[ 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.
The Origin of the Universe
There is no more fascinating question in all of science than that of how time, space, and matter began. Now cutting-edge researcher John Barrow guides readers on a journey to the beginning of time. With new insights, he draws us into the latest speculative theories about the nature of time and the inflationary universe, explains […]
The Power of Self-Esteem
Emphasizing the importance of self-esteem, the author defines this vital aspect of our personality and traces its influence in our personal and professional lives.
The Rise of Christianity
If Christianity was not divinely founded by God, then how did it begin? Sociologist Rodney Stark digs deep into the historical evidence on many issues — such as the social background of converts, the mission to the Jews, the status of women in the church, the role of martyrdom — to provide a vivid and […]
The Spark of Life: Darwin and the Primeval Soup
Can you create life with just a taser and a bowl of soup? Most likely not, unless you give yourself a few hundred million years to experiment. Biologist Christopher Wills and marine chemist Jeffrey Bada show off the fruits of research looking for signs of life elsewhere and clues to the origin of terrestrial organisms […]
The Universe in a Nutshell
Lavishly illustrated and easy-to-understand sequel to A Brief History of Time.
Thomas Jefferson’s Freethought Legacy
This delightful collection of quotes from Jefferson establishes beyond dispute his enormous contributions to rationalism, freethought, and science. Often, what historians (and especially politicians) have done is to select those quotes that reflect conventional religiosity and beliefs. Here great care has been taken to exclude those quotes and to present, instead, Jefferson’s freethought legacy.
Unweaving the Rainbow: Science, Delusion, and the Appetite for Wonder
Did Newton “unweave the rainbow” by reducing it to its prismatic colors, as Keats contended? Did he, in other words, diminish beauty? Far from it, says Dawkins–Newton’s unweaving is the key too much of modern astronomy and to the breathtaking poetry of modern cosmology. Mysteries don’t lose their poetry because they are solved: the solution […]
What is God?
Twenty-two critical essays raise serious questions about traditional claims of God’s omnipotence, omniscience, omnibenevolence, simplicity, ability to do the logically impossible, and omnipresence. LaCroix’s introductory article on metatheism explains his unique approach to issues in the philosophy of religion, providing a useful, up-front orientation for the reader.
Why Evolution Is True
Book Description Among the wonders that science has uncovered about the universe, no subject has sparked more fascination and fury than evolution. In all the current highly publicized debates about creationism and its descendant “intelligent design,” there is an element of the controversy that is rarely mentioned–the evidence, the empirical truth of evolution by natural […]
Without a Prayer: Religious Expression in the Public Schools
An alarming number of school districts are bending to pressure by those on the religious right to allow prayer, Bible readings, and other religious activities in classrooms, while directly infringing upon the rights of many students, believers and nonbelievers alike. Now, for the first time, noted author Robert S. Alley thoroughly examines school prayer, bringing […]
1984
War is peace.Freedom is slavery.And Big Brother is watching… Thought Police. Big Brother. Orwellian. These words have become part of our national vocabulary because of George Orwell’s classic novel 1984, the story of one man’s nightmare odyssey through a world ruled by warring states and a power structure that controls not only information but individual […]
A Gospel of Shame: Children, Sexual Abuse, and the Catholic Church
Over the past few years, a relentless crescendo of revelations about Catholic priests molesting children has riveted the nation’s attention and raised urgent, previously unthinkable questions: Just how widespread is child sexual abuse by Catholic clergy? Why hasn’t the Catholic church done more to stop it? In A Gospel of Shame, authors Elinor Burkett and […]
Abusing Science: The Case Against Creationism
Abusing Science is a manual for intellectual self-defense, the most complete available for presenting the case against Creationist pseudo-science. It is also a lucid exposition of the nature and methods of genuine science. The book begins with a concise introduction to evolutionary theory for non-scientists and closes with a rebuttal of the charge that this […]
Apocalypse Observed: Religious Movements and Violence in North America, Europe, and Japan
As the millennium approaches, there is renewed interest in Apocalyptic visions. Over the years, several groups, or cults have brought the idea of the Apocalypse into the media. In this important and timely work, Apocalypse Observed analyzes five of the most notorious cults of recent years. John R. Hall, along with Philip D. Schuyler and […]
Atheism Explained: From Folly to Philosophy
Book Description Atheism Explained explores the claims made both for and against the existence of God. On the pro side: that the wonders of the world can only be explained by an intelligent creator; that the universe had to start somewhere; telepathy, out-of-body experiences, and other paranormal phenomena demonstrate the existence of a spirit world; […]
Belief or Non-Belief? A Confrontation
“‘Belief or Nonbelief’ is a short but challengingbook, an exchange of letters between Umberto Eco, the Italian novelist and scholar, and Carlo Maria Martini, the Roman Catholic cardinal of Milan. A newspaper in Milan asked the two men to write to each other (and published the results) because they represent the believer and the nonbeliever, […]
Black Holes and Baby Universes
Readers worldwide have come to know the work of Stephen Hawking through his phenomenal million-copy hardcover best-seller A Brief History of Time. Bantam is proud to present the paperback edition of Dr. Hawking’s first new book since that event, a collection of fascinating and illuminating essays, and a remarkable interview broadcast by the BBC on […]
Challenging the Verdict: A Cross-Examination of Lee Strobel’s The Case for Christ
In the face of modern critical scholarship, which is steadily eroding the historical reliability of the Gospels and their presentation of Jesus, conservative writers have been making valiant attempts to reestablish confidence in the Christian record and doctrine. The most prominent of these, in popular exposure and commercial success, has been Lee Strobel, in his […]
Contemporary Debates in the Philosophy of Religion
This book comes highly recommended by our own Jeffery Jay Lowder, largely based on the reputation of the principal editor, Michael Peterson, as managing editor of the journal Faith and Philosophy, published by the Society of Christian Philosophers. This book is newly published, and offers an overview of the key debates in modern philosophy of […]
Darwin (Third Edition)
“The best Darwin anthology on the market” (Stephen Jay Gould, Harvard) has just become better, in this newly revised version of the now classic Norton Critical Edition, first published in 1970.
Dial-An-Atheist Greatest Hits from Ohio
This is a collection of short tape messages that were used on the author’s Dial-An-Atheist phone service over the span of a few years.
Drawing Out Leviathan: Dinosaurs and the Science Wars
For some years the “Science Wars” have raged in academe and in the press. Unlike the usual academic tempest in a teapot, the stakes in this controversy are high. The standing of science in our culture turns on the outcome. Will science continue to occupy a position of authority or will it be demoted to […]
Evangelicals at the Ballot Box
Evangelical Christians have fast become one of the most organized political power blocs of the decade. Who are these mainly Protestant, “born-again” voters and how have they changed the face of American politics? Evangelicals At The Ballot Box, veteran political analyst Albert Menendez’s ground-breaking study, reveals the voting patterns of various evangelical denominations to focus […]
Faith and Freedom: Religious Liberty in America
Former U.S. District Judge Marvin E. Frankel examines the most dramatic of the Supreme Court cases of the last half century concerned with the Constitutional right to religious freedom. The author “argues that the ‘wall of separation’ between church and state must be kept almost unbreachable if religious liberty is to be preserved.”
Freethought Across the Centuries
The freethought movement has long needed a solid textbook for academic and personal reading lists. A work that could supplement classroom and independent studies on the nature of religion and its historical role in the cultures, societies, and governments of human history, ancient and modern. Dr. Gerald Laure’s Freethought Across The Centuries is a wonderful […]
God Is Not One: The Eight Rival Religions That Run the World–and Why Their Differences Matter
Description At the dawn of the twenty-first century, dizzying scientific and technological advancements, interconnected globalized economies, and even the so-called New Atheists have done nothing to change one thing: our world remains furiously religious. For good and for evil, religion is the single greatest influence in the world. We accept as self-evident that competing economic […]
Harlan Ellison’s Dream Corridor
The vicious dictator of a future world seeks refuge in the prehistoric past; a fast-gun sheriff refuses to lay up his weapon when his days of power are ended; sharp, small teeth horribly show what can happen to a stoolie; and in the year 2074, a consumer upgrades his mutant housebeast for this year’s model. […]
How We Believe: The Search for God in an Age of Science
One hundred years ago social scientists predicted that belief in God would decrease by the year 2000. “In fact … the opposite is has occurred,” Shermer writes in his introduction. “Never in history have so many, and such a high percentage of the population, believed in God. Not only is God not dead as Nietzche […]
Immortality
Book Description Is there life after death or do we simply cease to exist? Few questions wreak havoc with our deepest held beliefs and strongest emotions more than this one. The answers given over the centuries reach to the very core of who we are and what it means to be human. Cutting through the […]
Inversions (US 2000 Hardcover)
The world of Inversions is a planet with two suns, but otherwise it’s a recognizable fantasyland of knights, princes, sieges, love, and treachery. Two travelers from distant lands reach two different kingdoms and become the close associates of two monarchs. As personal physician to King Quience, Doctor Vosill fights a two-front war: mistrust of her […]
