Argues that belief in God is irrational, and describes examples of religion's negative influences on society throughout the centuries, such as war, bigotry, child abuse, and violence. Preface to the paperback edition 13(10) Preface 23(8) A Deeply Religious Non-Believer 31(20) Deserved respect 31(10) Undeserved respect 41(10) The God Hypothesis 51(49) Polytheism 52(6) Monotheism 58(2) Secularism, the Founding Fathers and the religion of America 60(9) The poverty of agnosticism 69(8) NOMA 77(8) The Great Prayer Experiment 85(5) The Neville Chamberlain school of evolutionists 90(4) Little green men 94(6) Arguments for God's Existence 100(37) Thomas Aquinas' `proofs' 100(3) The ontological argument and other a priori arguments 103(7) The argument from beauty 110(2) The argument from personal `experience' 112(5) The argument from scripture 117(6) The argument from admired religious scientists 123(7) Pascal's Wager 130(2) Bayesian arguments 132(5) Why There Almost Certainly is no God 137(53) The Ultimate Boeing 747 137(2) Natural selection as a consciousness-raiser 139(5) Irreducible complexity 144(7) The worship of gaps 151(11) The anthropic principle: planetary version 162(7) The anthropic principle: cosmological version 169(11) An interlude at Cambridge 180(10) The Roots of Religion 190(51) The Darwinian imperative 190(4) Direct advantages of religion 194(4) Group selection 198(2) Religion as a by-product of something else 200(8) Psychologically primed for religion 208(14) Tread softly, because you tread on my memes 222(12) Cargo cults 234(7) The Roots of Morality: Why are We Good? 241(27) Does our moral sense have a Darwinian origin? 245(9) A case study in the roots of morality 254(5) If there is no God, why be good? 259(9) The `Good' Book and the Changing Moral Zeitgeist 268(49) The Old Testament 269(14) Is the New Testament any better? 283(5) Love thy neighbour 288(10) The moral Zeitgeist 298(10) What about Hitler and Stalin? Weren't they atheists? 308(9) What's Wrong with Religion? Why be so Hostile? 317(32) Fundamentalism and the subversion of science 319(4) The dark side of absolutism 323(3) Faith and homosexuality 326(3) Faith and the sanctity of human life 329(8) The Great Beethoven Fallacy 337(4) How `moderation' in faith fosters fanaticism 341(8) Childhood, Abuse and the Escape from Religion 349(39) Physical and mental abuse 354(12) In defence of children 366(6) An educational scandal 372(7) Consciousness-raising again 379(4) Religious education as a part of literary culture 383(5) A Much Needed Gap? 388(33) Binker 389(5) Consolation 394(10) Inspiration 404(1) The mother of all burkas 405(16) Appendix: a partial list of friendly addresses, for individuals needing support in escaping from religion 421(6) Books cited or recommended 427(9) Notes 436(13) Index 449