[ 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 End of Biblical Studies
Book Description In this radical critique of his own academic specialty, biblical scholar Hector Avalos calls for an end to biblical studies as we know them. He outlines two main arguments for this surprising conclusion. First, academic biblical scholarship has clearly succeeded in showing that the ancient civilization that produced the Bible held beliefs about […]
The Fallacy of Fine-Tuning: Why the Universe Is Not Designed for Us
Description Drawing on the findings of modern physics and cosmology, numerous authors have argued that it would have taken only slight changes to some of the universe’s physical parameters to make life, as we know it, extremely unlikely or even impossible. But does the seemingly “fine-tuned” nature of the universe also suggest that there must […]
The God Delusion
Description: Discover magazine recently called Richard Dawkins “Darwin’s Rottweiler” for his fierce and effective defense of evolution. Prospect magazine voted him among the top three public intellectuals in the world (along with Umberto Eco and Noam Chomsky). Now Dawkins turns his considerable intellect on religion, denouncing its faulty logic and the suffering it causes. He […]
The Human Question
The Human Question is a frank examination of all sides of the human origins debate. From Evolution to “creation science” and reincarnation to life on other planets, the book peels away the emotion from controversial topics to reveal the most common beliefs about human origins. Personal Interviews highlight each chapter and reveal why we often […]
The Jesus the Jews Never Knew
The ancient Jews never heard of Jesus of Nazareth. Indeed, they never heard of Nazareth either. That is the startling conclusion of a comprehensive investigation of Jewish records surviving from antiquity. Every literary source ever advanced by serious scholars as being a reference to the historical Jesus is examined and found to be nothing of […]
The Magic of Reality: How We Know What’s Really True
Description Magic takes many forms. Supernatural magic is what our ancestors used in order to explain the world before they developed the scientific method. The ancient Egyptians explained the night by suggesting the goddess Nut swallowed the sun. The Vikings believed a rainbow was the gods’ bridge to earth. The Japanese used to explain earthquakes […]
The Most Dangerous Man in America
One of the most powerful and potentially dangerous religious/political movements in American history has been built by right-wing televangelist Pat Robertson. The Christian Coalition (broadcasting fundamentalism and extreme politics to an audience of millions via the “700 Club”) wields a mighty sword within the Republican party in at least 25 states. And GOP national leaders […]
The Non-Existence of God: An Introduction
Is it possible to prove or disprove God’s existence? Arguments for the existence of God have taken many different forms over the centuries: in The Non-Existence of God, Nicholas Everitt considers the best of the contemporary arguments, and examines the role that reason and knowledge play in the debate over God’s existence. Everitt’s conclusion is […]
The Portable Atheist: Essential Readings for the Nonbeliever
Book Description From the #1 New York Times best-selling author of God Is Not Great, a provocative and entertaining guided tour of atheist and agnostic thought through the ages–with never-before-published pieces by Salman Rushdie, Ian McEwan, and Ayaan Hirsi Ali. Christopher Hitchens continues to make the case for a splendidly godless universe in this first-ever […]
The Restaurant at the End of the Universe
This sequel to The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy finds Arthur Dent, reluctant space adventurer, joining Zaphod Beeblebrox –two-headed former president of the galaxy –Zaphod’s dead great-grandfather, sexy cadet Trillian, and paranoid Marvin in the search for the ruler of the Universe
The Skeptic: A Life of H. L. Mencken
When H. L. Mencken talked, everyone listened — like it or not. In the Roaring Twenties, he was the one critic who mattered, the champion of a generation of plain-speaking writers who redefined the American novel, and the ax-swinging scourge of the know-nothing, go-getting middle-class philistines whom he dubbed the “booboisie.” Some loved him, others […]
The Truth About Everything: An Irreverent History of Philosophy
While attempting to bring order and structure to the history of philosophy, professionals in modern universities have apparently lost sight of what philosophy really is. So says Matthew Stewart, who has discovered that in the professors’ well-intended pursuit of the truth and knowledge, this area of thought has been dissected, organized into a series of […]
Theism, Atheism, and Big Bang Cosmology
Written debate between William Lane Craig and Quentin Smith on the theological and atheological implications of modern cosmology.
Unintelligent Design
Spurred on not only by the quasi-scientific agenda of the so-called intelligent design theorists, who seek to prove the existence of God mathematically, but also by his personal contact with otherwise rational scientists, physicist Mark Perakh sets out to reveal the falsity of the claims of neocreationism with a thorough, carefully-detailed series of arguments aimed […]
What Evolution Is
Gathering insights from his seven-decade career, the renowned biologist Ernst Mayr argues that evolution is now to be considered not a theory but a fact–and that “there is not a single Why? question in biology that can be answered adequately without a consideration of evolution.” Mayr, emeritus professor of zoology at Harvard University, has long […]
Why Atheism?
George H. Smith, defender of reason and personal liberty, examines the following issues: the positive dimensions of atheism; the burden of proof; the nature of religious experience; problems in proofs of God’s existence; the ethics of Jesus; sex and guilt; Christian values in American society; religion and culture; the lure of “afterlife”; concepts of heaven, […]
Why We Still Need Public Schools
A collection of 25 essays by educators, historians, politicians, clergy, and social commentators who all believe that church-state separation is constitutionally impregnable.
