Author: Dan Barker
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781877733055
Category : Atheism
Languages : en
Pages : 71

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Book Description
Compares concepts of God to concepts of other mythological beings and stories.

Author: Gerald A. Larue
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780931779039
Category : Free thought
Languages : en
Pages : 516

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Book Description

Author: Tomáš Bubík
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000039838
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 295

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Book Description
This book provides the first comprehensive overview of atheism, secularity and non-religion in Central and Eastern Europe in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. In contrast to scholarship that has focused on the ‘decline of religion’ and secularization theory, the book builds upon recent trends to focus on the ‘rise of non-religion’ itself. While the label of ‘post-communism’ might suggest a generalized perception of the region, this survey reveals that the precise developments in each country before, after and even during the communist era are surprisingly diverse. A multinational team of contributors provide interdisciplinary case studies covering Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Russia, Ukraine, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Croatia, Romania and Bulgaria. This approach utilises perspectives from social and intellectual history in combination with sociology of religion in order to cover the historical development of secularity and secular thought, complemented with sociological data. The study is framed by methodological and analytical chapters. Offering an important geographical perspective to the study of freethought, atheism, secularity and non-religion, this wide-ranging book will be of significant interest to scholars of twentieth-century social and intellectual history, sociology of religion and non-religion, cultural and religious studies, philosophy and theology.

Author: Jonathan Rauch
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022613055X
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 215

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Book Description
The classic “compelling defense of free speech against its new enemies” now in an expanded edition with a foreword by George F. Will (Kirkus Reviews). “A liberal society stands on the proposition that we should all take seriously the idea that we might be wrong. This means we must place no one, including ourselves, beyond the reach of criticism; it means that we must allow people to err, even where the error offends and upsets, as it often will.” So writes Jonathan Rauch in Kindly Inquisitors, which has challenged readers for decades with its provocative analysis of attempts to limit free speech. In it, Rauch makes a persuasive argument for the value of “liberal science” and the idea that conflicting views produce knowledge within society. In this expanded edition of Kindly Inquisitors, a new foreword by George F. Will explores the book’s continued relevance, while a substantial new afterword by Rauch elaborates upon his original argument and brings it fully up to date. Two decades after the book’s initial publication, the regulation of hate speech has grown both domestically and internationally. But the answer to prejudice, Rauch argues, is pluralism—not purism. Rather than attempting to legislate bias and prejudice out of existence, we must pit them against one another to foster a more vigorous and fruitful discussion. It is this process, Rauch argues, that will enable our society to replace hate with knowledge, both ethical and empirical.

Author: Chris Highland
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 226

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Book Description
Another dynamic collection of contemporary essays on Humanism, Religion and Nature by former minister and chaplain Chris Highland selected from his weekly "Highland Views" columns in the Asheville Citizen-Times. Friendly Freethinker follows the publication of A Freethinker's Gospel and Broken Bridges, each presenting provocative perspectives on faith and freethought in a fractured world. Positive, incisive, hopeful and helpful, essays include "Can We Talk About Religious Supremacy?," "Having Difficult Conversations without Destroying Relationships," "Battling Bullies in Boyhood and Beliefs," "The Man Who Changed His Name to God," "Why Does the World Still Need Scriptures?," "The Friendship of an Atheist and an Evangelical," "If There is a God in Nature, Which One?," "What I Would Most Like to Believe," "Mature Christians and Grown-up Atheists," "Does Religion Begin and End in Silence?" and many more (50 essays in all). Highland draws from a deep well of experiences in chaplaincy and teaching, exploring the edges of our comfortable communities and congregations, asking the questions that stir us to more rational thinking and practical action. Though he left the ministry--and faith--Highland is happily married to a progressive minister who reads, comments and helps edit his newspaper columns. Together, they model a creative, constructive approach to bridging differences of belief. Highland's writings exemplify a commitment to secular/spiritual communication so greatly needed in our culture today.

Author: Susan Jacoby
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300137257
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 258

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Book Description
A biography that restores America's foremost 19th-century champion of reason and secularism to the still contested 21st-century public square.

Author: Bertrand Russell
Publisher: Good Press
ISBN:
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 31

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Book Description
In Free Thought and Official Propaganda, Bertrand Russell delves deep into the intricacies of free thinking juxtaposed against the pervasive influences of official propaganda. With his sharp analytical prowess, Russell illuminates the dynamics of information dissemination, societal control, and the relentless pursuit of truth in an age of conflicting narratives.

Author: George H. Smith
Publisher: Cato Institute
ISBN: 1944424385
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 322

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Book Description
Liberty of conscience and freedom of thought are twin, core components of modern life in societies across the world. The ability to pursue one?s vision of the right and the good, coupled with liberty to pursue individual reason and enlightenment, helped produce so much of modern life that we may be apt to forget that libertarian philosophy was not dictated by Nature. Freethought and Freedom surveys the long history of religious and intellectual liberty, exploring their key ideas along the way.

Author: Fred Whitehead
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 324

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Book Description
A stirring anthology that documents, in poetry, song, stories, memoirs, and essays, the breadth and scope of secularism from the early 19th century to the present. Included are pieces by the notables--Twain, Dreiser, Lindsay, Service, Sandburg, Hughes, Masters, et al.--as well as grassroots contributions. Also included are photographs of authors, historical sites, and The Truth seeker cartoons of Watson Hedges. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Author: Martin Priestman
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139431242
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 326

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Book Description
Romantic Atheism explores the links between English Romantic poetry and the first burst of outspoken atheism in Britain from the 1780s onwards. Martin Priestman examines the work of Blake, Coleridge, Wordsworth, Shelley, Byron and Keats in their most intellectually radical periods, establishing the depth of their engagement with such discourses, and in some cases their active participation. Equal attention is given to less canonical writers: such poet-intellectuals as Erasmus Darwin, Sir William Jones, Richard Payne Knight and Anna Laetitia Barbauld, and controversialists including Holbach, Volney, Paine, Priestley, Godwin, Richard Carlile and Eliza Sharples (these last two in particular representing the close links between punishably outspoken atheism and radical working-class politics). Above all, the book conveys the excitement of Romantic atheism, whose dramatic appeals to new developments in politics, science and comparative mythology lend it a protean energy belied by the common and more recent conception of 'loss of faith'.