Top 10 Atheism Books

The following books are a great start for anyone interested in learning more about atheism. This list is not in any specific order - all 10 books are educational, entertaining and effective at communicating the atheist position. Atheist web sites are welcome to link directly to this Top 10 Atheism Books list.
1	The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins Book 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 critiques God in all his forms, from the sex-obsessed tyrant of the Old Testament to the more benign (but still illogical) Celestial Watchmaker favored by some Enlightenment thinkers. He eviscerates the major arguments for religion and demonstrates the supreme improbability of a supreme being. He shows how religion fuels war, foments bigotry, and abuses children, buttressing his points with historical and contemporary evidence. In so doing, he makes a compelling case that belief in God is not just irrational, but potentially deadly. Dawkins has fashioned an impassioned, rigorous rebuttal to religion, to be embraced by anyone who sputters at the inconsistencies and cruelties that riddle the Bible, bristles at the inanity of "intelligent design," or agonizes over fundamentalism in the Middle East—or Middle America.
2	Atheist Universe: The Thinking Person's Answer to Christian Fundamentalism by David Mills Book Description Clear, concise, and persuasive, Atheist Universe details exactly why God is unnecessary to explain the universe and life's diversity, organization, and beauty. The author thoroughly rebuts every argument that claims to "prove" God's existence - arguments based on logic, common sense, philosophy, ethics, history and science. Atheist Universe avoids the esoteric language and logic used by philosophers and presents its scientific evidence in simple lay terms, making it a richly entertaining and easy-to-read introduction to atheism. A comprehensive primer, it addresses all the historical and scientific questions, including: Is there proof that God does not exist? What evidence is there of Jesus's resurrection? Can creation science reconcile scripture with the latest scientific discoveries? Atheist Universe also answers ethical issues such as: What is the meaning of life without God? It's a spellbinding inquiry that ultimately arrives at a controversial and well-documented conclusion.
3	Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon by Daniel Dennett From Booklist A century and a half after Darwin rattled religionists with his revolutionary theory of human origins, one of his disciples has intensified the challenge to faith by advancing an evolutionary account of religion itself. Weaving together research in anthropology, genetics, and psychology, Dennett argues that religion first emerged not as a divine gift but rather as a thoroughly natural adaptation for enhancing the reproductive success of the species. Even more provocatively, Dennett further argues that religion--like language--has subsequently evolved so as to ensure its own survival in the ceaseless winnowing of cultural mutations. The pious in most faiths will likely protest that this approach gives only the husk, not the spirit, of religion, but Dennett insists that his study will ultimately benefit society by exposing the myths that empower fanatical terrorists. Remarkably bold, Dennett's agenda includes plans for preventing overzealous parents from instilling their faith in their children and for deploying the technology of mass advertising to foster religious doubt. A book certain to spark heated controversy.
4	God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything by Christopher Hitchens From Booklist *Starred Review* God is getting bad press lately. Sam Harris' The End of Faith(2005) and Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion (2006) have questioned the existence of any spiritual being and met with enormous success. Now, noted, often acerbic journalist Hitchens enters the fray. As his subtitle indicates, his premise is simple. Not only does religion poison everything, which he argues by explaining several ways in which religion is immoral, but the world would be better off without religion. Replace religious faith with inquiry, open-mindedness, and the pursuit of ideas, he exhorts. Closely reading major religious texts, Hitchens points to numerous examples of atrocities and mayhem in them. Religious faith, he asserts, is both result and cause of dangerous sexual repression. What's more, it is grounded in nothing more than wish fulfillment. Hence, he believes that religion is man-made, and an ethical life can be lived without its stamp of approval. With such chapter titles as "Religion Kills" and "Is Religion Child Abuse?" Hitchens intends to provoke, but he is not mean-spirited and humorless. Indeed, he is effortlessly witty and entertaining as well as utterly rational. Believers will be disturbed and may even charge him with blasphemy (he questions not only the virgin birth but the very existence of Jesus), and he may not change many minds, but he offers the open-minded plenty to think about.
5	The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason by Sam Harris Book Description 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 harmful behavior and sometimes-heinous crimes. He asserts that in the shadow of weapons of mass destruction, we can no longer tolerate views that pit one true god against another. Most controversially, he argues that we cannot afford moderate lip service to religion - an accommodation that only blinds us to the real perils of fundamentalism. While warning against the encroachment of organized religion into world politics, Harris also draws on new evidence from neuroscience and insights from philosophy to explore spirituality as a biological, brain-based need. He calls on us to invoke that need in taking a secular humanistic approach to solving the problems of this world. Natalie Angier wrote in the New York Times: "The End of Faith articulates the dangers and absurdities of organized religion so fiercely and so fearlessly that I felt relieved as I read it, vindicated... Harris writes what a sizable number of us think, but few are willing to say."
6	Letter to a Christian Nation by Sam Harris Book Description "Thousands of people have written to tell me that I am wrong not to believe in God. The most hostile of these communications have come from Christians. This is ironic, as Christians generally imagine that no faith imparts the virtues of love and forgiveness more effectively than their own. The truth is that many who claim to be transformed by Christ's love are deeply, even murderously, intolerant of criticism. While we may want to ascribe this to human nature, it is clear that such hatred draws considerable support from the Bible. How do I know this? The most disturbed of my correspondents always cite chapter and verse." So begins Letter to a Christian Nation...
7	Losing Faith in Faith: From Preacher to Atheistby Dan Barker From the Back Cover Losing Faith In Faith records Dan Barker's dramatic journey form devout soul-winner to one of America's most prominent freethinkers. After 19 years of preaching following his "calling" at age 15--including work as a missionary, ordained minister, associate pastor, touring evangelist, Christian songwriter and performer--Dan Barker "lost faith in faith." Today Barker, Public Relations Director of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, Inc., frequently represents freethought on the talkshow circuit and at personal appearances around the country. In Losing Faith In Faith, Barker explains why he left the ministry. He also offers a definitive, compelling analysis of why he rejects belief in a god and the claims of religion. He explores the fallacies, inconsistencies, and harm of Christian doctrine and theistic dogma. In its place, he issues an appealing and compassionate invocation of freethought, reason, and humanism. Losing Faith in Faith is both a challenge to believers and an arsenal for skeptics.
8	God: The Failed Hypothesis. How Science Shows That God Does Not Exist by Victor J. Stenger Richard Dawkins, Author of the New York Times best-seller The God Delusion "Darwin chased God out of his old haunts in biology, and he scurried for safety down the rabbit hole of physics. The laws and constants of the universe, we were told, are too good to be true: a set-up, carefully tuned to allow the eventual evolution of life. It needed a good physicist to show us the fallacy, and Victor Stenger lucidly does so. The faithful won't change their minds, of course (that is what faith means) but Victor Stenger drives a pack of energetic ferrets down the last major bolt hole and God is running out of refuges in which to hide. I learned an enormous amount from this splendid book."
9	Atheism: The Case Against God by George Smith From About.com Is theism a reasonable and rational position, or can a better case be made for atheism and against faith in the existence of gods? The goal of George Smith's books is to demonstrate that irrational beliefs are in fact harmful and that theism and religion are prime examples of irrationality. The conclusion, then, is that both must be abandoned and new ways of thinking about the world adopted in their place.
10	Why I am Not a Christian: And Other Essays on Religion and Related Subjects by Bertrand Russell Book Description Dedicated as few men have been to the life of reason, Bertrand Russell has always been concerned with the basic questions to which religion also addresses itself -- questions about man's place in the universe and the nature of the good life, questions that involve life after death, morality, freedom, education, and sexual ethics. He brings to his treatment of these questions the same courage, scrupulous logic, and lofty wisdom for which his other work as philosopher, writer, and teacher has been famous. These qualities make the essays included in this book perhaps the most graceful and moving presentation of the freethinker's position since the days of Hume and Voltaire. "I am as firmly convinced that religions do harm as I am that they are untrue," Russell declares in his Preface, and his reasoned opposition to any system or dogma which he feels may shackle man's mind runs through all the essays in this book, whether they were written as early as 1899 or as late as 1954. The book has been edited, with Lord Russell's full approval and cooperation, by Professor Paul Edwards of the Philosophy Department of New York University. In an Appendix, Professor Edwards contributes a full account of the highly controversial "Bertrand Russell Case" of 1940, in which Russell was judicially declared "unfit" to teach philosophy at the College of the City of New York. Whether the reader shares or rejects Bertrand Russell's views, he will find this book an invigorating challenge to set notions, a masterly statement of a philosophical position, and a pure joy to read.

Veronica by Mary Gaitskill

Veronica

Mary Gaitskill
Pantheon
Hardcover
240 pages
October 2005


Veronica is a sad, melancholy tale of love, sex, death, friendship, illness, and pain. Writing as though she is single-handedly redefining the genre of literary fiction in the disturbing yet exquisite Veronica, Mary Gaitskill has penned a compelling and persuasive story of a seemingly incompatible friendship in the age of AIDS.

Alyson first meets Veronica working as a temp for an ad agency in New York City. Initially finding her a little too forward, brash, and a little too hard to handle, Alyson is hesitant to befriend this slightly heavyset older woman who has difficulty making friends and is, at least to Alyson's eyes, an unmitigated fashion disaster. But a sympathetic connection forms between the two.

When Veronica confides that she has contracted HIV from Duncan, her self-confessed bisexual boyfriend, Alyson, with a mixture of pity, compassion, and perhaps even love, adopts this abrasive, prissy, uncompromising woman who doesn't know when to keep quiet,:"she has a lot of smart cracks stored up. She needed them, when she didn’t have them, she was naked and everybody saw."

But Alyson's friendship with Veronica is only part of the story. Gaitskill steadily charts Alyson's journey from her claustrophobic childhood in suburban New Jersey, complete with an uncommunicative, reserved father, a wayward, nervy mother, and two very ordinary sisters, to her time as a fashion model in the decadent Paris and Manhattan of the '80s - "the dumpy apartments full of sadomasochists, tattooed doorman in cave-like nightclubs, and strip mall bars for the beautiful club crowd."

We are first introduced to Alyson at fifty, the decadent hedonistic life of a model - the coke, the sex, the parties, and the beautiful people - a thing of the past. Now she is living a sad life full of pain; she has lost her looks and is on disability, plagued by chronic arm and neck pain. Only her best friend John is there to pity her, "a beautiful girl in a ruined face," forever broken with age and pain coming through the cracks.

It is only natural that Alyson should cling to something familiar, remembering her friendship with Veronica with a kind of whimsical regret. Veronica certainly wasn't the center of her life, but she was always there, the loyal person to fall back on. The recollection of her not only helps Alyson cope with her pain but also provides the story's central mirror image - while Alyson was carried way, "loving the rich things and the money and people kissing my *ss," Veronica's friendship ultimately provided the only solid bedrock of her life.

This novel is all about memory and the search for connection, perhaps even for love. Alyson aches for a meaningful relationship, for some kind of bond with someone. Her problem is that she's constantly looking at people in her life as objects without specific functions, circulating in a world where the physical beauty is all. She wants to know people and to love, but she has developed a "habit of distance" that has become so deep she doesn't know how to be with another person. Even when Veronica is near death's door, silently suffering, Alyson is quick to pass brittle, frail judgments upon her.

Most of the characters in Veronica are unlikable, but it is testament to Gaitskill's enormous talents as a writer that she can expose their very real human flaws yet create certain sympathies for their plight. Alyson is an utterly fascinating character; she seems to be suspended forever on an imaginary brink, eyes dimmed and looking at nothing. In Veronica, the author has created a complex women who gradually realizes that there is a senselessly "disordered world" that is "slowly being taken from her. "

The characters in Veronica are constantly living on the verge, but they also fully hold close their fates even if they are reluctant to do so, whether it is chronic pain, a life of bad luck, or even certain death from an incurable disease, or just plain sadness – "sadness brimmed; it bore up my hate like water bears ice and carried it away." Their complicated relationships and their lives in the big city are rife with distress, lonesomeness, and neglect. But for Alyson, hope is on the horizon, and you get the feeling that she'll be able to make her way in the world. The novel ends optimistically, an undeniable vestige of sanguinity in this profound work of contemporary literary fiction.


Originally published on Curled Up With A Good Book at www.curledup.com. © Michael Leonard, 2006

A Thousand Times More Fair

Joyce Carol Oates

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Cuban American author Jorge Reyes

 

Jorge Reyes (b. 1972) is a Cuban-born American author known for authoring books in several genres.

Early life
Born in Santiago de Cuba, Reyes left Cuba for the United States via Costa Rica in 1982.

Published Books
Reyes has written books in several genres of literature: biography, fiction, non-fiction, comedy, children's books, poetry.

His first book was a book in Spanish titled Guia Para Descubrir Tu Cuerpo, about the human anatomy for children ages 7-10. According to Publishers Weekly, the book demonstrated Reyes's ability to distill very complex information (the human body) into simple, but highly visual.

Most of what is known about Reyes's childhood was written by Reyes himself in Rediscovering Cuba: A Personal Memoir, published in 2001. The book is based on a trip to Cuba to see his ailing grandmother.  This was followed by a collection of poems titled, My Words Mean Something.

As of 2013, no release date has yet been set for some of his other books.  

Reyes lives in South Florida.



BOOK REVIEW: Bright-sides: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America by Barbara Ehrenreich

by Jorge Reyes
Years ago I had a supervisor who approved my draft memos with a happy face. Of course when one of the drafts weren't approved, I'd see an unhappy face.

Let's face it, we Americans think of ourselves as a happy people. Even our most basic legal framework, the Bill of Rights, protects such ephemeral concept-- the pursuit of happiness. (A weird concept of a legal right if you think about it.)

How refreshing, then, to read a book that puts the entire business enterprise of happiness into perspective, such as “Bright-sides: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America,” by Barbara Ehrenreich.

Ehrenreich sets out to analyze that strange notion of happiness which goes by many names and that is so peculiar about this early part of the 21st century.

She feels that happiness, or positive thinking, has become the main and most paradigmatic cultural trend in America today. From the preacher Joel Osteen to Oprah Winfrey to Dr. Phil, she questions why this trend (happiness as the cure for all malaise) has become so entrenched in popular culture, and when, if how, it might end.

Happiness, Ehrenreich says, is not the same as feeling good, or having a generalized positive outlook on life or about being hopeful or even courageous. Feeling good, or feeling bad, are natural human emotions and are legitimate ways to cope with life, especially during times of crisis, such as when suffering from cancer, as the author was. Stricken with this deadly disease, Ehrenreich's therapist asked her on more than one occasion to embrace her ailment, to accept it cheerfully, to befriend it almost in a halo of light.

That, she feels, is brainwashing and a very irresponsible way of looking at the world.

Ehrenreich likens happiness to what it has become in many circles-- a sort of mysterious, supernatural mantra that can be channelled by a proactive mental process in the vain hope of altering reality to conform to our wishful thinking, which is what it is.

Under the veneer of so much happy talk there lurks a darker shadow, though, and that's one of the most fascinating aspect of Ehrenreich's book. By comparison with other industrialized nations, in America children are most likely to die in infancy and grow up in dire poverty. The health care system, as we all know, is fractured at the same time that it is also one of the most expensive. We have a very high rate of incarceration. Our income disparities is becoming alarming. We Americans consume 2/3 of all the world's market for antidepressants.

The list is long. Exhaustive. Sobering under so much talk about happiness.

Throughout the book, Ehrenreich continually asks some very important questions. Do we say that we're happy because we're truly happy? Or do we just say that we're happy in order to fight off personal insecurities? Are we happy because we rely so much on prescription, or illegal, drugs and are constantly in a daze? If we didn't rely on so many antidepressants, would we feel as happy?

As she cautions in the introduction, “there is a vast difference between positive thinking and existential courage.” Ouch.

The culture of happiness, in all its variants, is just an offshot of the old idea of progress. It is nothing new. People who adher to it see human nature as malleable, progressing towards a better future based on reason and, yes, happiness. Hence, “the pursuit of happiness” in our Bill of Rights.

But where most of these progressive ideas stopped short, extremism filled the gap. Fast-forward into the 21st century, and you grasp how these extremist ideas have been reinterpreted in a way that has become a billion dollar business.

Happiness, divorced from circumstances, is an utopian ideal, and that's the main theme of this book. After all how can anyone argue against happiness?

Feeling happy is an ennobling and healthy endeavor, perhaps one of the healthiest feelings any of us can have. As it has been demonstrated by scientific research, without the feeling of feeling happy or without the feeling of what happens generally (to paraphrase Antonio Damasio an expert in neuroscience) our human species would be in a much sorry shape.

Happiness becomes a problem, a pathological New Age mumbo jumbo, though, when all other feelings except it are discredited offhand as less than or unworthy of other forms of human feelings. Like it or not, to be sad has its merits. To be depressed. To be angry. To feel revengeful. Within the panoply of human feelings, none should be repressed or disregarded.

The world, life, living in general, is full of strife. Unfortunately, as the conclusion of this books attests to, there really isn't a bluepring for living, only a propensity for survival and that can be either good or bad, happy or sad. The world is what it is and we are vulnerable creatures living in it, reacting to circumstances, often times rebelling against them, while at other times accepting our fate with quiet, resigned acquiescense.

If by the end of the book you feel a little less happy, cheer up. A gloom and doom existential scenario is not what this book is about; after all, life-- the mystery of living-- is something not to be despaired about. On the contrary, there's cause for celebration in living.

So if along the way in your journey you ever feel genuinely happy about something or someone, then consider yourself lucky and cherish those moments for as long or as short as they may be.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Jorge Reyes is the author of books written across multiple genres, including "Rediscovering Cuba: A Personal Memoir" published in 2000. He is also known for writing a collection of poems title "My Words Mean Something" and a children's book in Spanish about the human anatomy titled "Guia Para Descubrir Tu Cuerpo."

Week's NYT Best Seller List

HARDCOVER FICTION

Top 5 at a Glance
1. TRIBUTE, by Nora Roberts
2. FEARLESS FOURTEEN, by Janet Evanovich
3. THE LAST PATRIOT, by Brad Thor
4. THE STORY OF EDGAR SAWTELLE, by David Wroblewski
5. SWAN PEAK, by James Lee Burke


HARDCOVER NONFICTION

Top 5 at a Glance
1. WHEN YOU ARE ENGULFED IN FLAMES, by David Sedaris
2. ARE YOU THERE, VODKA? IT’S ME, CHELSEA, by Chelsea Handler
3. FLEECED, by Dick Morris and Eileen McGann
4. WHAT HAPPENED, by Scott McClellan
5. STORI TELLING, by Tori Spelling with Hilary Liftin


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1. THE SHACK, by William P. Young
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3. THE KITE RUNNER, by Khaled Hosseini
4. THE ALCHEMIST, by Paulo Coelho
5. NINETEEN MINUTES, by Jodi Picoult


PAPERBACK MASS-MARKET FICTION

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1. LEAN MEAN THIRTEEN, by Janet Evanovich
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3. SOMEDAY SOON, by Debbie Macomber
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5. STEP ON A CRACK, by James Patterson and Michael Ledwidge


PAPERBACK NONFICTION

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1. THREE CUPS OF TEA, by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin
2. EAT, PRAY, LOVE, by Elizabeth Gilbert
3. BIG RUSS AND ME, by Tim Russert
4. WISDOM OF OUR FATHERS, by Tim Russert
5. THE AUDACITY OF HOPE, by Barack Obama


HARDCOVER ADVICE

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1. DECEPTIVELY DELICIOUS, by Jessica Seinfeld
2. THE LAST LECTURE, by Randy Pausch with Jeffrey Zaslow
3. THE SECRET, by Rhonda Byrne
4. GOODNIGHT BUSH, by Erich Origen and Gan Golan
5. THE SOUTH BEACH DIET SUPERCHARGED, by Arthur Agatston with Joseph Signorile


PAPERBACK ADVICE

Top 5 at a Glance
1. A NEW EARTH, by Eckhart Tolle
2. SKINNY BITCH, by Rory Freedman and Kim Barnouin
3. THE POWER OF NOW, by Eckhart Tolle
4. SOUL WISDOM, by Dr. Zhi Gang Sha
5. PERFECT SELLING, by Linda Richardson


CHILDREN’S BOOKS

Top 5 at a Glance
1. YOU CAN DO IT!, by Tony Dungy
2. GALLOP!, written and illustrated by Rufus Butler Seder
3. ALPHABET, by Matthew Van Fleet
4. A VISITOR FOR BEAR, by Bonny Becker
5. SMASH! CRASH!, by Jon Scieszka