Nicolás Meyer, a long-time Buenos Aires Herald staffer and brother-in-law of the late Andrew Graham-Yooll, has recently published a book. Given the difficulty in obtaining a copy any time soon, we will allow him to describe it in his own words:
“What is the meaning of life? If people didn’t believe in God, what would keep them from killing and stealing and other dreadful things?
“Beyond the Gods isn’t in the business – as it makes clear from the outset – of trying to get people to believe, or disbelieve, anything at all. It is here, instead, to serve the many people who have already ceased to believe in any celestial beings or other forms of the supernatural. Or who find themselves harbouring very strong doubts about everything from little superstitions to fully-established religions. But who haven’t had the time or the chance to develop entirely secular ways to answer such questions as the above. In this book, it is done.
How can you live without believing in anything? Can miracles be accounted for? How can we face death?
For all those who see the “answers” given to such queries by religion as illusions devised to cover up a natural ignorance, or to give the questioners a feel-good sop – or, alternatively, to scare them – Beyond the Gods proceeds to show how they can be handled, one by one, without any otherworldly contrivance in sight. Its instrument is no-nonsense logic, its method easy language, wit and a light touch.
While this book isn’t primarily a rationale for atheism, it includes that too, along the way – see, for example, its rundown of different kinds of danger created by religion. Yet its main thrust remains to complement that kind of material, with its easy how-to approach to life’s Big Questions, after the gods have departed.”
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