Download or read book Confessions of a French Atheist written by Guillaume Bignon and published by Tyndale House Publishers. This book was released on 2022-06 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "A compelling spiritual memoir that traces Bignon's fascinating quest for answers to life's most profound questions." --Lee StrobelGod Wasn't In His Plans Until . . . Guillaume Bignon was a French atheist . . . and he was perfectly happy. He was very successful as a software engineer in finance, a musician, and a volleyball player. Yet a chance encounter with a beautiful woman would change the way he thought about his life and beliefs forever. Confessions of a French Atheistis the unusual story of Guillaume Bignon--a man who didn't need God but who grew to believe in God after he thought through the nature of morality, the relationship between science and faith, the supernatural, and the reliability of the Bible. With rigorous reasoning, remarkable authenticity, and a sense of humor, Guillaume takes the reader on a journey of his innermost questions and surprising discoveries.
Download or read book Spiritual Confessions of an Agnostic written by C. M. Blakeson and published by Abbott Press. This book was released on 2013-01-30 with total page 202 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For some, religious people who think and act irrationally can be confounding, while for others, unbelievers who dont see the reality of God are just as baffling. C. M. Blakeson, an agnostic who grew up living a fundamentalist lifestyle in Kansas, explores both perspectives in this candid memoir. From his initial journey to Jesus to his deepening belief in fundamentalist Pentecostalism, he explores how religion affected his thoughts on love and life. With God rooted as such a reality for him, he never imagined hed one day become an agnosticor how happy hed be to reach such nonreligious enlightenment. Now he seeks to battle misconceptions about agnosticism. Get the true definition of agnosticism, learn how to break free from spiritual bondage, and join Blakeson as he seeks to understand various religions. If youve ever pondered what goes through the minds of fundamentalists, or if youre a religious person who wonders why your best friend left the faith, Spiritual Confessions of an Agnostic seeks to help you find answers.
Download or read book Confession of a Buddhist Atheist written by Stephen Batchelor and published by Random House. This book was released on 2010-03-02 with total page 348 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Does Buddhism require faith? Can an atheist or agnostic follow the Buddha’s teachings without believing in reincarnation or organized religion? This is one man’s confession. In his classic Buddhism Without Beliefs, Stephen Batchelor offered a profound, secular approach to the teachings of the Buddha that struck an emotional chord with Western readers. Now, with the same brilliance and boldness of thought, he paints a groundbreaking portrait of the historical Buddha—told from the author’s unique perspective as a former Buddhist monk and modern seeker. Drawing from the original Pali Canon, the seminal collection of Buddhist discourses compiled after the Buddha’s death by his followers, Batchelor shows us the Buddha as a flesh-and-blood man who looked at life in a radically new way. Batchelor also reveals the everyday challenges and doubts of his own devotional journey—from meeting the Dalai Lama in India, to training as a Zen monk in Korea, to finding his path as a lay teacher of Buddhism living in France. Both controversial and deeply personal, Stephen Batchelor’s refreshingly doctrine-free, life-informed account is essential reading for anyone interested in Buddhism.
Download or read book Not the Religious Type written by Dave Schmelzer and published by Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.. This book was released on 2008 with total page 193 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Smeltzer, a minister in the Vineyard Church, describes the events that led him from athiesm to Christianity.
Download or read book Liz Here Now written by Todd Connor and published by Breath & Shadows Productions. This book was released on 2016-08-15 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An inspiring autobiographical novel set during the 1960's civil rights era. Liz, the Black maid of a wealthy white family overcomes the insidious forces of money, bigotry and police brutality to save three children she calls her "little white babies" from the child abuse of their mother. Liz here Now shows how unrelenting love conquers all.
Download or read book Called Out of Darkness written by Anne Rice and published by Anchor. This book was released on 2009-10-13 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first memoir from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Interview with a Vampire—a "very affecting story of a well-known prodigal’s return ... [a] vivid, engaging tale of the journey of a soul into light” (Chicago Sun-Times). Anne Rice was raised in New Orleans as the devout child in a deeply religious Irish Catholic family. Here, she describes how, as she grew up, she lost her belief in God, but not her desire for a meaningful life. She used her novels—beginning with Interview with a Vampire—to wrestle with otherworldly themes while in her own life, she experienced both loss (the death of her daughter and, later, her beloved husband, Stan Rice) and joys (the birth of her son, Christopher). And she writes about how, finally, after years of questioning, she experienced the intense conversion and re-embracing of her faith that lie behind her most recent novels about the life of Christ.
Download or read book In God We Doubt written by John Humphrys and published by Hachette UK. This book was released on 2008-09-04 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'All the erudition and pithy wit you would expect from Humphrys, but there is also a charming, genuine enquiry that shines through' MAIL ON SUNDAY * * * * * * Bestselling author, radio presenter and national treasure John Humphrys tackles the big question of God through his own personal journey and argues that doubt is the only credible belief. Throughout the ages believers have been persecuted - usually for believing in the "wrong" God. So have non-believers who have denied the existence of God as superstitious rubbish. Today it is the agnostics who are given a hard time. They are scorned by believers for their failure to find faith and by atheists for being hopelessly wishy-washy and weak-minded. But John Humphrys is proud to count himself among their ranks. In this book he takes us along the spiritual road he himself has travelled. He was brought up a Christian and prayed every day of his life until his growing doubts finally began to overwhelm his faith. As one of the nation's most popular and respected broadcasters, he had the rare opportunity in 2006 of challenging leaders of our three main religions to prove to him that God does exist. The Radio Four interviews - Humphrys In Search of God - provoked the biggest response to anything he has done in half a century of journalism. The interviews and the massive reaction from listeners had a profound effect on him - but not in the way he expected. Doubt is not the easy option. But for the millions who can find no easy answers to the most profound questions it is the only possible one.
Download or read book Confessions of a Secular Jesus Follower written by Tom Krattenmaker and published by Convergent Books. This book was released on 2016 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Offers an argument for secular non-believers maintaining that following Jesus Christ as a teacher, example, and primary guide for living can serve to give meaning and direction to those who don't believe in the supernatural elements of Christianity.
Download or read book O Me of Little Faith written by Jason Boyett and published by HarperChristian + ORM. This book was released on 2010-03-26 with total page 163 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this O Me of Little Faith Ebook, author Jason Boyett brings you a transparent and personal account of his own of struggles with doubts and unbelief in living out his faith. With humor and frankness, Boyett uses personal anecdotes and a fresh look at Scripture to explore the realities of pursuing Christ through a field of doubt.After three decades of knowing God, understanding Christianity, and living a Christian life, Boyett has come to the place where he can voice the tough questions and travel the road of uncertainty with blinders off, candor on. The message along the way is one of encouragement: Relax. Rely on the grace of a merciful God, a kind father who realizes that his finite creatures must have doubts, should have questions, and will have trouble making sense of an infinite Creator. Ultimately, Boyett concludes that doubt and faith are not polar opposites, but actually work together, existing side-by-side. Uplifting, entertaining, hopeful, O Me of Little Faith will strike a chord with you and any Christian who's dealing with the uncertainties of living life in pursuit of a God who occasionally seems to disappear.
Download or read book Confessions of a Funeral Director written by Caleb Wilde and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2017-09-26 with total page 164 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The blogger behind Confessions of a Funeral Director—what Time magazine called a "must read"—reflects on mortality and the powerful lessons death holds for every one of us in this compassionate and thoughtful spiritual memoir that combines the humor and insight of Smoke Gets in Your Eyes with the poignancy and brevity of When Breath Becomes Air. We are a people who deeply fear death. While humans are biologically wired to evade death for as long as possible, we have become too adept at hiding from it, vilifying it, and—when it can be avoided no longer—letting the professionals take over. Sixth-generation funeral director Caleb Wilde understands this reticence and fear. He had planned to get as far away from the family business as possible. He wanted to make a difference in the world, and how could he do that if all the people he worked with were . . . dead? Slowly, he discovered that caring for the deceased and their loved ones was making a difference—in other people’s lives to be sure, but it also seemed to be saving his own. A spirituality of death began to emerge as he observed: The family who lovingly dressed their deceased father for his burial The act of embalming a little girl that offered a gift back to her grieving family The nursing home that honored a woman’s life by standing in procession as her body was taken away The funeral that united a conflicted community Through stories like these, told with equal parts humor and poignancy, Wilde offers an intimate look into the business and a new perspective on living and dying
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 Augustine s Confessions written by Garry Wills and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2021-07-27 with total page 176 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From Pulitzer Prize–winner Garry Wills, the story of Augustine’s Confessions In this brief and incisive book, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Garry Wills tells the story of the Confessions--what motivated Augustine to dictate it, how it asks to be read, and the many ways it has been misread in the one-and-a-half millennia since it was composed. Following Wills's biography of Augustine and his translation of the Confessions, this is an unparalleled introduction to one of the most important books in the Christian and Western traditions. Understandably fascinated by the story of Augustine's life, modern readers have largely succumbed to the temptation to read the Confessions as autobiography. But, Wills argues, this is a mistake. The book is not autobiography but rather a long prayer, suffused with the language of Scripture and addressed to God, not man. Augustine tells the story of his life not for its own significance but in order to discern how, as a drama of sin and salvation leading to God, it fits into sacred history. "We have to read Augustine as we do Dante," Wills writes, "alert to rich layer upon layer of Scriptural and theological symbolism." Wills also addresses the long afterlife of the book, from controversy in its own time and relative neglect during the Middle Ages to a renewed prominence beginning in the fourteenth century and persisting to today, when the Confessions has become an object of interest not just for Christians but also historians, philosophers, psychiatrists, and literary critics. With unmatched clarity and skill, Wills strips away the centuries of misunderstanding that have accumulated around Augustine's spiritual classic.
Download or read book The Earliest Christian Confessions written by Oscar Cullmann and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2018-05-15 with total page 69 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this essay, Dr. Cullmann sets himself to answer these questions: •Why did Christians need to have, besides Scripture, and apostolic formula to summarise the faith they professed? •What circumstances brought this necessity about? •What is the composition of the first formulas, and how did they develop in the earliest times? •What is the essential content of the Christian faith according to the earliest formulas?
Download or read book Living the Secular Life written by Phil Zuckerman and published by Penguin Books. This book was released on 2015-10-27 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A sociology professor examines the demographic shift that has led more Americans than ever before to embrace a nonreligious life and highlights the inspirational stories and beliefs that empower modern-day secular culture.
Download or read book Why God Won t Go Away written by Andrew Newberg, M.D. and published by Ballantine Books. This book was released on 2008-12-10 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why have we humans always longed to connect with something larger than ourselves? Why does consciousness inevitably involve us in a spiritual quest? Why, in short, won't God go away? Theologians, philosophers, and psychologists have debated this question through the ages, arriving at a range of contradictory and ultimately unprovable answers. But in this brilliant, groundbreaking new book, researchers Andrew Newberg and Eugene d'Aquili offer an explanation that is at once profoundly simple and scientifically precise: the religious impulse is rooted in the biology of the brain. Newberg and d'Aquili base this revolutionary conclusion on a long-term investigation of brain function and behavior as well as studies they conducted using high-tech imaging techniques to examine the brains of meditating Buddhists and Franciscan nuns at prayer. What they discovered was that intensely focused spiritual contemplation triggers an alteration in the activity of the brain that leads us to perceive transcendent religious experiences as solid and tangibly real. In other words, the sensation that Buddhists call "oneness with the universe" and the Franciscans attribute to the palpable presence of God is not a delusion or a manifestation of wishful thinking but rather a chain of neurological events that can be objectively observed, recorded, and actually photographed. The inescapable conclusion is that God is hard-wired into the human brain. In Why God Won't Go Away, Newberg and d'Aquili document their pioneering explorations in the field of neurotheology, an emerging discipline dedicated to understanding the complex relationship between spirituality and the brain. Along the way, they delve into such essential questions as whether humans are biologically compelled to make myths; what is the evolutionary connection between religious ecstasy and sexual orgasm; what do Near Death Experiences reveal about the nature of spiritual phenomena; and how does ritual create its own neurological environment. As their journey unfolds, Newberg and d'Aquili realize that a single, overarching question lies at the heart of their pursuit: Is religion merely a product of biology or has the human brain been mysteriously endowed with the unique capacity to reach and know God? Blending cutting-edge science with illuminating insights into the nature of consciousness and spirituality, Why God Won't Go Away bridges faith and reason, mysticism and empirical data. The neurological basis of how the brain identifies the "real" is nothing short of miraculous. This fascinating, eye-opening book dares to explore both the miracle and the biology of our enduring relationship with God.
Download or read book Confessions of a Born Again Atheist written by Frank Zindler and published by . This book was released on 2019-04-15 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A memoir marking the coming out of the closet of octogenarian Frank Zindler, a confidant of Madalyn Murray O'Hair and past president of American Atheists, Inc. It chronicles his life as a devout Christian child and 60-year career as an Atheist activist, his double life as a gay Don Juan and faithful husband, father and grandfather. With humor, Zindler remembers life on a primitive Michigan farm, his life as a hypnotherapist, and many funny episodes in a long life. He gives the true reason for the murders of the Murray-O'Hairs and reveals the secret location of their unmarked Texas grave. Poignantly he recounts th death of Ann, his wife of 48 years, and gives his final thoughts on religion, linguistics, ethics, science, and music.
Download or read book Spiritual Confessions of an Agnostic written by C. M. Blakeson and published by Abbott Press. This book was released on 2013 with total page 205 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For some, religious people who think and act irrationally can be confounding, while for others, unbelievers who don't see the reality of God are just as baffling. C. M. Blakeson, an agnostic who grew up living a fundamentalist lifestyle in Kansas, explores both perspectives in this candid memoir. From his initial journey to Jesus to his deepening belief in fundamentalist Pentecostalism, he explores how religion affected his thoughts on love and life. With God rooted as such a reality for him, he never imagined he'd one day become an agnostic--or how happy he'd be to reach such nonreligious enlightenment. Now he seeks to battle misconceptions about agnosticism. Get the true definition of agnosticism, learn how to break free from spiritual bondage, and join Blakeson as he seeks to understand various religions. If you've ever pondered what goes through the minds of fundamentalists, or if you're a religious person who wonders why your best friend left the faith, Spiritual Confessions of an Agnostic seeks to help you find answers.
