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Our selection of books and associated reviews. Each cover is an affiliate link to Amazon for purchase.
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 […]
Jesus : One Hundred Years Before Christ
The overwhelming majority of the hundreds of books dealing with the origin of Christianity have been written by theologians presenting interpretations of what the Gospels and Acts tell us about Jesus and the early Church. By contrast,I deal with the subject as a historian, asking, which are our sources? when were they written? how reliable […]
Leaving the Fold: Testimonies of Former Fundamentalists
Between an introduction and an appendix provided by Babinski, a former Christian fundamentalist turned agnostic, more than thirty others, including well-known cotemporary religious writers such as Harvey Cox and Sam Keen, explain how and why they first embraced, and later abandoned, their Christian fundamentalist belief. Beginning with an essay entitled “Fundamentalism’s Grotesque Past,” this fascinating […]
Materialism: An Affirmative History and Definition
The history of Western philosophy has generated powerful and influential theories about the nature of the world and humankind’s place in it. Since the ancient Greeks, the compelling search for the fundamentals of all existence has led some to espouse philosophical idealism (a belief in unchanging conceptual universals), while others have held to an equally […]
Mortal Minds: The Biology of Near Death Experiences
Book Description Dying is the last conscious experience undergone by each person. But what do the dying experience? In the last few decades a good deal of publicity has surrounded people who have been close to death and then reported intense experiences that seem to suggest a supernatural existence beyond death. Does the conscious mind […]
Noah’s Flood
The tale of a massive, devastating flood appears not only in the Bible but also in other ancient writings, often in similar terms, suggesting that it records a real and singularly memorable event. Ryan and Pitman, who are senior scientists at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, think the event might have been a huge and […]
Onward Christian Soldiers?
Christian Coalition members have money, influence, power, and a willingness to show up at the ballot box and vote. The Christian Coalition is credited with a major role in the Republicans astonishing sweep of 1996 electoral successes and which foreshadowed their status as major players in state-level Republican politics and the Republican National Convention of […]
Philosophy: Who Needs It
Synopsis Unavailable
Rama Revealed
The long-awaited, New York Times bestselling conclusion to the epic Rama series. A massive starship of alien origin arrives at the end of its generations-long journey, at which time its human passengers confront a sinister evil, and discover the identity of their hosts–the Ramans–and their ultimate plan for humanity.
Religious Liberty in the Supreme Court
A collection of 25 leading constitutional law cases concerning the two religion clauses of the First Amendment, along with reactions to and commentary on these cases from journals of opinion. A great starting point for anyone interested in the church-state debate.
Salamander: The Story of the Mormon Forgery Murders
Mark Hofmann, a premed student, decided at age 25 to become a professional forger of old documents…. His Mormon upbringing and … research into the history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints enabled Mr. Hofmann to forge … the so-called Salamander Letter, which raised questions about the very foundation of Mormonism. … […]
Self-Esteem Every Day (1998 Paperback)
This pocketbook is a handy and convenient tool which aids in helping one improve their self-esteem through daily reflection. The concepts presented facilitate positive change as they draw one’s mind (back) into focus.
Spirituality for the Skeptic: The Thoughtful Love of life
A radical approach to spirituality that blends emotion, intellect, science, and common sense, and that urges a passionate enthusiasm for the world. Is it possible to be spiritual and yet not believe in the supernatural? Can a person be spiritual without belonging to a religious group or organization? In this book, philosopher Robert Solomon offers […]
Tales from Planet Earth
Collection of short stories.
The Anti-Christ
“In truth, the Anti-Christ is as necessary to the completeness of the whole of Nietzsche’s system as the keystone is to the arch. All the curvers of his speculation lead up to it. What he flung himself against, from the beginning to the end of his days of writing, was always, in the last analysis, […]
The Biology of Belief: How Our Biology Biases Our Beliefs and Perceptions
‘The Biology of Belief’ examines how our less than perfectly adapted brains cope with today’s world. Among the things considered are how our brain biology biases our perceptions, organizes ignorance into belief systems, predisposes us to believe in supernatural spirits, and permits others to manipulate our beliefs. The human brain evolved over millions of years […]
The Cat Who Walks Through Walls
Robert A. Heinlein has written some of the bestselling science fiction novels of all time, including the beloved classic Stranger in a Strange Land. Now, in The Cat Who Walks Through Walls, he creates his most compelling character ever: Dr. Richard Ames, ex-military man, sometime writer, and unfortunate victim of mistaken identity. When a stranger […]
The Demon-Haunted World: Science As a Candle in the Dark
Carl Sagan muses on the current state of scientific thought, which offers him marvelous opportunities to entertain us with his own childhood experiences, the newspaper morgues, UFO stories, and the assorted flotsam and jetsam of pseudoscience. Along the way he debunks alien abduction, faith-healing, and channeling; refutes the arguments that science destroys spirituality, and provides […]
The Enlightenment: The Rise of Modern Paganism
The eighteenth-century Enlightenment marks the beginning of the modern age, when the scientific method and belief in reason and progress came to hold sway over the Western world. In the twentieth century, however, the Enlightenment has often been judged harshly for its apparently simplistic optimism. Here a master historian goes back to the sources to […]
The Final Superstition: A Critical Evaluation of the Judeo-Christian Legacy
The development of just and effective social policies on such important issues as population control, abortion, sexuality, euthanasia, capital punishment, and even income distribution requires sophisticated knowledge about human nature and the environment. Too often, however, such policies are determined by religious traditions or influenced by church leaders claiming to speak with divine authority. Can […]
The Great Deception: And What Jesus Really Said and Did
New Testament scholar Gerd L’demann explains why he left Christianity and ultimately why he considers Christianity the “Great Deception.”
The Immoralist
Gide’s novel is a classic work that confronts the angst of existence and the attempt to live an authentic life while reconciling the burden of freedom.
The Last Word
If there is such a thing as reason, it has to be universal–it must work the same way for everyone. Reason must reflect objective principles whose validity is independent of our point of view. To reason is to think systematically in ways that anyone with enough intelligence ought to be able to recognize as correct. […]
The Meaning of Life
“The Meaning of Life is a compilation of twenty-five essays by different authors on the meaning of life divided into three sections: “The Theistic Answer”, “The Non-Theistic Alternative”, and “Questioning the Question”. Particularly interesting selections are provided by William Lane Craig, Walter T. Stace, Kurt Baier, Paul Edwards, Kai Nielsen, Richard Taylor, Thomas Nagel, R. […]
The Myth of Repressed Memory
The nation’s leading expert on memory exposes the recent wave of sex abuse charges based on “repressed memories” as akin to a 20th-century version of the Salem witch trials. Drawing on many famous cases in which Loftus has been directly involved, the authors attack the ideological agenda of recovered memory proponents.
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 […]
