Who isn't an atheist (or agnostic) these days? The Celebrity Atheist Web site (celebatheists.com) lists hundreds of movie stars (Angelina Jolie and Woody Allen, for example), business tycoons (Bill Gates and Warren Buffett) and scientists (Steven Pinker and Steven Weinberg) who don't believe in God. Books by nonbelievers abound. The biologist Richard Dawkins came out with "The God Delusion" a little over a year ago, and Christopher Hitchens jumped on the bandwagon recently with "God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything." These writers not only don't believe in God, they are downright hostile toward God.

The latest book debunking God has a lighter tone. John Allen Paulos aims to prove -- with logic, dry wit and a mild manner -- that God does not exist. Despite his less rancorous approach, Paulos is dead set against the idea of God. "Why postulate a completely nonexplanatory, extra perplexity to help explain the already sufficiently perplexing and beautiful world?" he asks.

Paulos, a mathematician at Temple University, is a very good writer, who spices his clear prose with touches of humor. In this book, he lines up 12 arguments for God. Then, using well-honed mathematical reasoning, he shoots them down. A few of the arguments for God's existence are arcane, making the arguments to disprove them difficult to follow.

One ontological argument, for instance, comes from Descartes' idea that God is a perfect being. Since he (Descartes) is not perfect, then the idea of perfection must come from something outside him -- an external perfect being: God. Paulos points out that the only way such a proposition can be proved is for its negation to lead to a contradiction. But no contradiction of Descartes' statement follows from God's not existing. Maybe not, but both argument and counter argument seem slippery and unconvincing.

A stronger argument for God is called "the argument from presupposition." Paulos outlines it as follows:

"(1) In presenting its divine narrative, a holy book presupposes God exists. (2) People read and come to accept the narrative. (3) The narrative must be true. (4) Therefore God exists."

This argument is so straightforward that it has been summarized on bumper stickers: "God said it, I believe it, and that settle's it." The sentence includes, Paulos notes, a "telling apostrophe." Paulos easily exposes the flaw in this argument. "Claiming that a holy book's claims are undeniable because the book itself claims them to be is convincing only to the convinced."

And there are plenty of the convinced around -- from pious politicians to celebrated scientists. Francis Collins, the former head of the Human Genome Project, is one prominent scientist who has publicly proclaimed his belief in God. In "The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief," Collins revealed the source of his deeply religious views. They stem, he wrote, from the concept of a "Moral Law," a major component of which is altruistic behavior. Collins believes that the Moral Law is contrary to all natural instincts and must come from God.

Paulos calls these views "the universality argument." What's considered moral or immoral, he writes, is strikingly similar across cultures. Unprovoked murder, for example, is condemned by all societies. Many believers, like Collins, conclude that these similarities in behavioral codes must come from a single source -- God. Therefore, God exists. This is a serious effort to establish the existence of God. It was put forth first by C.S. Lewis, the respected British writer and scholar, in his book "Mere Christianity."

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