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Recommended Readings for a Beginning Atheist
#21
RE: Recommended Readings for a Beginning Atheist
If you want some lighter reading, you might want to try Robert Green Ingersoll's works related to religion. Discovering him back in 1999/2000 was how I began my journey on the road toward atheism.
"Never trust a fox. Looks like a dog, behaves like a cat."
~ Erin Hunter
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#22
RE: Recommended Readings for a Beginning Atheist
(March 17, 2014 at 7:54 am)OGirly Wrote:
(March 17, 2014 at 5:55 am)jesus_wept Wrote: I know this isn't what you want but i found learning about logical fallacies to be very useful. Read up on them and try and see how many you can spot in religious literature. You'll be amazed how much of it is fallacious.

Good advice! I have to start taking formal logic classes for my philosophy major this upcoming semester. Looking forward to it, but I'm sure a head start is never a bad idea Tongue

The Philosopher's Toolkit is a great starting point for such things. Many logical fallacies, etc outlined. The book is written by Baggini and Fosl, published by wiley-blackwell.
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#23
RE: Recommended Readings for a Beginning Atheist
I think Hitchens' "God is Not Great" was great. "The God Delusion" was even better, IMO.

You can't go wrong with either Big Grin
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#24
RE: Recommended Readings for a Beginning Atheist
Reading about atheism got boring for me quickly. I'd just stick to science.

Napo, Brian Greene's "The Fabric of the Cosmos" was an excellent book about the nature of time and space for people that were looking to get into some of the deeper subjects like cosmology and quantum physics but don't have a heavy background in science or math. It was mind-bending, and I don't pretend to understand all of it. But it was well worth the read.
Even if the open windows of science at first make us shiver after the cozy indoor warmth of traditional humanizing myths, in the end the fresh air brings vigor, and the great spaces have a splendor of their own - Bertrand Russell
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#25
Recommended Readings for a Beginning Atheist
(March 17, 2014 at 7:54 am)OGirly Wrote:
(March 17, 2014 at 5:55 am)jesus_wept Wrote: I know this isn't what you want but i found learning about logical fallacies to be very useful. Read up on them and try and see how many you can spot in religious literature. You'll be amazed how much of it is fallacious.

Good advice! I have to start taking formal logic classes for my philosophy major this upcoming semester. Looking forward to it, but I'm sure a head start is never a bad idea :P

Houston Smith's "The World's Religions" is a good primer for what other religions believe. Christians often claim their religion is unique, when that simply isn't true.
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#26
RE: Recommended Readings for a Beginning Atheist
(March 17, 2014 at 10:10 am)Kitanetos Wrote: If you want some lighter reading, you might want to try Robert Green Ingersoll's works related to religion. Discovering him back in 1999/2000 was how I began my journey on the road toward atheism.
I would endorse this recommendation. I've read all of his collected works. He had a great sense of humor and knew everyone who was worth knowing in 19th century America.
If you could reason with religious people, there would be no religious people — House
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#27
RE: Recommended Readings for a Beginning Atheist
(March 16, 2014 at 1:30 pm)OGirly Wrote: I was wondering, and I thought maybe others may be as well, if any of you could recommend some decent books on atheism/atheistic thought? I'm rather new to all of this, and I like to explore what others have to say on the subject. I'm familiar with some atheistic philosophers, and people like Richard Dawkins; but I'm looking for some others as well and thought you all may have some favourites you'd like to pass along/share.

I need to get my summer reading list together. I don't have money to take classes this summer semester (and after finally having to get into the meat and potatoes of my pre-med this semester I"m not sure if I'd want to anyway lol) so I need to fill my time with some sort of learning.

The bible.

How anyone can read that and think its fact i don't know.



You can fix ignorance, you can't fix stupid.

Tinkety Tonk and down with the Nazis.




 








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#28
RE: Recommended Readings for a Beginning Atheist
(March 17, 2014 at 2:51 pm)downbeatplumb Wrote:
(March 16, 2014 at 1:30 pm)OGirly Wrote: I was wondering, and I thought maybe others may be as well, if any of you could recommend some decent books on atheism/atheistic thought? I'm rather new to all of this, and I like to explore what others have to say on the subject. I'm familiar with some atheistic philosophers, and people like Richard Dawkins; but I'm looking for some others as well and thought you all may have some favourites you'd like to pass along/share.

I need to get my summer reading list together. I don't have money to take classes this summer semester (and after finally having to get into the meat and potatoes of my pre-med this semester I"m not sure if I'd want to anyway lol) so I need to fill my time with some sort of learning.

The bible.

How anyone can read that and think its fact i don't know.

By reaching a conclusion first, then looking for evidence to support it.
Poe's Law: "Without a winking smiley or other blatant display of humor, it is impossible to create a parody of Fundamentalism that SOMEONE won't mistake for the real thing."

10 Christ-like figures that predate Jesus. Link shortened to Chris ate Jesus for some reason...
http://listverse.com/2009/04/13/10-chris...ate-jesus/

Good video to watch, if you want to know how common the Jesus story really is.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=88GTUXvp-50

A list of biblical contradictions from the infallible word of Yahweh.
http://infidels.org/library/modern/jim_m...tions.html

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#29
RE: Recommended Readings for a Beginning Atheist


http://infidels.org/library/ contains many good essays, both modern and historical

If you're looking for refutation of creationist arguments, http://www.talkorigins.org/ is the place to go.

For good short articles on philosophy, try the iep, http://www.iep.utm.edu/, or Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, http://plato.stanford.edu

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#30
RE: Recommended Readings for a Beginning Atheist
Again, thank you everyone. This is a great list that I'll be coming back to for awhile I'm sure. Lot's of resources! Thanks so much!
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