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Rating: 
Summary: Too short, not rational enough
Review: Baggini's book is probably a useful one if a person really is looking for an introduction to atheism--that is, has never thought about it seriously before. That person would probably want to get in and out very quickly with the general idea. For that, it achieves its purpose.
However, that person would also come away with some troubling ideas. It is either the lack of length or of the lack of reason that leads Baggini to make confused statements about faith and belief. He still subscribes to the notion that belief is a rational thing, akin to knowledge. It is not. He also distinguishes between faith and belief, when they are exactly the same thing. One holds a belief on faith because there is no other basis to hold it on. If it were rational (that is, based on evidence and logic), it would not be a belief but knowlege. He even virtually insinuates that atheism is a religion, which is silly. If atheism is a religion, then not collecting stamps is a hobby.
For a better discussion of atheism, its rational bases, its relation to religion, relativism, and agnosticism, and a variety of applications of this--science, toleration, activism, morality and spirituality, etc.--look at my "Natural Atheism" here at Amazon or at www.naturalatheism.us.
Rating: 
Summary: Clear, Concise, Entirely Accessable
Review: I am an atheist, and even *I* learned a thing or two from this brief but rich tome. Baggini lays out a basic justification for an atheist worldview [which he equates fairly with naturalism] that goes beyond attacking theism and into positive justification for atheism as the better worldview. His style is direct, his tone affable, and in the end he comes up with a readable introduction than atheists and theists can both understand and appreciate. If, in the future, someone asks me to recommend a book on atheism, I will be directing them to Baggini first.
Rating:
Summary: Clear, Concise, Entirely Accessable
Review: I am an atheist, and even *I* learned a thing or two from this brief but rich tome. Baggini lays out a basic justification for an atheist worldview [which he equates fairly with naturalism] that goes beyond attacking theism and into positive justification for atheism as the better worldview. His style is direct, his tone affable, and in the end he comes up with a readable introduction than atheists and theists can both understand and appreciate. If, in the future, someone asks me to recommend a book on atheism, I will be directing them to Baggini first.
Rating:
Summary: A wonderful introduction to naturalistic atheism
Review: I had not heard of _Atheism: A Very Short Introduction_ prior to receiving it as a gift from a friend. As I read the book, however, I quickly realized that Julian Baggini had written a masterful introduction to atheism, one that is sure to become a classic for years to come. Here is the table of contents: Preface
List of Illustrations
1. What Is Atheism?
2. The Case for Atheism
3. Atheist Ethics
4. Meaning and Purpose
5. Atheism in History
6. Against Religion?
7. Conclusion References and further reading
Index In chapter 1, Baggini explains his primary purpose in _Atheism_ is to "provide a positive case for atheism," which he defines as "the belief that there is no God or gods" (p. 3). As Baggini correctly explains, atheism is not materialism, and Baggini makes it clear that he rejects materialism. Instead, most atheism is rooted in "the broader claims of naturalism" (p. 7). Since naturalism *entails* atheism, any evidence for naturalism is automatically evidence for naturalism. (The converse is not necessarily true, however.) In Baggini's words, "atheism is essentially a form of naturalism and so its main evidential base is the evidence for naturalism" (p. 16). Why is this significant? Because the evidential case for naturalism is much broader than the evidential case for atheism. Thus, Baggini's case for atheism has a far greater explanatory scope than the cases found in recent defenses of atheism by such scholars as Martin, Rowe, Le Poidevin, Smith, and Mackie, who do not defend atheism by appealing to the case for naturalism. In chapter 2, Baggini sets forth his case for atheism. It includes (i) the absence of evidence of the supernatural; (ii) the physical dependence of the mind upon the brain; (iii) the simplicity of naturalism compared to supernatural alternatives, including theism; (iv) religious diversity; and (v) the problem of evil. Baggini concludes that atheism is the best explanation for these facts. In chapter 3, Baggini discusses the relationship between atheism and ethics. His refutation of the idea that moral laws require a moral lawgiver is excellent. As he puts it, morality "is the basis upon which just laws are enacted and enforced; it is not constituted by the laws themselves" (p. 38). Thus, if we think of God as a moral lawgiver, God's laws will be moral only if "they conform to moral principles which are independent of God" (p. 38). Baggini also argues that an atheist ethics can combine features of Aristotelian, Kantian, and Utilitarian ethics. In chapter 4, he explains a related issue, the relationship between atheism, meaning, and purpose. He refutes the idea that God is a necessary or sufficient condition for a meaningful life. As Baggini points out, just because a creator gives a purpose to its creature hardly makes the purpose significant *for the creature* (p. 59). Ultimately, life's ultimate purpose must be something which is intrinsically valuable. That something, he argues, is life itself. Moreover, immortality isn't required for a meaningful life, either. On the contrary, the inevitability of death is "what makes life so valuable in the first place" (p. 71). In chapter 5, Baggini discusses atheism in history. Specifically, he discusses the emergence of atheism in Western civilization, as well as the claim that atheism was responsible for 20th century totalitarian atrocities. On the latter, he discusses the relationship between, atheism, Nazi Germany, and Soviet communism. Regarding Nazi Germany, Baggini correctly mentions Nazi Germany was not an atheist state. Moreover, "Nazi doctrines themselves were also at odds with the kind of rational naturalism of traditional atheism" (p. 84). As for Soviet communism, Baggini points out that the history of the Soviet Union was not somehow the consequence of atheist beliefs; what happened in Russia was partially the result of *militant* atheism. Atheism as such does not entail militant atheism, and Baggini argues against militant atheism throughout his book. In chapter 6, Baggini addresses the claim that atheism is against religion. Atheism as such is only opposed to the truth of religion; it does not entail hostility towards religious believers. Baggini then briefly considers some arguments for God's existence, including the cosmological, teleological, and ontological arguments. Finally, he criticizes militant atheism. In chapter 7, Baggini acknowledges some of the omissions of his book. He also talks about humanism as a type of positive atheism. Perhaps the main fault that I find with Baggini's discussion of the case for naturalism, as well as his rebuttal to the case against it, lies in its incompleteness. Given Baggini's emphasis on atheism as a form of naturalism, it is surprising he did not also include evolution or the biological role of pain and pleasure. Moreover, his failure to mention divine hiddenness as evidence for atheism is odd. On the theistic side, I was struck by how Baggini neglected the so-called 'fine-tuning' argument and instead discussed merely the watchmaker argument, which even most theists reject. The other important fault which I find with Baggini's book are his references to the idea of 'atheist ethics' or 'atheist morality,' as if there were clearly one atheistic approach to ethics. Since the only ethical implication of atheism is the falsity of the divine command theory, it seems to me this is a non sequitur. Baggini's discussion of an Aristotelian-Kantian-Utilitarian hybrid approach is fine as far as it goes, but he says nothing about the obvious objection that atheists have no basis for selecting that ethical theory over any other secular ethical theory. Despite these two faults, I think that this book does an excellent job in introducing atheism. In particular, I am especially pleased with its emphasis on the case for naturalism. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in atheism.
Rating:
Summary: Well written but too "positive".
Review: Julian Baggini's entry in the delightful Short Introduction series is a very well written primer detailing the basis for an atheistic position. It does a good job showing that atheism need not and does not go together with a generally negative, pessimistic or nihilistic view of life. While I find the book valuable, I have certain reservations that force me to give preference to the approach expoused by George H. Smith in his definitive Atheism: The Case Against God. The problem, as I see it, in Baggini's "positive" definition of atheism as the belief that there is no God. In contrast, Smith defines it as a lack of belief that there is God. This, Smith argues, is the semantically correct meaning of Atheism, "no theism", or "no belief in God. Baggini's version, if I may be allowed to coin a term, should more properly be called Anti-Theism. The difference between the two approaches is subtle, but nonetheless crucial. For Baggini's approach leaves a window open for the theist to accuse the atheist of making the same kind of a leap of faith that the theist himself is accused of. Smith's definition, on the other hand, places the burden of definition, explanation, and proof squarely on the theist. We do not know what the theist is talking about. He cannot just come up to us in the street, start saying words and expect us to argue with him over their existence. First he or she must definite what it is they are talking about, and then they must provide evidence why what they say is true. If they fail, argues Smith, atheist has no choice but to remain an atheist. as a consequence of this approach, there is no such thing is an agnostic, all agnostics being either closet theists or closet atheists. For, it's not sufficient to say "I don't know if there is God", - one necessarily must add "But I believe there is", or "but I do not believe there is".
Now whether Smith's "negative" or Baggini's "positive" definition is more appropriate has been a subject of debate for a long time, and I feel neither capable nor justified in attempting to resolve it here. Some simple points, however, are in order. If, following Baggini, we respond to the theists but claiming "There is no God", that would imply that we know what they mean by God, and we just happen to think that what they mean does not physically happen to exist. However, any philosophicaly trained scholar will confirm that we are far from making even the slightest logical sense of various theistic definitions of God. Therefore, the proper response must be to demand that the theist defines what he means first. Once he has done so, we may then employ a Baggini-like approach and argue that there is no God, provided that by God we mean exactly what our particular theist means. I personally am of a conviction that any theistic belief even formulated is necesserily of one of the three types 1. Something that is well defined but cannot exist in the nature as we know it 2. Something that is not coherently defined 3. Something that is coherently defined and could possibly exist, but is thus far unsupported by evidence, and does not deserve to be worshipped or called God. I call the first type a Santa Claus type belief (while a resonably coherent concept, it's existence would contradict everything we know about the physical world, in particular the well established inability of a person to visit millions of households all over the world in a single night). The second type of belief I like to call a "square circle" type (the concept is not coherently defined and is a contradiction to itself). Tne third type of belief is a UFO-type (it could possibly exist, but all the evidence has so far been unreliable or anecdotal, so we do not belive it exists, but will not make a claim that it DOESN'T exist, instead we will keep our minds open until further more reliable evidence presents itself.
Theistic examples of the above types of belief are:
1. Santa Claus type: God is defined much like in ancient religions, a bearded old mean enthroned in the clouds, who makes thunder and lightning when he is angry at his human subjects. If we are presented with this kind of definition, then a Baggini-type approach becomes valid and we may make a positive statement that there is no God if that is in fact the definition. For an existence of such a God would violate everything that the huge body of our sciences have taught us.
2. Square Circle type: This type actually encompasses most of the modern definitions of an omnipotent, omniscient, perfect, omnibenevolent, indfinite, unlimited, First Cause, Ultimate Designer kind of deity. I do not wish to delve into technical details here, and wil refer the reador to Smith's book for arguments why shuch definitions are non-sensical and of a "square circle" variety. Here too, confronted with such definitions we can demonstrate their incoherency and make a positive claim that such a God does not exist.
3. UFO-type: this one can be actually UFO-related, let's say a claim that God is a natural creature, just extremely powerful and vastly more intelligent than ourselves, who has created life on Earth via an ingenious fit of bioengineering. Becuase such a definition does not entail anything supernatural and is logically possible, we can't really claim that such a god does not exist. All we can say is that there is no evidence to support such a picture, and that such a "space alien" God hardly deserves to be worshipped or assigned any moral authority. Just because something is smarter or more powerful, or is even credited with our creation, it does not follow that it is good or that we should do what it commands.
To be fair to Baggini, he does attempt to get around the shortcomings of positive atheism by distinguishing between a "dogmatic" vs "reasonable" belief. Also, in all fairness, while Smith's approach is, in my opinion, more appropriate as a rigorous philosophical position, most atheists actually do think that there is no God (rather than not think that there is). In any discussion that is to some degree informal, Baggini's arguments are valid and can be very valuable.
Rating: 
Summary: Some Ideas - Maybe
Review: Of the several books and other materials that I have read on this subject there are points expressed well and in a different way, but then there are many things that are the opposite, not at all well expressed. There are places that seem to have not been edited. There are sentences that just do not make sense. He speaks at times like his words are for a generally well educated audience and uses excellent terms to communicate. Then he changes radically and uses terms that are more arcane, more for the philosophers and the highly erudite that are steeped in their use. He wanders back and forth with this kind of writing. He seems to not believe that one can be an agnostic, but then makes an intellectual stew that sounds like maybe he does believe there can be such a thing as agnosticism, but does not want to call it that. It winds up muddled. He is sincere in his purpose, of that I feel sure, but he does not achieve it.
Rating:
Summary: An able and even tempered presentation
Review: The book starts off rather curiously with an admission that Atheism IS based upon the philosophical worldview of naturalism (see page 16). Naturalism came out of the Greek philosophy called atomism in the 400's BC. Naturalism swiftly lost support in ancient Greece because it was philosophically unsustainable and scientifically incongruous. What is most notable is that naturalism's only adherents seem to be those who are Darwinian fundamentalists. (Please note that I said Darwinian and not evolutionary there is a huge difference IE Stephen Gould is an evolutionist but he is not a Darwinian evolutionist and his writings tacitly deny naturalism.) It is fascinating that Mr. Baggini has put all his eggs in one basket. This shows either supreme faith in naturalism or a rather naiveté of the severe shortcomings of naturalism. Naturalism rests upon the presumption that chance (randomness is the mathematical term) has causal power. In other words, the universe, or anything else, `just is'; there needed not to be a CAUSE for the EFFECT. This is philosophically indefensible. But beyond that it is also mathematical unachievable, for in mathematics there is no such thing as a randomness. (If you doubt this go to any top flight mathematician and ask them to create a random number sequence. The best they will ever be able to do is to create a `recursively random' sequence.) Albert Einstein knew this when he said "God does not play dice" This quote had nothing to do with a belief in god; rather it is that there is no such event as chance in the universe. NONE, NADA, ZILCH, get the point? So if chance is not causal then what do we have to say about Mr. Baggini's naturalistic atheism? The answer is that majority of his eggs have just cracked. The sad part is that the author and evidentially many of the readers are ignorant of just how the tenets of naturalism have been thoroughly destroyed. The other weak points in the book are Baggini's strawmen attack during the chapter on Moral Arguments. This is NOT an issue as to whether an atheist can be moral as the author suggests, instead the question is WHERE did the morals come from? This is the point that leaves atheists grasping for straws, several book have been written but the ones that make the most persuasive arguments immediately drop any naturalistic pretenses. You cannot have naturalistic evolution and morality as we know it. (Many Darwinian evolutions admit this is the one of the greatest challenges to their hypothesis, hence the popularity and novel constructs of books about this issue.) Baggini's eggs keep cracking. When we get to chapter 6 and the philosophical arguments the reader is left desperate for some sort of logical reasoning. The Cosmological rebuttal that is presented is dated at best and highly disingenuous at the worst. Most 1st year philosophical students could brush aside the logical fallacy used by Baggini and many of the early atheistic thinkers. One would have hopped for at least a better answer than to constrain a creative force to the natural laws inside his creation. PLEAAAAASE, if such a deity does exist, it is obvious that it is outside of the creation! The eggs are beginning to leak out of the basket now. The worst argument that atheists seem to rely upon is the Problem of Evil. What is interesting is that many of the top atheistic thinkers today admit that there is no problem with evil and the construct of the Judeo-Christian God - they can both coexist and not be contradictory. But Mr. Baaggini, still in the dark ages of atheistic thought, prances forward the weakest of all arguments at this point. Mr. Baggini wishes to shatter the god of the Judeo - Christian bible with this point, but he makes a fatal mistake by misunderstanding, either purposefully or in ignorance, just how is evil is defined in the bible. What the author does is simply define terms in his way rather than in the context of the bible. (Imagine the arrogance one must have to tell god, I'm taking it that he exists, that his definition of evil is all wrong and he must use mine, WOW.) The more modern and intellectually honest atheist will use the biblical terms of evil and find that they have no argument at all. As we end the book we look down into our basket and realize that there is ONE EGG LEFT intact, the rest of the eggs are smashed to smithereens and the contents have leaked out of our proverbial basket. We also realize that the book did teach us some things, in the beginning the author stated that there are arguments and evidences for both sides but is up to our intellects to sift through the plethora of facts. As we look down at our basket we realize that the arguments and evidences presented for us was of the weakest kind. One that does not support the philosophical, scientific or mathematically hurdles that it encounters. So what is that final egg then?? I think the author also gave us the answer. Mr. Baggini posited that FAITH is not about proofs but rather in beliefs where there is no good evidence for it. I believe that the final egg is the egg of faith that Mr. Baggini uses to tell everybody that his basket is full.
Rating:
Summary: Introduction to atheist naturalism
Review: This book is great in the sense that it is a very strong case for atheism without being either academic or militant aganist theism.
However it has two flaws: First it is not an introduction to atheism in general, but rather Baggini's own naturalist/humanist worldview. Theists will quote this book out of context to argue that all humanists are atheists in the narrow definition (strong atheism) and that atheism is equivalent to naturalism. Both these assumptions are incorrect, since there are atheists who believe in things that naturalism excludes and there are humanists who are agnostics they way Baggini uses the word. So this book spreads misconceptions about atheism and confuses three different world views.
The second flaw with the book is that Baggini calls Socrates' famous dilemma the Euthypryo dilemma. If you search for the word euthypryo on Amazon you will find links to Baggini's books only. I'm not sure whether he has good reasons for renaming this dilemma or if he is simply mistaken about the word. You will find many books at Amazon about Euthrypho, though, and other books call this dilemma Euthrypho's dilemma. It's not a big deal for the book, but it if is a mistake it is quite embarrasing for a respected philosopher to make such a mistake.
For those unfamiliar with Euthrypho's dilemma, it is one of the strongest objections to the Divine Commandment Theory (the theory that God commands what is good and bad). In Euthrypho, Plato lets Socrates ask whether the good is good because it comes from the gods or if the gods are good because they choose it? If good is just what the gods commands, whatever they command, then any sadist act done by the gods would be good. This goes against our conception of goodness, so this can't be the case. Thus the gods must choose what is good because they like it, and in that case goodness must have some other source than the gods - it must come from somewhere else. To say that God IS goodness does not not solve the dilemma, because then the question is whether good is whatever God is, in which case sadism would be goodness if God is a sadist, or wether God is good because he has all the charachteristics of goodness, in which case goodness has a source other than God.
Baggini's book is full of great arguments like this. It counters many theistic objections to atheism without being hostile to theists and that makes this book great reading for both theists and atheists. He even writes lengthy about why he thinks militant atheism is no good. This is a book I could even give to my grandmother without shocking her!
Therefore, even though I have some objections as stated above, I think this is one of the greatest books about atheism ever written, and give it five stars with an additional goldstar in the margin (a swedish idiom for giving someone a commendation).
Rating:
Summary: Highly recommended
Review: This is the best short introduction to the subject of atheism I have ever read, and I've read quite a few. Baggini has an amazing talent for reducing complex ideas to their essentials, and he does so without oversimplifying. Whereas many people who call themselves atheists merely say that there is no evidence FOR the existence of God, Baggini shows that there is clear evidence AGAINST the existence of God, while at the same time pointing out that such positive atheism need not be dogmatic. I was especially pleased with the chapter on ethics. I was fully expecting to see something with which I would be in disagreement, but much to my surprise Baggini defends atheist ethics without resorting to any dubious assumptions regarding the nature of morality. Another very positive aspect of the book is that it has such a pleasant, uncritical tone. This (plus the price) makes it an excellent book for atheists to give as gifts to believers. Much of the negativity regarding atheism would be dispelled if this book were widely read.
Rating:
Summary: best short introduction to atheism I've read
Review: This is the single-best short introduction to atheism I've ever read. Not only does it put together a very nice defense of positive atheism, it refutes most of the major misconceptions about atheism and lays the groundwork for atheist morality and meaning of life. Extremely highly recommended.
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