Showing titles in Atheism

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?

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.

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.

Christian Child, Atheist Adult is the autobiographical narrative of a Southern Baptist deacon's son who discovered just how misled he had been during his formative years; ultimately making a transformation into one of Christianity's most staunch critics. Gregory Blount provides accounts of the social and familial tactics often used by many faith-based religions to indoctrinate and entrap members. The book also provides a broad consideration of the scientific, historical, and philosophical answers that led the author to develop his perspective.

This unique work is a result of multiple engagements and debates in universities, mosques, private gatherings and elsewhere. The author, Asrar Rashid, takes on the more difficult questions taking us through a labrynth of Kalām, philosophy, logic, epistemology, science, the Qurʾān, Ḥadīth and Sharīʿa.

«Esta es la cuestión acerca de mis ideas y de quienes piensan como yo. Nuestra creencia no es una creencia. Nuestros principios no son una fe. No sostenemos nuestras convicciones dogmáticamente. Creemos firmemente que se puede vivir una vida ética sin religión. Y de hecho sabemos que el reverso es cierto: que la religión ha hecho que muchas personas no solo no se comporten mejor que otras, sino que consideren aceptable comportarse en modos que harían que el gerente de un burdel o un genocida torcieran el gesto».

In deconstructing 75 distasteful delights of biblical proportions, we will investigate the likelihood of not only the Apostle Paul’s claim of the divine origin of scripture, but the claim of the innumerable whom uphold the Bible as the true and infallible word of God.

In this groundbreaking volume, J. Anderson Thomson, Jr., MD, with Clare Aukofer, offers a succinct yet comprehensive study of how and why the human mind generates religious belief. Dr. Thomson, a highly respected practicing psychiatrist with credentials in forensic psychiatry and evolutionary psychology, methodically investigates the components and causes of religious belief in the same way any scientist would investigate the movement of astronomical bodies.

Is Christianity obsolete? Can an intelligent, educated person really believe the Bible? Or do the atheists have it right? In his new book, best-selling author Dinesh D'Souza ( What's So Great about America) investigates both Christianity and atheism and their influences on culture to show why there is, indeed, something great about Christianity.

A priest and a dying atheist engage in a final dialogue. Reason vs. faith, and in the end...

In Evidence Considered: A Response to Evidence for God, Glenton Jelbert seeks to explore and test the arguments advanced by apologists and ultimately show why none of them persuade him. As a former Christian, Jelbert handles the topic with sensitivity. He examines the evidence for God, by responding to a series of 50 essays by Christian apologists. These essays were written by 37 different authors and collected together by William Dembski and Michael Licona in Evidence for God: 50 Arguments for Faith from the Bible, History, Philosophy and Science.

Apology Not Accepted is a no-holds-barred critique of common Christian apologetics. Blount is direct, informative, and highly entertaining.

This book covers in a humorous way a man's journey out of the Mormon Church into atheism. In addition he was a Mormon temple worker, married six times, father of 14 children, two of which were adopted, and holds two master's degrees from BYU, in child development and human psychology. He has many books about what it was like growing up in in Utah being a Mormon and describes all their crazy ways.

What is it like to be a preacher or rabbi who no longer believes in God? In this expanded and updated edition of their groundbreaking study, Daniel C. Dennett and Linda LaScola comprehensively and sensitively expose an inconvenient truth that religious institutions face in the new transparency of the information age - the phenomenon of clergy who no longer believe what they publicly preach.

Nothing is new or original in Christianity. That is the important thesis demonstrated in Christianity Before Christ. The least important features, as well as the most important components, were all well developed in cultures that flourished before the time that Christ is alleged to have walked the parched paths of Roman Palestine.

For thousands of years, holy books have told us that such a life is available only through obedience and submission to some higher power. Today, the faithful keep popular devotionals and tracts within easy reach on bedside tables and mobile devices, all communicating this common message: Life is meaningless without God. Former pastor Dan Barker eloquently, powerfully, and rationally upends this long-held belief.

Unbelievers looks back to the middle ages when it seemed impossible not to subscribe to Christianity, through the crisis of the Reformation and to the powerful, challenging cultural currents of the centuries. The religious journey of the Western world was lived and steered not just by the celebrated thinkers of the day – the Machiavellis and Michel de Montaignes – but by men and women at every level of society, whose voices and feelings permeate this book in the form of diaries, letters and court records.

Is there really a God? Or does God exist only in our heads? Is the Bible truly God's Word? Or is it a jumble of fanciful myths? Atheist Universe details why God is unnecessary to explain the universe's diversity, organization, and beauty. Using simple, straightforward logic, this audiobook rebuts every argument that claims to "prove" God's existence.

With every argument for theism long since discredited, the result is that atheism has become little more than the noises reasonable people make in the presence of unjustified religious beliefs. Thus, engaging in interminable debate with religious believers about the existence of god has become exactly the wrong way for nonbelievers to try to deal with misguided - and often dangerous - belief in a higher power. The key, author James Lindsay argues, is to stop that particular conversation.

Atheism is often considered to be a negative, dark, and pessimistic belief which is characterized by a rejection of values and purpose and a fierce opposition to religion. Atheism: A Very Short Introduction sets out to dispel the myths that surround atheism and show how a life without religious belief can be positive, meaningful, and moral. It also confronts the failure of officially atheist states in the 20th century. The book presents an intellectual case for atheism that rests as much upon positive arguments for its truth as on negative arguments against religion.