This is going to rub some people the wrong way but I need to write it anyways: I kind of like Victor Stenger. Last year I decided I would read twelve books by Stenger so that each month I would be in a different volume. I began 2015 with GOD: THE FAILED HYPOTHESIS, moved onto GOD AND THE MULTIVERSE, progressed to THE FALLACY OF FINE-TUNING, dived into GOD AND THE ATOM, and in May I devoured THE NEW ATHEISM: TAKING A STAND FOR SCIENCE AND REASON. The first four books I’ve mentioned I haven’t written reviews on but I hope to slowly but surely roll those out before the year’s end. I really enjoyed each of those books though some (THE FALLACY OF FINE-TUNING) were particularly difficult reads. But why do easy things?One of the great things about Stenger is that he is pretty well organized. Pick up any of the five books I mentioned above or THE NEW ATHEISM in particular and you will see that Stenger is very methodical. I’ve taken up the practice of outlining the books I read and Stenger has been the easiest book to outline thus far because of his method. Within each chapter Stenger has numerous subheadings that connect to the chapter’s main idea. Stenger rarely goes off on tangents so it not difficult in the least to track his thought process even if the material he is covering is difficult to understand.Another great thing about Stenger is that he regularly utilizes endnotes. I’ve read a few works where I see something interesting or something about which I’m skeptical and there is no footnote or endnote to be found! For anyone looking to see which sources an author is drawing from, this can be infuriating. Stenger lets the reader know where he is getting his information and offers complete citations as well as a bibliography in his works. (If you haven’t come across the problem I’ve had, count yourself lucky!)In THE NEW ATHEISM most chapters are barely twenty pages, allowing a reader to spend a short amount of time to focus in on a particular train of thought. And the main thought of the entire book is that religion is a great evil in the world and that science and reason are the paths to freedom and truth. Stenger writes, “The reason we trust reason and science, and have no trust whatsoever in religious arguments, is that science and reason work in understanding the world and making it a better place for humanity while religious argument leads universally to dismal failure and untold human suffering.” (41) There you have it. Stenger is definitely one of the “New Atheists.”Stenger, who was a physicist and a philosopher, whets the sword of reason and goes on the offensive. He begins by establishing the atheist worldview. “Atheists view science as the best means humanity has come up with for understanding the world,” he wrote. (21) But despite the weight science has with atheists, Stenger refutes the claim that he or his fellow New Atheists are holding to “scientism.” On the contrary, “atheists appreciate the beauty of art, music, and poetry as much as believers, along with the joys of love, friendship, parenthood, and other human relationships.” (22) Later Stenger writes, “We fully recognize the value of and participate in other realms of thought and activity such as art, music, literature, poetry, and moral philosophy.” (239)Like Dawkins or Hitchens, Stenger attacks the claims and effects of religion directly. He points to numerous passages in the Old and New Testament that, at least to him, point to the violent nature of YHWH (Yahweh) and even Jesus. I find myself agreeing with much of what Stenger says about the Old Testament. God appears vindictive and the laws he establishes run contrary to one would consider “good.” As Stenger notes, the Bible speaks for itself in many passages. He notes that though “the bloodiest acts of violence in the name of God nowadays seem to come from the Islamic world, the roots of religious terrorism are to be found not in Islam but in the early pages of the Bible.” (108) This is true enough but it should be noted that while the Old Testament is replete with violence, much of the violence in the New Testament appears to be eschatology meaning that rather than God’s people enacting holy justice upon you it is God himself who will do the dirty deed.This doesn’t get God off the hook, of course. Much of the violence in the Old Testament was God ordained and God approved. There are even places where God forces people or nations to do things that lead to absolutely horrific consequences. (See Exodus 11:10 where God hardens Pharaoh’s heart so that he does not let the Israelites go and then proceeds to kill off the Egyptian firstborn or take a look at Isaiah 10:5-11 where God uses the Assyrians as his “rod” even though the Assyrians do not intend to do what God will make them do.) Despite the gentler God of the New Testament, the New Testament is built upon the foundation of the Old and this makes much of what it has to say about ethics or morality questionable.The violence perpetuated by Christians against Jews, pagans, Muslims, and other “heretics” since the official recognition of Christianity by the Roman Empire is legendary. But in our day Christian violence is rare, especially when compared with violence done in the name of Allah. One could argue that that Qur’an is built upon the Old Testament and that the holy violence sanctioned by God in the pages of the Bible is the basis for jihad and the murderous rampages initiated by extremist Muslims. Still, modern Christianity is much more liberal than it was five hundred years ago and we can thank the Enlightenment for that.I digress. While Stenger attacks religion head on, he also takes on misconceptions surrounding quantum mechanics and its implications. Most people are familiar with Deepak Chopra who makes some pretty wild and baseless assertions. Stenger notes that Chopra had once claimed that we can think our way to delayed aging. Unfortunately for Chopra “he continues to age with the rest of us.” (214) In fact, much of Chopra’s “woo” is based on fundamental misunderstandings of quantum theory and Stenger makes sure to iron out what we can and cannot say about the universe around us with the tools of quantum theory. He concludes by saying, “Atheistic materialism means we humans are 100 percent matter, without an ounce of any vague substance called spirit, soul, or living force. It means we humans are 100 percent natural, without a connection to any supernatural agency called God, Allah, or cosmic consciousness.” (221) Earlier in THE NEW ATHEISM Stenger attacks theories on the mind and consciousness and suggests that until we have good reason to think otherwise we should go with the evidence that suggests that the mind is what the brain does. I tend to agree.One of the best chapters is chapter 9 entitled “The Way of Nature.” There is a lot of content in this chapter but one of the things I found most interesting was the “axial stages” societies have gone through where sages like the Buddha, Confucius, and others called upon people to be more introspective and seek the world within rather than outward to the gods above. Compassion and empathy were emphasized more than dogmatism. Rather, these sages taught that you can achieve heaven by living a more compassionate life. (203) This is what all people should strive towards – being kind to one another.So much more could be said but it is not my intention to give an exhaustive review. But let me end with some touching prose Stenger gives in his chapter on “The Way of Nature.” He wrote,“By living the Way of Nature we celebrate the natural and refute the supernatural. We accept the fact that our individual selves will pass along with our generation. But succeeding generations will carry our genes and our ideas forward. Having just passed my seventy-fourth birthday, and not being in the best of health (though I am working to improve that), I have to start thinking about my mortality. All my life I have had my ego boosted by those around me. Growing up in an uneducated immigrant family on the edge of poverty in a working-class neighborhood, I was the first in remembered generations of the family over six feet tall, the first to graduate college, the first to get a PhD, the first to write a book….I have a great personal life too, having been happily married to the same woman since 1962. Our two children are settled in happy marriages of their own and are both highly educated and successful. Our four grandchildren are beautiful and intelligent (pictures available on request). What else can a man want? I wouldn’t mind continuing it forever. But I can’t.” (222)No, he couldn’t. Stenger died in 2014 at the age of 79. He wrote the NEW ATHEISM in 2009. Without a doubt this man live life to the fullest and did his best to help his fellow man. Before his death he penned more books covering the topics of God, religion, and science.We can and should be grateful to Stenger for the work he put in. He has no soul to go on but we do have his writings that which we can absorb with our minds and ponder in our hearts. With Stenger, we too can take a stand for science and reason.