John Paulos, well-known for his writings on mathematics (he is a professor of mathematics at Temple University), has now published a book on the topic of God. In Irreligion he asks whether there are any logical or mathematically substantiated reasons to believe in God. He concludes that the answer is a resounding no.

Irreligion is a short book (only 150 pages) and it is written cleanly, with lots of humor stirred in.

Paulos gets off to a good start when he insists that you can’t really argue whether God exists unless you define what you mean by “God.” He recognizes, for example, that some people use the term God to refer to the laws of physics or nature itself. This book, however, is addressed to those who believe in a more traditional version of God:

Most conventional monotheistic characterizations of God (Yahweh, Allah) take Him to be an entity or Being that is, if not omnipotent, at least extraordinarily powerful; if not omniscient, at least surpassingly wise; if not the Creator of the universe, at least intimately connected with its origin; if not completely and absolutely perfect, at least possessor of all manner of positive characteristics. This formulation will, on the whole, be my definition of God and the many flawed arguments for this entity’s existence will be my primary focus.

By this definition, an atheist is “someone who believes that such an entity does not exist.” An agnostic is “someone who believes that whether God exists or not …