not see the point of having a belief that can never be verified or falsified.
Nonetheless, I believe that there are some books that everybody should read, independently of faith and cultural background. These books include, but are not limited to:
The Logic of Scientific Discovery, by Karl Popper (anything that Popper wrote is highly recommended);
Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, by Charles MacKay;
Learned Optimism, by Martin Seligman;
English Culture and the Decline of the Industrial Spirit, by Martin Wiener;
the Icelandic Sagas.
Snorri, maybe you should consider that much of what we take for common sense fact (world exists independently of observer, world is “real” in a way distinct from (alert!) modal realism’s notion of all possible worlds, and probabilities (can never be falsified since any outlier can eventually occur) etc. I wonder why those who say that verifiability matters so much, don’t spend more time picking on those (like Jason Dick) who consider the multiple-worlds postulate a game point. Where the hell are those other worlds?
BTW I believe there’s something more “behind” the universe’s existence because of insights about contingent existence etc, whether I can be “sure” or verify it or not. What proves the notions about what we should or should believe or is sensible etc, claims that something is meaningless unless verifiable are themselves based on arguments as ultimately non-empirical as the existence of God. Finally, Penn’s arguments are so pitifully simple-minded: by definition “God” is whatever the universe’s existence is contingent on if such be needed, so comparing it to a random entity like “an elephant in a trunk” with no ontological function (that can be defined w/o just being a smart-aleck ass) shows the man’s philosophical illiteracy. Well, he’s just a performer, but I can’t imagine what the excuse is for like-minded “philosophers” who offer such puerile rubbish.
Why the hell do hotels feel obliged to provide religious books for their clients in the first place? Why not books about various political stances, or about cooking, or about art, or about science? This kind of antiquated mentality that puts religious beliefs on a pedestal doesn’t need to be broadened to (illogically) include atheism, it just needs to go away.
—
On a completely different topic, I want to reply to the second paragraph of Neil B.’s comment 56. Defining God as “whatever the universe’s existence is contingent on” is the sort of tactic that makes atheists like me conclude that theologians and their fans are fundamentally dishonest. What if the thing that the universe’s existence is contingent on was a cellular automaton? Would you call it ‘God’? What if the thing that the universe is contingent on was something akin to a plant whose pollen develops into universes? Would you call it ‘God’? What if the thing that the universe is contingent on is a team of alien scientists (whose species evolved in another universe) who designed a universe-simulation? Would you call them ‘God’?
If you would call any of those things God, you’re being dishonest, because that’s not what people usually mean by the word. There is an infinity of things that our universe could be contingent upon that can’t be called God. A hypothesis’ number of rival hypotheses is what determines how a priori unlikely it is. Therefore, using analogies like a teapot orbiting the Sun beyond Mars’ orbit, or an invisible unicorn, or the Flying Spaghetti Monster is perfectly warranted.
Why the hell do hotels feel obliged to provide religious books for their clients in the first place? Why not books about various political stances, or about cooking, or about art, or about science?
Hotels are businesses, they are not there to try and influence the world view of their customers
Neil B: your 1st paragraph would hardly be comprehensible with matching parentheses; with an unmatched parenthesis, it’s beyond me.
Anyway, as far as I can make out, your reply has little or nothing to do with what I said, which is that I do not see the point of having a belief whose truth or falsity will not affect me in any way. I was referring specifically to atheism, because, clearly, a belief in atheism would not change my behavior (except for motivating me to spend valuable time trying to convert others to atheism, maybe); while a religious belief would.
I do NOT believe that “verifiability matters so much”, or else why would I put Popper in my list?
BTW here are a few more books that I should have put in the list:
How to Win Friends and Influence People, by Dale Carnegie;
Winning the Games People Play, by Nathon Myron (probably the most underrated);
The Prince, by Niccolo’ Machiavelli;
The Art of War, by Sun Tzu.
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The Tao is a great read for this atheist.
Perhaps just a line of two from Shakespeare:
“A tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”
Or…
“There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”
If there were any good translations around, some poems of Norwegian humanist Arnulf