The Way of the Heathen ─ Practicing Atheism in Everyday Life

So you're an atheist. Now what? The way we deal with life — with love and sex, pleasure and death, reality and making stuff up — can change dramatically when we stop believing in gods, souls, and afterlives. When we leave religion — or if we never had it in the first place — where do we go? With her unique blend of compassion and humor, thoughtfulness and snark, Greta Christina most emphatically does not propose a single path to a good atheist life. She offers questions to think about, ideas that may be useful, and encouragement to choose your own way. She addresses complex issues in an accessible, down-to-earth style, including: Why we're here Sexual transcendence The meaning of life The meaning of death Frivolity Sensuality How humanism helps with depression — except when it doesn’t Stealing stuff from religion Why atheism demands social justice Different ways to be a good person Joy and much more. Aimed at new and not-so-new atheists, questioning and curious believers, Christina ("Comforting Thoughts About Death That Have Nothing to Do with God," "Coming Out Atheist," "Why Are You Atheists So Angry?") shines a warm, fresh light on the only life we have.

Greta Christina is the author of Coming Out Atheist: How to Do It, How to Help Each Other, and Why; Why Are You Atheists So Angry? 99 Things That Piss Off the Godless; Comforting Thoughts About Death That Have Nothing to Do with God; and Bending: Dirty Kinky Stories About Pain, Power, Religion, Unicorns, & More; and is editor of Paying for It: A Guide by Sex Workers for Their Clients. She has been a public speaker for many years, and is on the speaker’s bureaus of the Secular Student Alliance and Center for Inquiry. She is a regular contributor to AlterNet, Free Inquiry, the Humanist, and Salon. Her writing has appeared in magazines and newspapers, including the Chicago Sun-Times, Ms., On Our Backs, Penthouse, and Skeptical Inquirer, and anthologies including Everything You Know About God Is Wrong and three volumes of Best American Erotica. She lives in San Francisco.