Showing titles in Atheism

At the time of his death, Christopher Hitchens was the most notorious atheist in the world. And yet, all was not as it seemed. "Nobody is not a divided self, of course," he once told an interviewer, "but I think it's rather strong in my case." Hitchens was a man of many contradictions: a Marxist in youth who longed for acceptance among the social elites; a peacenik who revered the military; a champion of the Left who was nonetheless pro-life, pro-war-on-terror; and, after 9/11, something of a neocon.

Looking back to the crisis of the Reformation and beyond, Unbelievers shows how, long before philosophers started to make the case for atheism, powerful cultural currents were challenging traditional faith. These tugged in different ways not only on celebrated thinkers such as Machiavelli, Montaigne, Hobbes, and Pascal, but on men and women at every level of society whose voices we hear through their diaries, letters, and court records. Ryrie traces the roots of atheism born of anger, a sentiment familiar to anyone who has ever cursed a corrupt priest, and of doubt born of anxiety.

You've probably heard of a few of God's killings. Noah's Flood, Sodom and Gomorrah, David and Goliath, maybe. But there are over 150 others that are unknown to pretty much everyone, believer and nonbeliever alike.

Sound interesting? The author thinks so too! Listen to Contraduction and learn a new way to think about the world.

Interfaith marriages fail more often than same-faith partnerships. So what are the chances of survival for the ultimate mixed marriage - one between religious and nonreligious partners? Nearly 20 percent of Americans now self-identify as nonreligious, including millions who are married to religious believers. Despite the differences, many of these marriages succeed beautifully. In this landmark book, popular author and secular humanist Dale McGowan explores some of the stories of these unions.

On his popular science blog, Pharyngula, PZ Myers has entertained millions of fans with his infectious love of evolutionary science and his equally infectious disdain for creationism, biblical literalism, intelligent design theory, and other products of godly illogic. This funny and fearless book collects and expands on some of his most popular writings, giving the religious fanaticism of our times the gleeful disrespect it deserves by skewering the apocalyptic fantasies, magical thinking, hypocrisies, and pseudoscientific theories advanced by religious fundamentalists of all stripes.

Atheism's leading lights have long been intellectuals raised in the secular and academic worlds: Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and the late Christopher Hitchens. By contrast, Jerry DeWitt was born and bred into the church and was in fact a Pentecostal preacher before arriving at atheism through an extraordinary dialogue with faith that spanned more than a quarter of a century. Hope After Faith is his account of that journey. DeWitt was a pastor in the town of DeRidder, Louisiana, and was a fixture of the community. In private, however, he'd begun to question his faith.

Disproving Christianity and Other Secular Writings compiles popular and lesser-known arguments against the principles established by the Christian canon. Using a phenomenological approach to build his case based on in-depth study, McAfee analyzes the Hebrew Scriptures and New Testament doctrine to build a logical and reasonable case against their validity. From contradictions between lived and portrayed religions to factual errors within the texts themselves, no stone is left unturned in this fully updated and expanded refutation of Christianity.

Atheism Explained explores the claims made both for and against the existence of God. On the pro side: that the wonders of the world can only be explained by an intelligent creator; that the universe had to start somewhere; telepathy, out-of-body experiences, and other paranormal phenomena demonstrate the existence of a spirit world; and that those who experience God directly provide evidence as real as any physical finding.

In his first memoir, Richard Dawkins shares a rare view into his early life, his intellectual awakening at Oxford, and his path to writing The Selfish Gene. This is an intimate memoir of the childhood and intellectual development of the evolutionary biologist and world-famous atheist and how he came to write what is widely held to be one of the most important books of the 20th century.

In Hi, I'm an Atheist!, McAfee looks at what an atheist believes and how to “come out” as an atheist to your friends, family, and co-workers, offering sound advice on overcoming the difficult moments in any “coming out” conversation. Including a resource guide both for people just coming to atheism and people who have been atheists for years, Hi I’m an Atheist! is a smart, sensitive, and realistic guide to living one’s life positively and honestly without the need for a belief in God.

This is a passionate but breezy polemic that seeks to expose the harmful nature of religious orthodoxy, whether it be Christian, Jewish, or Moslem, which it contrasts with polytheism, specifically Greek polytheism, altogether a more relaxed system. It is also a forceful plea for the use of reason in pursuit of the biggest questions that confront us. An Ordinary Man’s Letter to God is not an attack on faith, nor does it advocate for atheism. It argues passionately for the use of reason to establish a universal doctrine of tolerance, decency, common sense, and love.

In the tradition of Bertrand Russell's Why I Am Not a Christian and Sam Harris' The End of Faith, Christopher Hitchens makes the ultimate case against religion. With a close and erudite reading of the major religious texts, he documents the ways in which religion is a man-made wish, a cause of dangerous sexual repression and a distortion of our origins in the cosmos.

With a scientific eye and an empathetic heart, the authors turn conventional perceptions about atheism on their head. They show that atheism need not be reactionary (against religion and God), but rather that it can offer a clear set of constructive principles to live by, which establish atheism as a positive worldview.

A six-month debate at work with a religious fundamentalist led to years of research and contemplation resulting in the author's journey towards Atheism. The three great monotheisms are picked apart, exposing their shortfalls via their own texts, world history, philosophy, and thought-provoking hypotheticals. If your brilliant logical brain is ready to be freed, you have come to the right place. This book will help you quell the doubt and fear associated with leaving the credulous herd.

Depending on how one defines religion, there are at least thousands of religions in the world. Given such religious diversity, how can any one religion claim to know the truth? Nothing proposed so far has helped us settle which of these religions, if any, are true - until now.

The God of the Old Testament commanded and endorsed many practices that we find morally reprehensible today. High on the list was the institution of slavery, which features prominently in several sections of the Hebrew Bible. Fathers could sell their daughters into slavery, masters could beat their slaves, creditors could carry off children for failure to repay a debt, and foreigners could be kept for life, passed down as inherited property. How are we to make sense of all of this from our modern point of view?

Richard Wurmbrand spent three years in solitary confinement during his 14-year imprisonment in Communist Romania. In The Answer to the Atheist's Handbook, conceived during his solitary confinement, Wurmbrand challenges the arguments for atheism as proposed by the Soviet Academy of Science's Atheist's Handbook. Throughout the Communist world, the teachings of the Atheist's Handbook held supreme authority. But Wurmbrand demonstrates that the atheistic worldview leaves more questions unanswered than it settles.

How to live in a supposedly faithless world threatened by religious fundamentalism? Terry Eagleton, formidable thinker and renowned cultural critic, investigates in this thought-provoking audiobook the contradictions, difficulties, and significance of the modern search for a replacement for God. Lucid, stylish, and entertaining in his usual manner, Eagleton presents a brilliant survey of modern thought that also serves as a timely, urgently needed intervention into our perilous political present.

In this mini-audiobook collection of essays, prominent atheist author Greta Christina offers secular ways to handle your own mortality and the death of those you love. Blending intensely personal experience with compassionate, down-to-earth wisdom, Christina (Coming out Atheist and Why Are You Atheists So Angry?) explores a variety of natural philosophies of death.