The Atheist's Guide to Christmas

Humor & Entertainment

Ariane Sherine

Humor

HarperCollins UK and Blackstone Audio

Why have Western societies that were once overwhelmingly Christian become so secular? Looking to the feelings and faith of ordinary people, the award-winning author of Protestants Alec Ryrie offers a bold new history of atheism. 
We think we know the history of faith: how the ratio of Christian believers has declined and a secular age dawned. In this startlingly original history, Alex Ryrie puts faith in the dock to explore how religious belief didn’t just fade away. Rather, atheism bloomed as a belief system in its own right. 
Unbelievers looks back to the middle ages when it seemed impossible not to subscribe to Christianity, through the crisis of the Reformation and to the powerful, challenging cultural currents of the centuries since. As this history shows, the religious journey of the Western world was lived and steered not just by published philosophy and the celebrated thinkers of the day – the Machiavellis and Michel de Montaignes – but by men and women at every level of society. Their voices and feelings permeate this book in the form of diaries, letters and court records. 
Tracing the roots of atheism, Ryrie shows that our emotional responses to the times can lead faith to wax and wane: anger at a corrupt priest or anxiety in a turbulent moment spark religious doubt as powerfully as any intellectual revolution. With Christianity under contest and ethical redefinitions becoming more and more significant, Unbelievers shows that to understand how something as intuitive as belief is shaped over time, we must look to an emotional history – one with potent lessons for our still angry and anxious age.

Unbelievers: An Emotional History of Doubt

History

Ryrie, Alec

Historical Study & Educational Resources

William Collins

The Atheist's Guide to Christmas Lib/E

William The 4th

From the bestselling author of Jews Don't Count ' A hugely heartfelt, funny, kind, fascinating, human and clever book ' ALAIN DE BOTTON ' Magnificent. Breathtaking. And shockingly rare ... another one-sitting wonder' STEPHEN FRY David Baddiel would love there to be a God. He has spent a lot of time fantasising about how much better life would be if there actually was such a thing as a Superhero Dad who chased off Death. Unfortunately for him, there isn't. Or at least, that is Baddiel's view in this book, which argues that it is indeed the very intensity of his, and everyone else's, desire for God to exist that proves His non-existence. Anything so deeply wished-for we will, considers Baddiel, make real. The admission of his own divine yearnings makes for a book that is more vulnerable - and more understanding of the value and power of religion - than most atheist polemics. A philosophical essay that utilises Baddiel's trademarks of comedy, storytelling and personal asides, The God Desire offers a highly readable new perspective on the most ancient of debates.

The God Desire

Baddiel, David

TLS Books

You're no idiot, of course. You know that Judaism began with Abraham and that Moses led the children out of slavery in Egypt. But when it comes to knowing who Elijah, Esther, and Judah Maccabee were, and their significance to Judaism, you feel like you've been wandering in the desert for 40 years. Don't feel Jewish guilt just yet! The Complete Idiot's Guide to Jewish History and Culture provides you with a complete, authoritative account of the Jewish people--from Abraham, Moses, and King David to Golda Meir, Menachem Begin, and Yitzhak Rabin. In this Complete Idiot's Guide, you get:

The Complete Idiot's Guide to Jewish History and Culture

Religion & Spirituality

Benjamin Blech

Judaism

Alpha Books

Theism and Atheism: Opposing Arguments in Philosophy is a peer-reviewed, academic volume that has two separate editors in chief, with their respective editorial boards. The atheism side is led by Graham Oppy (Australian philosopher, Monash University). The theism side is led by Joseph Koterski, S.J. (American philosopher, Fordham University) and includes Christian, Jewish, and Muslim philosophers. The two editorial boards worked together to identify twenty key topics in philosophical debates regarding arguments for and against the existence of God (e.g., Religious Experience, Miracles, Our Universe, Human Beings, Science, Religious Diversity, etc.). The single volume is composed of forty total chapters. The format is such that an author taking the side of theism composes a chapter on a topic, followed by an atheism author covering the same topic (e.g., "Miracles: Theism" followed by "Miracles: Atheism"). The title presents complex philosophical counter perspectives in a lucid manner. It grapples with issues that have occupied philosophers for more than two millennia. These include the sufficiency/insufficiency of an empirical explanation for the existence of the universe; the capacity/incapacity of the empirical sciences to draw conclusions about a possible infinite being; the validity/invalidity of philosophical arguments regarding the existence of an infinite being; various notions of infinity; the "problem of evil," and so on.

Theism and Atheism: Opposing Arguments In Philosophy

Politics & Social Sciences

Philosophy

Macmillan Reference, USA

Beginning with the chaotic post-World War I landscape, in which religious belief was one way of reordering a world knocked off its axis, Sacred Causes is a penetrating critique of how religion has often been camouflaged by politics. All the bloody regimes and movements of the twentieth century are masterfully captured here, from Stalin's Soviet Union, Hitler's Germany, Mussolini's Italy, and Franco's Spain through to the modern scourge of terrorism. Eloquently and persuasively combining an authoritative survey of history with a timely reminder of the dangers of radical secularism, Burleigh asks why no one foresaw the religious implications of massive Third World immigration, and he deftly investigates what are now driving calls for a civic religion to counter the terrorist threats that have so shocked the West.

Sacred Causes: The Clash of Religion and Politics, from the Great War to the War on Terror

BURLEIGH, Michael

Military

Harper-perennial

In one of the biggest religion news stories of the new millennium, the Associated Press announced that Professor Antony Flew, the world's leading atheist, now believes in God. 
 Flew is a pioneer for modern atheism. His famous paper, Theology and Falsification, was first presented at a meeting of the Oxford Socratic Club chaired by C. S. Lewis and went on to become the most widely reprinted philosophical publication of the last five decades. Flew earned his fame by arguing that one should presuppose atheism until evidence of a God surfaces. He now believes that such evidence exists, and There Is a God chronicles his journey from staunch atheism to believer. 
 For the first time, this book will present a detailed and fascinating account of Flew's riveting decision to revoke his previous beliefs and argue for the existence of God. Ever since Flew's announcement, there has been great debate among atheists and believers alike about what exactly this "conversion" means. There Is a God will finally put this debate to rest.
 This is a story of a brilliant mind and reasoned thinker, and where his lifelong intellectual pursuit eventually led him: belief in God as designer.

There Is a God: How the World's Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind

FLEW, Antony

Varghese, Roy Abraham

HarperOne

In There Is a God, one of the world's preeminent atheists discloses how his commitment to "follow the argument wherever it leads" led him to a belief in God as Creator. This is a compelling and refreshingly open-minded argument that will forever change the atheism debate.

"All thinking men are atheists," Ernest Hemingway famously wrote. True? Here are quips, quotes, and questions from a distinguished assortment of geniuses and jokers, giving readers a chance to decide for themselves....
When I think of all the harm [the bible] has done, I despair of ever writing anything to equal it. Oscar Wilde
SAINT, n. A dead sinner revised and edited. Ambrose Bierce
There ain't no answer. There ain't going to be any answer. There never has been an answer. That's the answer. Gertrude Stein
Do not let yourself be deceived: great intellects are skeptical. Friedrich Nietzsche
Millions long for immortality who don't know what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon. Susan Ertz
God is love, but get it in writing. Gypsy Rose Lee
Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of our own mind. Ralph Waldo Emerson
The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one. George Bernard Shaw

The Atheist's Bible: An Illustrious Collection of Irreverent Thoughts

Konner, Joan

Ecco

See the best price to sell, buy or rent books on the Atheism subject. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Atheism Books