A fascinating exploration of the breadth of social, emotional, and spiritual experiences of atheists in America Self-identified atheists make up roughly 5 percent of the American religious landscape, comprising a larger population than Jehovah's Witnesses, Orthodox Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, and Hindus combined. In spite of their relatively significant presence in society, atheists are one of the most stigmatized groups in the United States, frequently portrayed as immoral, unhappy, or even outright angry. Yet we know very little about what their lives are actually like as they live among their largely religious, and sometimes hostile, fellow citizens. In this book, Jerome P. Baggett listens to what atheists have to say about their own lives and viewpoints. Drawing on questionnaires and interviews with more than five hundred American atheists scattered across the country, The Varieties of Nonreligious Experience uncovers what they think about morality, what gives meaning to their lives, how they feel about religious people, and what they think and know about religion itself. Though the wider public routinely understands atheists in negative terms, as people who do not believe in God, Baggett pushes readers to view them in a different light. Rather than simply rejecting God and religion, atheists actually embrace something much more substantive-lives marked by greater integrity, open-mindedness, and progress. Beyond just talking about or to American atheists, the time is overdue to let them speak for themselves. This book is a must-read for anyone interested in joining the conversation.

The Atheist Coloring and Activity Book is a complete course on the world view of Atheism meant for adults.

A Mexican immigrant and rising star within the Christian community abandons his faith and comes out as a gay atheist In this exceptionally moving and soul-searching memoir, Fernando Alc�ntar recounts his incredible journey from poor Catholic boy on the dusty streets of Mexico to globetrotting missionary and high-profile Christian leader in the United States—where he eventually left his celebrated life behind to advocate for the liberating power of reason and equality. With heart-wrenching honesty, he shares stories of trauma, tragedy, prejudice, uncertainty, survival, and, ultimately, discovery. In the process, he gives a voice to thousands who are hiding in the shadows, afraid to publicly question their religious, cultural, or sexual identity for fear of isolation and retaliation. You will discover that his is not simply a Mexican story or an American story, a heterosexual's story or a homosexual's story, a Christian's story or an atheist's story. Rather, his is a universal story—one uniquely about and for our times. 

Atheism was the most foundational challenge to early-modern French certainties. Theologians and philosophers labelled such atheism as absurd, confident that neither the fact nor behaviour of nature was explicable without reference to God. The alternative was a categorical naturalism, whose most extreme form was Epicureanism. The dynamics of the Christian learned world, however, which this book explains, allowed the wide dissemination of the Epicurean argument. By the end of the seventeenth century, atheism achieved real voice and life. This book examines the Epicurean inheritance and explains what constituted actual atheistic thinking in early-modern France, distinguishing such categorical unbelief from other challenges to orthodox beliefs. Without understanding the actual context and convergence of the inheritance, scholarship, protocols, and polemical modes of orthodox culture, the early-modern generation and dissemination of atheism are inexplicable. This book brings to life both early-modern French Christian learned culture and the atheists who emerged from its intellectual vitality.

In this deeply revealing and engaging autobiography, Herb Silverman tells his iconoclastic life story. He takes the reader from his childhood as an Orthodox Jew in Philadelphia, where he stopped fasting on Yom Kippur to test God's existence, to his adult life in the heart of the Bible Belt, where he became a legendary figure within America's secular activist community and remains one of its most beloved leaders. Never one to shy from controversy, Silverman relates many of his high-profile battles with the Religious Right, including his decision to run for governor of South Carolina to challenge the state's constitutional provision that prohibited atheists from holding public office. "Candidate Without a Prayer "offers an intimate portrait of a central player in today's increasingly heated culture wars. It will be sure to charm both believers and nonbelievers alike, and will lead all those who care about the separation of church and state to give thanks.

Philosophy and the advances in cosmology, neurology, molecular biology, and the social sciences have made the convincing and converging arguments for God's existence more probable than ever in history. On God's Existence is concise summary of these arguments as well as new arguments inspired by the advances of the sciences.

Inspired by Paul Tillich's suggestion that atheism is not the end of theology but is instead the beginning, and working this together with Derrida's idea of the undeconstructible, Caputo explores the idea that the real interest of theology is not God, especially not God as supreme being, but the unconditional.

Leaving one's religion behind, walking away from faith, is never an easy journey. With family, friends, jobs, and every aspect of one's life to consider, the decision is not to be taken lightly. This anthology is made up of sixteen fascinating, and at times moving, accounts of such decisions, and the consequences they entail. Whether it be Christianity, Islam or any other life-impacting worldview, leaving it can be a difficult ordeal. This collection details the trials and tribulations, the joy and liberation involved, by people from various walks of life and corners of the globe. Heartfelt, it offers hope to those equally questioning, and understanding to those who themselves question the motivations of these often brave people.

Godbuster is Elliot George's attempt to help readers to think critically and skeptically about what they choose to believe; to help them to make an informed decision. It describes why we feel a need to believe, questions what value belief has, explains what constitutes proper evidence and how it provides a foundation for our understanding of reality. The methods of Science are explained and the issues of contention between believers and non-believers are dealt with in lucid prose - it's a bit like Richard Dawkins 'The God Delusion' but written in easy language.

Theological reactions to the rise of the new atheist movement have largely been critically hostile or defensively deployed apologetics to shore up the faith against attack. Gary Keogh contends that focusing on scholarly material that is inherently agreeable to theology will not suffice in the context of modern academia. Theology needs to test its boundaries and venture into dialogue with those with antithetical positions. Engaging Richard Dawkins, as the embodiment of such a position, illustrates how such dialogue may offer new perspectives on classical theological problems, such as the relationship of science and religion, the existence of God, creation, natural suffering and theodicy. Keogh demonstrates how a dialogical paradigm may take shape, rather than merely discussing it as a theoretical framework. A dialogue between such opposing hermeneutics may provide a new paradigm of theological scholarship - one which is up to the task of facing its critics in the public and pluralistic context of modern academia.

God and Evidence presents a new set of compelling problems for theistic philosophers. The problems pertain to three types of theistic philosopher, which Lovering defines here as 'theistic inferentialists,' 'theistic non-inferentialists,' and 'theistic fideists.' Theistic inferentialists believe that God exists, that there is inferential probabilifying evidence of God's existence, and that this evidence is discoverable not simply in principle but in practice. Theistic non-inferentialists believe that God exists, that there is non-inferential probabilifying evidence of God's existence, and that this evidence is discoverable not simply in principle but in practice. Theistic fideists believe that God exists, that there is no discoverable probabilifying evidence (inferential or non-inferential) of God's existence, and that it is nevertheless acceptable-morally if not otherwise-to have faith that God exists. Lovering argues that each type of theistic philosopher faces a problem unique to his type and that they all share two particular problems. Some of these problems take us down an entirely new discursive path; others down a new discursive path branching off from an old one.

Twenty-first century's nightly news can't pass by without running another story on religious conflict or clashes. While these modern-day battles play out for the world to see, the issues that act as a catalyst for them are deeply embedded in ancient texts that claim to contain absolute certainties. An eye-opening and vitally-important new book has burst upon the literary scene called Allah, Jesus, and Yahweh: The Gods That Failed. The author, Gordon Harrison, conducts a definitive expose of the ravages caused by religion and breaks new ground in the world of investigative literature. In this riveting history of three of the world's major religions-Islam, Christianity, and Judaism-this book explores the relationship between belief and the suspension of logic with its consequential suffering. Beginning with the September 480 BCE Battle of Marathon, the author traces the spread of Eastern belief systems (and the three major religions in particular) from the Middle East into Europe and the rest of the world. Citing examples of how fanatic elements of each faith have caused war, bloodshed, confusion and suffering, Harrison makes his case for reason and freethinking. As the author notes the parlance in vogue for this present invasion is a clash of civilizations-East versus West But this is not entirely the case. There is a clash, but we have confused the combatants. Many in the West do not intend to fight for the preservation of Christianity; some in the East feel the same about Islam. What we will defend is freedom, democracy, and the values of the Enlightenment versus submission, dictatorship, and the buzz of the hive mind. A colossal clash of ideals is underway between the Enlightenment and the Army of the Night-those who "know" they have absolute certainty without evidence. Religion is certainty without proof; science is proof without certainty. From religion to science, it has been a long night's journey into light. Harrison asks the reader to hold his hand, walk with him through these pages, and see the glory and the horror we have created. Since its release, the book has garnered a consistent string of rave reviews-here are three: This is an extremely impressive book, one that should enlighten any open-minded reader, theist and non-theist alike. Harrison transports the reader from the ancient battle at Marathon across two millennia, following the march of civilization to the present day. He shows in a clear and engaging manner the moral corruption that is inherent in the ancient texts that continue to serve as the scriptural foundations of modern religions. His compelling mixture of philosophy, theology, astronomy, psychology and physics, presented always in a very accessible and entertaining style, persuasively demonstrates how science illuminates and promotes understanding while religion ossifies thinking patterns and all too often produces intergroup conflict. I highly recommend this book to all. By James Alcock, Professor of Psychology at York University, Toronto Something that worked really well for me was the author's use of personal anecdotes to illustrate some of his arguments. The one that really stood out was the story about Mother Courage. The author re-creates his experience with the bear and her cubs very vividly for the reader. I found it not only very germane to his point about the presence of morality in nature, but also very moving. This book deserves a wide readership. By Dirk Verhulst, English Teacher. Hilarious and powerful Equal to anything written by Hitchens, Harris, Dawkins, and Dennett, the Four Horsemen of the Anti-Apocalypse. Allah, Jesus, and Yahweh takes a deeper view of time and a more humorous Mark Twain narrative approach than those authors do. By Bill Walker, Freethinker"

Ludwig Feuerbach (1804-1972), the immensely influential German philosopher of the 19th century, wrote his most important work "The Essence of Christianity" in 1841. Combined with his numerous other writings, "The Essence of Christianity" contributed to the development of dialectical materialism. Feuerbach is often considered the philosopher who bridged Hegel and Marx. Here is his sharp criticism of Christianity. A staunch atheist, Feuerbach argues that Christianity has wrongfully "projected" and "displaced" elements of the human mind onto nonexistent supernatural, religious objects. This displacement, he argues, fundamentally alters notions of consciousness. Feuerbach works his way through his tractate via the skepticism established by Hegel and Spinoza, among others. Like Nietzsche, Feuerbach made the claim that Christianity need be deconstructed and repudiated for true civil progress to occur. "The Essence of Christianity" shows Feuerbach in full force as an influential member of a new breed of German philosophers. This text, and this author, occupies a significant place in the history of modern philosophy.