Daylight Atheism by Adam Lee

Daylight Atheism, Adam Lee.  self-published via Smashwords.com under Bigthink.com, 2012.  e-book, 609 pps., with footnotes beginning on page 532.

note: Adam Lee's blog can currently be found here at:
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/daylightatheism/
and Adam Lee himself can be found on Twitter as @DaylightAtheism.


Atheists certainly aren't winning any popularity contests [as of yet].  There is an assumption that only a belief in a deity can provide an individual with a moral compass; that the atheist is void of any sense of goodness or direction.  Atheists are denied the right to run for public office in some places, and sentenced to death in others.  The atheist knows that false perceptions are harmful.  Adam Lee has a blog from the perspective of an atheist and has followed up with a book by the same name.

Here in Adam Lee's own words, on pages 6 -7 from the Prologue of Daylight Atheism, are what an atheist is and what an atheist is not:
   
          Yes, I am an atheist.  No, I don't kick puppies or steal
    candy from babies.  I don't hate God, but I don't have
    any secret desire to worship him either.  Nor do I worship
    Satan.  I haven't had any bad personal experiences with a
    church, nor did a religious person do something to hurt me
    at some time in the past, nor did I have a bad relationship 
    with my father.  I don't hate any country, and I'm not a
    communist, an anarchist, a nihilist, or a moral relativist.
    I don't want to outlaw religion.  I'm not angry or depressed.
    In fact, I'm a person just like you.  You probably wouldn't
    recognize me as an atheist if you passed me on the street.

       But I am indeed an atheist.  What this means, very simply,
    is that I don't believe in any gods. ...they're all imaginary--
    mere products of the human imagination and nothing more. 

Adam Lee goes on to address the objections to atheism-- apologetics, superstition, synchronicity of all belief systems into an uneasy product and why that fails, which god, facts and interpretations, logical fallacies-- and also the advantages and hope that atheism holds out to the world.  It is heady stuff.  Adam Lee handles many threads of information rather well.  His arguments are logical and easily understood.  He is knowledgeable about both religions and atheism.

sapphoq reviews says: Fans of Adam Lee's blog Daylight Atheism will feel quite at home here with his book.  Those who tend toward fundamentalism more than likely will not find anything good in its pages and that is a pity.  Those mystics who scour the internet for references to Jesus and anti-Jesus in order to defend their god against "personal" attacks will likely want to stage a book burning with this book as the center.
     Folks who might be interested in gaining a better understanding of what it is like to be an atheist in today's present-day society would do well to read this book.  Common myths are easily shattered.  The disadvantages to using mysticism as a basis for belief along with literal interpretations of old texts are carefully delineated here.  
    Atheists as a whole tend to be well-informed about various religious teachings and sects and their sacred books-- sometimes better informed than the believers.  There is no use of ad hominem in Daylight Atheism.  Athough some believers on Twitter and elsewhere degenerate into name-calling on a regular basis, Adam Lee sticks to arguments from reason.
     Highly recommended for thinking high school students on up to the most ardent believer and the most dedicated atheist alike.