Table of Contents
Morning in the Midwest 3
About the Author 10
The Joke 14
The Great Desecration 18
Get a Job 28
It's So Easy to Be Outraged! 31
I Am Not a Spoiled Child Having a Temper Tantrum 34
The Proper Fate for a Holy Book 39
Ask but Don't Tell 42
Dirty Words 47
The Top Ten Reasons Religion Is Like Pornography 51
The Purpose-Free Life 52
Happy Easter! 58
Afterlife? What Afterlife? 62
Soulless! 65
What Dreadful Price Must We Pay to Be Atheists? 69
Imagine No Heaven 74
Daughters of Eve 82
Prometheus's Sin 91
So Alone 95
One Nation Free of Gods 100
An Embryo Is Not a Person 104
The Courtier's Reply 109
The Big Pink Guy in the Sky 112
The Karen Armstrong Diet 121
God's Little Crisis of Confidence 126
Laughter as a Strategy for Diminishing Religion 131
We're Happier out of a Straitjacket than in One 137
Marketing Godless Science 141
"Science Is What We Do to Keep from Lying to Ourselves" 146
Our Brains Are Full of Contradictions 149
Ken Miller, Poster Child for Compatibility 151
Religion Fails as a Source of Knowledge 157
Science as a Lever to Move the World 159
The Active Hand 161
The Proper Reverence Due Those Who Have Gone Before 167
Niobrara 175
We Stand Awed at the Heights Our People Have Achieved 180
Acknowledgments 189