We often hear about people who find themselves drawn to another religion as they go through life. Perhaps not as often are stories about those who found atheism, especially later in life. Author Terry Grant’s Reasoning—Born-Again Christian to Atheist is his explanation of his path to congenial atheism. Raised in a mildly Christian family, he became an agnostic after finishing college. He then became a born-again Christian before marrying a Catholic. But his journey wasn’t complete. He shares how, on retirement, his experiences brought him to evaluate the phases of life and the lifetime of questions that keep appearing and the importance of reasoning. Grant explains his transition to a place of clarity, peace, and contentment for the first time in his life. He walks through the reasoning process of his findings, suppositions, and conclusions that reasoned his transition to congenial atheist. In Reasoning—Born-Again Christian to Atheist you’ll discover how his transition brought the author peace, contentment, and a clear understanding of how this process fits in today’s world and events.

“How has unbelief come to dominate so many Western societies? The usual account invokes the advance of science and rational knowledge. Ryrie’s alternative, in which emotions are the driving force, offers new and interesting insights into our past and present.” —Charles Taylor, author of A Secular Age Why have societies that were once overwhelmingly Christian become so secular? We think we know the answer, pointing to science and reason as the twin culprits, but in this lively, startlingly original reconsideration, Alec Ryrie argues that people embraced unbelief much as they have always chosen their worldviews: through the heart more than the mind. Looking back to the crisis of the Reformation and beyond, he shows how, long before philosophers started to make the case for atheism, powerful cultural currents were challenging traditional faith. As Protestant radicals eroded time-honored certainties and ushered in an age of anger and anxiety, some defended their faith by redefining it in terms of ethics, setting in motion secularizing forces that soon became transformational. Unbelievers tells a powerful emotional history of doubt with potent lessons for our own angry and anxious times. “Well-researched and thought-provoking...Ryrie is definitely on to something right and important.” —Christianity Today “A beautifully crafted history of early doubt...Unbelievers covers much ground in a short space with deep erudition and considerable wit.” —The Spectator “Ryrie traces the root of religious skepticism to the anger, the anxiety, and the ‘desperate search for certainty’ that drove thinkers like...John Donne to grapple with church dogma.” —New Yorker

'An Atheist Manifesto' is a book about atheism, and what constitutes as such, written by Joseph Lewis. He was an American freethinker and atheist activist, publisher, and litigator. During the mid-twentieth century, he was one of America's most conspicuous public atheists. Lewis developed his ideas from reading, among others, Robert G. Ingersoll, whose published works made him aware of Thomas Paine. He was first impressed by atheism after having read a large volume of lectures of Ingersoll devoted to his idol Paine, which was brought to their house by his older brother. He later credited Paine's The Age of Reason with helping him abandon theism.

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.

Turning to the Gospels, James Bryan Smith invites you to compare your ideas about God with what Jesus himself reveals about his Father. In this Good and Beautiful Series book, Smith leads you through a process of spiritual formation that includes activities aimed at making these new narratives real in your body and soul as well as your mind.

The book consists primarily of interviews between Strobel (a former legal editor at the Chicago Tribune) and biblical scholars such as Bruce Metzger. Each interview is based on a simple question, concerning historical evidence (for example, "Can the Biographies of Jesus Be Trusted?"), scientific evidence, ("Does Archaeology Confirm or Contradict Jesus' Biographies?"), and "psychiatric evidence" ("Was Jesus Crazy When He Claimed to Be the Son of God?"). Together, these interviews compose a case brief defending Jesus' divinity, and urging readers to reach a verdict of their own.

In the 1920s, Robert Athlyi Rogers founded the Afro-Athlican Constructive Gaathly religion in the West Indies. He wrote The Holy Piby as a guiding text, seeing Ethiopians - in the classical meaning of all Africans - as God's chosen people, and he preached self-determination and self-reliance. The Holy Piby is a major source of influence to the Rastafarian faith, which holds Haile Selassie I as Christ, and Marcus Garvey as his prophet. The Holy Piby consists of four books, and the seventh chapter of the second book identifies Marcus Garvey as one of three apostles of God. Original copies are extremely rare, and it is not even listed in the Library of Congress. The text was banned in Jamaica and many other Caribbean Islands until the late 1920s.