Maisel - The atheists way: living well without gods

Millions of people lead happy, moral, loving, meaningful lives without believing in a god, and Eric Maisel explains in exquisite rational and compassionate detail how we do it. Instead of a purpose-driven life, atheists have life-driven purpose: we dont find meaningwe make meaning. After reading Maisels thoughtful, informed arguments, backed up with real-life success stories, you will be utterly convinced of the pointlessness of pointlessness.

Dan Barker, author of Godless: How an Evangelical Preacher
Became One of Americas Leading Atheists and
co-president of the Freedom from Religion Foundation

Books advocating atheism can sometimes be hard, dogmatic, or angry. Not this one. Maisels fresh and unique contribution is inviting, engaging, and downright soulful. Rather than hammering away at the irrationality of belief, debunking the Bible, or regurgitating standard arguments against theism, The Atheists Way offers a meaningful approach to life that is sublime, eloquent, and inspiring. Reasonable, insightful, and comforting, this book is a true breath of fresh air.

Phil Zuckerman, PhD, author of Society without God: What
the Least Religious Nations Can Tell Us About Contentment

Eric Maisel elevates the tag atheist from a mere denial of the supernatural to a calling a calling to a high-hearted life of diligence, creativity, and ruthless honesty in maintaining ones integrity in the face of uncaring nature.

David Cortesi, author of Secular Wholeness

With this book, Eric Maisel does what none of the New Atheists have succeeded in doing: elaborating what atheists do believe.

Hemant Mehta, author of I Sold My Soul on eBay

In The Atheists Way, Eric Maisel takes a giant leap beyond where the New Atheist authors have gone before. Instead of simply criticizing religion or demolishing arguments for the existence of God, Maisel covers new territory and provides a foundation for making meaning and living purposefully without supernatural intervention. A book to be relished by atheists, skeptics, humanists, freethinkers, and unbelievers everywhere.

Donna Druchunas, Skepchick.org

I find Eric Maisels writings more witty than Hitchens, more polished and articulate than Harris, and more informative and entertaining than Dawkins. A five-star read from cover to cover! My only complaint is that Maisel is going to leave the rest of us atheist authors in the dust.

David Mills, author of Atheist Universe

ALSO BY ERIC MAISEL

NONFICTION

Affirmations for Artists

Coaching the Artist Within

Creative Recovery

The Creativity Book

Creativity for Life

Deep Writing

Everyday You

Fearless Creating

Fearless Presenting

A Life in the Arts

Living the Writers Life

Performance Anxiety

Sleep Thinking Staying Sane in the Arts

Ten Zen Seconds

Toxic Criticism

20 Communication Tips

at Work

20 Communication Tips

for Families

The Van Gogh Blues

Write Mind

A Writers Paris

A Writers San Francisco

A Writers Space

FICTION

The Blackbirds of Mulhouse

The Black Narc

Dismay

The Fretful Dancer

The Kingston Papers

JOURNALS

Artists Speak

Writers and Artists on Devotion

Writers and Artists on Love

MEDITATION DECKS

Everyday Calm

Everyday Creative

Everyday Smart

E-BOOKS

Becoming a Creativity Coach

The Power of Sleep Thinking

The
Atheists
Way

Living Well Without Gods

Eric Maisel

New World Library

Novato, California

New World Library

14 Pamaron Way

Novato, California 94949

Copyright 2009 by Eric Maisel

All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, or other without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.

Text design by Tona Pearce Myers

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Maisel, Eric.

The atheists way : living well without gods / Eric Maisel.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-1-57731-642-8 (pbk. : alk. paper)

1. Atheism. 2. Conduct of life. I. Title.

BL2747.3.M296 2009

211'.8dc22 2008044044

First printing, January 2009

ISBN 978-1-57731-642-8

Printed in the United States on 30% postconsumer-waste recycled paper

New World Library is a proud member of the Green Press Initiative.

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

For Ann

There are no gods (including God). Like all species, ours is a product of nature. This is not something either to celebrate or to mourn. But it can prove a transformational and mind-opening experience to put all gods, religions, and supernatural enthusiasms aside and to explore the world from the point of view of a human being who lives, dies, and is as natural as a tiger or a dove.

You may currently take comfort in gods, religions, and supernatural enthusiasms; or, having cast all that aside, you may feel cold and distraught, as if you were standing alone in the universe. If you are currently taking comfort in gods and religions, I hope that you will find more comfort by living the atheists way and by replacing those dangerous superstitions with natural beauty. If, having cast all that aside, you are feeling cold and distraught, I hope that this book will provide you with some warmth and relief, for the atheists way is a rich way, as rich as life itself.

The atheists way provides you with a complete life plan. You start with the idea that evolution explains you but does not completely dictate to you. Because you are built exactly as you are built, with an instinct for ethics alongside an instinct for self-interest, with a complicated sense of self from which flow your decisions about what self-interest means and what you value (a sense of self that you can modify by applying reason), and with all the other diverse and fascinating aspects of your humanity, you can plot a course that feels righteous and worthy to you.

Living the atheists way is more than living without gods, religions, and supernatural enthusiasms much more. It is a way of life that integrates the secular, humanist, scientific, freethinking, skeptical, rationalist, and existential traditions into a complete worldview and that rallies that worldview under the banner of atheism, choosing that precise word as its rallying cry. It chooses atheism to make clear that our best chance of survival is for members of our species to grow into a mature view of self-interest, one in which human beings can discuss their conflicting interests without one side betraying the other by playing the god card. That will be a great day, when conflicts can be aired without that card being played.