Author : Chandrama Majumdar
Publisher : Storyverse
Page : 68 pages
File Size : 41,77 MB
Release : 2024-03-07
Category : Art
ISBN :
The author's journey of turning into an atheist
Author : Richard Dawkins
Publisher : Random House
Page : 314 pages
File Size : 17,24 MB
Release : 2019-10-08
Category : 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!
Author : Chandrama Majumdar
Publisher : Notion Press
Page : 98 pages
File Size : 19,92 MB
Release : 2018-03-14
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 164249657X
Despite the fact that we are born with some 1.5 kg jelly to do amazing things on earth, we have let discrimination of all possible kinds take over to make endless chapters dedicated to misery and tragedy in the book of human history, simply forgetting that we are humans first and last and no further. The current religious political turmoil in India and across all other nations steers us towards necessary and urgent retrospection. Technologically, man has evolved 200 years ahead of himself, but can we say the same in terms of our societal development? According to Article 51 A (h) of The Constitution of India 1949, it is the duty of every citizen of India: to develop the scientific temper, humanism and the spirit of inquiry and reform. The extremist activities that have spread everywhere today, is the culmination of a process dedicated to the sustenance of ignorance through the generations. Ergo, entire batches of populations rendered completely incapable of understanding that violence is not the answer. The book is not only based on Atheism, Rationalism and Humanism, but eventually takes the reader through a journey of a colourful palette of experiences. It promises to gift every reader a plethora of information not from the mouths of Godmen and Godwomen, but from the domain of different subjects and their respective exponents, whose brilliance shall surely continue to sparkle for ages to come.
Author : Phil Zuckerman
Publisher : Penguin Books
Page : 290 pages
File Size : 32,11 MB
Release : 2015-10-27
Category : Religion
ISBN : 0143127934
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.
Author : Frank Schaeffer
Publisher :
Page : 161 pages
File Size : 38,63 MB
Release : 2014-09-01
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 9781928653455
Caught between the beauty of his grandchildren and grief over a friend's death, Frank Schaeffer finds himself simultaneously believing and not believing in God--an atheist who prays. Schaeffer wrestles with faith and disbelief, sharing his innermost thoughts. He writes as an imperfect son, husband and grandfather whose love for his family, art and life trumps the ugly theologies of an angry God and the atheist vision of a cold, meaningless universe.
Author : Lawrence Maxwell Krauss
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
Page : 226 pages
File Size : 34,9 MB
Release : 2013
Category : Science
ISBN : 145162445X
This is a provocative account of the astounding new answers to the most basic philosophical question: Where did the universe come from and how will it end?
Author : Norman L. Geisler
Publisher : Crossway
Page : 417 pages
File Size : 42,43 MB
Release : 2021-05-17
Category : Religion
ISBN : 1433581442
To some, the concept of having faith in a higher power or a set of religious beliefs is nonsensical. Indeed, many view religion in general, and Christianity in particular, as unfounded and unreasonable. Norman Geisler and Frank Turek argue, however, that Christianity is not only more reasonable than all other belief systems, but is indeed more rational than unbelief itself. With conviction and clear thinking, Geisler and Turek guide readers through some of the traditional, tested arguments for the existence of a creator God. They move into an examination of the source of morality and the reliability of the New Testament accounts concerning Jesus. The final section of the book deals with a detailed investigation of the claims of Christ. This volume will be an interesting read for those skeptical about Christianity, as well as a helpful resource for Christians seeking to articulate a more sophisticated defense of their faith.
Author : Alain De Botton
Publisher : Signal
Page : 298 pages
File Size : 47,14 MB
Release : 2012-03-06
Category : 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.
Author : Helen Pluckrose
Publisher : Pitchstone Publishing (US&CA)
Page : 353 pages
File Size : 33,56 MB
Release : 2020-05-05
Category : Education
ISBN : 1634312031
Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and Publishers Weekly Bestseller! Times, Sunday Times, and Financial Times Book-of-the-Year Selection! Have you heard that language is violence and that science is sexist? Have you read that certain people shouldn't practice yoga or cook Chinese food? Or been told that being obese is healthy, that there is no such thing as biological sex, or that only white people can be racist? Are you confused by these ideas, and do you wonder how they have managed so quickly to challenge the very logic of Western society? In this probing and intrepid volume, Helen Pluckrose and James Lindsay document the evolution of the dogma that informs these ideas, from its coarse origins in French postmodernism to its refinement within activist academic fields. Today this dogma is recognizable as much by its effects, such as cancel culture and social-media dogpiles, as by its tenets, which are all too often embraced as axiomatic in mainstream media: knowledge is a social construct; science and reason are tools of oppression; all human interactions are sites of oppressive power play; and language is dangerous. As Pluckrose and Lindsay warn, the unchecked proliferation of these anti-Enlightenment beliefs present a threat not only to liberal democracy but also to modernity itself. While acknowledging the need to challenge the complacency of those who think a just society has been fully achieved, Pluckrose and Lindsay break down how this often-radical activist scholarship does far more harm than good, not least to those marginalized communities it claims to champion. They also detail its alarmingly inconsistent and illiberal ethics. Only through a proper understanding of the evolution of these ideas, they conclude, can those who value science, reason, and consistently liberal ethics successfully challenge this harmful and authoritarian orthodoxy—in the academy, in culture, and beyond.
Author : Isaac Kramnick
Publisher : W. W. Norton & Company
Page : 240 pages
File Size : 42,78 MB
Release : 2018-08-21
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 0393254976
“Illuminating.” —Phil Zuckerman, author of Living the Secular Life If the First Amendment protects the separation of church and state, why have atheists had to fight for their rights? In this valuable work, R. Laurence Moore and Isaac Kramnick reveal the fascinating history of atheism in America and the legal challenges to federal and state laws that made atheists second-class citizens.
