Download or read book Atheism as a Positive Social Force written by Raymond W. Converse and published by Algora Publishing. This book was released on 2003 with total page 246 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Recent disasters have raised new questions concerning the role of religion in society. Converse does not oppose religion per se; he outlines the growth of religion from a modern historical perspective and shows how atheism can be applied as a positive alt.
Download or read book The Great Agnostic written by Susan Jacoby and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2013-01-08 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A biography that restores America's foremost 19th-century champion of reason and secularism to the still contested 21st-century public square.
Download or read book The Twilight of Atheism written by Alister McGrath and published by WaterBrook. This book was released on 2007-12-18 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this bold and provocative new book, the author of In the Beginning and The Reenchantment of Nature challenges the widely held assumption that the world is becoming more secular and demonstrates why atheism cannot provide the moral and intellectual guidance essential for coping with the complexities of modern life. Atheism is one of the most important movements in modern Western culture. For the last two hundred years, it seemed to be on the verge of eliminating religion as an outmoded and dangerous superstition. Recent years, however, have witnessed the decline of disbelief and a rise in religious devotion throughout the world. In THE TWILIGHT OF ATHEISM, the distinguished historian and theologian Alister McGrath examines what went wrong with the atheist dream and explains why religion and faith are destined to play a central role in the twenty-first century. A former atheist who is now one of Christianity’s foremost scholars, McGrath traces the history of atheism from its emergence in eighteenth-century Europe as a revolutionary worldview that offered liberation from the rigidity of traditional religion and the oppression of tyrannical monarchs, to its golden age in the first half of the twentieth century. Blending thoughtful, authoritative historical analysis with incisive portraits of such leading and influential atheists as Sigmund Freud and Richard Dawkins, McGrath exposes the flaws at the heart of atheism, and argues that the renewal of faith is a natural, inevitable, and necessary response to its failures. THE TWILIGHT OF ATHEISM will unsettle believers and nonbelievers alike. A powerful rebuttal of the philosophy that, for better and for worse, has exerted tremendous influence on Western history, it carries major implications for the future of both religion and unbelief in our society.
Download or read book Atheism A Very Short Introduction written by Julian Baggini and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2003-06-26 with total page 137 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Do you think of atheists as immoral pessimists who live their lives without meaning, purpose, or values? Think again! 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.
Download or read book An Athiest Defends Religion written by Bruce Sheiman and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2009-08-04 with total page 221 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A new perspective. Defending religion as a cultural institution in the face of resurgent atheistic thought For centuries, the theism-atheism debate has been dominated by two positions: stringent believers committed to the "yes, there is a God" argument, and atheists vehemently driven to repudiate not only God, but also religion as a cultural institution. To date, this is the first and only mainstream book in which a nonbeliever criticizes atheism and affirms religion. An Atheist Defends Religion persuasively argues that religion is overwhelmingly beneficial for humanity, regardless of whether God exists, based on a new paradigm of 10 affirmative dimensions that make up religious experience. It also puts to rest the theory that religion is behind most of the world's sectarian violence by showing that religion becomes evil when it is politicized. Readers will learn they do not have to be fundamentalists to be believers, and about the value and benefits of religion itself.
Download or read book Why We Need Religion written by Stephen T. Asma and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2018-05-09 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How we feel is as vital to our survival as how we think. This claim, based on the premise that emotions are largely adaptive, serves as the organizing theme of Why We Need Religion. This book is a novel pathway in a well-trodden field of religious studies and philosophy of religion. Stephen Asma argues that, like art, religion has direct access to our emotional lives in ways that science does not. Yes, science can give us emotional feelings of wonder and the sublime--we can feel the sacred depths of nature--but there are many forms of human suffering and vulnerability that are beyond the reach of help from science. Different emotional stresses require different kinds of rescue. Unlike secular authors who praise religion's ethical and civilizing function, Asma argues that its core value lies in its emotionally therapeutic power. No theorist of religion has failed to notice the importance of emotions in spiritual and ritual life, but truly systematic research has only recently delivered concrete data on the neurology, psychology, and anthropology of the emotional systems. This very recent "affective turn" has begun to map out a powerful territory of embodied cognition. Why We Need Religion incorporates new data from these affective sciences into the philosophy of religion. It goes on to describe the way in which religion manages those systems--rage, play, lust, care, grief, and so on. Finally, it argues that religion is still the best cultural apparatus for doing this adaptive work. In short, the book is a Darwinian defense of religious emotions and the cultural systems that manage them.
Download or read book In Good Faith written by Scott A. Shay and published by Post Hill Press. This book was released on 2018-09-04 with total page 582 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Prominent atheists claim the Bible is a racist text. Yet Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. read it daily. Then again, so did many ardent segregationists. Some atheists claim religion serves to oppress the masses. Yet the classic text of the French Revolution, What is the Third Estate?, was written by a priest. On the other hand, the revolutionaries ended up banning religion. What do we make of religion’s confusing role in history? And what of religion’s relationship to science? Some scientists claim that we have no free will. Others argue that advances in neurobiology and physics disprove determinism. As for whispering to the universe, an absurd habit say the skeptics. Yet prayer is a transformative practice for millions. This book explores the most common atheist critiques of the Bible and religion, incorporating Jewish, Christian, and Muslim voices. The result is a fresh, modern re-evaluation of religion and of atheism. Scott A. Shay is a Co-Founder and Chairman of Signature Bank and a longstanding Jewish community activist. Shay started a Hebrew school, an adult educational program, and chaired several Jewish educational programs. He is the author of Getting our Groove Back: How to Energize American Jewry and has been thinking about religion, reason, and modernity since wondering why his parents sent him to Hebrew school.
Download or read book Imagine There s No Heaven written by Mitchell Stephens and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2014-02-25 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The historical achievements of religious belief have been large and well chronicled. But what about the accomplishments of those who have challenged religion? Traveling from classical Greece to twenty-first century America, Imagine There's No Heaven explores the role of disbelief in shaping Western civilization. At each juncture common themes emerge: by questioning the role of gods in the heavens or the role of a God in creating man on earth, nonbelievers help move science forward. By challenging the divine right of monarchs and the strictures of holy books, nonbelievers, including Jean- Jacques Rousseau and Denis Diderot, help expand human liberties, and influence the early founding of the United States. Revolutions in science, in politics, in philosophy, in art, and in psychology have been led, on multiple occasions, by those who are free of the constraints of religious life. Mitchell Stephens tells the often-courageous tales of history's most important atheists— like Denis Diderot and Salman Rushdie. Stephens makes a strong and original case for their importance not only to today's New Atheist movement but to the way many of us—believers and nonbelievers—now think and live.
Download or read book Living without God A Multicultural Spectrum of Atheism written by Sanjit Chakraborty and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2022-12-18 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book deals with the intricate issue of approaching atheism—methodologically as well as conceptually—from the perspective of cultural pluralism. What does ‘atheism’ mean in different cultural contexts? Can this term be applied appropriately to different religious discourses which conceptualize God/gods/Goddess/goddesses (and also godlessness) in hugely divergent ways? Is my ‘God’ the same as yours? If not, then how can your atheism be the same as mine? In other words, this volume raises the question: Is it not high time that we proposed a comparative study of atheism(s) alongside that of religions, rather than believing that atheism is centered in the ‘Western’ experience? Apart from answering these questions, the book highlights the much-needed focus on the philosophical negotiations between atheism, theism and agnosticism. The fine chapters collected here present pluralist negotiations with the notion of atheism and its ethical, theological, literary and scientific corollaries. Previously published in Sophia Volume 60, issue 3, September 2021 Chapters “Religious Conversion and Loss of Faith: Cases of Personal Paradigm Shift?” and “On Being an Infidel” are available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.
Download or read book Why I Became an Atheist written by John W. Loftus and published by Prometheus Books. This book was released on 2012-10-10 with total page 1047 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For about two decades John W. Loftus was a devout evangelical Christian, an ordained minister of the Church of Christ, and an ardent apologist for Christianity. With three degrees--in philosophy, theology, and philosophy of religion--he was adept at using rational argumentation to defend the faith. But over the years, doubts about the credibility of key Christian tenets began to creep into his thinking. By the late 1990s he experienced a full-blown crisis of faith. In this honest appraisal of his journey from believer to atheist, the author carefully explains the experiences and the reasoning process that led him to reject religious belief. The original edition of this book was published in 2006 and reissued in 2008. Since that time, Loftus has received a good deal of critical feedback from Christians and skeptics alike. In this revised and expanded edition, the author addresses criticisms of the original, adds new argumentation and references, and refines his presentation. For every issue he succinctly summarizes the various points of view and provides references for further reading. In conclusion, he describes the implications of life without belief in God, some liberating, some sobering. This frank critique of Christian belief from a former insider will interest freethinkers as well as anyone with doubts about the claims of religion.
Download or read book Atheism and Secularity written by Phil Zuckerman and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2009-12-21 with total page 540 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This important two-volume contribution to the field of secular studies offers the first comprehensive examination of atheists and non-religious people around the world. Who are atheists? How does atheism relate to various aspects of our social world, such as politics, feminism, globalization, and the family? And what is the current state of atheism internationally? Atheism and Secularity addresses the growing interest in the non-religious world by exploring these and related questions. It is a comprehensive and compelling look at atheists and atheism both nationally and internationally, covering a range of topics often overlooked in other books on the subject. Atheism and Secularity is not a philosophical, polemic work, but rather an exploration of who atheists are, what they believe, how they relate to the world, and how the world relates to them. The first volume focuses on topics such as family life, gender, sexuality, politics, and social movements. The second volume looks at atheism and secularity around the world, exploring the lives of non-religious people in North America, Japan, China, India, Europe, the Arab World, and other locations.
Download or read book New Atheism Critical Perspectives and Contemporary Debates written by Christopher R. Cotter and published by Springer. This book was released on 2017-06-07 with total page 249 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Whether understood in a narrow sense as the popular works of a small number of (white male) authors, or as a larger more diffuse movement, twenty-first century scholars, journalists, and activists from all ‘sides’ in the atheism versus theism debate, have noted the emergence of a particular form of atheism frequently dubbed ‘New Atheism’. The present collection has been brought together to provide a scholarly yet accessible consideration of the place and impact of ‘New Atheism’ in the contemporary world. Combining traditional and innovative approaches, chapters draw on the insights of philosophers, religious studies scholars, sociologists, anthropologists, and literary critics to provide never-before-seen insights into the relationship between ‘New Atheism’, science, gender, sexuality, space, philosophy, fiction and much more. With contributions from Australia, Germany and the United Kingdom, the volume also presents diversity in regard to religious/irreligious commitment, with contributions from atheists, theists and more agnostic orientations. New Atheism: Critical Perspectives and Contemporary Debates features an up-to-date overview of current research on ‘New Atheism’, a Foreword from Stephen Bullivant (co-editor of The Oxford Handbook of Atheism), and eleven new chapters with extensive bibliographies that will be important to both a general audience and to those conducting research in this area. It provides a much-needed fresh look at a contentious phenomenon, and will hopefully encourage the cooperation and dialogue which has predominantly been lacking in relevant contemporary debates.
Download or read book For God s Sake written by Antony Loewenstein and published by Macmillan Publishers Aus.. This book was released on 2013-07-01 with total page 359 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Four Australian thinkers come together to ask and answer the big questions, such as: What is the nature of the universe? Doesn't religion cause most of the conflict in the world? and Where do we find hope? We are introduced to the detail of different belief systems - Judaism, Christianity, Islam - and to the argument that atheism, like organised religion, has its own compelling logic. And we gain insight into the life events that led each author to their current position. Jane Caro flirted briefly with spiritual belief, inspired by 19th century literary heroines such as Elizabeth Gaskell and the Brontë sisters. Antony Lowenstein is proudly culturally, yet unconventionally, Jewish. Simon Smart is firmly and resolutely a Christian, but one who has had some of his most profound spiritual moments while surfing. Rachel Woodlock grew up in the alternative embrace of Baha'i belief but became entranced by its older parent religion, Islam. Provocative, informative and passionately argued, For God's Sake encourages us to accept religious differences but to also challenge more vigorously the beliefs that create discord.
Download or read book Atheism and the Goddess written by Anway Mukhopadhyay and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2023-03-21 with total page 144 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book seeks to explore the complex modes of interface between religion, atheism, and the Goddess in multicultural contexts. While atheism has often been seen as an interrogation of and a battle against God, the gender dimension of this discourse has not been sufficiently negotiated. Is the fight against God also a fight against the Goddess? Or is there something common between the ideological thrust of the battle against God the “Father” in atheism and the interrogation of the Divine Father in thealogy? Can the Goddess be seen as an entity radically different from the imperious transcendental that the atheists find embodied in God the Father? Or, can the Goddess be seen as “transcendental” as well as immanent, and hence subjected to the same atheist denial of transcendence to which God is subjected in non-theistic or anti-theistic arguments? With this volume, Anway Mukhopadhyay embarks on a difficult project of epistemologically, ideologically and even politically renegotiating and reorienting some of the fundamental issues involved in the discussions of and debates over atheism.
Download or read book Candidate Without a Prayer written by Herb Silverman and published by Pitchstone Publishing. This book was released on 2012 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this deeply revealing and engaging autobiography, Herb Silverman tells his iconoclastic life story. He takes the reader from his childhood as an Orthodox Jew in Philadelphia, where he stopped fasting on Yom Kippur to test God's existence, to his adult life in the heart of the Bible Belt, where he became a legendary figure within America's secular activist community and remains one of its most beloved leaders. Never one to shy from controversy, Silverman relates many of his high-profile battles with the Religious Right, including his decision to run for governor of South Carolina to challenge the state's constitutional provision that prohibited atheists from holding public office. Candidate Without a Prayer offers an intimate portrait of a central player in today's increasingly heated culture wars.
Download or read book The Evolution of Atheism written by Stephen LeDrew and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2016 with total page 275 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In The Evolution of Atheism, Stephen LeDrew argues that militant atheists have more in common with religious fundamentalists than they would care to admit, advancing what LeDrew calls secular fundamentalism. LeDrew draws on public relations campaigns, publications, podcasts, and in-depth interviews to explore the belief systems, internal logics, and self-contradictions of atheists. He argues that evolving understandings of what atheism means, and how it should be put into action, are threatening to irrevocably fragment the movement.
Download or read book God Is Not Great written by Christopher Hitchens and published by McClelland & Stewart. This book was released on 2008-11-19 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Christopher Hitchens, described in the London Observer as “one of the most prolific, as well as brilliant, journalists of our time” takes on his biggest subject yet–the increasingly dangerous role of religion in the world. In the tradition of Bertrand Russell’s Why I Am Not a Christian and Sam Harris’s recent bestseller, 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 eloquent clarity, Hitchens frames the argument for a more secular life based on science and reason, in which hell is replaced by the Hubble Telescope’s awesome view of the universe, and Moses and the burning bush give way to the beauty and symmetry of the double helix.
