Books like Dawson’s are best for people who 1) believe because they were taught to believe but rarely if ever go to church or 2) already have doubts and want to study the arguments.

Those who would expel from their lives anybody who strays from the faith cannot, in my opinion, be reached by logic.

But for the situation you describe, people who care about you and worry about your lack of faith, I am going to suggest something counter-intuitive: a mini-course in comparative religion – as a way to show how billions of other people answer the basic questions. Think of it as a half-way house on the road to atheism.

Please note: what follows are very broad generatlizations of complex systems of faith and philosophy. I repeat that I do not believe in any of them. I find some aspects of these systems of faith or philosophy intellectually interesting. Other aspects I think are ridiculous. That is not the point.

Cosmology
Hindu cosmology posits a universe that is trillions of years old, that is born, grows, dies and is reborn, Endlessly. (A day of Brahma the creator is 4320 million years; a year of Brahma is 360 such days and nights; a life of Brahma is 100 such years. There are cycles within cycles with the human race being continually reborn just as the universe gets reborn.) We know now that our universe will expand out into nothingness – but since it would appear that physics allows for something from nothing, out of the nothingness another universe may be born. In any case, this is a vision of the universe and time vastly different from that in the Bible.

Life after death
Both Hindus and Buddhists believe in rebirth or reincarnation. One’s future life is determined by how one lives one’s current life (karma). If you are a good person, your next life will be better; if you are not, it won’t.

The goal of Buddhism is to escape this cycle of rebirth and achieve nirvana, a oneness with the universe. The 4 Noble Truths describe the Buddhist view of life; the Eightfold Path describes how to live so as to escape rebirth. Open-minded Christians will find some parts of this philosophy and guide to living not so far removed from their faith.

The ancient Egyptians, of course, believed in an afterlife. That’s why people were buried with the resources they would need in the afterlife. At death, one’s heart (the seat of the soul) is judged against the principles of Ma’at, representing truth and right living. A good person is welcomed into “heaven”; a bad person into “hell”. (There are variations but I think this is a fair generalization. And the similarities to the Christian hell are interesting, to say the least)

What I find most interesting about these attitudes toward an afterlife is that all these faiths promise something good if you live a good life, something bad if you don’t. This contrasts rather strongly with the “accept Jesus Christ as your personal savior” and it doesn’t matter what kind of life you have lead. All that matters is the worship. Now this is no doubt appealing to less-than-perfect individuals, but from an ethical perspective, and the Conservative belief in personal responsibility, there is much to be said for faiths which assert that you control, by the manner in which you live, what your afterlife will be.

Ethics and Morality Without a God
Confucianism consists of a set of precepts for right living: as a person, a member of a family, a community and a nation. Although there are references to Heaven and Harmony, Confucianism is basically a guide to proper behavior that does not depend on belief in a God who punishes evil.

The objective of such a survey is, as I said at the start, to illustrate that there are many ways to address the issues of life and death, and to perhaps open a small crack in the surety that one’s own faith is the only possible faith. It is, after all, easy to criticize faiths or philosophies in which one does not believe. But it is not that far a step to then ask questions about one’s own faith, especially where it intersects with the beliefs of these other faiths.

Psalm 14 is Old Testament, and therefore superceded. Hit ’em with Matthew 5:22.

I’d say you should then perform the double-tap with Romans 1:33, but they’ve MOVED that one to Romans 2:1 to hide it.

But considering the audience of the book, it might be helpful to explain how — even if there is a god — everything will work out okay for the reader’s loved one. That is, hypothetically, if god is all-loving and forgiving, he will still let the atheist join her theist family members in heaven. Or at least, he will yet reveal himself to the atheist in her lifetime. That since God is all-knowing, he knows what it will take to convince her. That he gave her the gift of critical thinking and rational reasoning, and he doesn’t want her to waste it. That he is more impressed by how she got to her conclusion then by whether she got the right answer. That even Thomas was allowed to demand proof. That since an atheist cannot force herself to believe, a loving god will not hold it against her. That Jesus’s sacrifice means more — and is truly selfless — if it redeems non-believers as well. After all, we are no more responsible for our non-belief than the “original sin” he supposedly absolved.

Remember, the book’s goal should be to relieve the theist’s worries about their loved one. If it appears early on that the book is trying to argue why the atheist is justified in rejecting religion, the theist will avoid reading it.

The audience for this is assumed to be a believer who wants to better understand atheist friends so the problem of atheists’ mere existence being offensive is a nonissue.

As to content it seems best to focus on the questions the believer is likely to have (as others have suggested) such as: How can you be moral without god? Aren’t you afraid of death? and so on. In addition to the other sources suggested above there should be lots of inspiration in PZ’s “Why I am an atheist” series as well.

Finally it should probably be written in a tone you would use explaining these things to a friend.

I think this could be a worthwhile project. There is room in the movement for all approaches. I think of it as attack like water. Seep into all the little cracks and expand until bit by bit the megalith eventually crumbles. I guess it’s just a question of whether there are enough suitable cracks and whether your book/pamphlet can work its way into them.

Jesus & Mo.

I do think rather than reinventing the wheel we should look at the extreme mass of books already out there, and recognize that there actually are atheism primers already out there.

I agree it’s valuable to look at what’s out there, if only for inspiration. But I’m never inclined to discourage someone from creating something. Too few people want to create, and too many feel intimidated by the strange thought that they are wasting their time if they don’t have totally awesome completely original ideas that nobody ever thought of before. It’s like saying you shouldn’t ever have children because it’s been done so yours will be derivative.

Besides, there’s a lot of room to tweak the wheel, to modernize it, to fit it to purpose. Also, there’s nothing like writing to clarify one’s own thinking.

Otherwise, all we need is the Complete Works of Robert Green Ingersoll (and holy shit, it’s FREE for Kindle) and we’re all set.