About this product: Clear, concise, and persuasive, Atheist Universe details exactly why God is unnecessary to explain the universe and life's diversity, organization, and beauty. The author thoroughly rebuts every argument that claims to "prove" God's existence — arguments based on logic, common sense, philosophy, ethics, history and science.
Atheist Universe avoids the esoteric language used by philosophers and presents its scientific evidence in simple lay terms, making it a richly entertaining and easy-to-read introduction to atheism. A comprehensive primer, it addresses all the historical and scientific questions, including: Is there proof that God does not exist? What evidence is there of Jesus' resurrection? Can creation science reconcile scripture with the latest scientific discoveries?
Atheist Universe also answers ethical issues such as: What is the meaning of life without God? It's a spellbinding inquiry that ultimately arrives at a controversial and well-documented conclusion.
Militant atheism is on the rise. Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Daniel Dennett, and Christopher Hitchens have dominated bestseller lists with books denigrating religious belief as dangerous foolishness. And these authors are merely the leading edge of a far larger movement–one that now includes much of the scientific community. “The attack on traditional religious thought,” writes David Berlinski in The Devil’s Delusion, “marks the consolidation in our time of science as the single system of belief in which rational men and women might place their faith, and if not their faith, then certainly their devotion.”
A secular Jew, Berlinski nonetheless delivers a biting defense of religious thought. An acclaimed author who has spent his career writing about mathematics and the sciences, he turns the scientific community’s cherished skepticism back on itself, daring to ask and answer some rather embarrassing questions: Has anyone provided a proof of God’s inexistence? Has quantum cosmology explained the emergence of the universe or why it is here? Have the sciences explained why our universe seems to be fine-tuned to allow for the existence of life? Not even close. More importantly, are physicists and biologists willing to believe in anything so long as it is not religious thought? Close enough.
Berlinski does not dismiss the achievements of western science. The great physical theories, he observes, are among the treasures of the human race. But they do nothing to answer the questions that religion asks, and they fail to offer a coherent description of the cosmos or the methods by which it might be investigated. This brilliant, incisive, and funny book explores the limits of science and the pretensions of those who insist it can be–indeed must be–the ultimate touchstone for understanding our world and ourselves.
About this product: This book is for everyone: Atheists will find excellent arguments to help them defend their positions; Agnostics will appreciate the clarification it brings; Christians who are struggling will find this book a great help in breaking free from their shackles as they learn exactly why there's no possible way Christianity is true and why they don't have to worry ever again.
The Bible says that the world's languages began with the Tower of Babel. Today we know better. But how could the Bible contain stories that aren't true? Author Jeffrey Mark was a devout Christian throughout his life until, during his early 30s, he began studying the Bible more seriously than he ever had. And that's when he made the disturbing realization that so many stories were simply untrue. For him, this realization started with the Tower of Babel. That in turn launched a series of events that eventually led him to abandon his long-held beliefs. Letting go of his beliefs resulted in pain, anger, and distrust towards everyone around him. But slowly he was able to rebuild his life and come to terms with the realities of the world and ultimately find happiness. If you've ever questioned your beliefs, Jeff's story will inspire you. Travel with him through his journey as he explores the deeper truths behind the Bible while discovering science, logic and reason, and ultimately revealing Christianity for what it really is. This is a book that every Christian must read!
About this product: The essential book for dismantling Richard Dawkins' atheistic agenda. Scott Hahn and Benjamin Wiker collaborate to debunk Dawkins' theories and show how inconsistent and illogical his conclusions truly are. This is the definitive book for college students or faithful Christians hoping to answer Dawkins' claims and assert the logic and beauty of their faith.
Frank Schaeffer has a problem with Dawkins, Hitchens, Harris, Dennett, and the rest of the New Atheists—the self-anointed “Brights.” He also has a problem with the Rick Warrens and Tim LaHayes of the world. The problem is that he doesn’t see much of a difference between the two camps. As Schaeffer puts it, they “often share the same fallacy: truth claims that reek of false certainties. I believe that there is an alternative that actually matches the way life is lived rather than how we usually talk about belief.”
Sparing no one and nothing, including himself and his fiery evangelical past, and invoking subtleties too easily ignored by the pontificators, Schaeffer adds much-needed nuance to the conversation. “My writing has smoked out so many individuals who seem to be thinking about the same questions. I hope that this book will provide a meeting place for us, the scattered refugees of what I’ll call The Church of Hopeful Uncertainty.”
About this product: After reviewing Victor Stenger's "God: The Failed Hypothesis" some time ago, and finding it to be but a good effort at best, I still kept my ears open for another book that supposedly laid out the case for atheism more solidly than the rhetoric of Richard Dawkins. I noticed over time that this book, Atheism Explained by David Ramsay Steele, got perhaps the most accolades by atheists who likewise thought Dawkins was too light on actual argument and preferred something a little more. So I gave this book a read.
Like Stenger's book before I, as a Christian theist who is also an evolutionist, found that the initial portion of the book, which seeks to rebut creationism, to be something of a moot point when it comes to settling the question of whether atheism or theism is actually true. Despite, though, my agreement with Steele insofar as evolution is true, he still suffers from a chink or two in the armor here. For instance, he argues at one point that even granting Old Earth Creationism (OEC), day-age view that Noah's Flood still must have been universal in scope and is a liability that the day-age view must suffer from. Of course this is not true at all, and far be it from me to defend creationism, but as most OECs will acknowledge the Hebrew word for land, `eretz, when elsewhere spoken of in a seemingly universal sense, just as in the flood account, still is clearly meant to imply a local meaning (cf. Gen. 13:9; 41:57; Ex. 34:10). So contra Steele, the charge of inaccuracy and subsequent disproof of the infallibility of the Holy Bible - an actually unbiblical `tenet of Christianity' that I do not adhere to anyway -- is not demonstrated here.
Past this portion of the book Steele takes aim at the fine-tuning (of the universe) argument. It's an interesting read, but unconvincing. He notes that not all constants are necessarily independent of each other, which is undoubtedly true but ultimately irrelevant. He also tosses around statements like, "we don't really know how improbable our universe is", which is just special pleading that anyone arguing anything could employ. I've heard young-earth creationists make the exact same point with the implication, of course, that someday, someway, somehow the future will unload a sudden proof of their claims. Of course this is theoretically possible, but is not how argumentation works.
In a portion of the book dealing with the cosmological arguments, Steele charges the theist of appealing to the principle of sufficient reason (PSR), which is held to be rather controversial by many philosophers. But, in fact, (1) there are nuanced variants of the PSR that less controversial and enjoy greater reception, and (2) furthermore it could be that the theist is making an argument to the best explanation in which case the PSR is not really the basis for her claim at all, thus rendering Steele's PSR-based criticism all but irrelevant. Steele makes another rather egregious error here. He follows Hume into the trap of asserting that all necessary truths are analytic, which is to say that to deny them is self-contradictory (i.e. to make an A and ~A assertion). And since the denial of God does not meet this standard, God cannot be a necessary being. But many philosophers have since come to the conclusion that necessary truths can also be synthetic (i.e. their denial is not asserting A and ~A), such as Goldbach's Conjecture. Indeed one has to wonder if Steele is even being consistent himself here, for is one not affirming a necessary truth in advocating the proposition "all necessary truths are analytic"? Well it seems one must be if the conclusion that it's always self-contradictory to deny a necessary truth must follow. But yet is it not as epistemically feasible to deny this proposition as one might deny God's existence? It certainly seems so.
In other places Steele fails to do justice to the matter of mystical religious experience by misconstruing it as an argument from one person's subjective experience as a reason for another person, who lacks such experience, to believe. Actually, from what I've seen, what most intellectual theists actually argue from religious experience is two-fold, and does not include Steele's formulation: (1) to argue that the individual who has them is well within his epistemic rights to affirm what is being experience as real (a la William Lane Craig), while (2) others appeal to it in order to increase the prior probability of the theistic hypothesis (a la C. Stephen Layman). Steele simply barks up the wrong tree, and we are left wondering what the relevance of his remarks is to the real arguments.
Finally, though more could certainly be said (I will not here touch on the arguments surrounding the existence evil that Steele cites), it would probably be fitting to end this review on a note about Steele's accusations against the Holy Bible. Depressingly, the usual argument-from-silence canards are here: Luke's census, Herod's execution of the innocents. Explicitly providing the actual answers to these matters would take too much additional space, but one can find the answers to these problems if he or she will consult my past review of Stenger's book. Oddly, he also complains about the time difference between the composition of the New Testament (NT) and the events they supposedly record. Excuse me...? The NT writings are very well indeed within the accepted range of reliability if one compares the time of their compositions and what they purport to describe with extra-biblical historical texts that are at least accepted as generally reliable. Seutonius and Plutarch anyone? Also, the authors of the New Testament are contemporaries of Christ, thus invalidating Steele's comparison between the historicity of Socrates and Jesus. It is interesting moreover, that Steele apparently fails to realize the fact that even if (for the sake of argument) the ancient sources were not contemporaries this is hardly a reason for pressing panic buttons. Indeed much of what we know about several historical personages and events that are accept as generally reliable often come from non-contemporary sources. For instance, James Hannam of the website Bede's Library has described how the accepted existence of Hannibal and the events surrounding him rests on none of the pseudo-criteria for historicity asserted (without citing any eminent classical historian for support, I might add) by Steele. Furthermore, as James Patrick Holding has pointed out, the historical figures Gamaliel, Honi the Circle Drawer, Hillel, Shammai, and Confucius, and what we know of them comes not from the caliber of sources Steele demands. So until we see Steele, along with ancient historians, deny the existence, or at least the facts, regarding these figures we're hardly at the mercy of his arguments here. Beyond this, Steele deals with evidence surrounding the resurrection of Christ with but a few paragraphs. Much less does he deal with the scholarship and arguments provided by the likes of N.T. Wright, or Habermas and Licona.
All in all, then, the result is an ultimately unfulfilling read. I can understand why some prefer this book to others, as it at least offers argumentation that one is capable of analyzing. And for that, Steele gets an A for effort. Nevertheless, I must say that I still don't see after reading this book that atheism seems all that probable or convincing, or to put in terms I prefer -- the argument with the best explanation.
About this product: A personal explanation for why the author became an Atheist, an honest appeal against the literal acceptance of holy scripture, and self-help guide for would-be Atheists. With short stories and "doodle time" interactive projects to help curb the fear of crossing the boundaries of sacredness.
About this product: 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, as he ministered to various congregations and taught at Christian colleges, 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, brought on by emotional upheavals in his personal life as well as the gathering weight of the doubts he had long entertained.
In this honest appraisal of his journey from believer to atheist, Loftus carefully explains the experiences and the reasoning process that led him to reject religious belief. The bulk of the book is his "cumulative case" against Christianity. Here he lays out the philosophical, scientific, and historical reasons that can be raised against Christian belief. From the implications of religious diversity, the authority of faith vs. reason, and the problem of evil, to the contradictions between the Bible and the scientific worldview, the conflicts between traditional dogma and historical evidence, and much more, Loftus covers a great deal of intellectual terrain. 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.
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