Life Driven Purpose: How an Atheist Finds Meaning

I was really intrigued by the title and theme. However, I feel the author only spent a small amount of time on "Life Driven Purpose" specifically. Most of the book is logical arguments from an atheist point of view on why there is no god. I do not have a problem with what he wrote, but like a lot of atheist authors he spent more time talking about why there is no god than about the titled theme of the book. I see a lot of authors do this. I wish he could make the point, move on, and talk about the subject. If the book had been titled or described as a book on atheism polemics it would have been much more accurate. I would not have bought it - because in my mind I have moved on - no more argument needed. I want to hear about other topics.

Was really expecting more from this book. Although it gives insight on how he approaches life wish there was more clarity like other "how to" books. I also found it condescending toward "believers". I guess I was hoping for a 'higher ground' positioning. Part of the problem is the word "Atheist" is such a cliche. He tries to correct the image of a modern atheist as a ranting, angry person attacking a deity that isn't real and doesn't exist. As with Christian apologists he lumps all Christians into one basket (fundamentalists) rather than exhibit understanding that they aren't all alike. What's good for the goose is good for the gander. Overall I found it interesting and do applaud his efforts.

This book makes everything fall into place. It's logical and it just makes sense to me. It's especially remarkable as it's written by a former evangelical. I was an agnostic then atheist years before I ever heard of the so-called "four horsemen" and I respect them all. But Barker's book is something special that the other's work didn't have.

This is a fantastic book. A quick read that gives a great perspective on having a purpose in life. Also would recommend "The Reason Driven Life" by Robert Price.

I didn't find amazing new insights here, but I've read everything written by any of the major players in the atheist world, and there's just not a whole lot of new material out there. That said, this is Dan Barker writing, so it's good stuff. And he provides solid answers to the everlasting question "How does an atheist find meaning?"

Another good book by Dan Barker. The points he makes are so needed in today's world to combat all of the lies that are being spread by those who don't want the truth.

A good read with great debate points, but the personal stories got tedious. Rick Warren couldn't write himself out of a wet paper bag, so it's really not that hard to write a great rebuttal to his piece of religious drivel.

Love Dan, love being an FFRF member. All of his books are marvelous, buy one for your religious friends and family today:)

I've often heard the religious say that without God life is without meaning. As with all religious wisdom this amounts to looking the wrong way through a telescope. There may be no ultimate meaning to life, but there's huge meaning in life. And we get to decide what is meaningful. You, me. All of us. This book is wonderful antidote to purine and insipid religious blather about what makes life matter. Dan Barker is a thinker and an accomplished communicator on so many levels. He exposes the silliness of living at the mercy of religious dogma, and neatly encourages the reader to define morality as so much more than seeking to appease the petty jealousy of a capricious fictional diety. This book teems with life. It is a work of joyful optimism. I commend it to you without hesitation.

Excellently written. 18 more words required. 14 more words required. 10 more words required. 6 more words required required required.

This is a whirlwind visit into the wonderful thoughts of an intriguing man. His life experiences are out of the ordinary and inform, as they must, what he writes. He is, among much else, a  poet, song writer and musician. He loves words, wordplay and jazz. At several places in the book he goes off into a riff of language which you must either bop along with or, if this is not your sort of thing, just skip a beat and move on. I feel this is a book I would really have loved to have read as my younger self; back when I was searching for ammunition to join in the battle of ideas, which I was waging mainly with myself. I was never a supernaturalist but was always searching for how best to make sense of  the world of imagination within the context of an unforgiving reality; believe what you will, but if it is out of step with the way things really are then your beliefs will Inevitably fail when put to the test. Dan's experiences as a computer programmer taught him this. His experiences as a preacher showed him how hermetically sealed-off can be the mindset of the fundamentalist. The book attempts in places to inform humanists/atheists about fundamentalists and, should they give it a chance vice-versa. I trust Barker's insights and believe him when he gives me a glimpse inside his earlier mindset, that of the delusional evangelical preacher. Sometimes as I read I wondered how wide is his intended audience. I am sure, although he knows he has a loyal atheist/humanist following, that he is hoping for other readers. Might his honest well-intentioned thoughts penetrate and allow some solid sense to influence the flights of fancy that are the delusional/illusional vocabulary of those lost in the dangerous world of fundamentalist religion? Although his experience is Christian over the years he has engaged with many other religions. His general knowledge and appetite for experience is extraordinary. He loves languages, history, science, philosophy and culture. He is an old world/new world explorer. He brings his native American experience to his modern American knowhow. He knows how to weave some wonderful tales. They suddenly illuminate and disperse the clouds,  shaped as if from the smoke of pipes around a late night fire in the wilderness of wild ideas. He tells us of debates where  he tried to put obfuscaters on the spot with clear questions. He has asked what really is spirit; what are its dimensions, its mass? He received the expected evasive, sidestepping answer:  love is spirit etc. etc. Dan Barker points out that you can understand emotions like love without invoking another imaginary realm, but doesn't succeed, to my mind,  in quite nailing the point. I get what he says. But the issue is such a slippery one. The arch-deceivers, self-deceivers and possibly sometimes well-intentioned (or not)  will admit that a photograph of a hammer won't drive home any nails, but the 'spirit' can move 'mountains'. So goes the fancy wordplay. Dan takes a variety of approaches to differentiate the meaningful from the meaningless and makes allowance for the power of poetry and the silences between the notes that makes music what it is. And yet in the end it is only the consequences in the real world, as Dan says, that really matter, for there are no other effects. In this regard the honest and enthusiastic engagement of Dan with the real world is what really matters. The world is a better place for Dan Barker ; for this book, his other books, his music, his social activism with the Freedom from Religion Foundation and his unceasing wide eyed and open-minded exploration of our world.

Dan Barker is excellent, as usual.