Nascent Thinker | Contemplations Along The Way

Book Review: The Making of an Atheist by James Spiegel

Pages: 130
Pub­lisher: Moody Pub­lish­ers
Year: 2010
Author: James S. Spiegel

I first heard of James Spiegel’s book while brows­ing the EPS blog (Evan­gel­i­cal Philo­soph­i­cal Soci­ety) and com­ing across an inter­view he had done with them. The con­cept of the book is fairly unique amidst the recent spat of new athe­ist books (and the­ist replies). Where those books tend to focus on the intel­lec­tual and ratio­nal rea­sons for dis­be­lief, Spiegel’s book pro­poses that this is more or less a smoke-screen; the real rea­sons for athe­ism are moral and psy­cho­log­i­cal, rather than intel­lec­tual and ratio­nal. This ques­tion, “why do peo­ple choose athe­ism / why are there athe­ists?” is what Spiegel sets out to answer (and, I think successfully).

The book itself is fairly short at only 130 pages (I spent a lit­tle over an hour read­ing it through). It’s stan­dard paper­back con­struc­tion and has a good feel to it. The pre­sen­ta­tion … (Read more)