The Atheist's Guide to Reality: Enjoying Life without Illusions
Title | The Atheist's Guide to Reality: Enjoying Life without Illusions PDF eBook |
Author | Alex Rosenberg |
Publisher | W. W. Norton & Company |
Pages | 369 |
Release | 2011-10-03 |
Genre | Religion |
ISBN | 0393083330 |
A book for nonbelievers who embrace the reality-driven life. We can't avoid the persistent questions about the meaning of life-and the nature of reality. Philosopher Alex Rosenberg maintains that science is the only thing that can really answer them—all of them. His bracing and ultimately upbeat book takes physics seriously as the complete description of reality and accepts all its consequences. He shows how physics makes Darwinian natural selection the only way life can emerge, and how that deprives nature of purpose, and human action of meaning, while it exposes conscious illusions such as free will and the self. The science that makes us nonbelievers provides the insight into the real difference between right and wrong, the nature of the mind, even the direction of human history. The Atheist's Guide to Reality draws powerful implications for the ethical and political issues that roil contemporary life. The result is nice nihilism, a surprisingly sanguine perspective atheists can happily embrace.
The Atheist's Guide to Reality: Enjoying Life Without Illusions
Title | The Atheist's Guide to Reality: Enjoying Life Without Illusions PDF eBook |
Author | Alex Rosenberg |
Publisher | W. W. Norton & Company |
Pages | 369 |
Release | 2011-09-20 |
Genre | Philosophy |
ISBN | 0393080234 |
"The Atheist's Guide to Reality" is a book for nonbelievers who embrace the reality-driven life.
Outgrowing God
Title | Outgrowing God PDF eBook |
Author | Richard Dawkins |
Publisher | Random House |
Pages | 314 |
Release | 2019-10-08 |
Genre | Religion |
ISBN | 1984853910 |
Should we believe in God? In this brisk introduction to modern atheism, one of the world’s greatest science writers tells us why we shouldn’t. Richard Dawkins was fifteen when he stopped believing in God. Deeply impressed by the beauty and complexity of living things, he’d felt certain they must have had a designer. Learning about evolution changed his mind. Now one of the world’s best and bestselling science communicators, Dawkins has given readers, young and old, the same opportunity to rethink the big questions. In twelve fiercely funny, mind-expanding chapters, Dawkins explains how the natural world arose without a designer—the improbability and beauty of the “bottom-up programming” that engineers an embryo or a flock of starlings—and challenges head-on some of the most basic assumptions made by the world’s religions: Do you believe in God? Which one? Is the Bible a “Good Book”? Is adhering to a religion necessary, or even likely, to make people good to one another? Dissecting everything from Abraham’s abuse of Isaac to the construction of a snowflake, Outgrowing God is a concise, provocative guide to thinking for yourself. Praise for Outgrowing God “My son came home from his first day in the sixth grade with arms outstretched plaintively demanding to know: ‘Have you ever heard of Jesus?’ We burst out laughing. Maybe not our finest parenting moment, given that he was genuinely distraught. He felt that he had woken up one day to a world in which his peers were expressing beliefs he found frighteningly unreasonable. He began devouring books like The God Delusion, books that helped him formulate his own arguments and helped him stand his ground. Dawkins’s new book is special in the terrain of atheists’ pleas for humanism and rationalism precisely since it speaks to those most vulnerable to the coercive tactics of religion. As Dawkins himself says in the dedication, this book is for ‘all young people when they’re old enough to decide for themselves.’ It is also, I must add, for their parents.”—Janna Levin, author of Black Hole Blues “When someone is considering atheism I tell them to read the Bible first and then Dawkins. Outgrowing God—second only to the Bible!”—Penn Jillette, author of God, No!
The Divine Reality
Title | The Divine Reality PDF eBook |
Author | Hamza Andreas Tzortzis |
Publisher | |
Pages | 332 |
Release | 2019-09-30 |
Genre | |
ISBN | 9781916238404 |
In The Divine Reality, (Newly Revised Edition 2019) Hamza Andreas Tzortzis provides a compelling case for the rational and spiritual foundations of Islam, whilst intelligently and compassionately deconstructing atheism. Join him on an existential, spiritual and rational journey that articulates powerful arguments for the existence of God, the Qur'an, the Prophethood of Muhammad and why we must know, love and worship God. He addresses academic and popular objections while showing how contemporary atheism is based on false assumptions about reality, which leads to incoherent answers to life's important questions. Does hope, happiness and human value make sense without the Divine?Do we have an ultimate purpose?Can we have consciousness and rational minds without God?Did the universe come from nothing?Does evil and suffering negate Divine mercy?Has scientific progress led to the denial of God?Are revelation and prophethood myths?Is God worthy of our worship?If you want to know how the Islamic intellectual and spiritual tradition answers these questions then this is the book for you.Hamza Andreas Tzortzis's new book presents a much needed comprehensive account of Islamic theism that draws upon Western and Islamic thought. Hamza Tzortzis is an international speaker, writer and instructor. He has a PgCert and an MA in philosophy and is currently continuing his postgraduate studies in the field. Hamza has studied Islamic thought and theology under qualified scholars. He has delivered workshops and courses on topics related to Islamic thought and philosophy. Hamza has debated prominent academics and thinkers on Islam and atheism.
A Manual for Creating Atheists
Title | A Manual for Creating Atheists PDF eBook |
Author | Peter Boghossian |
Publisher | Pitchstone Publishing (US&CA) |
Pages | 267 |
Release | 2014-07-01 |
Genre | Philosophy |
ISBN | 1939578159 |
For thousands of years, the faithful have honed proselytizing strategies and talked people into believing the truth of one holy book or another. Indeed, the faithful often view converting others as an obligation of their faith—and are trained from an early age to spread their unique brand of religion. The result is a world broken in large part by unquestioned faith. As an urgently needed counter to this tried-and-true tradition of religious evangelism, A Manual for Creating Atheists offers the first-ever guide not for talking people into faith—but for talking them out of it. Peter Boghossian draws on the tools he has developed and used for more than 20 years as a philosopher and educator to teach how to engage the faithful in conversations that will help them value reason and rationality, cast doubt on their religious beliefs, mistrust their faith, abandon superstition and irrationality, and ultimately embrace reason.
Religion for Atheists
Title | Religion for Atheists PDF eBook |
Author | Alain De Botton |
Publisher | Signal |
Pages | 298 |
Release | 2012-03-06 |
Genre | Philosophy |
ISBN | 0771025998 |
From the author of The Architecture of Happiness, a deeply moving meditation on how we can still benefit, without believing, from the wisdom, the beauty, and the consolatory power that religion has to offer. Alain de Botton was brought up in a committedly atheistic household, and though he was powerfully swayed by his parents' views, he underwent, in his mid-twenties, a crisis of faithlessness. His feelings of doubt about atheism had their origins in listening to Bach's cantatas, were further developed in the presence of certain Bellini Madonnas, and became overwhelming with an introduction to Zen architecture. However, it was not until his father's death -- buried under a Hebrew headstone in a Jewish cemetery because he had intriguingly omitted to make more secular arrangements -- that Alain began to face the full degree of his ambivalence regarding the views of religion that he had dutifully accepted. Why are we presented with the curious choice between either committing to peculiar concepts about immaterial deities or letting go entirely of a host of consoling, subtle and effective rituals and practices for which there is no equivalent in secular society? Why do we bristle at the mention of the word "morality"? Flee from the idea that art should be uplifting, or have an ethical purpose? Why don't we build temples? What mechanisms do we have for expressing gratitude? The challenge that de Botton addresses in his book: how to separate ideas and practices from the religious institutions that have laid claim to them. In Religion for Atheists is an argument to free our soul-related needs from the particular influence of religions, even if it is, paradoxically, the study of religion that will allow us to rediscover and rearticulate those needs.
An Intelligent Person's Guide to Atheism
Title | An Intelligent Person's Guide to Atheism PDF eBook |
Author | Daniel Harbour |
Publisher | Bloomsbury Academic |
Pages | 0 |
Release | 2003 |
Genre | Atheism |
ISBN | 9780715632291 |
A controversial study that argues for the value of atheism in modern society. The debate about atheism has staled since the time of Bertrand Russell. In this work, Daniel Harbour returns to its core issues - the existence of God, the values of faith, the role of religion in society - and casts them in an entirely new light. The real question, he argues, is how we should consider our urge to understand the world. Only then can we ask ourselves whether atheism or theism forms part of a coherent worldview. This new debate between atheism and theism forces us into an investigation of philosophy, science, history, ethics and aesthetics, and a desire for intellectual integrity and commitment to truth. It is far removed from the usual listing of the errors of theism. Not can atheism be equated with denialism. It holds real and practical implications for the place of religion and the obligations of atheists in our society.