Author: James A. Haugt
Publisher: Prometheus Books
ISBN: 1615920994
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 334
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Book Description
Society rarely acknowledges the many and varied gifts that disbelievers give to the world. This insightful, witty collection sets the record straight by profiling dozens of famous people who were skeptical of conventional religious beliefs. Included, among others, are Isaac Asimov, W.E.B. DuBois, Thomas Edison, Albert Einstein, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Benjamin Franklin, Omar Khayyam, Abraham Lincoln, James Madison, John Stuart Mill, Ayn Rand, Gene Roddenberry, Margaret Sanger, George Bernard Shaw, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Voltaire, with many quotes that reveal their rejection of the supernatural.
Author: Lee Moller
Publisher: FriesenPress
ISBN: 1525506803
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 248
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Book Description
The crucifix is in! You can fool most of the people most of the time. In The God Con, Lee Moller, a life-long atheist and skeptic, looks at organized religion through the lens of the con. Organized religion has been selling an invisible product, that it never has to deliver, for thousands of years. It has given us bigotry, rampant pedophilia, terrorism, and bloodshed beyond imagining. And its acolytes have, in turn, given organized religion power over their bank accounts, their reproduction, and their very “souls”.
Author: Tim Whitmarsh
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0307958337
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 306
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Book Description
How new is atheism? Although adherents and opponents alike today present it as an invention of the European Enlightenment, when the forces of science and secularism broadly challenged those of faith, disbelief in the gods, in fact, originated in a far more remote past. In Battling the Gods, Tim Whitmarsh journeys into the ancient Mediterranean, a world almost unimaginably different from our own, to recover the stories and voices of those who first refused the divinities. Homer’s epic poems of human striving, journeying, and passion were ancient Greece’s only “sacred texts,” but no ancient Greek thought twice about questioning or mocking his stories of the gods. Priests were functionaries rather than sources of moral or cosmological wisdom. The absence of centralized religious authority made for an extraordinary variety of perspectives on sacred matters, from the devotional to the atheos, or “godless.” Whitmarsh explores this kaleidoscopic range of ideas about the gods, focusing on the colorful individuals who challenged their existence. Among these were some of the greatest ancient poets and philosophers and writers, as well as the less well known: Diagoras of Melos, perhaps the first self-professed atheist; Democritus, the first materialist; Socrates, executed for rejecting the gods of the Athenian state; Epicurus and his followers, who thought gods could not intervene in human affairs; the brilliantly mischievous satirist Lucian of Samosata. Before the revolutions of late antiquity, which saw the scriptural religions of Christianity and Islam enforced by imperial might, there were few constraints on belief. Everything changed, however, in the millennium between the appearance of the Homeric poems and Christianity’s establishment as Rome’s state religion in the fourth century AD. As successive Greco-Roman empires grew in size and complexity, and power was increasingly concentrated in central capitals, states sought to impose collective religious adherence, first to cults devoted to individual rulers, and ultimately to monotheism. In this new world, there was no room for outright disbelief: the label “atheist” was used now to demonize anyone who merely disagreed with the orthodoxy—and so it would remain for centuries. As the twenty-first century shapes up into a time of mass information, but also, paradoxically, of collective amnesia concerning the tangled histories of religions, Whitmarsh provides a bracing antidote to our assumptions about the roots of freethinking. By shining a light on atheism’s first thousand years, Battling the Gods offers a timely reminder that nonbelief has a wealth of tradition of its own, and, indeed, its own heroes.
Author: Huston Smith
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 0061756245
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 306
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Book Description
Huston Smith, the author of the classic bestseller The World's Religions, delivers a passionate, timely message: The human spirit is being suffocated by the dominant materialistic worldview of our times. Smith champions a society in which religion is once again treasured and authentically practiced as the vital source of human wisdom.
Author: L. Rodney Sheffer
Publisher: Xlibris Corporation
ISBN: 1456837168
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 217
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Book Description
Author: Peter Christian Vardy
Publisher: John Hunt Publishing
ISBN: 1789041759
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 276
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Book Description
Truth is increasingly marginalized. Powerful news interests, social media and political orators all seem to point to the idea that the days of absolute Truth are past. Religions have always claimed to stand for a transcendent dimension to reality and to the idea of an absolute claim to Truth but, in the West, religion has been and is declining in influence. Fundamentalism is on the rise and this, combined with relativism, contributes to the current malaise. Peter Vardy has a passionate commitment to helping people think about key issues deeply, yet writes in a lucid and clear style. In Beyond the Cave he explains why claims to absolute Truth have become severely eroded but he also charts a way forward.
Author: Warren Allen Smith
Publisher: Lulu.com
ISBN: 0557837529
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 424
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Book Description
Celebrities is a paperback updating the 1,200-page Who's Who in Hell (2000). The premise is that "Hell" is a theological invention, that is does not physically exist. If it did, theists would put into Hell all who are listed; e.g., Woody Allen; Marlon Brando; George Clooney; Marlene Dietrich; Jodie Foster, Katharine Hepburn, Christopher Reeve. As Mark Twain observed, "Heaven for climate; Hell for company."
Author: Dan Barker
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1569758824
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 213
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Book Description
A guide to meaningful life choices for living an ethical life without theology or religious faith. How Does an Atheist Respond to the Question, What Is the Purpose of Life? For a Christian, it is faith that gives their life purpose. In his best-selling book The Purpose Driven™ Life: What on Earth Am I Here For?, Rick Warren says, “You must begin with God. You were born by his purpose and for his purpose.” But as a non-believer, your purpose resides in yourself; it is yours alone to discover and develop. It’s about choosing to live your own life for your own reasons. No one can dictate your purpose. You decide. This book will help you understand and appreciate why freely choosing to help and cooperate with others is the true path to finding purpose. Life does not need purpose: Purpose needs life. To punctuate this point, The Good Atheist includes inspiring biographies of humanity’s true heroes—men and women who did not waste their lives as slaves to a God, but rather found purpose in enhancing life on this Earth for all of us.
Author: Lee S. Dimin
Publisher: iUniverse
ISBN: 1462002595
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 576
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Book Description
With the election of Barack Obama as president of the United States, a retired attorney and patriot began writing a collection of essays commenting on the problems he sees around him. Lee S. Dimin, who served in the Army Air Force during World War II, shares how the growing power of corporations and governmental corruption is hurting American citizens. In this collection of essays, he examines issues such as - ways to bridge differences between Democrats and Republicans; - Islam's continuing quest to dominate the world; - the intentions of the nation's Founding Fathers in writing the Constitution, and how their ideals are being violated; - the increasing deficit and its implications on every single citizen; - the ways in which mounting divisions between the rich and poor are hurting the country. The challenges that face the United States continue to grow in number, but they are not insurmountable. In Corporatocracy, you'll learn equip yourself with the knowledge that will help you take the country back.
Author: Alan Lightman
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 037542119X
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 375
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Book Description
From the bestselling author of Einstein’s Dreams comes this harrowing tale of one man's struggle to cope in a wired world, even as his own biological wiring short-circuits. As Boston’s Red Line shuttles Bill Chalmers to work one summer morning, something extraordinary happens. Suddenly, he can't remember which stop is his, where he works, or even who he is. The only thing he can remember is his corporate motto: the maximum information in the minimum time. Bill’s memory returns, but a strange numbness afflicts him. As he attempts to find a diagnosis for his deteriorating illness, he descends into a nightmarish tangle of inconclusive results, his company’s manic frenzy, and his family’s disbelief. Ultimately, Bill discovers that he is fighting not just for his body but also for his soul.
