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| Preface to the paperback edition | |
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| Preface | |
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| A Deeply Religious Non-Believer | |
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| Deserved respect | |
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| Undeserved respect | |
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| The God Hypothesis | |
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| Polytheism | |
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| Monotheism | |
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| Secularism, the Founding Fathers and the religion of America | |
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| The poverty of agnosticism | |
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| NOMA | |
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| The Great Prayer Experiment | |
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| The Neville Chamberlain school of evolutionists | |
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| Little green men | |
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| Arguments for God's Existence | |
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| Thomas Aquinas' 'proofs' | |
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| The ontological argument and other a priori arguments | |
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| The argument from beauty | |
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| The argument from personal 'experience' | |
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| The argument from scripture | |
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| The argument from admired religious scientists | |
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| Pascal's Wager | |
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| Bayesian arguments | |
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| Why There Almost Certainly is No God | |
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| The Ultimate Boeing 747 | |
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| Natural selection as a consciousness-raiser | |
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| Irreducible complexity | |
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| The worship of gaps | |
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| The anthropic principle: planetary version | |
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| The anthropic principle: cosmological version | |
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| An interlude at Cambridge | |
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| The Roots of Religion | |
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| The Darwinian imperative | |
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| Direct advantages of religion | |
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| Group selection | |
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| Religion as a by-product of something else | |
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| Psychologically primed for religion | |
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| Tread softly, because you tread on my memes | |
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| Cargo cults | |
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| The Roots of Morality: Why are We Good? | |
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| Does our moral sense have a Darwinian origin? | |
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| A case study in the roots of morality | |
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| If there is no God, why be good? | |
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| The 'Good' Book and the Changing Moral Zeitgeist | |
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| The Old Testament | |
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| Is the New Testament any better? | |
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| Love thy neighbour | |
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| The moral Zeitgeist | |
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| What about Hitler and Stalin? Weren't they atheists? | |
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| What's Wrong with Religion? Why Be So Hostile? | |
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| Fundamentalism and the subversion of science | |
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| The dark side of absolutism | |
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| Faith and homosexuality | |
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| Faith and the sanctity of human life | |
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| The Great Beethoven Fallacy | |
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| How 'moderation' in faith fosters fanaticism | |
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| Childhood, Abuse and the Escape from Religion | |
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| Physical and mental abuse | |
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| In defence of children | |
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| An educational scandal | |
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| Consciousness-raising again | |
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| Religious education as a part of literary culture | |
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| A Much Needed Gap? | |
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| Binker | |
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| Consolation | |
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| Inspiration | |
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| The mother of all burkas | |
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| A partial list of friendly addresses, for individuals needing support in escaping from religion | |
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| Books cited or recommended | |
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| Notes | |
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| Index | |