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    God, No!: Signs You May Already Be an Atheist and Other Magical Tales
    Unavailable
    God, No!: Signs You May Already Be an Atheist and Other Magical Tales
    Unavailable
    God, No!: Signs You May Already Be an Atheist and Other Magical Tales
    Audiobook7 hours

    God, No!: Signs You May Already Be an Atheist and Other Magical Tales

    Written by Penn Jillette

    Narrated by Penn Jillette

    3.5/5

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    About this audiobook

    From the larger, louder half of the world-famous magic duo Penn & Teller comes a scathingly funny reinterpretation of The Ten Commandments. They are The Penn Commandments, and they reveal one outrageous and opinionated atheist's experience in the world.

    In this rollicking yet honest account of a godless existence, Penn takes listeners on a roller coaster of exploration and flips conventional religious wisdom on its ear to reveal that doubt, skepticism, and wonder-all signs of a general feeling of disbelief-are to be celebrated and cherished, rather than suppressed. And he tells some pretty damn funny stories along the way.

    From performing blockbuster shows on the Vegas Strip to the adventures of fatherhood, from an ongoing dialogue with proselytizers of the Christian Right to the joys of sex while scuba diving, Jillette's self-created Decalogue invites his listener on a journey of discovery that is equal parts wise and wisecracking.

    "People who say that libertarians have no heart or atheists have no soul need to read this book. Because Penn Jillette has a lot of both." -Matt Stone and Trey Parker, creators of South Park and the award-winning Broadway musical The Book of Mormon

    "There are few people in the country who question more boldly, brashly, and bravely than my friend Penn Jillette. This book is funny, provocative, and profane. But is it right? God, no!" -Glenn Beck

    "This planet has yielded exactly one mutual friend for Glenn Beck and me and that friend has written a brilliant book called God, No! Penn reveals 'the big secret of magic,' tells you why tattoos are perfect expressions of atheism and exactly what to eat when you know you're going to vomit later." -Lawrence O'Donnell

    "Penn Jillette is a twenty-first-century Lord of Misrule: big, boisterously anarchic, funny, Rabelaisian, impossible-and unique. There isn't-couldn't be-better not be-anybody like him." -Richard Dawkins, bestselling author of The Greatest Show on Earth and The God Delusion

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBrilliance Audio
    Release dateAug 16, 2011
    ISBN9781455825141
    Author

    Penn Jillette

    Penn Jillette is a cultural phenomenon as a solo personality and as half of the world-famous Emmy Award­-winning magic duo Penn & Teller. His solo exposure is enormous: from Howard Stern to Glenn Beck to the Op-Ed pages of The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and the Los Angeles Times. He has appeared on Dancing with the Stars, MTV Cribs, and Chelsea Lately and hosted the NBC game show Identity. As part of Penn & Teller, he has appeared more than twenty times on David Letterman, as well as on several other TV shows, from The Simpsons and Friends to Top Chef and The View. He cohosts the controversial series Penn & Teller: Bullshit!, which has been nominated for sixteen Emmy Awards. He is currently cohost of the Discovery Channel's Penn & Teller Tell a Lie and the author of God, No! and Presto.

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    Reviews for God, No!

    3.5/5

    184 ratings22 reviews

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    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 2/5
      Clever, intelligent....but I was bored, he just does not hold my attention as does Lewis Black.
    • 3/5
      This book wasn't what I was expecting from the title - It was more like a biography with bits about atheism. Definitely worth reading if you are a Penn & Teller fan (which I am) or want to get another atheist perspective (Dawkins can be very abrasive). I just wasn't expecting it to be as autobiographical as it is. I sometimes felt the swearing gets in the way of the story.
    • 4/5
      Penn is an interesting person, and this book really demonstrates that. It's mostly 229 pages of Penn ranting about what is wrong with this country. His chapter on the TSA is worth the price of the book alone.

      But, it's not all rant. His writing about the deaths of his parents and sister will bring tears to your eyes (in a good way). He comes across as a very sincere, thoughtful, honest, and genuine individual, and although I've never met him (other than his signing autographs after a show), I'm willing to believe he embodies all of those traits.
    • 5/5
      Very easy, quick read. Great stories and the one-of-a-kind perspective that you only get from Mr. Jillette - loved it!
    • 5/5
      If you’re a Penn and Teller fan this is the book for you. It’s hilarious at times, it’s somber at times. It’s less ABOUT atheism and more features atheism.

      Still a phenomenal book though.
    • 4/5
      If you need a break from serious books this is a OK choice. Not the best but not the worst. A few times I laughed out loud. Short enough. Nothing insightful or anything to learn besides of some funny stories of his life.
    • 3/5
      Penn Jillette is a nut, really he says it several times throughout this book. Penn is outspoken and has non-traditional views. God no is a nice glimpse into those views all presented through stories of Penn's life. Penn is also not trying to convert anyone to atheism but instead points out many entertaining facts about faith, science, and god as well as a fun look into show business.

      I found this book funny and entertaining but have to warn people that there is a lot of foul language and sexual content throughout the book.
    • 3/5
      Entertaining and thoughtful. Some of the stories were a bit long-winded, but other parts were very thoughtful and give you something to think about.

      The language is very coarse. I would not recommend this to someone who has even a mild problem with extremely rough language.
    • 4/5
      I picked this book up at a library sale and thought it might be interesting to read some of Penn's comments on Atheism. To my surprise, the book is a series of stories about Penn's life, all tied very loosely to Atheism, making this book a very enjoyable read.
    • 2/5
      Some interesting tales, lots of chaff.
    • 4/5
      Penn is as "bugnutty" - his word - as they come. Also offensive, inappropriate and out and out hilarious. He's an atheist, and makes no bones of it. He's also a libertarian's libertarian and makes no apologies. This is not your book if you're easily offended on religion, sex, politics, personal liberties, Santa or frozen yogurt.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 4/5
      I would recommend that both believers and non-believers check out Penn's book. I think it is funny and at times it was a little too much for me but overall I think he makes a solid case for "I don't know". It is a lot simpler to blindly believe in a dogma that you either grew up in or that you were lead into as it does not require critical thinking.I would say everyone could learn from this common sense book about how to think independently. I don't have to agree with Penn to like the book. I don't have to change my views to like the book. I think you will find it a quick and easy read and it will open debate with some of your friends...and debate and thought is a good thing.
    • 3/5
      Despite its title, God No is less a book about atheism, and more a book about Penn Jillette. Overall, it’s a rambling, amusing, self-indulgent collection of celebrity encounters, only a few of which ever come around to the subject of atheism. Despite that, there are some seeds of insight to be found throughout, eventually growing together into a wild, untameable vine of free thought.

      At times rude and crude, it’s in his most outrageous, most blasphemous moments, that the most important points are made. Like any great magician, Penn is a master of the bait-and-switch. To put it another way, like any good parent, he’s a master of making the nastiest medicine palatable by hiding it in something sweet. Time and time again he shocks you with one blasphemous concept, and then slips in a bit of wisdom that you might have otherwise dismissed out-of-hand . . . but no longer find so hard to swallow.

      The problem, from a conceptual point of view, is that those sugar-coated messages are few and far between. The framing of the atheist Ten Commandments is artificial and loose, and I honestly can’t recall any specifics. There are no catchy phrases or memorable revisions here, just chapters of stories with a common theme. What could have been a clever concept, and could have really helped make a really strong point, is instead sacrificed for entertaining the converted. That’s not entirely a bad thing – alone, or with Teller at his side, Penn is always entertaining – but I would have liked something more structured.

      Is there an elephant in your bathtub right now? If you humbly answer "I don't know," then when asked if you believe there's an elephant in your bathtub right now, the answer would be no. Anything is possible, but there's no reason to believe it until there's some evidence. Once you're an atheist, anything is possible. You are leaving open the possibility of Jesus Christ as lord, and Thor, and invisible gremlins living in your toaster. It's all possible, but . . . I don't know. And until I know—until there's some evidence—I'm an atheist.

      In the end, once the stories fade, do any of the bits of wisdom that are there stick with you? As somebody who already agrees with much of what he has to say, and is regularly amused by his act, I don’t know . . . but, ironically (as Penn himself makes clear), that’s largely the point.
    • 3/5
      I was expecting a book-long tract about atheism, but Jillette focuses on the "Other Magical Tales" section of the subtitle to mostly deliver a fine if fairly standard celebrity memoir stuffed with chatty anecdotes and ranty essays about libertarianism, terrorism, and Richard Nixon in addition to some bits about atheism. I agreed with some stuff, disagreed with some stuff, and was entertained throughout by the generous heaping of foul language and the wonderfully obscene way he has of expressing his thoughts and sharing parts of his life.He admits to being an ass, and I probably wouldn't want to hang out with him in real life, but Jillette certainly is a person worth reading about.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 4/5
      Penn is as "bugnutty" - his word - as they come. Also offensive, inappropriate and out and out hilarious. He's an atheist, and makes no bones of it. He's also a libertarian's libertarian and makes no apologies. This is not your book if you're easily offended on religion, sex, politics, personal liberties, Santa or frozen yogurt. There are no sacred cows in his world. He makes many valid points, and iswilling to acknowledge we all know next to nothing. He's just seemingly more open to that fact, nor does he really seem to care if you agree or not. Side splittingly funny, liberally doused with obscenity, sometimesquite touching, with blurbs from Dawkins, Trey Parker, Glenn Beck and Matt Stone. From half of the duo who bring you "Bullshit!" - Jillette's take on calling it, for real. Plus, the added bonus of his humor and his patent. His politics may not be your cup of tea, but hear the man out. You'll be glad. Just be careful who you spend time with after reading, you get so used to the f bomb it starts to invade your brain.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 4/5
      I'm already an atheist, so I knew Jillette would be preaching to the choir in my case. I agree with a lot of what he says here. He made me laugh and nod on every page. There were parts I read out loud, they were that good. I totally buy his arguments. The chapter on climate change (and more importantly, about how saying "I don't know" can be misinterpreted) was wonderful. The memoir-ish bits were interesting, and I really enjoyed his transparent, epic love for his family. The chapter about his sister is breathtakingly great. But Jillette goes out of his way to be a jerk, he uses the most emphatic curse words in ways designed to alienate- so much so that I was often taken out of the narrative flow to examine why, exactly, I was feeling so repelled. It's hard for me to rate a book I agree with, that's frequently funny, but that leaves me feeling like someone's prudish grandmother (did he have to call that perfectly nice woman those words? In THAT order?). 4 stars for content, 2 stars for ick factor (serious ick factor, involving a white hot blowdryer and... oh, nevermind), 4 stars for being utterly fearless.
    • 4/5
      I like Penn Jillette. Possibly more than I really should. The guy's an opinionated loudmouth, and I'm not generally a fan of opinionated loudmouths, even when I agree with what they're saying (and I do agree with Penn on a lot of things, though by no means all of them). Heck, it may be especially true when I agree with them, since I think being an opinionated loudmouth is more often than not counterproductive if you want to bring people around to your way of thinking.But, somehow, Penn makes it work for him. It helps a lot that he's funny. It also helps that he's self-deprecating about his own obnoxiousness in a way that feels surprisingly genuine, cheerfully admitting that he's just some nut with a big mouth and there's no reason you should listen to him over anyone else and managing to give the impression that, far from wanting to browbeat people into submission or silence like most opinionated loudmouths, he'd be honestly delighted if you leapt into the argument and showed him that he was wrong about something. Even more than that, though, it's that he's just so full of exuberance. He comes across as a guy who is completely in love with life and thinks people are great even while he's in the middle of a full-bore, no-holds-barred, profanity-filled rant, which is honestly pretty impressive. Even when he ought to be annoying, I just find him weirdly lovable.So, yes, I enjoyed this book. As the title suggests, there's a lot about religion (or, rather, against it) in this loose collection of essays, but he also talks about politics and showbiz and various other subjects, and shares a lot of personal stories. It is, at various points, hilarious, touching, goofy, dirty, and provocative, although whether it's provocative in a good way or a bad way probably depends a lot on the reader. I wouldn't recommend it to just anybody -- religious people will no doubt find it as offensive to their beliefs as it's meant to be -- but if you like Penn Jillette, there's a lot of him here to like.
    • 5/5
      So smart, so funny, so real. All agnostics should go pick up this book and be convinced. All fans of Penn Jillette should go pick up this book and be convinced and entertained. Everyone should read this book!
    • 4/5
      I like Penn a lot, even if I don't agree with him a lot of the time. Definitely a fun read, even if I cringed over him wanting to have sex with Ayn Rand. Ugh.
    • 3/5
      As an entertain, I like Penn Jillette. The talkative half of the comedy/magic act Penn and Teller, he's never been shy to talk about anything. Often, when he talks, he is still entertaining. When he presumes to talk about more intellectual subjects, particularly those he has little real knowledge about, he comes off as an annoying doofus.God No! presumes to be about Atheism, a subject I can identify with and something Penn and I have in common. However, the content is a mish-mash of pontificating on serious subjects and posting unrelated anecdotes about episodes in his life. The memoirs were more entertaining; I'm still scratching my head as to why he would devote a chapter displaying his ignorance about Global Warming (and confirming his ignorance telling us that a year after an ill-advised comment on the subject, he still didn't know anything). Penn is at his best talking about his family life. Almost in spite of his persona, he portrays himself as a very devoted family man, and in this he appears more like "one of us." He is most likable at these moments. I'd like to read more of these moments, of his other stories that punctuate the colorful career of a flamboyant entertainer. Penn name-drops some impressive icons in the area where he presumes to offer an opinion; among them, two of my favorites, Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens. He is not intellectually in the same class, however, and stylistically, dropping f-bombs every other word, he'll never match their eloquence. Just write a memoir Penn, and don't presume to instruct anyone in your personal doctrine. While I might agree with much of it, you are not a very good advocate.
    • 5/5
      This is not a systematic work on atheism, a la Harris or Hitchens, but rather a collection of funny stories---hey, what did you expect?---illustrating common sense principles of morality, organized around what Penn describes as "one atheist's ten suggestions" in response to a challenge by Glenn Beck to come up with a list of an atheist Ten Commandments.The stories are very funny---a couple of them literally falling-out-of-my-chair hilarious---and along the way he does manage to make some interesting points about atheism. He distinguishes between the epistemological question addressed by agnosticism and the question about one's state of belief addressed by atheism, and concludes that if the answer to the former question is "I don't know," the only honest answer to the latter question is, "No, I don't believe in god." I think this is a legitimate distinction, but I would go further than Jillette's "soft" atheism (which leaves open the possibility that some evidence for a god could be discovered in the future) and argue for "hard" atheism, i.e., that one can be certain that there is no god. But that's neither here nor there.This book will make you think, and it will make you laugh even more. If there were a "preacher" for atheism, Penn Jillette should be it...I mean, c'mon, just look at him on the cover! And listening to him reading the audio version is great, too.
    • 3/5
      I respect a lot of Penn's view points. And it was his unwavering commitment to reality that helped me finally take the plunge and admit I'm an atheist. Though my "conversion" was nowhere near as absurd as the lost faith ceremony he, his partner Teller and road crew share with a former Jew from a story Penn shares in the first chapter. The premise of the book is that Penn Jillette is an atheist, and if you're reading his book, you probably are, too. And while the stories collected within the book go from mildly dismissive of Christians and Jews to hilariously self derogatory. The framework of the 10 Commandments and "10 suggestions" is tiresome and only minimally relative to the stories that follow. A better title might be "Hilarious Shit That's Happened to Me in the Last 50 Years, And God Sucks".I gave it 3 stars because the stories, while often very funny, are a little too dismissive of any point of view of Libertarian atheism - if there is such a thing. If your only exposure to Penn Jillette is through the comedy/magic duo of Penn & Teller, this book may be disappointing, as Penn only references the act as a waypoint through the story. However, if you are familiar with the Showtime show Penn & Teller's Bullshit, this is a great companion piece.