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Our selection of books and associated reviews. Each cover is an affiliate link to Amazon for purchase.
Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong
Mackie argues that morality is subjective and therefore invented rather than discovered.
Fading Faith: The Rise of the Secular Age
Description A historic transition is occurring, barely noticed. Slowly, imperceptibly, religion is shriveling. Pope Benedict XVI laments that “Europe has developed a culture that, in a manner unknown before now to humanity, excludes God from the public conscience.” In Denmark and Sweden, fewer than 5% of adults are in church on a typical Sunday. In […]
Freedom Evolves
Daniel C. Dennett is a brilliant polemicist, famous for challenging unexamined orthodoxies. Over the last thirty years, he has played a major role in expanding our understanding of consciousness, developmental psychology, and evolutionary theory. And with such groundbreaking, critically acclaimed books as Consciousness Explained and Darwin’s Dangerous Idea (a National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize […]
God is Dead: Secularization in the West
Christianity in the democracies of the “first” world has been declining in power, popularity and prestige since 1900. However, many commentators, social scientists as well as church leaders, try and minimize the extent of this change. They maintain that religious sentiment remains strong despite declining levels of church involvement, and insist that secularization is an […]
Hal’s Legacy : 2001’s Computer As Dream and Reality
If you loved “2001: A Space Odyssey,” you’ll be delighted by this book that asks “How realistic was HAL?” Contributions by various scientists include essays on supercomputer design with regard to speech synthesis, common sense reasoning, emotions, lip reading and even playing chess. As the authors explore what is science fantasy and what is technological […]
How to Think Straight About Psychology
How to Think Straight About Psychology is a concise and easy-to-read “handbook” that evaluates the most important concepts and issues in psychology. Written in an engaging and nontechnical style, this acclaimed book, now in its fifth edition, highlights the essential concepts of falsifiability, operationism, experimental control, converging evidence, and correlational versus experimental studies, as well […]
I, Robot
“To you, a robot is a robot. Gears and Metal; Electricity and positrons. – Mind and iron! Human-made! If necessary, human-destroyed. But you haven’t worked with them, so you don’t know them. They’re a cleaner, better breed than we are.” — Dr. Susan Calvin, 2057 A.D. In a brilliant, chilling series of nine related short […]
Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology
Synopsis Unavailable
Jesus Christ and Mythology
Jesus Christ and Mythology is Bultmann’s interpretation of Heidegger’s existentialism as applied to the Christian worldview. He argues that the ancient worldview of the New Testament is incompatible with the modern worldview of science and that we must reinterpret our understanding of the biblical texts if we are to continue to find meaning within them. […]
Leaps of Faith: Science, Miracles, and the Search for Supernatural Consolation
The late Gordon Stein said of this book: “A very thoughtful and instructive book. Humphrey has marshalled his arguments carefully and illustrated them well. It is the kind of book that both skeptics and believers would do well to read, and it holds a unique place in the literature for that reason.” Telepathy. Ghosts. The […]
Malleus Maleficarum
For nearly three centuries Malleus Maleficarum (The Witches’ Hammer) was the professional manual for witch hunters. This work by two of the most famous Inquisitors of the age is still a document of the force of that era’s beliefs. Under a Bull of Pope Innocent VIII, Kramer and Sprenger exposed the heresy of those who […]
Mormon Enigma: Emma Hale Smith
The best biography of Joseph Smith’s wife and a telling expose of polygamy in the Mormon church.
No Man Knows My History: The Life of Joseph Smith: The Mormon Prophet
The first paperback edition of the classic biography of the founder of the Mormon church, this book attempts to answer the questions that continue to surround Joseph Smith. Was he a genuine prophet, or a gifted fabulist who became enthralled by the products of his imagination and ended up being martyred for them? 24 pages […]
Only Begotten Daughter
Murray Katz, the celibate keeper of an abandoned lighthouse near Atlantic City, has been blessed with a daughter conceived of his own seed and a holy ovum. Like her half brother Jesus, Julie Katz can walk on water, heal the blind, and raise the dead. But being the Messiah isn’t easy, and Julie, bewildered by […]
Philosophy of Religion: A Reader and Guide
This important new book is a combined anthology and guide intended for use as a textbook in courses on philosophy of religion. It aims to bring to the student the very best of cutting-edge work on important topics in the field. The anthology is comprised of six sections, each of which opens with a substantive […]
Raising the Devil: Satanism, New Religions, and the Media
Rob Hardy writes for Amazon: “Bill Ellis is a folklorist, and an academic specializing in English and American studies. His book, [i]Raising the Devil: Satanism, New Religions, and the Media[/i] (University Press of Kentucky) attempts a sympathetic understanding of how the Devil made one of his cyclic emergences and how folklore can affect society and […]
Religion Inc.: the Church of Scientology
Synopsis not complete.
Rose’s Will
Description When it comes to unconditional love, Italian matriarch, Rose D’Orsi is deeply challenged. Nobody feels it more than Glory, her estranged 48-year-old lesbian daughter. Though Rose attracts the attention of Eli Fineman, a rich Bulgarian Holocaust survivor whose love, compassion, and wit affects people in unimaginable ways, he arrives too late in life to […]
Secret Origins of the Bible
Description Using comparative mythology, and tell-tale verses in the Bible and archaeology, Secret Origins of the Bible demonstrates that the stories and themes of the Bible were part of the great mythic systems of the ancient world. The abstract God of modern monotheistic Judaism, Christianity and Islam is a comparatively recent creation. In later times […]
SOS Sobriety: The Proven Alternative to 12-Step Programs
In this controversial book, the founder of S.O.S. — Secular Organizations for Sobriety, or “Save Our Selves” — describes his “sobriety priority” approach to abstinence and attacks programs that promote “controlled drinking” for alcoholics and that insist alcoholism is a behavioral problem rather than a physiological and genetic one.
System of Nature (Volume 1)
The System of Nature, known as the Atheists’ Bible, is the most radical expression of atheist materialism to come from the eighteenth century milieu of the philosophes in Paris. D’Holbach (1723-1789) was a central figure of the French intellectual enlightenment, contributing prolifically to Diderot’s Encyclopedie, and undertaking numerous translations of British free thought. His intention […]
The Annotated H.P. Lovecraft
Offers four of the author’s best short stories along with the eerie novella, At the Mountains of Madness, complemented by a scholarly introduction, hundreds of detailed annotations, and photographs and illustrations depicting the author’s life and work.
The Big Domino in the Sky
The Big Domino in the Sky and Other Atheistic Tales is a fun and thought-provoking collection of short stories in the form of science fiction, historical fiction, and fantasy. There is no other book like it on the market.
The Castle
Kafka’s existential insight is still as poignant today as it was in the late nineteenth-century when he wrote. The Castle addresses the modern problem of the enormous gulf that separates us from God. Instead of a clearly accessible God, there exists a no-man’s land of shadow and illusion, in which roam clerics and bureaucrats that […]
The Dark Side of Christian History
Over a period of nearly two millennia, the Christian Church has oppressed and brutalized millions of individuals. Meticulously researched and courageously written, The Dark Side of Christian History by Helen Ellerbe examines the Church’s devastating impact upon human freedom, dignity and spirituality. Written for the lay reader, this controversial book is especially relevant today as […]
The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason
An impassioned plea for reason in a world divided by faith. This important and timely book delivers a startling analysis of the clash of faith and reason in today’s world. Harris offers a vivid historical tour of mankind’s willingness to suspend reason in favor of religious beliefs, even when those beliefs are used to justify […]
The Fantasies of Robert A. Heinlein
The Fantasies of Robert A. Heinlein gives newer SF readers and fans a less-known side of his work and opportunity to savor crisp sentences filled with telling detail, sardonic observations of character, and engrossing tales. The stories, originally published in the 1940s and ’50s, showcase Heinlein’s science-fictional approach to fantasy. Though magic works and the […]
The Godless Constitution: The Case Against Religious Correctness
The word God does not appear in the U.S. Constitution. Kramnick and Moore remind us why it does not and also how efforts to insert it have been staved off. They take us back to radical Christian Roger Williams’ influential insistence upon a religiously neutral polity for Rhode Island and to the British roots of […]
The Illusion of Immortality
The Illusion of Immortality details the often ignored scientific evidence against life after death. Lamont first outlines different historical views of immortality, presents the scientific evidence from mind-brain dependence against the immortality of the soul, considers the problem of what an afterlife environment could possibly be like, and evaluates arguments that immortality must be guaranteed […]
The Last Three Minutes
Subtitled “Conjectures About the Ultimate Fate of the Universe” from the Science Masters Series, Davies presents various alternatives for what happens when the universe reaches its final destiny. The only downside is that this book, dating from 1997, predates the recent discovery of facts tending to lead to the conclusion of a positive cosmological constant, […]
