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Our selection of books and associated reviews. Each cover is an affiliate link to Amazon for purchase.
Where did Everything Come From? A Short Philosophy Novel for Kids (Starring Billy and Bee, Who are Blue and Green)
Join young Billy and Beatrice, squabbling siblings, as they visit imaginary neighborhoods in different time periods, and even blast off into outer space! Engaging with oddball characters like Mr. Whom (a balloon), Mr. Sour Hour (a vulture) and Mr. Darwinkle (a bearded moose), they come to grips with Big Questions, like the nature of God, time, evolution, death, and the biggest question of all: where did everything come from?
Heterodox Hymns: Three Poets, One Purpose
The following works are from three writers who are members of the Internet Infidels Discussion Board (IIDB), which, in affiliation with the Secular Web, promotes a naturalistic world view, free of God or gods and the supernatural. The works in the main are in keeping with the basic idea of metaphysical or methodological naturalism, and the idea that ultimately we are responsible for our own lives, and not beholden to some eye in the sky always watching and judging us.
Killing History: Jesus in the No-Spin Zone
Description Killing Jesus, the bestselling blockbuster by Bill O’Reilly, claims to be a purely historical account of the events in the life of Jesus leading up to his crucifixion. New Testament scholar Robert M. Price (a member of the Jesus Seminar) shows how unfounded this claim is in this critical review of O’Reilly’s work. In […]
God’s Gravediggers: Why No Deity Exists
Description Raymond Bradley is probably the most important atheist you’ve never heard of. 16 years before the release of Richard Dawkin’s The Selfish Gene, Professor Bradley was completing his Ph.D. regarding the theological problem of free will, setting off a long, esteemed and distinguished career. As a veteran professor of philosophy back in 1994–long before […]
The Bad Jesus: The Ethics of New Testament Ethics
Description Did Jesus ever do anything wrong? Judging by the vast majority of books on New Testament ethics, the answer is a resounding “No.” But since the historical Jesus was a human being, must he not have had flaws, like everyone else? According to Avalos, it shows that New Testament ethics is still primarily an […]
The Bible Against Itself: Why the Bible Seems to Contradict Itself
Description All books are written for or against some point of view, and the books of the Bible are no different. Bible book authors were often motivated to write because they wanted to challenge or correct those who had written before them. As Helms explains, The Bible is a war zone, and its authors are […]
What If I’m an Atheist?: A Teen’s Guide to Exploring a Life Without Religion
Description Can you have guidance without God? This thoughtful, one-of-a-kind guide offers answers to all of your questions about atheism and nonbelief. Have you ever wondered what religion and belief mean for your life? Maybe you believe in nothing at all. Does that mean you’re an atheist? What does atheism even mean? Regardless of the […]
God or Godless? One Atheist. One Christian. Twenty Controversial Questions
Description Perhaps the most persistent question in human history is whether or not there is a God. Intelligent people on both sides of the issue have argued, sometimes with deep rancor and bitterness, for generations. The issue can’t be decided by another apologetics book, but the conversation can continue and help each side understand the […]
50 Simple Questions for Every Christian
Description Written in a respectful and conversational style, this unique book is designed to promote constructive dialogue and foster mutual understanding between Christians and non-Christians. The author, a skeptic and journalist, asks basic questions about Christian belief. What is the born-again experience? Why would God want to sacrifice his only son for the world? Do […]
Doubting Jesus’ Resurrection: What Happened in the Black Box? (2nd Edition)
In this outline of what may have given rise to the beliefs and traditions in 1 Corinthians 15:3-7 if Jesus did not rise from the dead, Kris D. Komarnitsky explains why using these verses to support the historical reliability of the Gospels is problematic.
Sword of Islam: Muslim Extremists from the Arab Conquests to the Attack on America
Undoubtedly timely and full of fascinating detail, Sword of Islam is a thorough, well-researched, and revealing account of global Islamic terrorism. A military historian, John F. Murphy Jr. traces the intricate interconnections among various terrorist cells, including Osama Bin Laden’s Al-Qaeda and its relationship with the Taliban of Afghanistan, the Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt, Islamic […]
The Historical Jesus Quest: Landmarks in the Search for the Jesus of History
The possibility of finding reliable information about the life of the historical Jesus has fascinated the imagination of generations of scholars from as early as the seventeenth century. Opinion on the issue has moved in waves, coming and going along with moods of pessimism and optimism. Until now, no one has brought together a comparison of the points of view of the most influential writers about the historical Jesus.
The Historical Jesus Quest brings together substantial extracts from the seminal works in Jesus studies over the last two centuries. The extracts are accompanied by brief introductions to each writer, helpful summaries of the central arguments of the works from which the extracts are taken, and incisive assessments of their continuing relevance to current debates. In one resource, this compendium provides the foundation upon which modern research is based and allows these great scholars—Spinoza, Troeltsch, D. F. Strauss, Wrede, Schweitzer, Kahler, Bultmann, Kasemann, and others—to speak in their own words. It is essential reading for all serious students of the Gospels and of the historical Jesus.
The Historical Jesus Quest brings together substantial extracts from the seminal works in Jesus studies over the last two centuries. The extracts are accompanied by brief introductions to each writer, helpful summaries of the central arguments of the works from which the extracts are taken, and incisive assessments of their continuing relevance to current debates. In one resource, this compendium provides the foundation upon which modern research is based and allows these great scholars—Spinoza, Troeltsch, D. F. Strauss, Wrede, Schweitzer, Kahler, Bultmann, Kasemann, and others—to speak in their own words. It is essential reading for all serious students of the Gospels and of the historical Jesus.
Vision of War
Originally published: 1915 Genre: Poetry Subject: World War, 1914-1918 — Poetry
Physics and Psychics : The Search for a World Beyond the Senses
Editorial Reviews From Book News, Inc. , June 1, 1990 Stenger (physics, U. of Hawaii) critically examines theories of a transcendentreality in terms of what is currently known about matter at its most fundamentallevel. He offers a convincing rebuttal to those who attempt to link physicsto mystical truths.Annotation copyright Book News, Inc. Portland, Or
2000 Years of Disbelief: Famous People With the Courage to Doubt
The English speaking world rarely acknowledges the many and varied gifts that “disbelievers” have bestowed upon humanity. Churchmen generally contend that great figures in history, such as America’s founders, were conventional believers. But author James A. Haught demonstrates that this just isn’t true. In 2000 Years Of Disbelief: Famous People With The Courage To Doubt, […]
A History of God
Armstrong, a British journalist and former nun, guides us along one of the most elusive and fascinating quests of all time — the search for God. Like all beloved historians, Armstrong entertains us with deft storytelling, astounding research, and makes us feel a greater appreciation for the present because we better understand our past. Be […]
African-American Humanism: An Anthology
This book offers biographical sketches, essays, and interviews with prominent African-American humanists.
Appointment Denied: The Inquisition of Bertrand Russell
In the spring of 1940 amidst the Great Depression and the threat of world war a tempest in a teapot was brewing on the island of Manhattan, where the board of the City College of New York had just appointed the renowned philosopher Bertrand Russell to teach. with the appointment of this most celebrated of […]
Atheism, Morality, and Meaning
Despite the pluralism of contemporary American culture, the Judeo-Christian legacy still has a great deal of influence on the popular imagination. Thus it is not surprising that in this context atheism has a slightly scandalous ring, and unbelief is often associated with lack of morality and a meaningless existence. Distinguished philosopher and committed atheist Michael […]
Belief’s Own Ethics
The fundamental question of the ethics of belief is “What ought one to believe?” According to the traditional view of evidentialism, the strength of one’s beliefs should be proportionate to the evidence. Conventional ways of defending and challenging evidentialism rely on the idea that what one ought to believe is a matter of what it […]
Black Holes and Time Warps
In this masterfully written and brilliantly informed work, Dr. Thorne, the Feynman Professor of Theoretical Physics at Caltech, leads readers through an elegant, always human, tapestry of interlocking themes, answering the great question: what principles control our universe and why do physicists think they know what they know? Subtitled “Einstein’s Outrageous Legacy,” and featuring an […]
Childhood’s End
The Overlords appeared suddenly over every city–intellectually, technologically, and militarily superior to humankind. Benevolent, they made few demands–unify Earth, eliminate poverty and end war. With little rebellion, mankind agreed, and a golden age began. But at what cost? To those who resisted the benign new alien rule, it became evident that the Overlords had an […]
Contemporary Materialism: A Reader
Contemporary Materialism presents an important collection of recent work on materialism in connection with metaphysics, philosophy of language, philosophy of mind and theories of value. This anthology charts the contemporary problems, positions and themes on the topic of materialism. It illuminates materialism’s complex intersection with related subjects such as cognition and psychology. By gathering a […]
Darwinian Natural Right: The Biological Ethics of Human Nature
The author argues that Darwinian biology supports an Aristotelian view of ethics as rooted in human nature. Defending a conception of “Darwinian natural right” based on the claim that the good is the desirable, the author documents at least twenty natural desires that are universal to all human societies because they are based in human […]
Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion / Natural History of Religion
David Hume is the greatest and one of the most provocative philosophers in the English language. His sceptical accounts of the causes and consequences of religious belief, Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion and The Natural History of Religion, are the most formidable attack upon the rationality of religious faith ever mounted by a philosopher. The Dialogues […]
Dreams of a Final Theory
Weinberg, the 1979 Nobel Prize-winner in physics, imagines the shape of a final theory and the effect its discovery would have on the human spirit. He gives a defense of reductionism–the impulse to trace explanations of natural phenomena to deeper and deeper levels–and examines the curious relevance of beauty and symmetry in scientific theories. Weinberg […]
Everything You Know About God Is Wrong: The Disinformation Guide to Religion
Book Description In the new mega-anthology from best-selling editor Russ Kick, more than fifty writers, reporters, and researchers–some of them freethinkers or nonbelievers who reveal a decidedly atheistic perspective, and some of them believers seeking reform, justice, or a better understanding of various negative aspects of different religions–invade the inner sanctum for an unrestrained look […]
Fantastic Voyage
Four men and a woman are reduced to a microscopic fraction of their original size, sent in a miniaturized atomic sub through a dying man’s carotid artery. Passing through the heart, entering the inner ear where even the slightest sound would destroy them, battling relentlessly into the cranium. Their objective… to reach a blood clot […]
Freethought on the American Frontier
A collection of memoirs, essays, political cartoons, songs, and poetry of the freethought movement during the 19th century. Essays by such social critics as Oliver Wendell Holmes, Mark Twain, Carl Sandburg, and Langston Hughes are included. Populist, Socialist, and labor-related issues are also presented. The book has good illustrations and political cartoons.
God Matters: Readings in the Philosophy of Religion
God Matters is a state-of-the-art, accessible anthology of the major issues in philosophy of religion. Its accessibility is due to its mix of classic readings and brand new readings about contemporary issues, commissioned specifically with an undergraduate student in mind. These commissioned readings make the difficult concepts of contemporary philosophy of religion easy to understand, […]
