
[ Recently Published Articles | Editor’s Choice | Featured Books | Categories ]
[ Author Index | Subject Index ]
Our selection of books and associated reviews. Each cover is an affiliate link to Amazon for purchase.
A Drop of Reason: Essays from the Secular Web
Keith Augustine | David Misialowski | Richard Carrier | Edouard Tahmizian | John MacDonald | B. Steven Matthies | Edward Babinski | Raymond D. Bradley | Brian Vroman | Andrew Melnyk
|
March 13, 2025
|
Kiosk Book, Publications
In 1995, the Secular Web made its debut online with the goal of promoting a naturalist view of reality, without recourse to God or gods or any supernatural realm. Now, thirty years on, the site is still going strong, and during that period it has assembled an impressive collection of scholarly essays from contributors. Now, to commemorate the site's 30th anniversary, we have assembled a number of those essays in book form: A Drop of Reason. Please enjoy this stellar collection of critical thinking.
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
Atheists, Agnostics, and Deists in America: A Brief History
When did atheism first appear in America? Why did many of the Founding Fathers become deists? Are atheism and deism a threat to the Christian, Jewish, and Moslem religions? The book not only attempts to answer these questions, but also explores the influence of such philosophers as Epicurus, Marcus Aurelius and Voltaire on American leaders. […]
Betrayal: The Crisis in the Catholic Church
They were the men most trusted: Father Geoghan, Father Birmingham, Father Shanley, Father Trupia, and hundreds of others. They were the rulers of the Catholic Church: Cardinal Law, Cardinal Egan, Cardinal Mahony, and others. They had all taken vows to live by the gospel and to care for their parishioners. And they were believed. Now, […]
Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon
Book Description For all the thousands of books that have been written about religion, few until this one have attempted to examine it scientifically: to ask why–and how–it has shaped so many lives so strongly. Is religion a product of blind evolutionary instinct or rational choice? Is it truly the best way to live a […]
Church and State in Canada
What makes Canada tick? How does its church-state situation compare with that of the United States? Do Canadians enjoy as much religious liberty as Americans? These questions and others are answered in this brief overview of how religion affects education, law, and politics in Canada.
Creationism’s Trojan Horse: The Wedge of Intelligent Design
Forrest and Gross expose the scientific failure, the religious essence, and the political ambitions of “intelligent design” creationism. They examine the movement’s “Wedge Strategy,” which has advanced and is succeeding through public relations rather than through scientific research. Analyzing the content and character of “intelligent design theory,” they highlight its threat to public education and […]
Death of Ivan Ilyich
Tolstoy’s Death of Ivan Ilyich is required reading for anyone interested in existentialism. We follow the protagonist through the story of his life to discover some startling truths about the meaning of life and the purpose of death. If death is not an event in life, as Wittgenstein maintains, then eternal life belongs to those […]
Distress
Investigative reporter Andrew Worth turns down a documentary on a mysterious new mental illness “Distress,” or acute clinical anxiety syndrome, for another assignment. He’s on his way to the artifical island of Stateless, where the world’s top physicists are gathering to decide on a new TOE, or Theory of Everything, to replace Einstein’s outmoded legacy. […]
Either/Or
Kierkegaard’s brilliance lies in his ability to take such deeply personal experiences–love, lust, sorrow–and comment universally in a way that is at least unmatched in philosophy and probably in all of literature. He understood life in a way that seems obvious but is in fact merely fundamental to us all. The book is a collection […]
Excession
Diplomat Byr Gen-Hofoen has been selected by The Department of Special Circumstances to investigate a 2,500-year-old mystery–the reported existence and sudden disappearance of a star 50 times older than the universe itself. The only way to break the silence is to steal the soul of a long-dead starship captain who first encountered the star, and […]
Finding Darwin’s God
Question: Who made us? Answer #1: God made us. Answer #2: Evolution made us. Which is it? What is the true answer to the age-old question of where we came from? Is it even possible to know for sure? In Finding Darwin’s God, Kenneth R. Miller offers a surprising resolution to the evolutionism vs. creationism […]
Garden of Rama
The Ramans return in the third saga of extraterrestrial contact–a riveting odyssey of a future Eden. The phenomenon begun in Rendezvous with Rama and carried on in Rama II continues in a masterpiece of technological extrapolation–an exhilarating adventure into the heart of both the universe and humankind.
Godless: How an Evangelical Preacher Became One of America’s Leading Atheists
Book Description After 19 years as an evangelical preacher, missionary, and Christian songwriter, Dan Barker “threw out the bathwater and discovered there is no baby there.” Barker, who is now co-president of the Freedom From Religion Foundation (America’s largest organization of atheists and agnostics), describes the intellectual and psychological path he followed in moving from […]
Hitler, the War and the Pope
Direct rebuttal to John Cornwell’s Hitler’s Pope.
Humanism, What’s That?: A Book for Curious Kids
Book Description Mrs. Green is teaching her daily science class one day when suddenly she receives terrible news: A popular student named Amanda has been struck by a car on her way to class and is now hospitalized with serious injuries. “Let’s all pray for Amanda,” says one earnest classmate. “Surely God will make her […]
In Sacred Loneliness: The Plural Wives of Joseph Smith
Joseph Smith married at least thirty-three women. In Sacred Loneliness documents how unhappy these women truly were.