Download or read book God s Horse and The Atheists School written by Wilhelm Dichter and published by Northwestern University Press. This book was released on 2012-02-29 with total page 391 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE God's Horse (1996) and The Atheists' School (1999), Wilhelm Dichter's novelistic memoirs, are both striking for their spare, precise prose and for the fullness with which they inhabit the perspectives of, respectively, a young boy trying to survive the Holocaust in hiding and an adolescent in the turbulent world of post-war Poland. The books openly address a rarely documented phenomenon - a Jew who, having escaped death in Nazi-occupied Poland, ascends into the upper echelons of Polish society as a committed Communist. After the war, the narrator becomes the stepson of a rising star in the petroleum ministry. He tries to gain acceptance by becoming a propagandist, but he can't help wondering if those who constantly warn of a renewal of Jewish persecution may be right.

Download or read book Handbook of Polish Czech and Slovak Holocaust Fiction written by Elisa-Maria Hiemer and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2021-06-21 with total page 365 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Handbook of Polish, Czech, and Slovak Holocaust Fiction aims to increase the visibility and show the versatility of works from East-Central European countries. It is the first encyclopedic work to bridge the gap between the literary production of countries that are considered to be main sites of the Holocaust and their recognition in international academic and public discourse. It contains over 100 entries offering not only facts about the content and motifs but also pointing out the characteristic fictional features of each work and its meaning for academic discourse and wider reception in the country of origin and abroad. The publication will appeal to the academic and broader public interested in the representation of the Holocaust, anti-Semitism, and World War II in literature and the arts. Besides prose, it also considers poetry and theatrical plays from 1943 through 2018. An introduction to the historical events and cultural developments in Poland, Czechoslovakia, Czech, and Slovak Republic, and their impact on the artistic output helps to contextualise the motif changes and fictional strategies that authors have been applying for decades. The publication is the result of long-term scholarly cooperation of specialists from four countries and several dozen academic centres.

Download or read book A Friendly Letter to Skeptics and Atheists written by David G. Myers and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2008-12-02 with total page 128 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Friendly Letter to Skeptics and Atheists helps readers—both secular and religious—appreciate their common ground. For those whose thinking has moved from the religious thesis to the skeptical antithesis (or vice versa), Myers offers pointers to a science-respecting Christian synthesis. He shows how skeptics and people of faith can share a commitment to reason, evidence, and critical thinking, while also embracing a faith that supports human flourishing—by making sense of the universe, giving meaning to life, connecting us in supportive communities, mandating altruism, and offering hope in the face of adversity and death.

Download or read book 609 Pages of Horse Shit written by Scott Barry and published by Lulu.com. This book was released on 2019-05-04 with total page 612 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is our binary copy stack of 609 pages of utter horse shit and what seems like an accumulation of content that is far underground and censored, not shown on Media Relations TV or Radio or even the crap CIA 8080 World Wide Wiretap...

Download or read book Being Poland written by Tamara Trojanowska and published by University of Toronto Press. This book was released on 2018-11-05 with total page 853 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Being Poland offers a unique analysis of the cultural developments that took place in Poland after World War One, a period marked by Poland’s return to independence. Conceived to address the lack of critical scholarship on Poland’s cultural restoration, Being Poland illuminates the continuities, paradoxes, and contradictions of Poland’s modern and contemporary cultural practices, and challenges the narrative typically prescribed to Polish literature and film. Reflecting the radical changes, rifts, and restorations that swept through Poland in this period, Polish literature and film reveal a multitude of perspectives. Addressing romantic perceptions of the Polish immigrant, the politics of post-war cinema, poetry, and mass media, Being Poland is a comprehensive reference work written with the intention of exposing an international audience to the explosion of Polish literature and film that emerged in the twentieth century.

Download or read book Battling the Gods written by Tim Whitmarsh and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2015-11-10 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.

Download or read book The Holocaust as Active Memory written by Marie Louise Seeberg and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-03-09 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The ways in which memories of the Holocaust have been communicated, represented and used have changed dramatically over the years. From such memories being neglected and silenced in most of Europe until the 1970s, each country has subsequently gone through a process of cultural, political and pedagogical awareness-rising. This culminated in the ’Stockholm conference on Holocaust commemoration’ in 2000, which resulted in the constitution of a task force dedicated to transmitting and teaching knowledge and awareness about the Holocaust on a global scale. The silence surrounding private memories of the Holocaust has also been challenged in many families. What are the catalysts that trigger a change from silence to discussion of the Holocaust? What happens when we talk its invisibility away? How are memories of the Holocaust reflected in different social environments? Who asks questions about memories of the Holocaust, and which answers do they find, at which point in time and from which past and present positions related to their societies and to the phenomenon in question? This book highlights the contexts in which such questions are asked. By introducing the concept of ’active memory’, this book contributes to recent developments in memory studies, where memory is increasingly viewed not in isolation but as a dynamic and relational part of human lives.

Download or read book Village Atheists written by Leigh Eric Schmidt and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2018-12-18 with total page 360 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A compelling history of atheism in American public life A much-maligned minority throughout American history, atheists have been cast as a threat to the nation’s moral fabric, barred from holding public office, and branded as irreligious misfits in a nation chosen by God. Yet village atheists—as these godless freethinkers came to be known by the close of the nineteenth century—were also hailed for their gutsy dissent from stultifying pieties and for posing a necessary secularist challenge to the entanglements of church and state. In Village Atheists, Leigh Eric Schmidt explores the complex cultural terrain that unbelievers have long had to navigate in their fight to secure equal rights and liberties in American public life. He rebuilds the history of American secularism from the ground up, giving flesh and blood to these outspoken infidels. Village Atheists demonstrates that the secularist vision for the United States proved to be anything but triumphant in a country where faith and citizenship were—and still are—closely interwoven.

Download or read book More Nights than Days written by Yudit Kiss and published by Central European University Press. This book was released on 2023-07-31 with total page 424 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a unique exploration of the experience of children who survived the Holocaust—including Roma and Sinti victims—and the genocides in Cambodia, Rwanda, and Bosnia. Children are among the principal victims of armed conflicts and slaughters; nonetheless, they perceive events through the prism of their unique perspective and have a different range of coping techniques than adults. This overview of the writings of ninety-one child survivors bears evidence to a wide range of human ruthlessness. The author presents little-known texts along with famous memoirs and autobiographical fiction, with abundant quotations. Many of these are not only compelling as historical testimony, but poetic, moving and stirring. Yudit Kiss has not written a historical study or literary criticism of the children’s books. She explores, instead, what the authors went through and what they felt and understood about their experience. Accessible and captivating, this volume presents a close-up, human-size dimension of destruction. The books written by child survivors also describe the resources and means that helped them to remain human even in the deepest well of inhumanity, offering precious lessons about resistance and resilience.

Download or read book Thank God for Atheists written by Timothy Morgan and published by Harvest House Publishers. This book was released on 2015-10-01 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The greatest authors of atheism did more to push me toward belief in God than any Christian apologist writer." --Timothy Morgan. After a decade of major disappointments, Timothy Morgan was ready to reject God. Atheism offered an escape--an opportunity to dismiss God permanently. But as Morgan delved into the thinking of great atheists past and present, he was stunned. In book after book, he found their reasons for rejecting God to be intellectually unfulfilling. In Thank God for Atheists he candidly shares his journey by letting atheists speak for themselves, examining their logic to see whether it holds up or not. Along the way, deals with these key questions: What are the key elements of the atheist worldview? Who are the leading modern-day atheists, and what are they saying? How can you effectively respond to atheism? You'll find this a personal and thoughtful book on why the evidence for God is much more compelling than the evidence against Him.

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 689 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 Chosen by God written by R. C. Sproul and published by Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.. This book was released on 2011-02-18 with total page 196 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Nearly 200,000 copies sold! Chosen by God by Dr. R. C. Sproul is a contemporary classic on predestination, a doctrine that isn’t just for Calvinists. It is a doctrine for all biblical Christians. In this updated and expanded edition of Chosen by God, Sproul shows that the doctrine of predestination doesn’t create a whimsical or spiteful picture of God, but rather paints a portrait of a loving God who provides redemption for radically corrupt humans. We choose God because he has opened our eyes to see his beauty; we love him because he first loved us. There is mystery in God’s ways, but not contradiction.

Download or read book The Gods of Atheism written by Vincent P. Miceli and published by Crown Pub. This book was released on 1971 with total page 490 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Young Atheist s Handbook written by Alom Shaha and published by Biteback Publishing. This book was released on 2012-07-19 with total page 169 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Growing up in a strict Muslim community in south-east London, Alom Shaha learnt that religion was not to be questioned. Reciting the Qur'an without understanding what it meant was simply a part of life; so, too, was obeying the imam and enduring beatings when he failed to attend the local mosque. But Alom was more drawn to science and its power to illuminate. As a teen, he lived between two worlds: the home controlled by his authoritarian father, and a school alive with books and ideas. In a charming blend of memoir, philosophy and science, Alom explores the questions about faith and the afterlife that we all ponder. This is a book for anyone who wonders what they should believe and how they should live. It's for those who may need the facts and the ideas, as well as the courage, to break free from inherited beliefs. In this powerful narrative, Alom shows that it is possible to live a compassionate, fulfilling and meaningful life without God.

Download or read book Life on Sandpaper written by Yoram Kaniuk and published by Deep Vellum Publishing. This book was released on 2011-02-01 with total page 418 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A whirlwind of art, music, and lust, Life on Sandpaper is Yoram Kaniuk's overwhelming autobiographical novel detailing his years as a young painter in the New York of the '50s. Wounded and alienated, a war veteran at the age of nineteen, Kaniuk arrives in Greenwich Village at its peak period of artistic creativity, and finds his way among such giants as Charlie Parker, Billie Holiday, Willem de Kooning, and Frank Sinatra. In terse prose, inspired by the associative and breathless drive of bebop, Kaniuk's memories race between the ecstatic devotion of his beloved Harlem jazz clubs, through the ideological spats of the dying Yiddish world of the Lower East Side, to the volcanic gush of passion, pain, art, dance, alcohol, and drugs that was Greenwich Village. Kaniuk's stories roll and tumble here with hypnotic urgency, as if this were his last opportunity to remember, and tell, before all is obliterated.

Download or read book The Problem with God written by Peter Steinberger and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2013-07-02 with total page 221 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Whether people praise, worship, criticize, or reject God, they all presuppose at least a rough notion of what it means to talk about God. Turning the certainty of this assumption on its head, a respected educator and humanist shows that when we talk about God, we are in fact talking about nothing at all—there is literally no such idea—and so all of the arguments we hear from atheists, true believers, and agnostics are and will always be empty and self-defeating. Peter J. Steinberger's commonsense account is by no means disheartening or upsetting, leaving readers without anything meaningful to hold on to. To the contrary, he demonstrates how impossible it is for the common world of ordinary experience to be all there is. With patience, clarity, and good humor, Steinberger helps readers think critically and constructively about various presuppositions and modes of being in the world. By coming to grips with our own deep-seated beliefs, we can understand how traditional ways asserting, denying, or even just wondering about God's existence prevent us from seeing the truth—which, it turns out, is far more interesting and encouraging than anyone would have thought.

Download or read book The Historical Reliability of the New Testament written by Craig L. Blomberg and published by B&H Publishing Group. This book was released on 2016-11-01 with total page 809 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Questions about the reliability of the New Testament are commonly raised today both by biblical scholars and popular media. Drawing on decades of research, Craig Blomberg addresses all of the major objections to the historicity of the New Testament in one comprehensive volume. Topics addressed include the formation of the Gospels, the transmission of the text, the formation of the canon, alleged contradictions, the relationship between Jesus and Paul, supposed Pauline forgeries, other gospels, miracles, and many more. Historical corroborations of details from all parts of the New Testament are also presented throughout. The Historical Reliability of the New Testament marshals the latest scholarship in responding to New Testament objections, while remaining accessible to non-specialists.