Debates

  (out of 5 stars)

Hump has compiled some of the very best posts from his blog from 2008 and the first months of 2009 and published them in this edition. Irreverent, passionate, and insightful, these nuggets of Hump's views are excellent primers for any would-be atheist debater, or for anyone who needs to counter the arguments made by true-believers and apologists.

Many of the 100+ themes handled in the book will be new to the average atheist reader and deal with situations the author himself has experienced. Hump covers a lot of ground here, but the beauty is that each episode (chapter) averages about 3 pages. The reader can quickly absorb the points and move on to the next one. This makes for an excellent primer and should promote retention of the material as well. Because the episodes are taken directly from Hump's blog, they are quickly digested and stand alone without a deep need to hold hundreds of pages of argument to comprehend them. New atheist readers will find this very approachable, and experienced readers will almost certainly find the style well-suited for brushing up and expanding one's argument repository.

I love Hump's style, but I know some readers will find his stance overly-aggressive. He offers no solace to the believer and rails from all angles against the nature of belief in myths and false reality. Don't expect to find any measure of conciliation from the author toward believers, Hump makes it clear that he wastes no efforts on comforting the delusional.

There aren't a ton of books on the market that read quite like this one. The short chapters and highly-focused dialog make this a quick read which should have strong sticking power for the reader. Hump wastes no time trying to prove his points but presents them for the reader to believe or not on her own. A small complaint would be that I would love to have seen a proper sourcing for the information contained in the book (there are some references within the text, but many points are not sourced at all), but on the subjects with which I was already familiar, Hump's information was mostly spot on, so I trust his nose for reality.

All in all, this was an unexpectedly enjoyable read and offered information and support for atheistic arguments beyond what I expected. While all these posts are available for free on the blog, the readings make for an excellent book worth owning in any decent atheism collection. Signed copies can be bought from the author directly here for the same price as offered by Amazon (without a signature). So, The Atheist Camel Chronicles is highly recommended to anyone wanting no-frills, engaging reads on atheist counterattacks. Four and one-half stars.