First published: 2006.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Chapter 1. A deeply religious nonbeliever: Deserved respect -- Undeserved respect -- Chapter 2. The God hypothesis: Polytheism -- Monotheism -- Secularism, the Founding Fathers and the religion of America -- The poverty of agnosticism -- NOMA -- The great prayer experiment -- The Neville Chamberlain school of evolutionists -- Little green men -- Chapter 3. Arguments for God's existence: Thomas Aquinas's "proofs" -- The ontological argument and other a priori arguments -- The argument from beauty -- The argument from personal "experience" -- The argument from Scripture -- The argument from admired religious scientists -- Pascal's wager -- Bayesian arguments -- Chapter 4. Why there almost certainly is no God: The ultimate Boeing 747 -- Natural selection as a consciousness-raiser -- Irreducible complexity -- The worship of gaps -- The anthropic principle: planetary version -- The anthropic principle : cosmological version -- An interlude at Cambridge -- Chapter 5. The roots of religion: The Darwinian imperative -- Direct advantages of religion -- Group selection -- Religion as a by-product of something else -- Psychologically primed for religion -- Tread softly, because you tread on my memes -- Cargo cults -- Chapter 6. The roots of morality: why are we good?: Does our moral sense have a Darwinian origin? -- A case study in the roots of morality -- If there is no God, why be good? -- Chapter 7. The "good" book and the changing moral Zeitgeist; The Old Testament -- Is the New Testament any better? -- Love thy neighbour -- The moral Zeitgeist -- What about Hitler and Stalin? : Weren't they atheists? -- Chapter 8. What's wrong with religion?: Why be so hostile?: Fundamentalism and the subversion of science -- The dark side of absolutism -- Faith and homosexuality -- Faith and the sanctity of human life -- The great Beethoven fallacy -- How "moderation" in faith fosters fanaticism -- Chapter 9. Childhood, abuse and the escape from religion: Physical and mental abuse -- In defence of children -- An educational scandal -- Consciousness-raising again -- Religious education as a part of literary culture -- Chapter 10. A much needed gap?: Binker -- Consolation -- Inspiration -- The mother of all burkas.