"Fairy believers do not knock on your door to convert you. They do not demand that their pseudoscience be taught in schools. They do not condemn followers of other fairies to death. They do not claim that moral rules come from fairy rituals and that without fairies we would have intercourse in the streets and the abolition of private property. They do not say that fairies created the world and therefore we must bow to the Big Brother of fairies. They do not say that the fairy will order you to kill your sister if she is seen on the street with someone who is not her brother."

So I think what the poet Shelley called the necessity of atheism holds true. Sooner or later you have to take a stand. Either you attribute your presence here to the laws of biology and physics or you attribute it to a divine plan. (You can distinguish friend from foe by how they answer this inescapable question and how they deal with its consequences.) And yet, like believers, once we decide, we still have a lot of work ahead of us."

Christopher Hitchens, who died in December 2011, guides us through centuries of agnostic and anti-religious thought. The volume includes 45 texts that constitute the canon of atheism. From Lucretius to David Hume, from Thomas Hobbes and Spinoza to Shelley and Karl Marx, and from Darwin and Freud to the newer and contemporary militant advocates of atheism, Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Michael Shermer, Sam Harris, Ian McEwan, and many others. The enlightening as well as enjoyable texts of the anthology, enriched with Christopher Hitchens' excellent commentary, interest not only the atheist, the agnostic, and the pantheist, but also stimulate the curiosity of even the monotheistic reader.

The texts included:

- Lucretius, from "On the Nature of Things" (De Rerum Natura)
- Thomas Hobbes, "On Religion from "Leviathan""
- Benedict De Spinoza, "Theological-Political Treatise"
- David Hume, "The Natural History of Religion. On Miracles, from "An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding"
- James Boswell, "Account of My Last Meeting with David Hume"
- Percy Bysshe Shelley, "A Refutation of Deism"
- John Stuart Mill, "Moral Influences in Early Youth, from "Autobiography""
- Karl Marx, "Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right"
- George Eliot, "Evangelical Teaching"
- Charles Darwin, "Autobiography"
- Leslie Stephen, "An Agnostic's Apology"
- Anatole France, "Miracle"
- Mark Twain, "Thoughts on God, from "Human Stories". Biblical Teaching and Religious Practice, from "Europe and Elsewhere" & "A Pen Warmed in Hell""
- Joseph Conrad, "Author's Note to "The Shadow Line"
- Emma Goldman, "The Philosophy of Atheism"
- H. P. Lovecraft, "Letter on Religion"
- Carl Van Doren, "Why I Am an Unbeliever"
- H. L. Mencken, "Eulogy"
- Sigmund Freud, "From "The Future of an Illusion"
- Albert Einstein, "Selection of Texts Related to Religion"
- George Orwell, "From "A Clergyman's Daughter""
- Chapman Cohen, "Monism and Religion." An Old Story"
- Bertrand Russell, "A Sketch of Intellectual Rubbish"
- Philip Larkin, "Aubade. Church Going"
- Martin Gardner, "The Wandering Jew and the Second Coming"
- Carl Sagan, "The Demon-Haunted World. The God Hypothesis"
- John Updike, "From "Roger's Version"
- J. L. Mackie, "Conclusions and Implications, from "The Miracle of Theism: Arguments For and Against the Existence of God"
- Michael Shermer, "Return to Genesis. A Scientific History of Creation"
- A. J. Ayer, "That Undiscovered Country"
- Daniel C. Dennett, "Thank Goodness!"
- Charles Templeton, "A Personal Testimony, from "Farewell to God". Questions You Can Ask Yourself"
- Richard Dawkins, "Why It Is Almost Certain That God Does Not Exist, from "The God Delusion". "Religulous", "Atheists for Jesus"
- Victor Stenger, "The Cosmological Elements, from "God: The Failed Hypothesis"
- Daniel C. Dennett, "A Functional Definition of Religion, from "Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon"
- Elizabeth Anderson, "If God Is Dead, Is Everything Permitted?"
- Penn Jillette, "There Is No God"
- Ian McEwan, "The End of the World Blues"
- Steven Weinberg, "About God, from "Dreams of a Final Theory"
- Salman Rushdie, "Imagine There's No Heaven" A Letter to the Six Billionth Citizen of the World"
- Ibn Warraq, "The Quran, from "Why I Am Not a Muslim". The Totalitarian Nature of Islam"
- Sam Harris, "In the Shadow of God, from "The End of Faith"
- A. C. Grayling, "Can an Atheist Be a Fundamentalist? From "Against All Gods"
- Ayaan Hirsi Ali, "How (and Why) I Became an Infidel"