Here's a list of books I've read that have had a big impact on my journey.

First and foremost tho, you should learn to meditate. That's the most instrumental part of any spiritual path.

 Ram Dass – “Be Here Now” - https://www.amazon.com/Be-Here-Now-Ram-Dass/dp/0517543052 - Possibly the most important book in the list – was the biggest impact in my life.  Fuses Western and Eastern religions/ideas. Kinda whacky to read, but definitely #1

Ram Dass - “Journey Of Awakening” - https://www.amazon.com/dp/B006L7R2EI - Another Ram Dass book - once I got more into Transcendental Meditation and wanted to learn other ways/types of meditation, this helped out.

 Clifford Pickover – “Sex, Drugs, Einstein & Elves…” - https://www.amazon.com/Sex-Drugs-Einstein-Elves-Transcendence/dp/1890572179/ - Somewhat random, frantic book – explores lots of ideas – planted a lot of seeds in my head that I followed up on in most of the books below

 Daniel Pinchbeck – “Breaking Open the Head” - https://www.amazon.com/Breaking-Open-Head-Psychedelic-Contemporary/dp/0767907434 - First book I read to explore impact of psychedelics on our brains

 Jeremy Narby – “Cosmic Serpent” - https://www.amazon.com/Cosmic-Serpent-DNA-Origins-Knowledge/dp/0874779642/ - Got into this book from the above, explores Ayahuasca deeper and relevancy of serpent symbolism in our society and DNA

 Robert Forte – “Entheogens and the Future of Religion” - https://www.amazon.com/Entheogens-Future-Religion-Robert-Forte/dp/1594774382 - Collection of essays and speeches from scientists, religious leaders, etc., about the use of psychedelics (referred to as Entheogens) as the catalyst for religion/spirituality

 Clark Strand – “Waking up to the Dark” - https://www.amazon.com/Waking-Up-Dark-Ancient-Sleepless/dp/0812997727 - Explores human’s addiction to artificial light, also gets into femininity of religion as balance to masculine ideas in our society

 Lee Bolman – “Leading with Soul” - https://www.amazon.com/Leading-Soul-Uncommon-Journey-Spirit/dp/0470619007 - Discusses using spirituality to foster a better, more supportive and creative workplace – pivotal in my honesty/openness approach when chatting about life with coworkers

 Eben Alexander – “Proof of Heaven” - https://www.amazon.com/Proof-Heaven-Neurosurgeons-Journey-Afterlife/dp/1451695195 - A neurophysicist discusses his near death experience and his transformation from non-believer to believer (title is a little click-baity, but very insightful book.  His descriptions of his experience align very similarly to deep meditations I’ve had)

 Indries Shah – “Thinkers of the East” - https://www.amazon.com/Thinkers-East-Idries-Shah/dp/178479063X/ - A collection of parables and stories from Islamic scholars.  Got turned onto Islamic writings after my trip through Pakistan, this book is great for structure around our whole spiritual “journey”

 Whitley Strieber – “The Key: A True Encounter” - https://www.amazon.com/Key-True-Encounter-Whitley-Strieber/dp/1585428698 - A man’s recollection of a conversation with a spiritual creature visiting him in a hotel room.  Sort of out there, easy to dismiss, but the topics are pretty solid

 Mary Scott – “Kundalini in the Physical World” - https://www.amazon.com/Kundalini-Physical-World-Mary-Scott/dp/0710094175/ - Very dense, very difficult scientific book exploring Hinduism and metaphysics (wouldn’t recommend this for light reading, definitely something you’d want to save for later in your “journey”)

 Hermann Hesse – “Siddartha” - https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/siddhartha-hermann-hesse/1116718450? – Short novel about a spiritual journey, coming of age type book.  Beautifully written, very enjoyable.

Reza Aslan - “Zealot” - https://www.amazon.com/ZEALOT-Life-Times-Jesus-Nazareth/dp/140006922X - Talks about the historical Jesus - helped me reconnect with Christianity in a way I didn’t have before

Reza Aslan - “No god but God” - https://www.amazon.com/god-but-God-Updated-Evolution/dp/0812982444 - Same as above, but in terms of Mohammad and Islam.  I’m starting to try to integrate the “truths” of our religions to try and form my own understanding

Thich Nhat Hanh - “Silence” - https://www.amazon.com/Silence-Power-Quiet-World-Noise-ebook/dp/B00MEIMCVG - Hanh’s a Vietnamese Buddhist monk - in this book he writes a lot about finding the beauty in silence, turning off the voice in our heads and lives, and living in peace.

Paulo Coelho - “The Alchemist” - https://www.amazon.com/Alchemist-Paulo-Coelho/dp/0062315005/ - Sort of a modern day exploration of “the path” similar to “Siddhartha.”  Very easy and a joy to read, good concepts of what it means to be on a “path”

Carlos Castaneda - "The Teachings of Don Juan" - The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge https://www.amazon.com/dp/0671600419 - Started exploring more into shamanism and indigenous spiritual work; this book was a great intro and written in an entertaining and accessible way. 

Jean-Yves Leloup - “The Gospel of Mary” - https://www.amazon.com/Gospel-Mary-Magdalene-Jean-Yves-Leloup/dp/0892819111/ - The book that finally opened my eyes to the potentiality of the teachings of Christ.  This book, combined with the one below, have been truly transformative in my belief system and accepting humanity and the power of love beyond what I’ve found so far in my journey.

Jean-Yves Leloup - “The Gospel of Philip” - https://www.amazon.com/Gospel-Philip-Magdalene-Gnosis-Sacred/dp/1594770220 - Really begins to dissect and dive into the metaphysical teachings of Christ, exploring the concept of marriage, human union and sexuality, and the power contained within.  This book, combined with the one above, have radically changed my perception of The Church as dissimilar and antithetical to what Christ actually taught.

Ram Dass - “Be Love Now” - https://www.amazon.com/Be-Love-Now-Path-Heart/dp/0061961388 - A follow-up to “Be Here Now” - gets more into the esoteric side of things, his relationship with his Guru, enlightenment, enlightened beings, etc.

Riane Eisler - “The Chalice and the Blade” - https://www.amazon.com/Chalice-Blade-Our-History-Future/dp/0062502891 - An anthropoligical book analyzing the dominative vs cooperative models in the history and pre-history of society and how our roots have been co-opted and rewritten by the dominative model to entrap society into accepting a false truth of violence and dominance as “the way it is”

Let me first say this: you are an amazing and incredibly courageous woman! There are two things I have found to be the most important in life. A life without them is one stripped of its humanity and flavor. Indeed, people have died for them, fought for them and spent countless lifetimes seeking them;and rightly so for they are freedom and truth. I left my religion because I would not be a slave to any man, clergy or capricious deity. I left because I would not rest my entire existence on an iron age book that was obviously a lie. I valued my freedom and my quest for truth more than the love that my family had for me, more than my friends and my security. For finding the strength, the courage and above all the love of humanity to do the same...I want you to know that you deserve respect.

I can definitely sympathize with the non-christian culture problem. Think about it this way: you are on a great adventure. For the first time in your life, you have been given the chance to discover what it truly means to be YOU (free of cavemen superstitions and guilt of being human). As hardcore Christians we were taught that everything about us is just that-christian. That is not true! We still have our own personal preferences, personalities and tastes. The mistake that people make is to assume that, because they are no longer Christians, they are sorority material and going clubbing every weekend is their cup of tea. So be yourself, surround yourself with people who will love you for it and most importantly: don't be afraid to tell your story. Stories are the foundation of identity and having one is essential to being human. The next time you are completely lost in a conversation, don't be scared to say why. Doing so will not only help the other person connect with you on a deeper level, it will also help you gain more self acceptance. Sure, maybe the sexy quarterback won't want you anymore. But do you really want people in your life who would turn their backs on you, if only they knew ye? Don't worry about it too much though. In time, you will be surprised by how much of a non-christian you have become.

Your mother may no longer be with you but she lives on through your memories and her legacy to the family she cherished and to the world she lived in. I think it is more respectful and humane to celebrate who she was and what she accomplished than to constantly spend that time feeding the false hope of seeing her again. I am sorry if I sound too rude but I could not find a better way to say it. When all the chips are down, your family may no longer want you. I can feel the pain that brings as I write this. However, its would be their loss and not yours. You can surround your life with people who love you and support you despite not being blood relatives-isn't that what family is all about? And should you feel so inclined, you can make your own family and have children that you will "love no matter what (parenting 101)".

Lastly, you do not need to worry about burning in hell, trust me. Better still, don't trust me and pick up three books I strongly recommend: [Godless] (http://www.amazon.com/Godless-Evangelical-Preacher-Americas-Atheists/dp/1569756775) ,[Letter to a christian nation] (http://www.amazon.com/Letter-Christian-Nation-Sam-Harris/dp/0307278778/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1427723744&sr=1-1&keywords=letter+to+a+christian+nation) and [God is not great] (http://www.amazon.com/God-Not-Great-Religion-Everything/dp/0446697966/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1427723824&sr=1-1&keywords=god+is+not+great) . Before you do that ask yourself: if you went to heaven, would you trust yourself to have a good time knowing that good people are being tortured FOREVER? Why? Because they didn't believe in a god that did everything he could to hide from us. Or maybe they mistakenly believed in the wrong one?

As for my story. Well, I was raised in a christian fundamentalist cult. Being LGBT certainly didn't help and all in all, it would probably make you cry. You don't need to cry right now, you need to be happy because from now on you will forever be free of the superstitions of ancient cavemen (85% of the world still isn't). You are free to own your own mind, your body and your soul -just kidding, nobody has one-you are truly free (pause a moment and realize what that means) and the prototype for the next step in the evolution of the homo sapiens mindset. I am sure there are far more cheerful stories here on Reddit.

>The statements you made before this one, about what each gospel author wrote, similarities and differences, are factual statements. This conclusion on what it "seems" is an opinion, even if it is an opinion "based on evidence."

All rational conclusions are opinions drawn from evaluation of evidence or premises. I use words such as seem, appear, or suggest, to allow for some element of inconclusivity when making assertions about authorial intention or other elusive subjects. We don’t know, for example, why the author of the Gospel of Luke omitted instances of Jesus experiencing emotions like compassion and anger, but we can reasonably argue that Luke may have considered such depictions inconsistent with his conception of the Son of God, or, possibly, he was concerned with what his readers might extrapolate from a God who displays emotion.

It’s hard to say for sure; Luke’s motivation could have been something else entirely. What we do know, is that Luke made conscious editorial decisions when incorporating Mark’s material into his own gospel, and that these conclusions make sense of the available data. Based on the evidence, textual-analysis, and logical reasoning, one can eliminate certain incorrect interpretations of the data easier than locking down a definitive conclusion.

>But even if it is fully correct that Luke was intentionally sending a different message about the meaning of Jesus' life and death... There is a difference between "they have two different messages" and "there is no conceivable way to combine the two into a coherent single message," much less "the two contradict each other."

Much of this semantic quibbling preoccupied with the meaning and appropriate use of terms such as message. I would argue that Luke and Mark have different soteriological concepts which are, on some significant points, at odds with one another. This is not to say that they don’t have substantial commonalities.

I’ve never made a statement like, “there is no conceivable way to combine the two into a coherent single message" because I realize that Christian apologists and theologians conceive numerous ways to reconcile, harmonize, and gloss over such difficulties. My criticism of their efforts is that they don’t make the best, most reasonable sense of the data. Furthermore, I would contend that apologetics and harmonizing is ultimately motivated by a felt need to protect an untenable belief about the nature and origin of the Bible, (i.e., their doctrine of scripture and the inextricable concepts of its infallibility and inerrancy), and is not prompted by a desire to follow the evidence, wherever it may lead.

In practice, people effectively harmonize the differences between the gospels all the time. Most are unaware that Mark and Luke have different soteriologies; that Matthew and Luke have conflicting infancy narratives; and that John has no parables and changes the essential message of Jesus from that found in Mark, Matthew, and Luke. Some Christians argue that such differences are complementary, the authors only highlighting portions of the story left out by the other writers. This is, technically, a “conceivable way to combine [the multiple accounts] into a coherent single message,” but is it the best, most rational way to make sense of the readily apparent differences? Would someone draw the same conclusion if they didn’t have so much at stake? If they didn’t already assume that the Bible was supernaturally inspired? It’s a considerable, rationally-indefensible bias which Christians must overcome.


>… it makes more sense to me, and is more of an evidence of veracity, for there to be noticeable differences between authors than for the versions to be suspiciously in lock-step as if someone intentionally modified them to make them match up better.

>Confusion and/or contradiction would be for example if gospel 1 & 2 say Jesus came to pour out His blood for the sins of many, Gospel 3 says Jesus was incorporeal and didn't actually have blood or a body, and Gospel 4 says Jesus is Ba'als son by Asherah and demands you worship at your nearest temple prostitute.

From comparing the two gospels, it’s evident that Mark considered Jesus’ death to be atonement for sin while Luke did not, though he did think it necessary to fulfill God’s plan of salvation. You’re free to dismiss this difference as inconsequential and easily reconciled. Much of the divergences between the biblical texts are of this sort, small but significant theological disparities and narrative contradictions which present multiple interpretations and accounts.

>The "textual elements" -- Differences, similarities, incongruities, changes, omissions, recurrent words and themes -- are facts. The explanation "posited" is an opinion, no matter how closely it looks at the facts in coming to those conclusions. Do all textual critics agree perfectly on their conclusions? Or at least all "true" textual critics?

Unanimity is hard to come by due to the complexity of the issues but it’s not required for one to draw conclusions. You don’t seem to understand that a conclusion is an explanation based upon premises and evidence. You’re equivocating about terms which can be used synonymously, i.e., an explanation, opinion, belief, or judgment can all appropriate be identified as a conclusion in the right context.

>… it strikes me as pretentious to say that Bible students' opinion that they are revealing different faces of a coherent single truth is, in your eyes, proven false by textual critics' opinion that there is some alternate motive at play behind the differences.

I don’t know that I can make the difference between the armchair theologian and the biblical scholar apparent enough for me to persuade you that some positions are more rational than others. You would need some more info besides what little I can effectively articulate here.

I do appreciate that fact that from your perspective, the book I recommend is equally as suspect as religious propaganda. That’s a fair expectation. Thankfully, you have to ability to read and evaluate for yourself. Should you so choose, you could take that Book of Mormon, peruse it, study its origins, and determine the reasonableness of the positions held about it by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

Likewise, you can look at the text of the Bible and assess what the best rational explanation for its origin and nature. Until you’re aware of the “textual elements” to which I’ve alluded, you’re ill-equipped to make an evaluation.

If you’re interest in textual-criticism, you can check out Misquoting Jesus by Bart Ehrman, despite its sensationalist title, it’s a good, popular introduction to the field. As to be expected, there are apologetic responses to Ehrman's claims. If you like, read the book and a response, and determine which makes the most compelling case.

> I just want to research it as much as possible before I commit myself.

Here are some resources that were recommended by users on this subreddit. Check out the ones that you might be interested in.

---

___INTRODUCTION TO ISLAM____

• [Video] The DeenShow - a talk show that introduces many of the basic teachings of Islam and addresses common misconceptions. Their website here.
  
  
• [Book] The Complete Idiot's Guide to Islam - Yahiya Emerick, Ignore the title, it's actually a decent clear-English guide to explaining what Islam is about and it's practices.
  
  
• [Video] The Purpose of Life - Khalid Yasin, gives a comprehensive lecture on the fundamental question that every human being must ask: "What is the purpose of life?"
  
  
• [Web] What is Islam? - Jamaal Zarabozo, if you're looking for a more brief introduction to the fundamental beliefs and practices of the Islamic faith, then try this free book.
  
  
• [Audio] Guide for the New Muslim - Jamaal Zarabozo, a convert with experience, explains the general understanding of Islam and some of the basic practices in this extensive 12-part talk. Alternative link.
  
  
• [Book] A Brief Illustrated Guide to Understanding Islam - I. A. Ibrahim, contains proofs that the Qur'an is the literal word of God along with scientific miracles in the Qur'an with illustrations.
  
  
• [Video] Foundations of Islam -Hamza Yusuf, discusses Quran compilation & preservation, articles of faith, ihsan, and the signs of the Last Day.
  
  
• [Video] Understanding Islam Video Series - Abdal Hakim Murad, discusses the Qur'anic view of Christianity & Jesus, historical Muslim tolerance of Jews, free will vs. determinism, the problem of evil, etc.
  
  ---
  QURAN
  
  
• [Web] Quran - The Noble Quran in various translations.
  
  
• [Book] Quran - Abdel Haleem, if you're looking for the Quran in book form, this is argued to be the easiest to understand translation in the English language. Preview it online.
  
  
• [Book] Approaching the Qur'an: The Early Revelations - Michael Anthony Sells, this book captures the complexity, power and poetry of the last chapters of the Quran.
  
  
  ---
  ____LIFE OF PROPHET MUHAMMAD____
  
  
• [Video] Biography of Muhammad (pbuh) Video Series - Yasir Qadhi, detailed, very lengthy biography video series. A condensed video series here.
  
  
• [Book] Muhammad Man and Prophet: A Complete Study of the Life of the Prophet of Islam - Adil Salahi, from birth in the Arabian desert to the triumph of Islam and its gaining a permanent hold on Arabia.
  
  
• [Book] Muhammad: His Life Based on the Earliest Sources - Martin Lings, very detailed and thorough biography based on the earliest sources. Recommended by many, (but relies on a few unauthentic sources).
  
  
• [Audio] The Life of the Prophet Muhammad - Hamza Yusuf, brilliant narration that was originally presented in a twelve week course based on the above book by Martin Lings.
  
  
• [Book] Muhammad (Critical Lives) - Yahiya Emerick, a simple concise, informative biography.
  
  
  ---
  
  CHRISTIANITY, JUDAISM AND ISLAM
  
  
• [Video] How the Bible Led Me to Islam - Joshua Evans, former Christian youth minister conveys his journey to Islam.
  
  
• [Book] The Cross & The Crescent - Jerald Dirks, former minister (deacon) of the United Methodist Church explains how coherent Islam is with the roots of Christianity, provided with verifiable proofs.
  
  
• [Video] Early Christianity From Jesus to Muhammad - Jerald Dirks, discusses the roots of Christianity and the transition to the emergence of Muslims.
  
  
• [Book] MisGod'ed: A Roadmap of Guidance and Misguidance in the Abrahamic Religions - Laurence Brown, examines Judaism, Christianity, and Islam for truth in revelation, and trace the chain of revelation to its logical conclusion.
  
  
• [Video] Misquoting Jesus in the Bible - Biblical scholar, Bart Ehrman discusses Bible inaccuracies and how certain Christian beliefs, like Trinity, developed over time. His book 'Misquoting Jesus' here.
  
  
  
• [Book] Understanding Islam: A Guide for the Judaeo-Christian Reader - Jerald Dirks, holds Master's degree in Divinity from Harvard University, offers a timely correct alternative to understanding Islam.
  
  ---
  ____ATHEISM AND ISLAM____
  
  
• [Video] The Purpose of Life - Jeffrey Lang explains how he came to Islam after being an Atheist.
  
  
• [Book] Even Angels Ask: A Journey to Islam in America - Jeffery Lang, a former atheist, takes the reader along the path by discussing conflicts between faith and reason.
  
  
• [Book] Struggling To Surrender : Some Impressions of an American Convert to Islam - Former atheist, Jeffery Lang, gives a personal account of his search for God when he found out that his inherited religious beliefs could no longer answer his questions.
  
  
• [Video] From Strong Atheist To Islam - Tim, a former atheist used to debate religious people and tried to convince them that there is no God, until he met a Muslim.
  
  
• [Video] God: Delusion or Truth? - Hamza Tzortzis & AbdurRaheem Green, how can we prove the existence of God and what this means for humanity.
  
  ---
  
  ____MISCELLANEOUS____
  
  
  
• [Book] The Road to Mecca - Muhammad Asad tells of his initial rejection of all institutional religions, his entree into Taoism, his fascinating travels as a diplomat, and finally his embrace of Islam.
  
  
• [Book] The Autobiography of Malcolm X by Malcolm X - Malcolm X explains his journey which leads him to Islam. Arguably the best autobiography in the English Language.
  
  
• [Book] The Islamophobia Industry: How the Right Manufactures Fear of Muslims - Nathan Lean, Using terms like: “stealth jihad,” “creeping Sharia,” “Islamofascism,” and other techniques used to scare the public are discussed.
  
  
• [Book] Who Speaks For Islam? What a Billion Muslims Really Think -John L. Esposito, what do the world’s Muslims think about the West, or about democracy, or about extremism itself?
  
  
  
• [Gift Pack] Muslim Now Welcome Pack - (UK ONLY), includes the popular 'Fortress of The Muslim' along with other free material.
  
  
• [Misc] Order Literature & Visit Mosque - (USA) WhyIslam provides free literature, can help arrange a visit to a mosque and can answer questions you may have by online Chat.
  
  ---
  
  Complete list here.

I've been reading a really great book on God and humanity, and how it is that we come to know ourselves, others, our environment, and God through interpersonal relationships. It's called The Face of God, written by the English philosopher Roger Scruton. He's an Anglican Christian, though he doesn't believe in the traditional dogmas of the Church (like the Virgin Birth, the Resurrection, the Trinity), and he re-interprets traditional doctrines like the real presence of the Eucharist to fit a more philosophical perspective (which I completely endorse, but the average orthodox Christian may not).

Anyway, I think he offers some very valuable insights into the nature of God and the human response to God, hinting at ways in which we come to know God through the knowledge of ourselves, others, and the sacredness of life around us. It's not necessarily "personal" in the way the typical Evangelical might define that word, but it certainly is personal in that it supports a view that we must ask God to forgive our transgressions against him and against others, and to realize that we encounter God in the experience of love and beauty.

If you enjoy philosophical reading, I would also encourage you to read David Bentley Hart's book The Experience of God: Being, Consciousness, Bliss, which demonstrates the existence of God who gives the necessary ontological grounds for existence, consciousness, and the transcendental virtues. One reviewer of this book said that it made him realize that God is "the most obvious thing of all."

Personal research, mostly. I'm a big history nerd with a slant toward religion and other macabre subject matter. I'm actually not as well read as I'd like to be on these subjects, and I basically blend different sources into a knowledge smoothie and pour it out onto a page and see what works for me and what doesn't.

I'll list a few books I've read that I enjoyed. There are certainly more here and there, but these are the "big ones" I was citing when writing all the comments in this thread. I typically know more about Christianity than the other major faiths because of the culture around me.

Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years - Diarmaid MacCulloch

A History of God: The 4,000-Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity and Islam - Karen Armstrong

The next two balance each other out quite well. Hardline anti-theism contrasted with "You know, maybe we can make this work".

The Case for God - Karen Armstrong

The God Delusion - Richard Dawkins



Lately, I have been reading the Stoics, which like Buddhism, I find to be one of the more personally palatable philosophies of mind I have come across, although I find rational contemplation a bit more accessible to my Westernized nature.

Stoic Philosophy of Seneca: Essays and Letters - Translated by Moses Hadas

Discourses and Selected Writings (of Epictetus) - Translated by Robert Dobbin

The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius - Translated by George Long

I'm still waiting on Fed Ex to deliver this one:

A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy - William B. Irvine

Also, if you're into history in general, a nice primer for what sorts of things to dive into when poking around history is this fun series on YouTube. I usually watch a video then spend a while reading more in depth about whatever subject is covered that week in order to fill the gaps. Plus, John and Hank are super awesome. The writing is superb and I think, most importantly, he presents an overall argument for why studying history is so important because of its relevance to current events.

Crash Course: World History - John Green

Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why is a wonderful and much more complete picture of where we stand in textual criticism of the Bible.

And what the author fails to point out is that if you take the best translations of the best texts (many not available when the King James Version was written) and compare them, you just don't get that many differences.

The King James is often more poetically written, even with some slight inaccuracies in the process.

As a theist, I find the process of textual criticism fascinating, and it reinforces my belief that the very heart of Christianity isn't in its theology, but in the First and Second Commandments (as reportedly taught by Christ):

• Love God with all your heart
  
• Love your neighbor as yourself
  
  Nothing there about making my neighbor conform to my morals and ethics. Everything there about me treating my neighbor with respect and honor, as I would want to be treated myself. Coupled with other teachings of Jesus, and clearly the idea that we are supposed to police the behavior of others is not Christian, despite any issues of textual criticism. We are instead to police ourselves.
  
  Edit tl;dr: Anyone who invests heavily into theological concepts that hinge on just a word or two in these texts is already playing with fire. On the other hand, committing to the core ethical and moral teachings in these texts is pretty safe.
  

Oh man, you've hit on a really hard topic.

First off, before I get into any of the juicy topics, let me say this: Consider where your parents are coming from based on their views. An analogy: If you were evacuating a building on fire and saw someone who didn't know they are in danger, would you try to notify them? For the sake of argument, let's say yes (I expect so). They see this world as a building burning down and they view themselves as trying to warn us of the danger we are supposedly in. Expand this to the fact that they are your parents and as their kid, you told them you are walking back into a burning building. They are literally scared for you. Irrationally scared, but still scared non the less. I am not sure if your short term situation or plans, but in the long term you need to accept that they are not going to share your views and may not accept you. Don't let them abuse you! They have to independently accept you for who you are or you need to distance yourself if they don't. Take care of yourself, maintain your dignity and self respect, and make decisions that make you happy and lead you towards living a happy and fulfilled life.

Some information on their reaction:

> I tried to be gentle about it and not criticize her but she kept telling me to defend why I didn't believe in God, and then when I answered she was like "you're trying to disprove God and attack my beliefs" . she later said I was being rude, (I was being as respectful as possible) when I explained that she said I was being "politely rude"???? But because of my beliefs I obviously thought she was a moron and I reject her values. (I never called her a moron and I said that I respected her faith and I didn't want this to be a source of contention for us)

Let's step back and parse this. Typically, strongly religious people follow a form of ethics called "Theological Ethics." The theological ethics system may incorporate other forms of ethics such as utilitarian, kant or phenomenological, but it is ultimately rooted in theology. Do [Action] because god demands it in or through [insert religious book, prophet, etc...]. In their view, all ethics and morality flow only from god. If god says give to the poor, you give to the poor. If god says kill that tribe, you kill that tribe. All ethics and morals are literally rooted in their version of god.

So, when you say "I don't believe in god," many people will imply "therefore I am not a moral person" OR "you think I am an idiot because I need god to work out what is right or wrong." In some cases, a person "without god" is seen as downright evil. However, we know that people can be moral and develop an ethics system without attributing it to or believing in god. We often follow heuristics such as the golden rule, informed consent or "no person is a means to an end."

Some theologians argue that this is only by the grace of god that he has allowed us to be a tool for good despite disbelieving, never mind that in many religions we are still considered doomed to eternal torment no matter how much good we do in the world and that an immoral or amoral person who believes in god has a higher chance into being accepted into paradise over an atheist who genuinely wanted to help others.

A few things you can do is work out why you can continue being a good person without needing to believe in a god. I personally see value in both society and individuals. I want the world to be a better place so that I can enjoy less violence, longer healthier lives. I want to see people individually succeed because it betters our society. Society is made up of individuals. Because life is precious, and this is our one life, we must make the most of it but not at the expense of others because their life is precious too. Informed consent is incredibly important. A society following informed consent reduces or prevents rape, murder, irresponsible or malicious human testing, robberies, etc...

Anyways, if you are interested in ethics and morality in the context of atheism and why reason will likely lead to a more just society, you should pick up a copy of The Moral Arc by Michael Shermer. http://www.amazon.com/Moral-Arc-Science-Better-People/dp/0805096914

If you're interested in why atheism and why you don't need religion to be moral, you should pick up a copy of The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins (who is giving an AMA this may 27). https://www.amazon.com/God-Delusion-Richard-Dawkins-ebook/dp/B003JTHWJQ

I personally think you will have a hard time converting your family to atheism, but if you want to shore up some of your arguments about why atheism, you should pick up a copy of A Manual for Creating Atheists by Peter Boghassian. I don't recommend you actively seek out these conversations with your family at this point, but they can help give you a better grounding about your belief system (yes, atheism is a belief system). http://www.amazon.com/Manual-Creating-Atheists-Peter-Boghossian/dp/1939578094

To conclude, don't stop loving your parents but don't let them abuse you either.

[edits for minor typos and formatting]

It's awesome to see someone interested in sociology (especially sociology of religion) in high school.

Before you start doing research, you need to think about what your actual question is. What is it about the sociology of religion that interests you? Are you interested in explaining religious variation? Are you interested in how different people experience religion? Are you interested in studying how religion influences people's behavior or beliefs? Think of something in the social world that you don't know, but want to know. The answer will guide how you approach research.

Also, not all of the sociology of religion is quantitative with large sample sizes. There's been some great qualitative work with small sample sizes done in the past. Nancy Ammerman has done some awesome qualitative work. One of my favorite sociology books is Baptist Battles which offers a window into the fundamentalist/progressive conflict in the Southern Baptist Convention in the 80s.

If you are interested in more population level, quantitative stuff, take a look at Putnam and Cambell's American Grace. It's not really an academic book, but the research is solid and it's a great example of the kind of findings quantitative sociology of religion can produce.

If you find that interesting, then you should take some statistics courses and begin to learn statistical software like STATA, SPSS, R. A lot of that software is really daunting to learn at first. We had to learn R in my first year statistics course in grad school, and it had PhD students scratching their heads. Still, getting even a very basic understanding of something like that will get you a head start on research. You WILL need to learn a statistical software in order to quantitative research. If you feel comfortable with doing some basic statistics, check out The Association of Religion Data Archives (ARDA) for some cool public use data.

Also, if you want to do research you need to read research. People here have suggested classic works like Berger's Sacred Canopy or stuff from Weber, Marx and Durkheim. That stuff is cool and all, and if you continue to be interested in sociology you will have to read that. However, nobody doing research today is trying to emulate what Berger, Marx, Weber, and Durkheim did. I suggest looking through some of the articles in The Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion to get a sense of the kinds of research sociologists of religion are doing now. Don't get too bogged down in ancient stuff said by old dead white guys.

One last thing -- absolutely nobody expects you do any kind of research in high school. All the stuff I mentioned are things I learned in grad school and I would consider way above what would be expected from a typical high school student. If you find it overwhelming and confusing that's totally normal. Research is overwhelming and confusing all the time.

Random selection of some of my favorites to help you expand your horizons:

The Demon-Haunted World by Carl Sagan is a great introduction to scientific skepticism.

Letter to a Christian Nation by Sam Harris is a succinct refutation of Christianity as it's generally practiced in the US employing crystal-clear logic.

Augustus: The Life of Rome's First Emperor by Anthony Everitt is the best biography of one of the most interesting men in history, in my personal opinion.

Travels with Herodotus by Ryszard Kapuscinski is a jaw-dropping book on history, journalism, travel, contemporary events, philosophy.

A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson is a great tome about... everything. Physics, history, biology, art... Plus he's funny as hell. (Check out his In a Sunburned Country for a side-splitting account of his trip to Australia).

The Annotated Mona Lisa by Carol Strickland is a thorough primer on art history. Get it before going to any major museum (Met, Louvre, Tate Modern, Prado, etc).

Not the Impossible Faith by Richard Carrier is a detailed refutation of the whole 'Christianity could not have survived the early years if it weren't for god's providence' argument.

Six Easy Pieces by Richard Feynman are six of the easier chapters from his '63 Lectures on Physics delivered at CalTech. If you like it and really want to be mind-fucked with science, his QED is a great book on quantum electrodynamics direct from the master.

Lucy's Legacy by Donald Johanson will give you a really great understanding of our family history (homo, australopithecus, ardipithecus, etc). Equally good are Before the Dawn: Recovering the Lost History of Our Ancestors by Nicholas Wade and Mapping Human History by Steve Olson, though I personally enjoyed Before the Dawn slightly more.

Memory and the Mediterranean by Fernand Braudel gives you context for all the Bible stories by detailing contemporaneous events from the Levant, Italy, Greece, Egypt, etc.

After the Prophet by Lesley Hazleton is an awesome read if you don't know much about Islam and its early history.

Happy reading!

edit: Also, check out the Reasonable Doubts podcast.

>humans just made this up and chose what to include and what not to include.

Humans made what up?

1. the bible? The bible is literally a library with different forms of writing. You can't read a myth as if it's history or a poem as if it's an account of scientific explanation - you especially can't read Genesis 1 like that because the scientific method didn't exist yet. I will (and did in my previous post) agree that they "chose what to include and what not to include". But, it's not as if they just randomly chose certain texts. They chose what they believed resembled their situation accurately and truthfully. It wasn't one person's history, rather it's the history of a people - first the Jews then the (orthodox) Christians.
   
   
2. religion? Experiences of "the Divine" exist, as such. Whether or not you believe in the Divine doesn't neglect the fact that religious experiences exist. Religions, broadly and generally speaking, are that which house a "lens" to interpret those experiences: the "why" and "meaning" of such things. Why did this happen? (Not how! science can and should attempt to answer that) Is there a meaning to this? The experiences of the given followers also influence the given religion. It's a mutual circle.
   
   >why would a being so powerful choose such a misunderstood way to communicate if his goal was to save us?
   
   This question is making some assumptions:
   
   
3. God is a being.
   
4. God has a goal for humanity.
   
5. This goal is "saving us".
   
   Number 1 is false to any classical monotheist. Here's a blogpost I wrote about the "nature" of God and evil. Here's a reddit comment I wrote which also touches this. I only link these because I don't have the time to figure out how to write it out again in my currently allotted time (work soon). However, I will suggest two books for you that are better written and that heavily influence(d) my thoughts: God Without Being: Hors-Texte, Second Edition (Religion and Postmodernism) 2nd Edition by Jean-Luc Marion. He is a French Philosopher. The second book is The Experience of God by David Bentley Hart. He is an American Eastern Orthodox Theologian. The second of the two books will be a little bit easier to understand as it's written for a wide audience.
   
   Number 2 could be false, but I personally think it's true. So, I'm going to assume this with you.
   
   Number 3 is wrong in the sense of the goal being to save us from eternal damnation. Read my comment (or blogpost) to get a better understanding. Long story short, to quote St. Athanasius: "God became man so that man might become God".
   
   But, to answer your question: Humans live and participate in different contexts. Whether it be historical, societal or even religious contexts. That is burden of our "imperfect" nature. Based on that alone, we will of course misunderstand things. I can say more, but I'm running out of time.
   
   >my point was that if we open up the floor to interpretation...just everyone making up their idea of what is right.
   
   Interpretations aren't just made up. To interpret properly is to situate and figure the given materials in their proper contexts and stories. This happens from science to art. I suggest reading up on Hermeneutics. I could suggest a couples books (sorry, I'm just bad at explaining things in a quick easy-to-digest way. Especially when it comes to topics our minds literally can't comprehend). New Testament People God V1: Christian Origins And The Question Of God by NT Wright which sets up what he calls a "critical realism" approach to scripture. Phenomenologies of Scripture, which is a collection of articles detailing how to approach the bible and related topics as they "give themselves". I'm currently reading both. The first is a more historical-critical and literary approach to the bible and the second is more a philosophical approach. Both really good so far.
   
   >but I suppose in that case I reject both your idea of God and the existence of God.
   
   You cannot deny "the existence" of God because that's an absurd statement. God is not a thing or even "highest power" that exists in some "realm" called "the supernatural". If that were the case, "Existence", as such, would be ontologically prior to "God" which doesn't make sense. The Divine/God/Brahman/whatever is that which provides "Existence" to "exist". God does not exist. Once again, I highly suggest reading my blogpost (I don't have ads or anything so I won't get paid) because it's better articulated. Better yet, read the book I mentioned by David Bentley Hart. I can send you (I think) a PDF if you want. I've provided a short reading and long reading. If you want a video instead, I can probably find one!
   
   Sorry about all the books I recommend. Reddit is not a place I can expound on philosophical ideas, especially when we both have different working assumptions that we need to clear. That's why I'm focusing on challenging your viewpoints on certain things because we just fundamentally disagree. We can't discuss/debate things without first agreeing on something.
   
   Also, I've enjoyed engaging with you. You seem open-minded enough and that's a good thing. So, thanks.

Lots of love for you, here are some thoughts of mine...

• it is a mistake to believe that you should be asking the question "What is the purpose of my life?" it's not a question you ask, IT IS A QUESTION YOU ANSWER! and you answer it by living your life as ONLY you can, having the adventure that is your life experience, discovering the magical miracle that is ONLY YOU in all of this vast universe!
  
  
• After losing Mormonism and the understanding of the universe that goes with it, I find myself an atheist, which has made this little journey of life INFINITELY more precious to me. It's all and everything we have! (as far as we know).
  
  
• I have pulled in many helpful, empowering, peaceful ideas from Buddhism, Philosophy, Science that has helped me start to form a new, optimistic, and amazingly open minded new world-view. I no longer have to believe anything that doesn't make sense, I get to believe only sweet things now, and that is SO nice.
  
  Here are some resources that I have been really grateful for on my journey, which I am 12 months into...
  
  The Obstacle is the Way
  
  The Daily Stoic this is my new "daily bible" I read a page every morning
  
  Secular Buddhism podcast
  
  Waking Up podcast
  
  End of Faith
  
  The Demon Haunted World
  
  Philosophize This! podcast OR Partially Examined Life podcast
  
  I wish you the very best in your journey, be patient with yourself, you have EVERY reason to be! Start filling your mind with powerful positive ideas, keep the ones that help you find your way, set aside the ones that don't.
  
  And remember, you are young and free and the possibilities of what your life can become are boundless!

When I was a little kid I loved the Narnia books by C.S. Lewis. They are very Christian, but I just enjoyed them as entertaining stories. So I guess that's an honest answer to your question. (Although reading his apologetics like Mere Christianity now it just looks like a lot of double-talk and logical fallacies, it seems like it would only seem deep or meaningful to people who really wanted to smooth-over their own cognitive dissonance, and doesn't prove any points if you weren't already assuming his conclusions to be true.) If you broaden your question to "from a religious perspective" without requiring that it specifically be a Christian one, it gets easier to think of answers. I just read "The Story of God" and even though the author was a theist (Jewish) I thought he made a lot of good points in explaining the cultural and religious history of how monotheistic religions including Judaism, Christianity, and Islam came to be.

I think Sam Harris stands out as a very readable atheist author. His books such as "The End of Faith" and its follow-up "Letter to a Christian Nation" are short and powerful paperbacks. Watch this short talk and you can get an idea of his perspective before you buy any books:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J3YOIImOoYM&t=1m25s

The point of my comparison was: It seems unstructured to me. And I am often confused by that lack of rules moderates live by.

I constantly meet people who consider themselves Christian or Muslim or whatever but do not follow the rules of that religion. For instance a good friend of mine who is a Catholic, like many american's, believes the sacrament is symbolically the body and blood of Christ and also uses contraception. These are big no-nos for a Catholic. Another friend is Muslim and he loves bacon and also uses contraception and does not believe his daughter should grow up thinking herself less than a male.

Essentially, these types of people make up the bulk of religious people I meet. So maybe they are a good %age of the religious in america. But effectively they are not religious. They simply believe in a god and pick the rules they want to follow based on a number of different criteria. Those criteria are almost always cultural.

This seems like sentimental (in the philosophical sense) religion to me. Why not drop the religion altogether?

EDIT: have you read this book? http://www.amazon.com/Misquoting-Jesus-Story-Behind-Changed/dp/0060859512/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1347757261&sr=8-1&keywords=misquoting+jesus

There's more to chrisitinty than just the resurrection. What about Adam/Eve? Moses and the Exodus? Pretty much the rest of the OT? I mean, if Adam/Eve never existed, then why the need for Jesus? Basically there's no reason to think they did exist. There's no evidence for them. Same for Moses and the Exodus. No evidence of ~2M people wandering around for 40 yrs. To put that into perspective, that would be like everyone in modern day Austin, Tx picking up and roaming the mid-west without leaving a trace. Can you imagine that? And I don't even need to talk about Noah's flood, do I?

As for your other specifics, #1: There is no contemporary accounts backing up the bible's claim of a resurrection. Nothing about about the temple curtain ripping, an earthquake, the sky going black for 3 hrs, or (and this is one of my fav's) not a PEEP about dead saints coming out of their graves and were "seen by many". All of these were certainly note-worthy events but yet...*crickets*. The historians who do mention are people who lived after Jesus's time and were not eyewitness's. They're just relaying what was told to them and even that can't be considered reliable. The one that Christians like to point out is Josephus where he talks about people worshiping a guy named Jesus. Aside from just saying there were christians, which means nothing because it's like pointing out we have scientologist today, most historians consider that passage a later addition because it doesn't fit within that particular works. Kinda like seeing Darth Vader appear in a Star Trek film.

#2: What were their names? Where do they live? Where's their accounts? 10 million people saw me fly around in the air by me flapping my arms! Must be true because soooo many people saw it. Oh, who are they? Just ... people. No, I don't know any of their names but trust me, they saw it!

See how that works?

#3 & #4: Whether he was even buried by no less than a member of the Jewish high council who was calling for his death just the night before is a matter to cause one to raise their eyebrows but let's go with it. Let's assume he was. Which do you think it more likely: That someone removed the body? Or that he rose from the dead?

#5: Read up on the Heaven's Gate cult. All died for their beliefs but I'm gonna go out on a limb here and declare that there was no UFO waiting for them behind the Hale-Bopp comet. Seriously....if you never heard of it, this was back in '97 so may be before your time, read about it. Then I can point out the 9/11 hijackers. They obviously died for their belief's yet I don't see christians rushing to convert to Islam. I don't doubt the sincerity of their beliefs but that doesn't make it true. I can believe that I can fly if I flap my arms hard enough but something tells me that if I jump off a cliff, gravity is gonna prove that belief off.

There's a lot more to this than what I've written here. Books have been written. I would recommend that, if you're interested, start with anything from Dr. Bart Ehrman. He's the chair of the Theology Dept. at the Univ. of N. Carolina. He's a proper authority on this issue. I've read/listened to pretty much every book he has. Might want to start with "Misquoting Jesus". It's the first book I read from him and the stuff I read in there blew my mind. Stuff that you're not likely gonna hear at your school. There's other accounts of Jesus outside the bible and most christians would certainly clutch their pearls over the "Greater Questions Of Mary" account. There's also numerous Youtube vids of his lectures, talks, and debates. He runs a blog as well that you can access for $25/yr which he's pretty good at updating regularly. Money goes to charity.

Might also want to look up Candida Moss who wrote " The Myth of Persecution: How Early Christians Invented a Story of Martyrdom" She's a NT scholar as well and I learned a lot by reading her book. Like, did you know there were ISIS like groups of christians roaming the area back then? That groups of christians demanded to be killed?

One last book I'd like to recommend is "The Dark Side of Christian History" by Hellen Ellerbe. While I've not found much on her, she does a great job in citing her sources. What will you learn? Know where the phrase "Kill them all, let God sort them out" came from? While I can't recall the specifics, there was basically two groups of christians fighting and the leader of one, when asked how will we know our own from them, proclaimed to kill them all, God will know his own! This book helps to disabuse people of the notion that christianity has been nothing but loving and caring, not to mention persecuted, through the centuries.

Hope this helps and good luck!

Thanks for sharing your perspective. It seems to me—and I may be way off the mark—that you still believe in God and the Christian values of the the Mormon faith, but not in the institution of the Mormon church.

Question: have you investigated other Christian churches outside of the Mormon tradition? I know that for many on this sub, losing their belief in Mormonism has been accompanied by a loss of belief in Christianity or religion in general, but many others find a home in a new faith community. I am currently one of those people.

One thing that I learned as a product of my questioning my faith was that I didn't really understand non-Mormon Christianity very well at all. That is, what I thought I understood about Christianity was really more of a caricature of Christianity I had been given through my Mormon upbringing, and not really an accurate representation. As I started to research religion more broadly, I discovered that Christianity is actually far more diverse than I had supposed. Through my upbringing and bias-colored experiences, I had come to think of all of Christianity as a sort of Bible-belt, evangelical, born-again, fundamentalism, that in many ways is actually not that dissimilar to Mormonism in practice, despite significant differences in theology. However, I discovered that—primarily in the "mainline" Christian denominations—there is also a rich tradition of Christianity that remarkably different from what I had experienced or presupposed.

Anyway, the short version: it seems like you might still identify as non-evangelical Christian, but just not Mormon. That might be me projecting, but if not, you might consider looking into some of the mainline Christian faiths and seeing if you like it. And maybe you wont, but at least you'll know. If you are interested, I highly recommend reading Marcus Borg's The Heart of Christianity, which is a light and conversational read on 'progressive Christianity', or Karen Armstrong's The Case for God, which is a much more detailed treatise on religion throughout history but ultimately covers some of the same ideas.

Well, what questions do you have? Are you looking for holy books, general information, etc? I would be happy to help with anything you may need. I personally started with the book Baha'u'llah and the new era. It is not a holy book/text, but it covers the basics of every aspect of the faith in plain language.

Here is the book on Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/Bahaullah-New-Era-Introduction-Bahai/dp/1931847274/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1417447332&sr=8-1&keywords=baha%27u%27llah+and+the+new+era


And here is a link to a website that contains a free ebook version, as well as many other free ebooks:
http://www.bahaiebooks.org/ebooks-by-title

Good luck in your search, and let me know if you have any questions! I was a Christian once myself, and was aided in my search on this subreddit, and by meeting with Baha'is in my area. There are plenty of knowledgeable people here who I'm sure will be as willing to assist you as they were to assist me! :)

The Kitab-I-Aqdas means The Most Holy Book, but I don't think it's fair to equate it with being the Baha'i Bible or Qur'an. It is one of literally hundreds of books and tablets which comprise the Writings of Baha'u'llah, the Prophet-Founder of the Baha'i Faith, all of which are sacred, all of which are equivalent in importance to the Bible for Christians/Qur'an for Muslims. It's also not the best reading for someone completely new to the Faith, as it is speaking to a Baha'i audience who is asking for laws, some of which might not be understood out of context.

On top of that, the Baha'i Faith has the Writings of the Bab (the Prophet-Founder of the Bab'i Faith, Predecessor to the Baha'i Faith) and 'Abdu'l-Baha (son of Baha'u'llah, authorized interpreter of the Writings of Baha'u'llah) which are given nearly equivalent weight. That brings the total volume of sacred Writings of the Baha'is to several orders of magnitude greater than that of most any other world religion. It can be difficult to know where to start, and overwhelming when someone heaps book after book after book upon you. We're not even getting into Shoghi Effendi or the Universal House of Justice yet.

God Speaks Again by Kenneth Bowers is a great starting point for someone who knows nothing.

Baha'u'llah and the New Era by J.E.Esslemont was the starting point for decades before this.

The Hidden Words by Baha'u'llah is my choice for a first read of the Holy Writings.

The Kitab-I-Iqan/Book of Certitude by Baha'u'llah is much heavier reading, but is the core of Baha'i Theology, if you want to dive into the deep end.

Thief in the Night by William Sears is my starting point for people who are intimately familiar with Christianity and the Bible.

My advice is to start with only one book, then move to others. Have fun!

Edited for grammar

A good place to start I think is reading Shamanic Voices by anthropoligist Joan Halifax. It isn't a how-to guide or anything, but gives intimate accounts of Shamanic practices throughout the world. It includes records of rituals performed by Maria Sabina that you may find especially interesting.

After that, I'd recommend Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy by reliigious history professor Mircea Eliade. Its a bit thick but is very thorough in its treatment of Shamanic practices through the millennia and around the world, including descriptions of numerous techniques used for entering trance states, cosmologies, symbolism, initiations, and powers claimed by Shamans. This is an academic work, however and won't give you step by step instructions (if that is what you are looking for).

If you are looking for something a bit lighter, Supernatural by Graham Hancock is an interesting read. In it he looks at parallels between drug-induced experiences, Shamanism, fairies, and reports of extraterrestrials. If I had known that last part before I read it I probably would have skipped this book but he actually made some very interesting points that I think makes the book worth reading. Also, he relies heavily on Joan Halifax's book as a source and spends a decent amount of time discussing Maria Sabina and psilocybin usage.

The beginner how-to department is an area I'm less versed in but I've heard good things about this book and its companion. Personally I'd generally recommend getting oneself intimately familiar with current and past Shamanic practices through the academic works on the subject and then creating a personalized system - though commercial how-to guides can certainly provide some practical hints and inspiration.

[The Case for God] (http://www.amazon.com/Case-God-Karen-Armstrong/dp/0307389804) by Karen Armstrong. It never mentions Mormonism, so it is unlikely your wife will feel like you are trying to persuade her away from it. In addition the author's goal is to promote faith in God. She goes through the development of religion from an anthropological method and covers a lot of different religions and theological view points. She does a very good job of explaining the different belief systems and why they are valuable. And this is the important part. She makes different views and ways of thinking important and valuable. One example is that her explanation of the Trinity doctrine made me actually feel okay with someone believing that version of deity. The book helped me understand how it is we ended up with extremist views like fundamentalist Christians and how my own views and atheism fit into that puzzle. I think it could be a great way to help her become comfortable with thinking outside the Mormon box and about looking at religion critically in general.

>Yet while he never delineates Gospel specifics (other than the Last Supper, the Crucifixion & Resurrection- three of them you claimed he doesn't)

Sorry, I should have been clearer when I said…

>the only part of the Jesus story Paul does write about, just so happens to match almost exactly the same death and resurrection arc attributed to hundreds of hero warrior gods throughout antiquity

…that this is exactly the part I was referring to. The death and resurrection narrative is, contrary to your assertion, littered throughout ancient folklore.

http://www.amazon.com/Jesus-Puzzle-Christianity-Challenging-Historical/dp/096892591X/ref=pd_sim_b_2

http://www.amazon.com/Misquoting-Jesus-Story-Behind-Changed/dp/0060859512/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1269831504&sr=1-1

>I suggest you read the early Church Fathers objectively. Seems as if you're actively looking to prove a thesis you already have (that Jesus never existed or that he wasn't what Christians claim he is or whatever). Early Church history is actually quite fascinating.

I couldn't agree more on that—and I'm sorry if I seem 'pre-convinced', because I'm not. The historicity of it is, as you say, truly fascinating stuff. But as I'm sure you'll also concede that doesn't necessarily make any of it true. And I don't mean that in a small way. I mean how, for example, would you explain to someone in 2000 years time what the narrative of the Superman story was supposed to impart, if you were to travel forward in time and arrive in a future where astronomers who could prove there was never a planet Krypton were accused of being selective, or "actively looking to prove a thesis [they] already have"?

I'm sure you're intelligent enough to have noticed by now, incidentally, that I might just as easily say the same about Christianity's truth-claims as you say about mine to the contrary—which I would like to assure you extend much further than having watched merely a few direct-to-web documentaries, however well the one to which you refer to happens to have been made. I was born and raised for the first 16 years of my life a Catholic and "got saved" at around 10 or 11. I've been religion free for the best part of the last 20 years and an atheist since September 11th 2001.

Before I get to my main point, I would just like to briefly comment upon this short phrase,

>another case of philosophy failing to keep up with modern science

which demonstrates a patent lack of understanding of what philosophy and science are, and what distinguishes them, as disciplines. Science's domain is the empirical -- it is concerned with physical stuff, with things that can be physically (and usually quantitatively) observed, measured, and examined. Philosophy is concerned with metaphysics, that is, with non-empirical reflection, and for that reason can never really 'keep up' with science. You cannot derive from empirical foundations the principles of moral behaviour, nor what constitutes a 'just' political system, nor whether there is an immaterial God. There is no 'keeping up' between philosophy and science. They deal with fundamentally different subject matter.

To the main point: Arguments to the effect of modern science (in any field, not just cosmology) definitively disproving the existence of God are short-sighted. Even recent developments in the field of cosmology are insufficient to demonstrate the non-necessity of a God, for the reason that they do not broach the fundamental question of why anything at all exists. The classical theist, drawing upon Aristotle, would consider the notion of a godless universe as patently bizarre. Any universe is necessarily 'contingent' in philosophical terms, which means that there is a distinction between what it could be (its potentiality) and what it is at any given moment (its actuality). Since any universe (or any set of pre-universe laws or constants) is necessarily contingent, subject to either change or the mere theoretical possibility of existing in some other way, its existence is not necessary as such.

The theist would then say that, to explain all contingent realities, we must posit some ultimate non-contingent reality in which no distinction exists between potentiality and actuality. In other words, all contingent, non-necessary reality must derive from some necessary reality, which cannot be any particular universe nor any pre-universe state of contingent laws. In theological language, this necessary entity which is fully actual (the 'I AM who am' of the Jewish tradition) is termed 'God.'

Edit: To quote from the great David Bentley Hart,

>Hawking’s dismissal of God as an otiose explanatory hypothesis, for instance, is a splendid example of a false conclusion drawn from a confused question. He clearly thinks that talk of God’s creation of the universe concerns some event that occurred at some particular point in the past, prosecuted by some being who appears to occupy the shadowy juncture between a larger quantum landscape and the specific conditions of our current cosmic order; by “God,” that is to say, he means only a demiurge, coming after the law of gravity but before the present universe, whose job was to nail together all the boards and firmly mortar all the bricks of our current cosmic edifice. So Hawking naturally concludes that such a being would be unnecessary if there were some prior set of laws — just out there, so to speak, happily floating along on the wave-functions of the quantum vacuum — that would permit the spontaneous generation of any and all universes. It never crosses his mind that the question of creation might concern the very possibility of existence as such, not only of this universe but of all the laws and physical conditions that produced it, or that the concept of God might concern a reality not temporally prior to this or that world, but logically and necessarily prior to all worlds, all physical laws, all quantum events, and even all possibilities of laws and events. From the perspective of classical metaphysics, Hawking misses the whole point of talk of creation: God would be just as necessary even if all that existed were a collection of physical laws and quantum states, from which no ordered universe had ever arisen; for neither those laws nor those states could exist of themselves. But — and here is the crucial issue — those who argue for the existence of God principally from some feature or other of apparent cosmic design are guilty of the same conceptual confusion; they make a claim like Hawking’s seem solvent, or at least relevant, because they themselves have not advanced beyond the demiurgic picture of God. By giving the name “God” to whatever as yet unknown agent or property or quality might account for this or that particular appearance of design, they have produced a picture of God that it is conceivable the sciences could some day genuinely make obsolete, because it really is a kind of rival explanation to the explanations the sciences seek. This has never been true of the God described in the great traditional metaphysical systems. The true philosophical question of God has always been posed at a far simpler but far more primordial and comprehensive level; it concerns existence as such: the logical possibility of the universe, not its mere physical probability. God, properly conceived, is not a force or cause within nature, and certainly not a kind of supreme natural explanation.

from The Experience of God: Being, Consciousness, Bliss (https://www.amazon.com/Experience-God-Being-Consciousness-Bliss/dp/0300166842)

Thanks for the feedback and thoughtful reply! "Condemns most" refers to several indications that the (currently) 2/3rds of the world that does not believe in Jesus will be lost.

 

I do think it's a position reasonably supported by the text. Not that I agree -- I find it morally reprehensible that any "good pagans" and/or the vast billions raised without much exposure to Christianity would be lost due to being born in the wrong place/time. William Lane Craig, a leading apologist, has written a thoroughly repulsive response on the topic: God already knew they'd be lost, so he put them in those places -- and, he says, for all we know, the ratio of saved-to-lost is is perfectly optimal. Ugh!

 

To your point, I'd have a hard time agreeing that Mk 9:40 and Lk 9:50 "whoever is not against us is for us" indicates Jesus believed people could be saved without him. For starters, he contradicts this in Mt 12:30 and Lk 11:23 "Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters." In context though, both seem to refer to doing miraculous works (casting out demons) and aren't discussing how to be saved at all.

 

In addition, there are ample NT verses saying Jesus saw himself as the only way to be saved:

• Jn 3:18 and Mk 16:16 "whoever believes in Him will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned"
  
• Jn 14:4 "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me."
  
• Jn 3:36 "whoever does not obey Him does not have life; the wrath of God remains on him"
  
• Mt 7:21-23 "And they will say 'Lord, did we not do many mighty works in your name?' And I will declare 'Depart from me; I never knew you, you workers of lawlessness'"
  
• Mt 7:13-14 "the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. The gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few."
  
• Acts 4:12 "there is salvation in no one else; there is no other name given among men by which we must be saved"
  
• Jn 17:3 "and this is eternal life: that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent"
  
• Rm 3:22-23 "The righteousness of God is through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. There is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus"
  
   
  
  Many contradictory religions claim exclusivity. If Christianity let go of the idea of needing Jesus to be saved, it's a slippery slope to not needing him for anything -- just be a decent person and live your life. But in holding onto the need for Jesus, it ran headlong into another huge problem: if it's all about "accepting God's free gift of love", then a serial rapist can accept Jesus and be fully saved on death row, while a lifelong moral non-theist will go to hell for not accepting the gift. This completely devalues any of our actions and puts all the emphasis on "believing on bad evidence" instead of what you actually do with your life.
  
   
  
  It's all a moot point, however -- as it's likely "Jesus", if he existed, never said most of the things attributed to him, and some epistles attributed to Paul were written pseudonymously also. The whole idea of a "final judgment" wasn't from the Old Testament (which focused largely on earthly kings and national victories); rather, it was borrowed from Zoroastrianism eschatology during Babylonian/Persian captivity, which is around the time the Jews rewrote their national history to better fit their unfortunate circumstances, leading to inclusion in Jewish inter-testamental scripture such as the Book of Enoch, which was accepted as scripture for hundreds of years and was quoted by and influenced the thinking of New Testament writers who were making all this stuff up at the time.
  
   
  
  So, yeah -- who cares what Jesus said anyway, it's a lousy plan that wasn't even original! :-)

Ah, you beat me to sharing this by a few minutes. I've deleted my top-level post, but I'll keep it as a comment here, because my reaction was opposite to yours.

A fun interview to take you into the weekend: "[UK interviewer] Andrew Neil DESTROYS Ben Shapiro!" Lest you're thinking that quote is too boo-outgroup...

Shapiro was the one who tweeted it.

I'll cop to my bias prior to writing this. I've been hoping to see someone else post this, because Ben Shapiro is not my favorite, and this interview really doesn't present him at his best. I find myself enjoying this a bit too much to really be a credible neutral source, but I'll take a shot at summarizing nonetheless.

I had no idea who Andrew Neil was prior to this. Some context I have since heard: he is one of the leading conservative commentators in the UK, previously working under Rupert Murdoch and writing for the Daily Mail, currently chairman of a media group that runs some of the most influential center-right media in the UK. He's provided some passionate commentary in defense of western values, and is famous for hard-hitting interviews with a wide range of people. A great moment between him and Alex Jones: "This is half past eleven. You're watching the Sunday Politics. We have an idiot on the program today."

So what happened? This is one of the only times I'll actually encourage watching the video over reading a summary, because it's fast-paced and frankly pretty entertaining. Neil comes into the interview pretty aggressively, pushing back against a lot of Shapiro's positions and focusing especially on the contrast between Shapiro's commentary about the ways discourse is being degraded and the ways Shapiro himself degrades discourse at times. Shapiro responds largely by firing off questions and accusations about Neil's motives.

A couple of highlights:

1. Neil asks Shapiro about titles of videos like "Ben Shapiro Destroys The Abortion Argument" and "Ben Shapiro DESTROYS Transgenderism". Shapiro responds by saying he can't be held accountable for what random people post on YouTube, not mentioning that the videos in question are, well, posted by The Daily Wire itself.
   
   
2. He asks about the recent Georgia anti-abortion law in pretty harsh terms, asking for a defense or response from Shapiro. Shapiro's response: "My answer is something called science. Human life exists at conception. It ought to be protected," then asking why Neil won't admit he's on the left and his questions are motivated by bad faith. I was disappointed with Shapiro's answer here, since I'm broadly pro-life myself and would like to see the position represented well, but "something called science" doesn't really do it for me.
   
   
3. In the end, Shapiro tersely cuts the interview short after one too many hardball questions. Final words from Neil: "Thank you for your time and for showing that anger is not a part of American political discourse."
   
   All told, it's a pretty fascinating crossover between American and British politics, and probably not Shapiro's finest moment.
   
   ---
   
   That was my top-level comment. I'll take a moment to respond to your main question as well: Why throw old things at him? Because the UK isn't as familiar with him as the US, and snark is still a huge part of his brand. I'm fully and deeply on board with the message that there's too much hate in politics, but even as he writes condemnations of that hate, I see Shapiro as a vector for and intensifier of it. The video titles above are a good example, alongside his pinned tweet ("Facts don't care about your feelings"), his comments in the interview... this sort of combativeness is a huge part of his brand. If he's approaching things from that combative of an angle, I expect to see him prepared with thoughtful responses to combativeness directed at him. He didn't do that here.

I'd like to put out a counterpoint to a lot of the comments about "finding holes in the books" etc. You don't need to convince her that there is no God, Bible is mythology, etc. You don't want to come off as attacking her beliefs or from a side of negativity. You need to convince her that you're an adult, a good person, and that you've found another "belief system" that fits better for you and deserves her respect. You want to approach her as Carl Sagan, not Richard Dawkins.

I would highly encourage you to read Karen Armstrong (A History of God, or The Case for God). They're both not only fascinating books on the evolution of religion in general, but they show a non-theistic side of religion/spirituality within Christianity. She'll likely feel more comfortable with your lack of belief in a literal personal God if you approach from an angle of something WITHIN Christian theology. Another good view of this is When God Is Gone, Everything Is Holy, which describes the positive side of atheism and science. Maybe give her one of these books rather than The God Delusion--it's something she's more likely to read.

Ultimately, most religious people having their own different religious beliefs than they are with people rejecting their beliefs. Present atheism as something positive, inspiring, and fulfilling for you.

I'm not sure if Jerry's gotten to this one yet, but I'll post also just in case.

1. The God Virus
   
2. Godless
   
3. The Magic of Reality
   
4. Letter To A Christian Nation
   
   Also there are great podcasts, of course we are partial to Living After Faith (our official Podcast with Deanna and Rich Lyons), and there are many others as well. For blogs there is always Hemant Mehta's Friendly Atheist, and we're starting our blog this weekend as well, but there are tons of just quality folks out there who have so much to share and offer to the secular world.

I was a Catholic. I had issues with certain parts of the faith that I didn't think too much about since I didn't really have a way to answer them, such as reconciling the idea of the trinity with monotheism.

I've studied the church's stance on it but it doesn't FEEL like the two beliefs are compatible and it never has. The explanations I was given and that I thought of myself always seemed a bit unsatisfactory like technicalities. That and the idea that I had to accept the teaching of a church whose members consist of fallible people. How do I accept creeds and beliefs laid down by other people throughout history hundreds and thousands of years after Jesus lived? It was, in fact, the vow of obedience to the church that dissuaded me early on from contemplating joining the clergy.

The last reticent doubt I had was about the authenticity of the bible, having studied a bit about the Documentary Hypothesis and the different authors of the bible. It became a bit hard for me to believe it could be very factually accurate or (more importantly) have spiritual authority for me to base my beliefs on. Different people throughout hundreds of years wrote different documents and I'm supposed to follow this specially compiled group of them as an authoritative fact? It would require me to accept the authority of the people who wrote them, and the people who edited them, and the people who compiled them, the authors and the church. So I ended up not reading too much of the bible after a point.

When I learned about Islam (completely by happy accident, I enjoy studying world religions anyways and realized reading through the Islam wiki I had no idea what this huge religion was about or how it originated, etc) I found that I agreed with Islam's teachings about Jesus as prophet. And then the Qur'an (in Islam) does not present the same difficulties as the bible does in Christianity IF you believe in the prophethood of Muhammad ﷺ. That came to me upon reading the Qur'an and reading a short biography about the prophet's life and the origin of Islam source

If you'd like to talk more about this please feel free to PM me :)

Popular Richard Dawkins books are The God Delusion and The Selfish Gene. I haven't read the Selfish Gene yet, but I have read the God Delusion, and it is a very good book. It may be a tad technical if you aren't well versed in science, but it's still very manageable.

The late Christopher Hitchens wrote a very famous book called God is not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything. Admittedly, I have not read this one either, but it's an atheist staple.

The Skeptic's Annotated Bible is next on my reading list (as you can tell, I have a HUGE reading list...), but also widely regarded as an amazing piece of literature for rational thinking.

I'm sure others can suggest more specific books, but these are the basics as far as I know.

Edit: Definitely forgot to mention that the Skeptic's Annotated Bible can be found online. I assume that this is in it's entirety?

Edit 2: Found this list on GoodReads.com. Seems to be another good resource for finding books :). Happy reading!

> No, they don't.
>
> https://www.amazon.com/Misquoting-Jesus-Story-Behind-Changed/dp/0060859512
>
> But we might just have to agree to disagree about that. In any case...

No, the only thing I'll agree to is that both you and Ehrman are totally wrong.

https://www.amazon.com/Cold-Case-Christianity-Homicide-Detective-Investigates/dp/1434704696/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=Cold+case+christianity&qid=1554338796&s=books&sr=1-1

>Either way, let me just ask you: does faith in the God of the Bible produce any measurable (by a non-believer) effect that faith in some other god does not? If so, what is it? If not, then in what sense can such a god be said to exist?

You're asking the wrong question. The only effect my faith in God produces is my personal salvation, which is not testable. But is there good evidence that the God of the Bible is the one true God? Yes, there is very good evidence of that. One of the most powerful of these is fulfilled prophecy.

See:
https://www.amazon.com/Messianic-Hope-Hebrew-Studies-Theology-ebook/dp/B004OR18CY/ref=sr_1_1?crid=181JAOD14V0WZ&keywords=is+the+hebrew+bible+messianic&qid=1554338880&s=gateway&sprefix=is+the+hebrew+bible%2Cstripbooks%2C274&sr=8-1

---

Posted by: K**5

>Assertions from church fathers and theologians have NO BEARING bearing on what textual scholars have discovered over the past 19 centuries my friend.

That is a ridiculous statement. The gospel of John for example was completed around 98CE. You believe what contemporaries of John wrote just a few years later in the early 2nd centuries doesn't matter? That is ridiculous. You say you believe in textual examination to determine the author, then why did you dismiss exactly that. Here's what certain textual scholars have said:

>Since Matthew had been a tax collector, it was natural that he would be explicit in his mention of money, figures, and values. (Matt. 17:27; 26:15; 27:3) He keenly appreciated God’s mercy in allowing him, a despised tax collector, to become a minister of the good news and an intimate associate of Jesus. Therefore, we find Matthew alone of the Gospel writers giving us Jesus’ repeated insistence that mercy is required in addition to sacrifice. (9:9-13; 12:7; 18:21-35) Matthew was greatly encouraged by Jehovah’s undeserved kindness and appropriately records some of the most comforting words Jesus uttered: “Come to me, all you who are toiling and loaded down, and I will refresh you. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am mild-tempered and lowly in heart, and you will find refreshment for your souls. For my yoke is kindly and my load is light.” (11:28-30)

I also mentioned how 42% of Matthew's account is not to be found in any other gospel.

>I love the way you emphasized the Matthew specific material while leaving out the fact that 50% of his gospel is copied WORD FOR WORD from Mark

58% of what he wrote is also written about by one or more of the other gospel writers. However, the claim that he copied word for word from Mark has no basis.

>On top of that there are verbal cues in the text that show beyond doubt it was originally composed in Greek..with many of the so-called OT prophecies referenced by Matthew worded (and mistranslated) exactly as they were in the Septuagint, which was a Greek version of the OT that the author used for a source.

Matthew was actually written in Aramaic and Koine Greek. So when the book of Matthew refered to OT prophecies it used the Greek septugent OT translation. I do agree with that but I fail to see how you are claiming this proves Matthew did not write the book that bears his name.

>There are a myriad of other reasons why mainstream scholars believe that all of the gospels were composed by anonymous Greek-speaking Christians long after the death of anyone who knew Jesus. If you are sincerely interested in how the NT came together, rather than bolstering conclusions you have arrived at for other reasons, this book is a good starting place: http://www.amazon.com/Misquoting-Jesus-Story-Behind-Changed/dp/0060859512/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1330919177&sr=8-1

I have in fact read a good part of that book as well as other books of Bart Ehrman. He takes things people have known all along and tries to sensationalize them. His basic argument is that the new testament has hundreds of differences with many early manuscripts. What he doesn't tell you prominently is that almost all the differences are attributed to trivial things like misspellings which don't in fact change the meaning of the words. I invite you to share with me two or three points that absolutely convince you that the Bible was altered. You will quickly realize the book is largely designed to make huge claims through sensationalizing of things we already know.

> I refer you to this site, created by Christians, maintained by Christians, and used by students in every major seminary on earth for research purposes. http://www.earlychristianwritings.com

I fail to see why you refered me to this site. A majority of it is talking about writings of early christians after the first century. Are you claiming these writings are also part of the Bible?

Letter to a Christian Nation is short, accessible, and always relevant. It's written as a response to the critics of Harris' first book, The End of Faith, but you certainly don't need to have read The End of Faith to appreciate what he says in Letter.

Sam is perhaps a generation younger than Hitchens, Dawkins, and even Dennett, but as others in this thread have pointed out, he tends to be more reserved, collected and cool in his talks, debates, and interviews. He does use some dry humor, often to pretty good effect.

I think Sam's address at the 2007 Aspen Ideas Festival is probably one of the most well-written and compelling anti-religion speeches I've ever seen. And although the moderator is pretty awful, he has some similar powerful talking points in the Truthdig debate against Chris Hedges of the same year.

I was a Jehovah's Witness for the first 24 years of my life. Very devout.

It's hard for me to know what these particular folks' motivation for being in the JWs is.

Here is what helped me:

Problems With a Global Flood, 2nd Edition: Witnesses are very literal about their interpretation of the bible. If they actually read this page it will go a long way toward dislodging the cornerstones of their faith.

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-noahs-ark.html

Finding Darwin's God by Ken Miller: A book about evolution that is not directly threatening to religion. It's written by the head of biology at Brown University. The science is solid. The theology is unsurprisingly weak. This book changed my life.

http://www.amazon.com/Finding-Darwins-God-Scientists-Evolution/dp/0060930497

If they make it that far, give them this one: Letter to a Christian Nation by Sam Harris. Not all of it applies to witnesses directly (they're not young-earth creationists, for example), but a lot of it still applies. This will supply many final nails for the coffin.

http://www.amazon.com/Letter-Christian-Nation-Vintage-Harris/dp/0307278778/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1291101892&sr=1-1

One thing to keep in mind is that they're very unlikely to seek any of this out on their own. They'll view it as a sin. Your best bet is to print these texts out or buy them. Both books can be purchased on Amazon in used condition for almost nothing. Tell them you'll read their books if they read yours and hold them to it. That culture has a very strong intellectual conscience. Most witnesses are really decent people. They're just stuck in a totally stupid mind-trap.

Good luck! You're doing a great thing by trying to help these people.

Maybe he is (like many) afraid of the consequences of choosing to challenge and/or walk away from the cult. JW's are really good at shunning friends and family members and most people can't deal with losing everyone and everything they have ever known.

Using the internet is not against the rules and he might think that he can convert Atheists by talking to them and debating them. He also probably thinks that doing this makes "Jehovah" happy.

Try to sneak this or better yet, valid points from it, into conversation. I wouldn't be very blatant about it, but if you're digging in, then that book is a GREAT place to dig. Be careful though, because he is trained to adamantly reject "apostate" (aka any former member who says JW's are NOT the one true religion) material. The author of that book was shunned as an apostate and is/was loathed by any JW who knows of him. THAT is how you know it's such a good book! ;-)

All in all, the JW cult is full of A++ mind control...you're friend is probably a victim.

Well, for starters I'd check out E.E. Evans-Pritchard's Theories of Primitive Religion, which summarizes most the reasons for the modern break with Dennett's sources in classical anthropology and sociology. The only edition currently in print is pretty expensive, so it's probably best to look for a library copy.

The direction more recent scholarship points towards is a modern status quo that offers no definitive set of theories as to the origins of religion, which is perhaps part of why Dennett and co. have been so eager to revive the Victorian models.

In the meantime, Dennett is explicit in rejecting more recent historians of religion, like [Mircea Eliade][1]. I wouldn't necessarily recommend Eliade as an authoritative source on the origins of religion -- he provides some very interesting research and synthesis, but is, on the whole, too interpretive -- yet it's telling that Dennett is willing to reject a major modern theorist without offering anyone to stand in his stead.

Increasingly, serious researchers have tended towards specialization, so it's difficult to give you a list of authors that deal with the phenomenon of religion as a whole. For the history of the Christian tradition, I'd recommend [Elaine Pagels][2] and [Jaroslav Pelikan][3]. For the Judaic tradition, and particular Jewish mysticism, [Gershom Scholem][4] -- who also makes some very interesting observations on the relationship between religious experience and religious tradition in general, cf. "Religious authority and mysticism". On ancient Greek religion, I'd suggest [Karl Kerenyi][5], [Walter Burkert][7], [Martin P. Nilsson][8], and E.R. Dodds' [The Greeks and the Irrational][6]. Eliade is, on the whole, as strong an authority as you will find on the general topic of Shamanism, and his book takes us a good ways back towards he earliest forms of religion presently known.

That's a pretty good start, anyway.

I should say that there's nothing necessarily wrong with most of the modern research Dennett presents in Breaking the Spell. The problem is that, despite his protestations to the contrary, they seem to have been chosen with a particular interpretive paradigm in mind.

[1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mircea_Eliade
[2]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elaine_Pagels
[3]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaroslav_Pelikan
[4]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gershom_Scholem
[5]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Ker%C3%A9nyi
[6]: http://www.amazon.com/Greeks-Irrational-Sather-Classical-Lectures/dp/0520242300/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1249408287&sr=8-1
[7]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Burkert
[8]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_P._Nilsson

> Is there anything at all I can say to get him to even consider my stance?

One approach might be to ask if he could be wrong about his understanding of God. Point out that just within Christianity, there are thousands of sects that all have slightly different approaches to how they interpret the bible. They can't all be right, can they? Are some sects or denominations likely to be more (or less) correct compared to others? For instance, Mormons believe that Jesus was a prophet but is not part of the trinity that most other trinitarian sects believe. Can a Mormon be correct while your friend is correct? Or is it possible that one (or both) are wrong?

He might scoff at Mormons but you can point out that it was decades between when Jesus was supposed to have died and when the gospels were written down. Point out that the gospels are anonymous. A book like Misquoting Jesus is not a bad way to point out that there are a lot of things in the bible that are likely to have been the result of copying errors - accidental or on purpose. That calls into question much of what's in the bible. Even details about what Jesus said and so on are open to question, simply because the "chain of custody" you hear about on cop shows was simply not present in the decades and centuries following Jesus' death and before the bible as a single collection of books was compiled.

Ask him if he was wrong about God, do you think it's important for him to improve his understanding of God? Ask him if being as obstinate as he is is likely to help or hinder his ability to evaluate his beliefs about God.

On your own, you might get a copy of Peter Boghossian's book A Manual for Creating Atheists. While it won't help you to make your friend an atheist, it will help you to talk to your friend and people like him in a non-confrontational way about their faith. Faith for most people is a very personal thing and talking to people about such personal things is, as you've gathered, very difficult. The book will give you some tactics for talking about faith without being threatening. It might help.

Ultimately, though, you and he might decide to avoid the topic entirely. If he's not comfortable discussing his beliefs then it's not fair to him. It's possible he's going through a period of doubt and it may take years for it to fester to the point that he's willing to be more open.

It's a basic reversal of classical theism. The ironic thing is that modernity gave birth to a fundamentalist literal reading of the bible that hardly existed before (enter the demiurge, or what new atheists like to call the sky daddy or whatever). Modern fundamentalist literalists read Genesis as literal. Literal six day creation. Literal Adam and Eve, literal worldwide flood with a literal ark with literally two of all the animals. Early Christians almost exclusively read these stories as allegory intended to communicate spiritual truths.

 

Classical theism (crudely explained by me, not a philosopher but a reader of such) believes not that God is part of nature, but that nature is part of god. That all being, everything that is or will be proceeds from one infinite god. God encompasses everything and is the uncaused cause of everything. This is also a picture of God in Hinduism, and in Zoroastrianism, and much of Judaism, and there are writings to this effect in classical Islamic philosophy as well. As I said, I explain it crudely but if you want arguments made by an actual living classical theist and philosopher (who covers the question of how to define God from the different angles of all those religions) I can make some book recommendations. Warning though, he has some pretty harsh things to say about naturalism and materialism. But all of his attacks are rooted in actual logic (though he does get a bit personal at times with some of the new atheists because hey, they're not exactly nice to those they criticize). I always hesitate to recommend his books though because the arguments are difficult to follow if you're unfamiliar with certain sophisticated metaphysical disciplines it can be difficult to follow his work as some familiarity with such is assumed. But I mean if you're reading Spinoza those probably won't be a problem. The guy I am talking about definitely doesn't believe in an anthropomorphic god and pretty harshly ridicules the concept. Check him out.

 

His name is David Bentley Hart. He's an eastern orthodox Christian so I know many will be biased against him from the start. But he's at least an entertaining read and he is one of the top scholars of religion (not just Christianity) out there right now. Yale recently commissioned a translation of the New Testament from him. But yeah, he also deeply studies many eastern religions in addition to Christianity and has a deep respect for them. He's not just looking confirm his beliefs. He's not looking to convince people. He has openly said he doubts and questions his beliefs constantly. He's also a Christian universalist. He's an interesting guy to read if this stuff piques your interest.

https://www.amazon.com/Experience-God-David-Bentley-Hart-ebook/dp/B00E64EH0K/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1494054794&sr=8-1&keywords=the+experience+of+god+david+bentley+hart

Religion: False but necessary.

​

According to a 2015 University of Auckland (New Zealand) study published in the journal Nature, religious belief in judgment after death was a positive (correlative) predictor of the eventual size of 96 past pacific island civilizations. Where a culture lacked this religious idea, the population rarely grew beyond the size of a few villages as a result of "political complexities." Common moral values are required to build a society greater than Dunbar's Number, and the historically best proven way to achieve this is via religion. In fact, the decline of the this common moral value (more commonly referred to as "Social Capital") has been lamented at length by the renowned Robet Putnam and more recently Ben Shapiro (Book). Those authors argue that the depopulation of common meeting places (like churches, pubs and Elk lodges) where community is formed is to blame for the recent disenfranchisement and political apathy we are seeing in the United States.

​

Plenty of foolish things are done in the name of religious beliefs. The same can be said of many ill-founded scientific causes like eugenics and phrenology. My point is that we've only made it this far as a result of the common values shared between us and reinforced by our involvement in community -- and that churches are a huge, if empirically irrelevant, vehicle for that community. Not a roadblock.

And if you continue to believe that moderate Christians somehow magically transmogrify into fundies you'll still be missing the point.

I'm going to try to be as clear as I can. It seems as though you imagine religious belief as a sort of spectrum with "atheist" on one end and "fundamentalist" on the other. This is inaccurate and does not hold up to scrutiny. You could do worse than an intro Sociology text that deals with patterns of religious behavior. Even something older, like Mauss' General Theory of Magic.

Fundamentalism is not the opposite of atheism. You can want it to be that way, but wanting something to be true does not make it so. The opposite of atheism is probably something like negative theology. Interestingly, this topic is also taken up in Armstrong's book.

Fundamentalism and atheism actually live right next to each other on our imaginary "spectrum of belief." Fundamentalists believe in a silly sort of God - a sort of imminent being summoned forth to help self-sooth a frightened child. Anyone could invent this kind of thing. It's a totem, and idol. And it is as easily debunked and dismissed when exposed to even the most basic, sophomoric scrutiny. (i.e. Why doesn't God heal amputees? If God is male, what do his sexual organs look like? Why does God hate figs? and on and on.)
Incidentally, this is why I personally believe so many of these new sorts of courageous anti-theist crusaders come from lunatic fundamentalist families. They were weened on sugary pabulum and silly, idolatrous presentations of the Holy and it is easily dismissed and subject to ridicule. Those who don't make it out spend a lot of calories defending some really indefensible stuff.

For what its worth - I am not a religious "moderate." My heart is saturated with religious awe, speculation, a healthy measure of terror and trembling, and a constant gasping awareness of the cosmic, Holy Other. I rather suspect that I am several orders of magnitude more religious than even the most devout fundamentalist. So be careful who you are calling a "moderate." I think the fundamentalists are actually, in reality, mostly atheists in their hearts. Idolators at least - but more likely atheists.

Book [The End of Faith] (https://www.amazon.com/End-Faith-Religion-Terror-Future/dp/0393327655) By Sam Harris
-This book was the support I needed to feel comfortable saying I do not believe in organized religion. (I felt guilty for never being a believer but this book helped me find my voice to explain why.)
-He also has a fascinating podcast on the topic along with youtube videos, just type in Sam Harris and you will easily find it.

[Stephen Fry Annihilates God] (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-d4otHE-YI) Short video but fantastic.
EDIT: The link I posted for this all you need to watch is the first two minutes.

Other than those two sources that is pretty much all I have. I am fairly new to giving a voice to my lack of belief in organized religion so I do not have many sources yet.

Hope this provides some use to you.

If you're a Sam Harris fan, there are a few of his debates on the DebateGod podcast on iTunes. You don't have to be an atheist to like those podcasts either. Good points from both sides. Also, here is a great article he wrote about BJJ from his site. Lastly, feel free to read The End Of Faith. It is a HUGE eye opener.

Sorry to just get all teen girl on you guys... I just get excited when multiple interests of mine join together like Voltron.

Additions:

Lives of other Prophets Series

• [Video] Lives of the Prophets - Series of 31 lectures by Sheikh Shady on the lives of the Prophets from Adam (AS) to Isa (AS).
  
  
• [Video] Stories Of The Prophets - Series of 30 lectures by Mufti Menk on the lives and stories of the Prophets from Adam (AS) to Isa (AS).
  
  End times, Death, Hereafter
  
  
• [Video] Death and the Hereafter - Series of 10 or so lectures by Sheikh Shady on what happens during and after death. Also, the minor and major signs that would occur until the end of times.
  
  
• [Video] Signs of Day of Judgement - Series of multiple lectures on the signs of the day of judgement by Sh. Yaser Birjas.
  
  Seerah (Life of Prophet Muhammad (SAW)
  
  
• [Video] Seerah - Series of 47 lectures on the signs of the life of Prophet Muhammad (SAW) by Sheikh Shady.
  
  Understand the Quran
  
  
• [Video] Story Night - How Allah(swt) wrote/directed the Quran with analogies to popular works of flim and stories. Another way of looking at it is that why does it seem the Quran is out of order sometimes? Noman Ali Kahn mainly talks about the story of Musa (AS) and how ayats pertaining to his story are written.
  
  
• [Book] The Qur'an by M. A. S. Abdel Haleem - Translation of the Quran with modern English vernacular.
  
  
• [Book] Approaching the Qur'an: The Early Revelations by Michael Sells - There's a chapter that goes in depth about how the pre-Islamic Arabs previved the concept of love and the female beloved character layla and what Islam changed about this concept.
  
  
• [Book] No god but God: The Origins, Evolution, and Future of Islam by Reza Aslan -- Covers lots of topics, excellent writing overall.
  
  
• [Audio] Fahm al-Qur'an - Tafseer of the entire Quran in very simple English. The commentary is by a female scholar, Amina Elahi so it's a good tafseer for gatherings with a lot sisters but obviously anyone can listen. Best way to make the most of this tafseer and others like it is to have a translated copy of the Quran in front of you and some highlighters, sticky notes and a dedicated notebook and just scribble away as you listen. BTW, if you have a Muslim friend(s) who is/are interested in Islam and you don't have access to a teacher or w/e, have a listening party/gathering with these lectures once a week. Since each lecture is 2 hrs long, in 30 weeks, you will have finished the tafseer of the entire Quran and you have a notebook filled with notes and a translated Quran that is now colorful and filled with notes.

Many instances in which Jesus is referred to as actually being God or of divine origin in the bible were antiadoptionistic changes made to the texts by theologians in order to discredit a group best described as messianic Jews (the Ebionites). They believed that he was born via the natural union of Joseph and Mary, and that he was given a special calling by God that invested him with divinity only after his birth.

By this theology Jesus did not preexist creation and was truly a normal human being until after his crucifixion. The prevailing Christian groups who opposed this wen to extreme measures to wipe the group out, especially because they demanded that all Christians would also have to be Jews, as Jesus was, and this required circumcision and kosher eating practices: two things not very popular in the classical Roman empire.

See these excellent books for extensive details about Biblical alterations and pre-orthodox Christianity:

Misquoting Jesus

Lost Christianities

You're right to ask how we know God exists and that Christianity is true. Contrary to what many believe, "having faith" does not mean believing in something for which there is no evidence, and Christianity hasn't survived for nearly two thousand years just because nobody ever thought to question it. You shouldn't envy anyone for their ability to shove these questions aside; their faith is founded on sand.

I think the best way to start forming an answer to questions like these is to find out how others have answered them in the past. So I suggest that you read a textbook like An Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion.

A recent book with a heavy focus on the kind of wonder you describe at the existence of the world is The Experience of God: Being, Consciousness, Bliss by David Bentley Hart. It has a great bibliography for further reading.

counter-counter clockwise... and yeah. I live in the south, and it seriously isn't a stereotype. It really is about 90% Bible thumpers. There's a special place in my heart for any post related to Christians whining about being oppressed, when every few months I'm made to feel extremely uncomfortable about my lack of faith. And I'm not a preaching atheist, I grew out of that after a couple years of falling on purposefully deaf ears.

(I mean like, I'll comment on my Facebook something funny and atheist in response to someone on my page, always, and rarely, if ever an OP from me re: atheism. And every once in so often I'll get a roommate pissed at me cause her grandma read it and was offended... no joke, or one of my 'bros' will randomly decide to pseudo-debate (read: trash talk) me because he knows no one else is atheist, or would admit to it publicly. High school shit.)

Sam Harris' book The End of Faith kind of re-kindled my openness to... well being open about it, but it was much worse. Once I hit my 20s and it really just settled in to my mindset and my regular day-to-day thoughts were no longer bogged down by faith and whether I had it, whether I really believed in all of it and then apologizing to Jesus for driving a fresh nail into his skin for having sinful thoughts...

I don't know. Once you hit that stride it becomes really, really difficult to have any patience for perfectly intelligent people who are also... fundies. Of course there are the samaritans and the non-denominationals and the small churches where the Real gospel is preached and those people tend to be awesome people. People I love dearly. But their small percentage of good deeds in the name of a false god legitimizes extremist sects of the same faith, whether they denounce extremism or not. Which means the blood shed by extremists is ultimately on the hands of us all: the extremists for the sword, the moderates for defending the faith, and the non-believers for demanding a stance of non-involvement.

It's a simple fact that by globally refusing to reject the teachings of moderate religous sects, we grant that same acceptance to extremist sects of the same religous affiliation. They will always continue to co-exist, because the teachings of Islam and Christianity, for example, literally demand the conversion at the cost of death of every other sect on Earth. As long as moderate faith persists, there will be extreme faith. As long as there is extreme faith, there will be war.

That's fine and fucking dandy when we're all scimitars and swords. But we live in a global world now. I don't need to spell it out in put-you-on-a-list keywords, but holy shit man. What else do we drop the big bombs for? We're pretty well settled up on land- the only people callin' nukes these days are Ahmadinejad (yes I know he has no real power) and wild card-ass North Korea. Israel doesn't even have to call em, everyone knows they got em and Big Daddy 'Murica got em all day, come GIT SOME!! GIT SOME! 'MURICA!

TL;DR The world needs atheism, but isn't ready for it, and will probably end in nuclear fire while we all pretend it's not over fucking fairy tales so as not to offend. Oh and also, I should really go to sleep because the sun's coming up.

Ok, first off I'm not trolling nor am I a theist dumb dumb but here me out.

I'd argue that Atheism IS a form of religion and is in fact the next logical progression after Christianity.

I recently read an interesting book that got me thinking about this, The Evolution of God (http://www.amazon.ca/Evolution-God-Robert-Wright/dp/0316734918). The author talks about the progress from caveman religions all the way up to the modern day Christianity. In each religious iteration there is a reordering of the deities, a streamlining of the gods if you will. First we started out with many many gods that each control there respected domains and each time the major religions simplify these down. From multiple pagan gods to the set of gods worshiped in the roman/greek times to the set of god/angles/saints of the catholic religion to modern religions that just believe in a single divine god down to atheism that have cut out a single god all together.

However reason I would say the atheism is still a religion is that many of the beliefs from Christianity are still present but there is a lack of a single point of worship (unless you count Dawkins for some). Atheists still have the need to congregate together and to share there belief system and even try to convert others to their belief (for example putting atheist signs on buses, sticks in bibles at book stores, even arguing with your teacher when they bring up atheism is a religion, etc).

This is just something I've been pondering for the last while and its not intended to piss anyone off, what do you guys think?

Whoa. There is a lot here.

1. I was experiencing panic attacks. I tried various ways of dealing with it, but as it turned out, I think I just needed something constant in mylife reminding me that its not all about me... if that makes sense.
   
   
2. I don't really understand what you mean by not believing in souls, you have no spiritual needs. Spirituality to me is just human, from superstitions (e.g. fortune cookies, beards for the playoffs) to full on shamanism. For me, its not about magic or souls or anything like that. Its about having a structure and mechanism, for tapping into that spiritual side.
   
   
3. Yes. I read this book. I also have some exposure to Buddhism, albeit 15 years ago.
   
   
4. Well nothing in particular. Laziness I suppose. I am convinced that most "spiritual" people who don't attend church don't because they like having Sunday mornings to themselves.
   
   There is a lot of chest-beating on the part of the religious right; nobody misses an opportunity to feel superior (kind of like r/atheism here). I'm sure that would turn a lot of people off. For the most part, however, I think that real thoughtfulness is just not incentivized in modern American society. So people just don't consider church important, even if they call themselves religious. And I fell into that category. I just fell into an egocentric mode.

This guy was an evangelical Christian who loved the church and Jesus so much that he went on a life long quest to get the original text the best he could. He learned Hebrew so that he could read the Old Testament in the truest form and then learned Greek so that he could read the New Testament in the truest form. He served as a preacher before going on to get his bachelors, master and then PHD in New Testament studies. Why do I tell you all of this? Because he knows the bible better than 98% of Christians and he LOST HIS FAITH once he learned how altered, butchered, and rewritten the bible was. I'm going to trust this guy over you.


His Wiki

> Your assumptions about not looking for discussion are silly at best and spiteful at worst.

I didn't say you weren't looking for discussion, I said it seems the type of discussion you're looking for is likely better served in a different forum. I hardly think that's thoughtless or disrespectful.

Regarding legislation that is religiously motivated I'll first site gay marriage which attempts to limit people's rights because (in most cases) of religiously motivated "morals."

Second, I'll point out that (typically) religiously motivated opposition to stem-cell research is almost certainly condemning people in this world to addition suffering and death.

A third example is the increase in STDs and unwanted pregnancy caused by the instance, often by religiously motivated people, that only abstinence only sex education be taught.

I'll certainly accept your argument that good intentions do not equate to good outcomes, but certainly they don't necessarily require that they lead to bad outcomes. Does everyone do bad or wrong things at various points throughout their lives? Of course they do. Does that automatically define them as bad people? I would argue of course not. They are factors to be weighed, but to think that we are all born evil and have no hope of being better without having someone continually watching over us is a bleak view of human nature. Hobbes might agree with you, but I think that humans have the capacity for goodness as well, and that we can do good simply for the sake of being good, not because there's someone watching us or because we expect a reward for being good. That was more the point of my argument that atheists (and all people by extension) do good things. We are all capable of being good, at least most of the time. We need not have fear of, or hope for, what comes next to do so.

> You're presumptuous to speak for the billions of people you don't know.

So your claim, then, is that the people who live short unpleasant lives are the luckiest of us all? They have the most capacity to approach god because, like Paul, they suffered the most? Or, am I faulting God for being ignorant and there really are not billions of people suffering every day because they lack the basic necessities of life? I am pretty confident that it's true that they do lack such things, and I don't think it's much of a stretch to point out that that leads to suffering. Beyond that I don't think I did anything to "speak for [them]" as you suppose I did. I pointed out that the majority of people in the world are living short lives of nearly continual suffering. That isn't really putting many words in their mouths.

Interestingly about your point about pain being necessary and then suggesting I read, I just finished a book by Bart Ehrman on the topic of Biblical explanations of why people suffer (your view is only one of several presented in the Bible by the way). He's the dean of theological studies at UNC at Chapel Hill if you're unfamiliar with who he is. It's a very interesting read, and I would like to recommend you pick up your own copy of God's Problem. I think that many people who know me would be surprised to hear that I lack basic reasoning skills. I, obviously, disagree with your assessment there. As for your slight against the American education system, I'll point out that my University education anyway was in Canada.

I wouldn't say that I know nothing of Jesus' anger, although one of the most famous examples (throwing the money changers out of the temple) is probably not actually original to the Bible. We could get into a lot of textual criticism but I'll confess I only have knowledge of that from a single source (another Bart Ehrman book called Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why

If you think the Bible as you read it is the original way it was written you would do well to read that, just for the introduction into the search for the original text of the NT in particular.

I second the suggestion of Letter to a Christian Nation. While I loved TGD, I think it's better received by people who already like science, and who enjoy having a professor talk at them through a book. LtaCN is shorter and more to the point, so it may be a better choice as a first and maybe only atheist book.

After being reminded by Murrabit, I also recommend Carl Sagan's The Demon Haunted World. It's gentler, not as aggressive as LtaCN and doesn't have the "eww, Dawkins!" stigma. To Americans, Sagan is more lovable than Dawkins.

> For the past 2-3 years, I've grown uneasy with the things I've heard and have been taught over the years.

From our perspective this is a good sign! Throw another baby on the BBQ lads, one of us, one of us /s ;)

> I'm feeling pretty lost and a little scared since pretty much all of my family is religious (they would never abandon me or disown me if they knew but the thought of disappointing them hurts...a lot).

Be careful! When it comes to religion you don't know what people are capable of and this sub is littered with tragic stories of people who thought they knew their families, but didn't expect what happened when they let on they were doubting, came out, or were outed.

To sum up if you don't have some kind of independence (namely financial) be discreet in your movements to keep the peace. That doesn't necessarily mean lie (though you can if you want), it means don't reveal all at the drop of a hat, gotta look out for #1.

> Which leads me here. Both sides of this religious debate hold biases

Unfortunately that's not really true, we don't hold bias when attempting to ascertain the truth regarding gods existentialism.

In fact most atheists (being skeptics) hold religion to the same standards of evidence as everything else, and try to remove as much bias as possible i.e. you'll hear the scientific method (methodological naturalism) bandied about a fair bit in atheism, because that's the best method we have for reliably producing results.

Oh yeah that's one other thing you gotta reconcile. Absolute truth (or falsity), doesn't exist. You can only say what is true with X amount of certainty based on how good the evidence is (i.e. how much there is, quality/standards, etc).

> So I'm looking into maybe some books, documentaries, research papers...anything really addressing the validity of the bible, the historical evidence, the contradictions, etc.

Be my guest : http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/

That's notes regarding what's contradictory in the bible when read literally, can't remember if they included the "poetic" bits in it. The thing is though most of the bible is supposed to be read literally, there are a few poetic bits yes, but just like any book the author sets the context for reading.

So whenever you hear a Christian saying : no it's supposed to be "interpreted" like this... that's generally code for

"oh shit bible says something wrong, better try and make excuses by putting it in a different context (than the author intended) that makes sense for the modern day".

Which is completely wrong, you don't get to read Harry Potter and put him in the star wars universe (although that would be kinda fun), nope JK determines the context.

Sorry got a bit ranty there, but it's one of my pet peeves.

> I'm trying to find sources that are mostly impartial, so nothing that goes into the subject that actively tries to prove or disprove.

Self-contradictory? You just said you're looking for resources addressing the validity of the bible... that's literally asking to prove / disprove things in it.

No one's forcing you, and it can be scary / frustrating. But you should know that even if you don't accept the bible as true anymore it doesn't make you an immoral monster i.e. morals are independent of religion...

But you gotta make up your mind, you either care about "the truth" or not, you're either going down the rabbit hole or not. Pandora's box once opened is not so easily closed and once you see, it's difficult to unsee.

If you want some "softer" titles, i'd recommend:

https://www.amazon.com/Letter-Christian-Nation-Sam-Harris/dp/0307278778/

Or any of Bart Ehrmans books:

https://www.reddit.com/r/atheism/wiki/recommended/reading#wiki_bart_ehrman

To save you some time, most of the bible is either:

• Made up e.g. story of moses/egypt, genesis, etc.
  
  
• Stolen... "appropriated" from other religions, mainly zoroastrianism which influenced all the messianic religions of the time : judaism, islam, christianity e.g. Ahura Mazda = God, Angra Mainyu = Satan (responsible for demons), Zarathustra = Jesus.
  
  
• The result of "chinese whispers" i.e. where there could be a story that was based on some truth (e.g. Noah's Ark / epic of gilgamesh / Atrahasis / King Ziusudra), but it was retold over and over again so many times by word of mouth before it was recorded in writing that it only faintly resembles the original story.
  
  All the best, feel free to ask questions here.

This seems like a word salad of assertions without any actual derivation from first principles. A first principles faith would be Thomism and it's already extensively mapped out with all sorts of variations. Maybe look into analytic Thomism? Physics, the multiverse, etc. would have to be first derived from metaphysical principles which aren't established here. I don't know what the first principles of the article are. It seems more like an aesthetic than a coherent set of beliefs.

You're trying to untangle what can and cant be coherently said about God. Sophisticated theology mapped out all these linguistic issues thousands of years ago, and in the analytic tradition continues to get more and more precise statements. It engages with the multiverse, the probabilistic logic of good/evil, what does and doesn't fit in a word game, all of that. You're unnecessarily reinventing the wheel here. I personally think analytic thomism is misguided and you're better served by a classical picture. But it is a whole field that seems to share your interests and made lots of rigorous logical progress.

I think it's because people run from their old faith, they don't want to understand it. When I look back I'm sure I wasn't really a believer at no point, I simply did what my parents wanted me to (going to church etc) and made the best of it, I had a lot of fun being a ministrant, found a lot of friends blahblah. But I never really believed those things. So I never even had to start asking my faith. Then we had religious courses at high school, and the teachers taught us mostly christianity, the other religions were only shortly mentioned and treated like potentionally dangerous cults. That was a rebelious time in my life, so I started to look into different religions and ask the teachers questions. Needless to say, I wasn't very popular with our religious teachers. But it was growth, as you put it.

The most objective sources I would recommend you are not Hitchens or Dawkins, those are biased. Try to look up books on comparative religion. I'd highly recommend the four volume History of Religious Ideas by Mircea Eliade, or Masks of God by Joseph Campbell. And you might want to read a history of the Catholic Church, it's always good to know one's history.

It seems likely that the original authors were recording the existing mythos of their people, and the myths were used in their society like myths are used in every society: to explain and give meaning to a world they didn't understand, to provide a cohesive narrative for the group, to pass along and reinforce values. I have found learning just a little about the common mythologies of the world extremely interesting and helpful in putting the bible into correct perspective. Like, how many times a flood myth pops up and the different interactions between the diving and humanity in those stories.

You might enjoy Bart Ehrman's writing on the new testament and Jesus as he explores the story of Jesus, who wrote, changed and codified it and why, and how it became a religion.

Jesus Before the Gospels: How the Earliest Christians Remembered, Changed, and Invented Their Stories of the Savior

Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why

Forged: Writing in the Name of God--Why the Bible's Authors Are Not Who We Think They Are

No answers yet?

Many of the atheists here agree on Bart Ehrman as a good source. He's a Bible scholar who used to be Christian but whose studies have left him an atheist. He's written a whole series of books about how the Bible was cobbled together and, self-plagiarized, forged and fiddled, and so on. There's a field or method of study called critical analysis that makes the Bible's authenticity problems apparent, and Ehrman writes that stuff into popular books.

Two of his hits have been Misquoting Jesus, Jesus, Interrupted and Forged. The latter is perhaps his most explicit indictment of the intellectual crimes behind the Bible. Lost Christianities and other books talk about the many gospels and other writings that never made it into or were excised from what's known as the Bible today.

Ehrman also has a bunch of talks on YouTube where he engagingly presents those same ideas.

There are alternatives, of course, and it could be argued whether Ehrman is "the best." But he certainly knows what he's talking about (mostly), is a recognized authority on this kind of stuff, and presents it well. Best of all (from our point of view) he doesn't Lie For Jesus.

If you want....

http://www.amazon.com/Letter-Christian-Nation-Sam-Harris/dp/0307265773

http://www.amazon.com/God-Delusion-Richard-Dawkins/dp/0618680004

I just like Sagan's works better myself, he has a way with words and his unwavering optimism and love of science is refreshing to me, but because of that he usually doesn't address religion directly and sticks to explaining why science is better at explaining nature. Any of Sagan's books are good, the other I recommend is Cosmos.

If you are honestly interested in this, I highly recommend reading The Evolution of God by Robert Wright. This book reviews much of what historians know about how the modern idea of the christian god came to be. It regularly compares what the bible says to what historians think really happened in history. It is a great read and is written in a way that probably wont offend a christian who appreciates good scholarly work.

Coming out is a big and unpleasant step. Kudos for planning.

Also, welcome to the party.

Many stay in the closet for years for good reason, coming out to religious family can rend that family to bits. No amount of logic, documentaries, or articles can bridge the fundamental gap if they decide you aren't family anymore. End result=huge unpleasantness.

That being said, there are two general trajectories for this type of thing. Fast and hard, or slow and kind. Both have their value, sometimes a swift thwap to the skull can break down barriers, for others a slow approach can provide better results over time. Slow and kind isn't my forte and others can help with that. Letter to a Christian Nation by Sam Harris and Dear Christian by JT Eberhard are the top of my list for kicking down doors and taking names.

"The God Delusion" by Richard Dawkins. Dawkins doesn't really go into anything new or original, but the strength of the book is that is a great, concise summary of all the beginning arguments for atheism.

http://www.amazon.com/God-Delusion-Richard-Dawkins/dp/0618680004

I'd follow it with Daniel Dennett's "Breaking the Spell", also a good recommendation. Same goes for Carl Sagan's "A Demon Haunted World"

http://www.amazon.com/Breaking-Spell-Religion-Natural-Phenomenon/dp/0143038338

http://www.amazon.com/Demon-Haunted-World-Science-Candle-Dark/dp/0345409469/

Christopher Hitchens is a bit vitriolic for some, but "God is not Great" has some nuggets in it.

http://www.amazon.com/God-Not-Great-Religion-Everything/dp/0446579807/

I personally didn't like Sam Harris' "End of Faith" but I did like his "Letter to a Christian Nation".

http://www.amazon.com/Letter-Christian-Nation-Vintage-Harris/dp/0307278778/

For the topic of evolution, Talk Origins is great (and free) http://toarchive.org/
Dawkin's "The Selfish Gene" is also a good read (and short). Not so short but also good are Dawkins' "Blind Watchmaker", "Climbing Mount Improbable" and "Unweaving the Rainbow"

http://www.amazon.com/Selfish-Gene-Anniversary-Introduction/dp/0199291152/

http://www.amazon.com/Blind-Watchmaker-Evidence-Evolution-Universe/dp/0393315703/

http://www.amazon.com/Climbing-Mount-Improbable-Richard-Dawkins/dp/0393316823/

http://www.amazon.com/Unweaving-Rainbow-Science-Delusion-Appetite/dp/0618056734/

Atheism is spreading and seems to be getting more socially acceptable in many parts of the US. That is a social phenomenon worth studying.

Atheism itself (non-belief in any gods) isn't much of a belief system, but it is often associated with other beliefs. In that sense, there are "atheistic mindsets" worthy of study. Some atheists focus on the reliability of the scientific method and skeptical thinking more generally. Others focus more on the discovery that their childhood religion seems not to make sense. There are probably other clusters of "atheistic thought".

I don't agree with everything they say, but "prominent atheists" like Dennett (link and link) and Dawkins (link) have certainly influenced my thinking.

There are interesting polls (link and link) that give a broad-based sense of what people think about religion and atheism.

How to keep up with atheism? My three main sources are amazon, google, and reddit.

Sort of. Outside of the extant christian denominations in the US which went through different phases of popularity (the variant streams of Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians, Episcopalians, and also the Catholic and Orthodox [large O]communities) the 19th Century was a time when several factors saw the birthing of many unorthodox offshoots from Protestant streams- examples include the Millerites in the 1830s, itself spawning the seventh day adventists a few years later; but also the Jehovah's witnesses. Of these, Mormonism is the first, but many radical revisions of Christianity - including Protestantism itself - happened over several centuries previously. The Quakers, Mennonites, Unitarians and Anabaptists, as well as the more 'mainstream' or 'orthodox' [small o] denominations I listed first, are all examples of where political, ideological, theological, or other motives lead people to revise their belief system, or understand it differently, or coalesce with others on a similar journey.

Generally, Christians tend to distiguish between denominations and cults by asking whether a 'denomination' has claimed an absolute monopoly on truth. That is, the reason Evangelical Baptists and Methodists both consider each other Christians is that their differences, though proper disagreements in themselves, are seen as superfluous enough in the light of general Christianity for them to be seen as largely in agreement. What many of the groups I listed (though not all completely, nor none to no degree) went through was this process of establishing themselves as fundamentally Christian in particular ways, whilst going about their ideological differences in ways which promoted them as superfluous.

The social context you're referring to did exist, but it is such a large nebulous contextual amalgamation of all things Modern, that it's difficult to describe except in big books like this. at the end of the day, Mormonism was created by one person, and then a bunch of people who felt that the changes they made to Christianity were necessary, and all of their motivations and accomplishments are reasonably well documented. the social context in america, particularly for mormons, included the Westward expansion, the possibility of new power, and nationhood, which gave them more of a possibility of surviving the process I described above, where the other streams of Christianity criticised it as a cult because of its large departures from orthodoxy [small o], and closed communities.

To sum up, the social context which encouraged experimentation and heterodoxy with doctrine and practice has been present since Christianity's inception.

This is true. Based on your comment, you might like a book called "The End of Faith".

https://www.amazon.com/End-Faith-Religion-Terror-Future/dp/0393327655

"In The End of Faith, Sam Harris delivers a startling analysis of the clash between reason and religion in the modern world. He offers a vivid, historical tour of our willingness to suspend reason in favor of religious beliefs―even when these beliefs inspire the worst human atrocities. While warning against the encroachment of organized religion into world politics, Harris draws on insights from neuroscience, philosophy, and Eastern mysticism to deliver a call for a truly modern foundation for ethics and spirituality that is both secular and humanistic. Winner of the 2005 PEN/Martha Albrand Award for Nonfiction."

I'm on a similar side, my parent's are not technically atheists, but they just don't care and my dad openly mocks me for going to church. I also don't like going to church, because the Catholic Church is kinda corrupt in my opinion. I'd suggest finding an academic bible-study meetings, I've been invited to one community and I was blown away how warm and intelligent those people were, also very decisive about making a positive change in the world and in themselves.

When it comes to doubts, I get them aswell. What works for me is to look at the theories that don't say - "God exist, therefore His commandments work", but "God's commandments work, therefore there is something transcendent behind them".

Nice fuel for thought on the Old Testament - also the new Shapiro's book seem to be on a similar page. I didn't read it yet, but I've seen a lot of interviews with him where he states that judeo-christian values are what made the Western society far better than it is. Speaking from a Polish perspective, my nation was literally supported by God with overthrowing russian communist rule and becoming independent.

The book you're looking for is "Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why"

I'm about 70% though it and it's been a great read. It's thick reading, but super interesting.

http://www.amazon.com/Misquoting-Jesus-Story-Behind-Changed/dp/0060859512

Free (legal?) ebook links here: https://archive.org/details/Prof.BartEhrman-MisquotingJesus

> I've seen this before about religious people being more charitable. It is entirely possible it is true, but what are the studies counting and are they based on self-reporting or other forms of data?

" In our book American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us, Robert Putnam and I show that there is a strong connection between being religious and being charitable. Not surprisingly, the most highly religious Americans contribute their time and treasure to religious causes. But they also give to secular causes—at a higher rate than do the most secular Americans."

I'm currently reading Alan Jacob's The "Book of Common Prayer": A Biography.

Next up is Economic Shalom: A Reformed Primer on Faith, Work, and Human Flourishing by John Bolt.

Christian Dogmatics: Reformed Theology for the Church Catholic ed. by Michael Allen and Scott Swain will jump to the top of my list when it comes out in April.

I don't generally plan what I'm going to read very far in the future, but here's an (incomplete) list of books I'm wanting to read. I almost certainly won't get to all of them this year (if ever).

• A History of Western Philosophy and Theology by John Frame
  
• Baptists in America: A History by Thomas Kidd and Barry Hankins
  
• Church History: An Essential Guide Paperback by Justo L. González
  
• Death of Adam: Essays on Modern Thought by Marilynne Robinson
  
• Desiring the Kingdom: Worship, Worldview, and Cultural Formation by Jamie Smith
  
• Faith Speaking Understanding: Performing the Drama of Doctrine by Kevin Vanhoozer
  
• How (Not) to Be Secular: Reading Charles Taylor by James K. A. Smith
  
• Knowing Christ by Mark Jones
  
• Onward: Engaging the Culture without Losing the Gospel by Russell Moore
  
• Reformed Dogmatics: Abridged in One Volume by Herman Bavinck.
  
• The Gospel of the Lord: How the Early Church Wrote the Story of Jesus by Michael Bird
  
• Union with Christ: Reframing Theology and Ministry for the Church by Todd Billings.

I am as ardent an anti-theist as you'll find, however, few points

>I am not trying to offend anyone who is religious

Not up to you, they're going to get offended anyway.

>I know religion is responsible for many of our moral values

Is it though? Morality is still an incredibly rich area of study and thought (along with consciousness.) There are many competing theories such as: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_morality

In any case- religion certainly teaches that some things are bad and other things are good. I reject the claim that it is responsible for "many of our moral values." (Reference the Old Testament- morality isn't the word I would use to describe stoning people to death for transgressions.)

>Religion is responsible for some of the worst atrocities in human history.

I would say that close-minded adherence to bad ideas are the root of the worst atrocities in human history. Religions are among the worst ideas and the most deeply held convictions people have and have contributed mightily (and have been the primary factor for a lot of the atrocities) however, people are responsible for the worst atrocities in human history.

>I don't understand how people are willing to die for something that they have been told and never actually seen.

Philosophy Psychology of` religion is pretty useful here. You may find the following concepts interesting:

• The Backfire Effect
  
• Cognitive Dissonance
  
• Confirmation Bias
  
  It is important to note that religious adherents often grow up being taught these dogmatic systems as truth. To them it is common sense and they attribute their good feelings and positive experiences to the religion.
  
  >We are not born believing in religion it is taught to us.
  
  Someone along the way came up with the idea. Generally these days we cannot tell because not many people can get to age 18 without being subject to religious ideas. Although, I tend to agree with this hypothesis in a modern sense.
  
  >I believe that any religion, whethever it's monotheistic (one god) or polytheistic (many gods) that believes in a divine creator is a plague and gives evil people justification for committing awful crimes againist others (molesting children, terroist attacks, etc).
  
  Well, polytheistic religions have a history of being tolerant and intolerant of other gods/faiths. Monotheism has a horrific track record here.
  
  Jainism is non-violent: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jainism
  
  >I think social philosophies like confucianism which are built on more ethical and natural principles should replace religion.
  
  Secular Humanism sounds like it would float your boat: https://secularhumanism.org/index.php/3260
  
  What people find irreplaceable about religion is its answers to big questions, comfort, and "spiritual fulfillment."
  
  Whether you believe in spirituality or not, there have been many hypotheses about what spiritual experience is, or where exactly it comes from. Personally, I think religions are middle men between you and whatever those experiences are. Meditation and other methods have been suggested.
  
  >Religion is an evil plague apon society CMV.
  
  Ultimately, I agree with you. Although, I do think that some people get things from religion that are good or benign (things that could be gotten from other sources IMO.) Your view just needs a bit more nuance, respectfully. The following sources would be interesting to you:
  
  https://www.amazon.com/Christian-Essays-Religion-Related-Subjects/dp/0671203231
  
  https://www.amazon.ca/End-Faith-Religion-Terror-Future/dp/0393327655
  
  https://www.amazon.ca/God-Not-Great-Religion-Everything/dp/0771041438

You wanted to be part of the intelligentsia, but throughout your philosophical journey, you always based your convictions only on authority and tradition instead of on evidence and arguments. Don't you realize that this is the epitome of anti – intellectualism?

It is correct that the New Atheists aren't the pinnacle of atheistic thought and didn't contribute many new ideas to the academic debate of atheism vs. theism or religion. But this was never their goal, and it is also unnecessary, since the academic debate is already over for many decades. If you want to know why the arguments for theism are all complete nonsense and not taken seriously anymore, why Christianity is wrong just about everything and why apologists like Craig are dishonest charlatans who make a living out of fooling people, your reading list shouldn't be New Atheists, but rather something like this:

Colin Howson – Objecting to God

George H. Smith – Atheism: The Case Against God

Graham Oppy – Arguing about Gods

Graham Oppy – The Best Argument Against God

Herman Philipse – God in the Age of Science

J. L. Mackie – The Miracle of Theism

J. L. Schellenberg – The Wisdom to Doubt

Jordan Sobel – Logic and Theism

Nicholas Everitt – The Non-Existence of God

Richard Gale – On the Nature and Existence of God

Robin Le Poidevin – Arguing for Atheism

Stewart Elliott Guthrie – Faces in the Clouds: A New Theory of Religion

Theodore Drange – Nonbelief & Evil



[Avigor Shinan – From Gods to God: How the Bible Debunked, Suppressed, or Changed Ancient Myths and Legends] (http://www.amazon.com/dp/0827609086)

Bart Ehrman – The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings

Bart Ehrman – Jesus, Interrupted

Bart Ehrman – Misquoting Jesus

Burton L. Mack – Who Wrote the New Testament?

Helmut Koester – Ancient Christian Gospels

John Barton, John Muddiman – The Oxford Bible Commentary

John Dominic Crossan – Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography

Karen Armstrong – A History of God

Mark Smith – The Early History of God

Randel McCraw Helms – Who Wrote the Gospels?

Richard Elliott Friedman – Who Wrote the Bible?

Robert Bellah – Religion in Human Evolution: From the Paleolithic to the Axial Age

Robert Walter Funk – The Gospel of Jesus

>The research is actually more complicated than that. Research shows that religious people are NOT more happy. However, people who report having friends in church are more happy. (I believe some of that research is here- https://www.amazon.com/American-Grace-Religion-Divides-Unites/dp/1416566732 ) So the intervening variable appears to be connections at church, not a feature of religion/non-religion. (Non-believers who report having friends at church are just as happy, strong believers who do not report so are no more happy).

​

Congratulations! I know what a big step that is, as I've been in the same boat. Books are the best way to become informed. Check out books by:

• Christopher Hitchens - God Is Not Great & The Portable Atheist
  
  
• Stephen Hawking - The Grand Design & A Briefer History of Time
  
  
• Richard Dawkins - The Greatest Show on Earth
  
  
• Carl Sagan - The Demon Haunted World
  
  
• Sam Harris - The Moral Landscape & The End of Faith
  
  
• Richard Panek - The 4 Percent Universe
  
  
• Robert Ingersoll - Some Mistakes of Moses
  
  
• Viktor Frankl - Man's Search for Meaning
  
  
• Sean Caroll - The Making of the Fittest
  
  
• Spencer Wells - Deep Ancestry
  
  
• Ayaan Hirsi Ali - Infidel
  
  
• Alan Watts - The Way of Zen
  
  Also check out the video series Why I am no longer a creationist.
  
  The more you know, the more confident you will be.

Ok, I'll give it a go...


The first thing that got me questioning religion was seeing massive amounts of hypocrisy in church leadership. I was extremely involved as my father was a deacon and my mother worked at the church we attended. It was a common practice for us kids to go to one friends' house or another between morning and evening services, so I saw how the adults acted differently at home then they did at church. I realize not all religious people are like this, but it was the first step for my questioning. Once I was old enough I became a leader in the youth group and started seeing the same hypocrisy in myself.


Despite realizing my hypocrisy I continued to believe, even to the point in participating in multiple missions trips held by the organization Speed the Light. While on these trips we were told to write down our personal testimony so that we could present it during presentations and services. When I tired to put into words why I believed in God and, more importantly, why the audience should believe, I couldn't come up with a good reason. I sat in a bed in the country of Belize thinking, "If I can't come up with a good reason why these people should believe what I do, then why do I believe it?". Despite this thought I continued my charade for two more missions trips and a few more years.


Eventually I stepped down from youth leadership and entered a state of apathy towards religion. I didn't go to church, but I didn't really think about it much. Every now and then something really bad would happen and I'd wonder if God was punishing me, but they were more of fleeting thoughts than anything.



The next big hit for me was when I went to Iraq for a year. When you see good people with families who love them (some of which who were religious) die, the answer "God allows us to suffer so we learn/build character/build faith etc" just doesn't cut it anymore. About a year after I came home from the deployment I actually started looking for information that refuted religion. I'd say that was when my state started the path from apathetic to agnostic to atheist.



The book Letter to a Christian Nation was a big eye-opener for me. Along with other works of Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, Christoper Hitchens, and other authors I'm sure you'll become aware of if you continue to question things. The more I investigated, the more absurd religion seemed; and the more science explained all of the things that I attributed to the supernatural. When I was a child I believed, truly believed, that when I was lying in bed one night I saw an angel appear in my room. It wasn't until I read The God Delusion that I realized there was a scientific explanation for things like that.



The more I found that science could prove things, really prove things, the more I realized that "it's true because the Bible says so" didn't work for me anymore. In the last few years I've learned things that have blown my mind. Things that I thought would take away the wonder of the world have actually enhanced it. I'm a good person because I want to be, not because I'll burn in hell if I'm not; I don't steal because I realize that it's unproductive in the long run, not because some ancient stone tablet and a preacher told me not to, etc.



I'm not saying I don't have personal issues like anger, sadness or depression. You can only fight evolution to a point, we are still human. I guess I'm just saying that the answers I found leading me to atheism were far more satisfying and comforting than anything religion ever offered me. Hope that helps.


tl;dr: it's basically a de-conversion story, read if you'd like I suppose.

No problem, friend.

For an argument against religion, I'd highly recommend the famous The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins. It's very well-received and typically considered one of the best arguments against.

For an argument in favor of religion, I haven't read it yet, but I've heard very good things about Five Proofs of the Existence of God by Edward Feser.

They go well together, because the Five Proofs book tries to make arguments with specific reference to The God Delusion, but of course there are tons of other resources you could use instead. Either way, if you do decide to read through them, hopefully it at least gets you thinking a bit, even if it doesn't sway your opinion at all! :)

First of all, can I just say how much I love giving and receiving book recommendations? I was a religious studies major in college (and was even a T.A. in the World Religions class) so, this is right up my alley. So, I'm just going to take a seat in front of my book cases...

General:

1. A History of God by Karen Armstrong
   
   
2. The Great Transformation by Karen Armstrong
   
   
3. Myths: gods, heroes, and saviors by Leonard Biallas (highly recommended)
   
   
4. Natural History of Religion by David Hume
   
   
5. Beyond Tolerance by Gustav Niebuhr
   
   
6. Acts of Faith by Eboo Patel (very highly recommended, completely shaped my view on pluralism and interfaith dialogue)
   
   
7. The Evolution of God by Robert Wright
   
   Christianity:
   
   
8. Tales of the End by David L. Barr
   
   
9. The Historical Jesus by John Dominic Crossan
   
   
10. Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography by John Dominic Crossan
    
    
11. The Birth of Christianity by John Dominic Crossan
    
    
12. Who Wrote the New Testament? by Burton Mack
    
    
13. Jesus in America by Richard Wightman Fox
    
    
14. The Five Gospels by Robert Funk, Roy W. Hoover, and the Jesus Seminar (highly recommended)
    
    
15. Remedial Christianity by Paul Alan Laughlin
    
    Judaism:
    
    
16. The Jewish Mystical Tradition by Ben Zion Bokser
    
    
17. Who Wrote the Bible? by Richard Elliot Friedman
    
    Islam:
    
    
18. Muhammad by Karen Armstrong
    
    
19. No God but God by Reza Aslan
    
    
20. Approaching the Qur'an: The Early Revelations by Michael Sells
    
    Buddhism:
    
    
21. Buddha by Karen Armstrong
    
    
22. Entering the Stream ed. Samuel Bercholz & Sherab Chodzin Kohn
    
    
23. The Life of Milarepa translated by Lobsang P. Lhalungpa
    
    
24. Introduction to Tibetan Buddhism by John Powers
    
    
25. Zen Flesh, Zen Bones compiled by Paul Reps (a classic in Western approached to Buddhism)
    
    
26. Buddhist Thought by Paul Williams (if you're at all interested in Buddhist doctrine and philosophy, you would be doing yourself a disservice by not reading this book)
    
    Taoism:
    
    
27. The Essential Chuang Tzu trans. by Sam Hamill & J.P. Seaton
    
    Atheism:
    
    
28. Atheism by Julian Baggini
    
    
29. The Future of an Illusion by Sigmund Freud
    
    
30. Doubt: A History by Jennifer Michael Hecht
    
    
31. When Atheism Becomes Religion by Chris Hedges
    
    
32. Atheism: The Case Against God by George H. Smith

This was a pretty good read.

As was this.

Still reading this one.

A fun, quick read.

Haven't read it, but if his other book is anything by which to judge, worth a look.

Good luck.

Actually there is some debate over the translation of the piece of text. If I remember correctly (sorry, I don't have a citation), I read somewhere that it specifically says, in one translation at least, that it's only applicable if you defend your faith, i.e. if you are attacked first.

Also, the Qu'ran is pretty explicit about not killing or harming other people in plenty of other passages. But this doesn't matter to those who want young men to do their dirty work for them. You don't tend to see the masterminds behind this blowing themselves up, those who do so are just pawns.

If this is a topic that interests you, I can't recommend How to Win A Cosmic War highly enough for a really interesting perspective on the topic. It is certainly explained/debated better than I can

Yes, Muslims don't worship Christ, but they do recognize him as a prophet- though not as great as the prophet Mohammed. Similarly, Christians recognize Abraham, Isaac, Moses (and many others) as prophets even though they were Jews and are also considered prophets by Jews.

If you want to go by the almighty Wikipedia, check out this handy chart.

Also, some more reputable sources: here, here, here

While I don't believe in any religion, I do think it's interesting to learn about their origins and tenets. If you're interested in reading a very well-written book on the subject, I quite enjoyed Reza Aslan's No god but God

I would highly recommend Sam Harris. He can be quite verbose at times, but his logic is impeccable. You might want to try Letter to a Christian Nation to start. It's directed to a Christian audience and was a real eye opener for me. Plus, it's pretty short (144 pages).

Edit: His YouTube videos are excellent as well.

http://www.amazon.com/Noahs-Flood-Scientific-Discoveries-Changed/dp/0684859203/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1323376708&sr=8-1 Noah's Flood had some very interesting information brought about in part by the mapping of the sea floor in the black sea for the US Navy.

http://www.amazon.com/Misquoting-Jesus-Story-Behind-Changed/dp/0060859512/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1323376738&sr=1-1 This book was fantastic. If you ever wanted to know how the bibles (because there are many versions) came to be the way they are, this is where you start. The author truly gets into great detail about the documents on which we based our current bibles.

> Daniel 9 is a big one... Christianity was written about within decades of the events.

Within decades? Most studies do not show this to be true. But even if your statement were true, aren't the gospels supposed to be written by those who lived with Jesus? This is clearly wrong even when reading the first few verses of Luke.

>Joseph Smith was tried and convicted of being a con man...

No doubt he was a con. But I'd venture to guess that even if you discovered Jesus was tried and convicted of being a con, or any of his apostles, your faith would still be in tact. The fact Joseph Smith was a con does not mean that God did not talk to him, right?

Whenever I read these justifications, it screams of an inadequate attempt to confirm your beliefs, not challenge them. Who taught you about Daniel 9? I can safely guess that you either found it on the internet or were taught by some other influence. You didn't read the book of Daniel and come up with this calculation yourself. You were looking for proof and someone gave it to you.

Why do you believe Jesus resurrected in April? Because it's Easter? Do you know the history of Easter? Did you know that pagans used to celebrate Spring with a god or goddess of fertility? And how is fertility represented--a bunny. Christians adopted these customs in order to convert pagans. Just like December 25. You do know that, don't you? If you do know that, then why would you even for a second pretend to know Jesus resurrected on "Easter Sunday."

I promise to read The Case for Christ, if you read Letter to a Christian Nation. It's only about 100 pages long.

Here's the point. You say "Daniel 9 is a big one." I can guarantee, if Daniel 9 proved to be false, your faith would still be in tact. You would rationalize some way to believe the entirety of Christianity. If I believe in UFOs, and I research all of the evidence with a hidden attempt to confirm my belief, I will ignore evidence to the contrary. But if I don't believe in UFOs, and keep an open mind to all possibilities, and rationally examine all the evidence presented before me, my conclusions can be more objective.

I upvoted because you're asking a(n at least sort-of) respectful question. I'm sure others could answer you better or more completely, but I'll take a stab.

I firmly believe that no one here wants to "destroy any reference" to Yahweh. Many of us enjoy the Greek pantheon, and a few of us like the Norse better.

The problem with Christianity is that it encourages faith, which is not only pretty much useless as a decision making paradigm, but also cripples us in regards to making sane, rational decisions. I'm sure I don't need to harp on the extensive list of atrocities committed that would have been impossible without faith.

You might be interested in reading Sam Harris's Letter to a Christian Nation.

Letter to a Christian Nation
Sam Harris takes a firm but personal approach to explaining away religious faith. Use this as an introductory book to a much more straightforward and aggressive book like The God Delusion, or as a closing argument to a primer in rationalism that begins with a softer book by Sagan or the like. It depends on the approach you want to take, although I would suggest going the later route. Demon Haunted world was an excellent suggestion. Your parents will obviously agree with him when he dismisses ancient myths and beliefs, so when he shows their own beliefs to be on the same level, that skeptical thought process will start to catch hold of them and hopefully make them question those beliefs.

I recommend The God Delusion if you like science. Dawkins does not pull punches. The book is full of good arguments and interesting information.

For friends and other people who could use a gentle introduction to the idea that atheists aren’t evil, I strongly recommend Letter to a Christian Nation. It’s the sort of book you might give your mom.

I like them both and have strong points that compliment each other. I would suggest reading both and then moving on to The Greatest Show on Earth, The End Of Faith and Unweaving the Rainbow in no particular order, but all great books in their own right.

If you're interested in reading more about how the Bible changed over time, read Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why.

It's a little on the dry side, but it's not a rant, and if you're unfamiliar with textual criticism, you may find it interesting on that point alone.

For example, while some stories sound very "Christ-like", the story of the good Samaritan doesn't appear in any of the earliest versions of the New Testament--it was added by monks hundreds of years afterwards.

Fascinating material if you have an open mind.

Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years gets recommended quite a lot. I'm only part of the way through, but it's a great book. Unfortunately, I don't see a large print edition, but you can get the ebook if that's an option.

If you like podcasts, I'd recommend starting with Religions of the Ancient Mediterranean and moving to History of the Papacy. There are also classes/podcasts on the history of the Orthodox and Coptic Churches, as well as the Reformation.

The book list just keeps growing in so many different directions that it's hard to identify which I want to tackle next (I also have a tendency to take meticulous notes while I read and that slows the process down even further!). Some of the topics I intend to read about once I'm done with the books mentioned:

• God: A Human History
  
• Why We Believe in God(s): A Concise Guide to the Science of Faith
  
• The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs: A New History of a Lost World
  
• The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck
  
• Occult America
  
• When Prophecy Fails
  
• Astrophysics for People in a Hurry
  
• Cosmos
  
• Norse Mythology
  
• Cadillac Desert: The American West and Its Disappearing Water
  
• Guns, Germs, and Steel
  
• Misquoting Jesus
  
• On Bullshit
  
• The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe
  
• Why People Believe Weird Things
  
  Plus a bunch of books by Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, Carl Sagan, and others. There are way too many. And all the fiction books I want to read too! It's not that I didn't read books before, but my faith transition has sparked an intense desire to study and learn far greater than I ever experienced before.

I think there might be.

The tactics that you see being used to subvert the faith would not be charitable nor respectful for a Christian to use to try and get people to join the faith.

If you want to learn more about the origins of our secular society I'd recommend the work of the Canadian Catholic Sociologist and philosopher, Charles Taylor.

I'd recommend this book about Charles Taylor's work.

I'd also recommend reading Pope Francis' first Apostolic Exhortation: Evangelii Gaudium. In it Pope Francis specifically addresses how to evangelize in today's world

Yes, if changes from the original transcript were propagated in the period where things were in flux, and the "settled" version included those changes, it absolutely changes future translations.

This book is a worthwhile read on how we can see and find many of these changes and even reverse some of them by comparing different manuscripts and through knowledge of the original languages and their sources: https://www.amazon.com/Misquoting-Jesus-Story-Behind-Changed/dp/0060859512

I recommend it, if you're curious about the topic.

For Atheism:

1. Superstition in All Ages by Jean Meslier - a comprehensive treatise against religion, written between 2 and 3 centuries ago.
   
   
2. The Religion Virus: Why we believe in God by Craig A. James - explains how religion and particularly belief in God is due to memetic evolution.
   
   
3. Atheism: A Philosophical Justification by Michael Martin - a comprehesive overview of arguments for and against the existence of God.
   
   
4. Darwin's Dangerous Idea by Daniel Dennett - explains why the idea of evolution is so powerful an explanation of things, it acts as a universal acid against supernatural beliefs.
   
   
5. The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins - specifically addresses the idea of God as a supernatural creator
   
   For Christianity:
   
   
6. The Five Great Philosophies of Life by William De Witt Hyde - covers Epicureanism, Stoicism, Plato, Aristotle, and Christianity, explaining the value in each.
   
   
7. Summa Theologica by Thomas Aquinas - a comprehensive and detailed examination and defense of Christian beliefs
   
   
8. The End of Religion: Encountering the Subversive Spirituality of Jesus by Bruxy Cavey
   
   
9. Unspoken Sermons by George MacDonald
   
   
10. Descent Into Hell by Charles Williams - a novel

>A claim whose veracity can never be tested or verified. Got it.

Do you only believe in what is scientifically verifiable?

>if it occurs, can be measured,

What? how would you measure it? is there some god-o-meter i don't know about?? I mean most theist will say that god instigated the universe which makes the laws of physics essentially the action of god if done with intention. But say, look at a miracle, how can you test it using science which is methodologically naturalist when supernatural miracles are by their nature non-repeatable phenomena. The second science can test or replicate a miracle it is no longer a miracle the question is malformed.

>Which of the thousands, millions or billions of definitions of god are we talking about?

The core claim of all monotheistic traditions today which also lies at the heart of many other traditions: this is of a necessary premise, common to all classical theistic philosophies. That is god as the source and ground and end of all reality. The immaterial transcendent reality of which all things are contingent upon. This can describe Brhama,the Sihk god the Abrahamic gods, it applies to various Mahayana formulations of the Buddha consciousness or nature or even earlier the conception of the unconditioned, or to certain aspects of the tao.

For a more thorough explanation go to David Bentley Hart's work The Experience of God: Being, Consciousness, Bliss
https://www.amazon.com/The-Experience-God-Being-Consciousness/dp/0300166842

This, essential belief that all major religious traditions have some premonition of is what I'm concerning.

>What if it was actually an alien? You'd just be fooling yourself into believing something that you wanted to believe, not believing what actually is.

Thats kinda my point... science cannot prove or disprove god, there will never be a way to be certain even if he walked up to you and said hello

The existence of god is and always will be an a priori claim, now you can dispute all a priori knowledge but that is a different question for another time. The fact of the matter is that science cannot prove or disprove the existence of god, it is a category error (at least regarding the vast majority of major world religions)

for an overview of what it presents, go here. Video version. Basically the concept of Yaheweh evolved over about 6 centuries out of the old caananite pantheon, which included el, ashera (el's lover) and baal. Due to a combination of xeonphobia (thanks to being invaded over and over) and political unrest, certain prophets were given sounding boxes more than others, while other prophets were silenced.

Editors and redactors then went in and changed certain historical details or laws present in the torah and history books (see my previous post on Genesis 1 vs Genesis 2), king Josiah 'discovered' the book of deuteronomy (read: wrote a new set of more-totalitarian laws to unite the kingdom), and created stories and myths that made it seem like Israel's biggest problem was always turning to false gods, away from Yahweh (who merged personalities with El), the war god.

another good read that is the archaeological parallel to the karen armstrong book is "The Bible Unearthed" by Finklestein. It points out the archaeological findings of the transformation from polytheism, to monolateralism (belief in multiple gods but showing preference to one), to monotheism. It also points out the fact that there is no credible evidence for a large portion of the 'history' in the bible, such as the exodus, the wandering in the desert, the mass genocides; "Israel" was a people group that was already there, and just gained a new national identify thanks to very creative myth-weavers.

Finally, I'm currently reading "The Evolution of God" by Robert Wright (a journalist) who pulls together and condenses a lot of this information into one. He's an expert at literature surveying and information condensing.

Well, you're trying to believe in the god of your times. Go back, way back, to even primitive hunter-gatherer societies, and start tracing the evolution of god from that point.

You'll have a better appreciation for what god has been to different people over the years, and you won't be so bound to the particular flavor of god you were indoctrinated with. You may end up deriving a different belief in god, or no belief at all.

This is a much better explanation of what the whole "invention" of Al Qaeda was. Anyone interested should read "How to Win a Cosmic War" for an interesting background on the whole idea.

I agree with a lot of what /u/Diet_Victreebel wrote. The idea that "belief" is solely a head-based, intellectual exercise is actually quite new and shaped by Western cultural thinking. These days I understand faith more in the sense of trust. For example, believing that a Ferris wheel is operating under a set of mechanics that will support its structure is different than trusting in those mechanics enough to step inside it and go around. The book How (Not) to be Secular has helped me understand how we have come to understand belief in its modern sense, and how we can conceive of other possibilities. I don't always agree with the author but I highly recommend it.

I highly recommend Misquoting Jesus by Bart Ehrman.

Ehrman is a legitimate academic focused on the New Testament. Misquoting Jesus (and his other books) are great if you find yourself asking questions like this.

The unfortunately-titled book, Atheist Delusions by David Bentley Hart, is a pretty direct refutation of some of the New Atheist tropes.

For a somewhat more difficult read, his latest book, The Experience of God, takes on some of the more metaphysical misunderstandings that New Atheists (and many theists) make about what God actually is.

For a much easier and shorter summary, in a sense, of The Experience of God, take a look at DBH's article in First Things, God, Gods, and Fairies which covers similar ground in a much more introductory way (and has the benefit of being freely available).

Bahá’u’lláh And the New Era by J. E. Esslemont is the standard introduction to the Bahá’í Faith in the United States. It has been updated several times since it’s first publication in the 1920s.

The Bahá’í Faith: A Guide for the Perplexed by Robert H. Stockman is a 21st century introduction to the Faith that is slightly scholarly.

Gleanings From the Writings of Bahá'u'lláh by Bahá'u'lláh, it isn't available right now on Amazon, but here is a link to a PDF you can download for free.

this book is what finally pushed me over the edge into atheism / freedom. it's about how the bible as we know is completely inaccurate. this naturally led me to ask myself, if what we base our worship and knowledge of god is inherently inaccurate, then that's as good as believing a fiction. quite simply, believing a lie.

Holy shit, dude. That sounds like the exact opposite of fun. If they've got something important to say, then summarize it here.

Just for fun, why don't you read Misquoting Jesus or The History of God, if you're not afraid to expose yourself to some scholarship that will challenge your most cherished illusions.

You are correct that many Christians take offense, and of course they do. Their fundamental sense of self is rooted in belief. However, the atheist is no different. You yourself indicated this with the last line of your post. When one's paradigm is challenged, it is normal for those who are not used to dialogue with other paradigms to lash out like white blood cells attacking a foreign body in the bloodstream. At the very least, if you're looking for academic dialogue about Christianity, you'll need to stop going to non-academic Christians. The examples of Trump representing (and in my opinion, "Christian" Trump supporters) true orthodox (correct) theology is simply false, along with any Christian institution that "bears fruit" of violence, etc.

As an aside, I also picked up a small but strong presupposition common among many atheists/agnostics (assuming atheism/ag from your post, correct if wrong) that the book is closed academically on the existence of God. I would assume that you're aware that at the most basic level, the belief in or not in God is indeed still a belief and can never be proven; this is much more problematic for the positivist than the believer. Fortunately for us all, the metamodern landscape has resulted in the contesting of all things secular and religious. There is no longer (nor ever was) a separation.

I would recommend these books to you for some further reading on the point: #1 and #2. Here are to qualifying reviews on the first text. 1 and 2.

Hope it helps.

Assertions from church fathers and theologians have NO BEARING bearing on what textual scholars have discovered over the past 19 centuries my friend. I refer you to this site, created by Christians, maintained by Christians, and used by students in every major seminary on earth for research purposes. http://www.earlychristianwritings.com

I love the way you emphasized the Matthew specific material while leaving out the fact that 50% of his gospel is copied WORD FOR WORD from Mark, who was most certainly not an eye witness. This is not what you would expect from someone who actually witnessed the events. On top of that there are verbal cues in the text that show beyond doubt it was originally composed in Greek..with many of the so-called OT prophecies referenced by Matthew worded (and mistranslated) exactly as they were in the Septuagint, which was a Greek version of the OT that the author used for a source. There are a myriad of other reasons why mainstream scholars believe that all of the gospels were composed by anonymous Greek-speaking Christians long after the death of anyone who knew Jesus. If you are sincerely interested in how the NT came together, rather than bolstering conclusions you have arrived at for other reasons, this book is a good starting place: http://www.amazon.com/Misquoting-Jesus-Story-Behind-Changed/dp/0060859512/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1330919177&sr=8-1

Diarmaid Macculloch's History of Christianity: the first three thousand years is pretty thorough.

Universal reconciliation has had a pretty interesting history in Christianity as well.

Yes, by Bart Ehrman: https://www.amazon.com/Misquoting-Jesus-Story-Behind-Changed/dp/0060859512

Great read, very interesting!

> The same techniques that lead us to suspect the ending of Mark might not be genuine show us that the vast majority of the New Testament exists largely unchanged from the original manuscripts, save for the odd spelling error.

No, they don't.

https://www.amazon.com/Misquoting-Jesus-Story-Behind-Changed/dp/0060859512

But we might just have to agree to disagree about that. In any case...

> I believe only in the God of the Bible.

With or without Mark 16:17-18?

Either way, let me just ask you: does faith in the God of the Bible produce any measurable (by a non-believer) effect that faith in some other god does not? If so, what is it? If not, then in what sense can such a god be said to exist?

As others have said, reading the books themselves is the ultimate illuminator. Seeing first-hand the insanity, dissonance, and hostility evident in the original documents is invaluable.

I recently finished Sam Harris's The End of Faith, and while somewhat meandering at times (and confusing in his usage of the word "spirituality" to mean "sense of wonder" or "self-consciousness" or even a sort of "high"), he focuses on rationality vs religiosity, often going very in-depth into those holy books of the Abrahamic religions (remember that Christianity, Judaism, Mormonism, and even Islam claim to rever the same character, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob).

Another book that I just added to my wishlist is Asimov's Guide to the Bible... apparently it's pretty "understanding" of religion, but he's a brilliant author and a staunch atheist, so I'm very interested in what he had to say about the historicity of the Bible.

Congrats! You're officially on my "you're fucking ignorant" list.

Go read his books. Letter to a Christian Nation is a great place to start. And yes he does support his stance in many different positions. You can check it out of your local library.

Edit - added link to Amazon.

No, but the best predictor of party is, statistically speaking, religiosity.

Source.

Letter to a Christian Nation is a fun, light read. It's also fun to lend it to your religious/christian friends.

That "double think" may never completely go away for me. I've made peace with it, though, by trying to understand the psychology behind it.

All of the books recommended so far are a great place to start. A book that made a big impact on me was Bart Erhman's Misquoting Jesus. I was always taught that the bible was infallible, so reading about how it was actually written helped peel away some of that double think for me.

If you will read only one book read The End of Faith by Sam Harris.

This is the best critique of faith that really explains why believing on bad evidence is itself a problem, but also why omnipotent, intelligent being would not demand it from other sentient, intelligent beings.

You might be interested in "Misquoting Jesus: The Story of Who Changed the Bible and Why", which was written my one of the leading NT textual critics. I don't know that you are going to find a vast conspiracy where anyone has altered the text radically, but there certainly are variations in our early manuscripts.

If you are interested in the Old Testament, I recommend "Who Wrote the Bible?".

I can't stress to you enough. However you can get Raymond Franz's book Crisis of Conscience you can find it here http://www.amazon.com/Crisis-Conscience-Raymond-Franz/dp/0914675044

heck I'll but it for you if you can't purchase online. It is a must read for anyone like you who need help seeing things more clearly.

Buy this book and read it fast, it's on the JW history of ridiculousness. None of them probably know their own church's history.

http://www.amazon.com/Crisis-Conscience-Raymond-Franz/dp/0914675044

> Franz does not detail doctrinal problems with the Watchtower. Franz most likely holds to many of his old Watchtower doctrines. The Watchtower does have doctrinal problems when compared with the beliefs commonly held by the Church throughout Christian history. In fact the Watchtower is in my opinion just another apocalyptic group founded in the mid-late 1800s. However, Franz is not concerned with issues like the Trinity or Christ's divinity. He is more concerned with what makes a group truly a cult, which is control by the leaders over its members. Franz details this marvelously, and explains how the Watchtower even monitored its members bedroom activities. He speaks of disfellowshippings where families were encouraged to "shun" other members who had been kicked out of the Watchtower, effectively ruining the lives of thousands people. Franz also documents and explains failed prophecy, which caused many trusting members of the "truth" to sell homes, postpone college, and other goals in order to be ready for the end. The entire book is a calm and sober, yet highly personal, account of Franz's life deep within the Watchtower and his eventual exit.

I’m a gay atheist. At first when I finally accepted I was gay, I tried my best to reconcile my being gay with Christianity until I read the Bible cover to cover (OT and NT, New International Version) until I found out the glaring errors, contradictions and repugnant deeds and sayings by God himself, his prophets as well as Jesus Christ and that made me look into more until I found four books that made me realize that the Abrahamic god is a man made one and not someone who is all-powerful and all knowing.

The books are here:
Who Was Jesus? Fingerprints of the Christ
Misquoting Jesus
Is It God’s Word?
The God Delusion

If she's interested in books, Misquoting Jesus by Bart Ehrman really dismantled my belief in the veracity of the New Testament. I haven't read his other books but I've heard they're good. Also, Mormon Stories has a really interesting series on the New Testament featuring religious academic Jared Anderson.

She might want to check out the New Order Mormon board for a safe place to ask questions. It might feel less threatening than this sub.

Most of it came from classes and lectures. I don't have the class book list and sources anymore. I do hope you really, really like reading!

Forged writingss

Misquoting Jesus A well known book.

Introduction to the new testiment

The new testament: a historical intoduction

Revelation and the End of All Things Also a somewhat popular book

You can also do some Wikipedia reading on Gnosticism and other early Christen sects to get an idea of just how many groups their were and how differing their beliefs could be. Also look for things on the Q, M and L source.

Edit

You can likely find a number of online pod-casts (or whatever you call them) and lectures on these things.

I am not a historian so my access to books and memorized sources is very limited, I am a student and have been accused of reading serial boxes at least once when I accidentally quoted the wrong book name, It was too much fun to make the correction as no one had ever said that too me before and I felt special, like I had hit an academic milestone.

Also, Don't feel bad about asking for sources.

John Espositio has written several books about Islam. He is a staunch Catholic. Islam: The Straight Path is really good.

I Karen Armstrong has written some books as well that I've heard are good, but I haven't read them myself.

No God but God by Reza Aslan is good too, but it has some controversial things regarding the beginnings of Islam.

Bart Ehrman has a number of good books on this subject. I just finished Misquoting Jesus and am in the middle of Forged. Ehrman has a nice writing style that is easy to read.

https://www.amazon.com/Evolution-God-Robert-Wright/dp/0316734918

From the Stone Age to the Information Age, Robert Wright unveils an astonishing discovery: there is a hidden pattern that the great monotheistic faiths have followed as they have evolved. Through the prisms of archaeology, theology, and evolutionary psychology, Wright's findings overturn basic assumptions about Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, and are sure to cause controversy.

If you enjoyed the God Delusion you would probably enjoy either God Is Not Great by Hitchens or The End of Faith by Sam Harris

The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings - Bart D. Ehrman

I didn't see anything by him in the FAQ but I think he's a great author on the topic of Christianity and The Bible; he started out as a biblical scholar before becoming an atheist.

Edit: That book is actually a bit heavy to start with, it reads like a text book. I'd recommend starting with Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why or Jesus, Interrupted: Revealing the Hidden Contradictions in the Bible

Yeah there's four books all together.

I also highly recommend this and also this which is more encyclopedic and hence terse, but still a very excellent read.

What is your background and what are you trying to learn?

The most essential spiritual teachings are enshrined in the beautiful little book called The Hidden Words of Baha'u'llah.

If you want an introduction to the history, teachings, and community, Baha'u'llah and the New Era is a wonderful book:

https://www.amazon.com/Bahaullah-New-Era-Introduction-Bahai/dp/1931847274

I highly recommend this book for you:

http://www.amazon.com/The-Experience-God-Being-Consciousness/dp/0300166842

In it's way it's a philosophical defense of the idea of God or the Divine in response to Dawkins et al. The author is Orthodox, but the argument in defense of God is undertaken philosophically, without being tied to any one faith or denomination.

Except you know, preservation of values and moral virtue. If you’re actually curious you should take the chance to read this book sometime
https://www.amazon.com/Right-Side-History-Reason-Purpose/dp/0062857908/ref=asc_df_0062857908/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=385575011665&hvpos=1o2&hvnetw=g&hvrand=17354138199487605660&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=m&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9004568&hvtargid=pla-607118584930&psc=1&tag=&ref=&adgrpid=77500929574&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvadid=385575011665&hvpos=1o2&hvnetw=g&hvrand=17354138199487605660&hvqmt=&hvdev=m&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9004568&hvtargid=pla-607118584930

Subsistent being: God is the experience of being itself. Rather than being an object within reality God is reality itself. See: https://www.amazon.com/Experience-God-Being-Consciousness-Bliss/dp/0300166842

2+2=4 is also necessarily true. It cannot be any other way than the way in which it is. Is the fact that that is axiomatically true an example of "circular logic"?

I encourage you to read Crisis of Conscience by Raymond Franz. Franz is the nephew of Frederick Franz, and was a member of the Governing Body from 1971 - 1980. He was disfellowshipped and declared an apostate when, while leading chronology research for the Aid to Bible Understanding encyclopedia, his findings led him to question key teachings of church.

Again, this was Ray Franz, from a family of JWs, who rose about as high as you could possibly rise in the church, and who'd devoted over forty years in the service of the church. The GB ran Franz out on a rail for asking simple and logical questions that, per them, should have been ludicrously easy for them to answer.

I can get you a copy of the book. I'll send you a PM.

I wonder how the theist in question would respond to finding out that that particular referenced passage was added to the bible much later. Any mildly intellectually honest bible includes a footnote on this entire story stating that "our earliest and most reliable sources do not contain this passage", meaning "this passage was added later, by other people." If anyone is interested in reading more about it, they can look here for a quick resource, and here for a much better one.

Edit: Sorry, my intent with this comment was a little unclear. I am certainly glad to see theists who use more of their brain and accept people for how they are, rather than the two typical responses: 1) spewing hateful dogma or 2) distancing themselves (superficially) from the 'twisted ideology' that would cause such an attack. I would much prefer to see many mild Christians than no change at all, obviously. This response, however, presents me with two problems. First, the passage doesn't say the gay person did nothing wrong, simply that we are in no position to judge someone who does something wrong. That is not actually a particularly progressive view. "Yes, homosexuality is a problem, but who am I to judge you?" the ideology says. Second, this passage is so often used to justify accepting homosexuals, yet was not actually in the bible, originally. It would be more accurate to attribute it to Anon., which would make it meaningless to most Christians.

Anyway, I hope that makes my intent more clear.

I enjoyed Muhammad: The messenger of God by Betty Kelen as an introduction and preview for what is to come, and then No God But God by Reza Aslan.

These books are entertaining and touch on several issues without too much study.

If you become serious and want to learn more, go ahead and read Tafheem Ul-Qur'an by Sayyid Abul Ala Maududi.

I'm sorry that I don't have it in myself at the moment to carry this conversation where it should head but if I tried the attempt would half hearted and you deserve a more rigorous explanation than I'd provide. As a consolation I'll suggest you read Letter To a Christian nation if you really want to hear an outsiders view on Christianity and some well reasoned arguments of how Christians might advocate violence. It's a cheap book ad pretty quick to read and he's got better prose than I ever would. If you're not interested that's fine too. Best of luck.

I've read the Letter to a Christian Nation and the Moral Landscape. Like the derpy gentleman below said, LTCN is very short and easy to read. I'd recommend starting with that over the Moral Landscape, which is a denser book.

The best thing to do is to start searching for "eugenics." For some reason that stuff hasn't been buried as much and you can see more of it. And, since links in English are favored by the web over links in German, you get more of an allied perspective on it. You can start here, move on to here, spend a little time here and then dip in here for a little light reading before going down the rabbit hole for ever and ever.

Honestly, "The Greatest Show on Earth" is WAY better. Dawkins on religion isn't nearly as good as Dawkins on biology.

You want to read a devastating book on religion, try "The End of Faith". Or better yet, this.

> They belong to a cult that is brainwashing them from birth.

I hate to be that guy, but that IS Christianity as a whole. I'm Agnostic with a Bachelors in History here. You would be amazed about how much a regular Christian is clueless about how the bible was built, by whom, and why it's been changed over the centuries. Here's a good book from amazon if you are interested in learning more..

If you want to get intellectual, it is worth looking into how exactly the New Testament came together..rather than just learning the theology within it. This book is a good place to start.

When it comes to understanding evolution, Why Evolution is True is a very entertaining, easily read introduction. I would also recommend The End of Faith by Sam Harris.

Good books. Did you have any particular subjects within atheism that you would like to read about?

If I can make 2 recommendations for what to read next;

Misquoting Jesus by Bart Ehrman

Demon Haunted World by Carl Sagan

The FAQ has a nice little section on books.

NukethePope also has a nice list.

I’m on the opposite end of this because he’s in my daily podcast rotation for the last 2 years, so I’ve definitely seen a ton of bad content (typically his religious commentaries are just dumb), but I’ve also seen him go very deep into topics to the point where I really respect his effort.


While his books he wrote in his 20’s are terrible (Porn generation, etc), his most recent book is actually pretty interesting since it’s a primer on the history of western philosophy

He’s definitely got bad times, but it irks me when everyone pretends like he’s an idiot. I respect him a ton.

Here's my recommendations:

Start with This video. It's based off the book "A History of god" by Karen Armstrong. This is what the bulk of biblical scholars agree with. Note that the author was a former nun & is still a Christian.

& I recommend the following books:

On the Historicity of Jesus: Why We Might Have Reason for Doubt

Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why

Nailed: Ten Christian Myths That Show Jesus Never Existed at All

I couldn't recommend Richard Dawkins The God Delusion enough.
https://www.amazon.com/God-Delusion-Richard-Dawkins/dp/0618918248

it's a fantastic entry point for somebody that is skeptical about religion.

also Sam Harris Letter to a Christian Nation is a great short read about morality and religion in America.

https://www.amazon.com/Letter-Christian-Nation-Sam-Harris/dp/0307278778/

The real problem is that a lot of the people who deserve criticism and backlash use rhetoric that starts to tread into the Nazi camp.

You use Shapiro as your example so let's take one of his main talking points: "The West is great." Well what do Nazis have to say about the matter? "The Nazis said that since Western civilization, created and maintained they asserted mostly by Nordics, was obviously superior to other civilizations, then the "Nordic" peoples were superior to all other races..."

So yeah. The rhetoric isn't that much different. So why are we so concerned with splitting hairs over what we label these clearly terrible people who are basically saying the same thing that Nazis did?

> Subsistent being: God is the experience of being itself. Rather than being an object within reality God is reality itself. See: https://www.amazon.com/Experience-God-Being-Consciousness-Bliss/dp/0300166842

Violates the law of non contradiction. If god is reality then why do we have two separate labels for those concepts? I’ll tell you why, because they are different concepts. If god is nature then you’re basically a pantheist.

> 2+2=4 is also necessarily true. It cannot be any other way than the way in which it is. Is the fact that that is axiomatically true an example of "circular logic"?

No because mathematical proofs don’t assume the conclusion in the proof. Whereas unproven claims about a god being do.

1. Crisis of Conscience. 2) The Gentile Times Reconsidered. 3) Jehovah's Witnesses And The United Nations. 4) The Early History of God: Yahweh and the Other Deities in Ancient Israel (Biblical Resource Series). 5) The God Delusion.

As far as Christianity goes, probably the best book I've read about the "unathenticity" of the Bible is "Misquoting Jesus."

http://www.amazon.com/Misquoting-Jesus-Story-Behind-Changed/dp/0060859512

I wrote the following book about Christianity that's less professional but still raises some interesting points. It's free. So don't accuse me of spamming:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/124010563/The-Reality-of-Christianity

Read "The Case for God", by Karen Armstrong. She talks about this sort of thing from quite a different point of view. I think the book forms a good foundation that might help you see things from Peterson's point of view. Interestingly enough, she also has quite a lot to say about Newton and Darwin and how they relate to religion.

https://www.amazon.com/Case-God-Karen-Armstrong/dp/0307389804

I should warn you, it's densely packed and will require your full attention throughout.

I agree with you.

I think you might be interested in reading this (excellent) book:

http://www.amazon.com/Shall-Religious-Inherit-Earth-Twenty-First/dp/1846681448

Also, come check out /r/natalism if you're interested.

It's a reference to "revenge of the cradle" a plan put in place by Catholics in Quebec to out birth other groups in Canada as a way to shift politics through demographics. Considering most demographic studies are showing that religious radicals of every stripe are having more children than secular folks, that phrase might strike fear into your average, atheist leftist in Canada.

Great book on the topic....

https://www.amazon.com/Shall-Religious-Inherit-Earth-Twenty-First/dp/1846681448


>Dawkins and Hitchens have convinced many western intellectuals that secularism is the way forward. But most people don't read their books before deciding whether to be religious. Instead, they inherit their faith from their parents, who often innoculate them against the elegant arguments of secularists. And what no one has noticed is that far from declining, the religious are expanding their share of the population: in fact, the more religious people are, the more children they have. The cumulative effect of immigration from religious countries, and religious fertility will be to reverse the secularisation process in the West. Not only will the religious eventually triumph over the non-religious, but it is those who are the most extreme in their beliefs who have the largest families.

>Within Judaism, the Ultra-Orthodox may achieve majority status over their liberal counterparts by mid-century. Islamist Muslims have won the culture war in much of the Muslim world, and their success provides a glimpse of what awaits the Christian West and Israel. Based on a wealth of demographic research, considering questions of multiculturalism and terrorism, Kaufmann examines the implications of the decline in liberal secularism as religious conservatism rises - and what this means for the future of western modernity.

History of Religious Ideas (3 Vols)- Mircea Elidae Link

Treasures of Darkness - Thorkild Jacobsen Link

Religion in Ancient Mesopotamia - Jean Bottero Link (damn I got this for $20 a few months back, great book though)

Religion in the Emergence of Civilization: Çatalhöyük as a Case Study - Ian Hodder & VA Link

Egypt Before the Pharaohs - Michael Hoffman Link

I would suggest reading The End of Faith by Sam Harris. This may be helpful to you, or it may not. I had lost my faith by the time I read this one, but I think it would be a good read for some one in your situation.

Sam Harris is good at being the "gentle" voice of New Atheism. Someone mentioned the End of Faith, check out Letter to a Christian Nation as well.

You might find it worthwhile to read the book your parents gave you, then sit down with them for maybe half an hour a week or so, and critique a chapter, pointing out flaws or logical errors.

After that, you can go through the book you gave them together.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Evolution-God-Robert-Wright/dp/0316734918

The book I linked explores that possibility. Some of the things the author goes into is how Yahweh started as simply one god in a large pantheon, and then the Jews started to worship him more than the other gods (the other gods still being recognized and significant) until the Jews turned to monotheism. Fascinating book.

History of religious ideas by Mirca Eliade. The book is structured around several ideas by the author that are both catchy and outdated, but still skimming through all three volumes is the best way to put things into perspective.

Faith and reason are not opposed to one another. For a Catholic perspective, read John Paul II's Fides et Ratio. One of the ways that rationality helped me move from being a Nietzschean atheist to being a Catholic is the philosophical incoherence of materialism. I would recommend a recently-published book by the Orthodox Philosopher/Theologian David Bentley Hart titled, The Experience of God, which has one of the best arguments against materialism as a philosophy I've ever seen.

Another contemporary source that could be useful is "American Grace: How Religion Unites Us and Divides Us." I read it for a Politics of Religion class (not Soc specifically) but it was a good book.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1416566732/ref=redir_mdp_mobile