Reddit mentions of The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark

Off the top of my head, I would recommend The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas Kuhn and The Demon-Haunted World by Carl Sagan.

The former is an excellent summary/treatise of how science works and what brings scientific revolutions about. The latter is an excellent intro to critical thinking. It's quite anti-religious, though, so that may turn you off.

Demon Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark - Carl Sagan

This book focuses mostly on supernatural phenomena, like ghosts, ESP, alien abductions, etc., and not the more political issues you raised above, but it's also an excellent intro to how our brains work (not like you think they do) and critical thinking about objective truths. It focuses more on the question of why people believe these things, not specifically on debunking them, and a lot of that is applicable to the issues listed above.

The Theory of Almost Everything: The Standard Model, Robert Oerter

The origin of the Species, Charles Darwin

The Demon Haunted World, Science As A Candle In The Dark, Carl Sagan

I always like to recommend Carl Sagan's book The Demon Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark. It is a layman's guide to scientific materialism: the philosophy that only that which can be proved is real. It's also a pretty entertaining read. Start there.

The Demon-Haunted World by Carl Sagan.

While you're catching up on your reading, consider picking up and reading the book The Demon-Haunted World by Carl Sagan.

It's NOT a book about atheism, it's not going to attack your faith. It's a book about critical thinking and skeptical inquiry, and the wacky things that result when people don't make use of those skills... like thinking that really really dilute solutions of onion juice in water has magic healing powers, or that crop circles are clear evidence of alien abductors hovering around the earth even after the guys who go out and make them fess up to having done so, etc.

Seriously consider adding it to your reading list. It's certainly more approachable and easily read than the apocrypha, and the skills you pick up from reading it will last a lifetime.

I don't know what you are religiously, but you definitely need to bump up your incredulity, and skepticism.

Here's a book recommendation for you. The Demon Haunted World.

Also, and this is the dad in me talking, you shouldn't be taking psychotropic drugs at your age. You brain's not don't developing. Wait until you're older.

The distances between politics, religion, and physics are wide and hard to bridge. Only a few physicists had the temerity to try. Carl Sagan was one, and his book about the Demon Haunted World is a classic.
https://www.amazon.com/Demon-Haunted-World-Science-Candle-Dark-ebook/dp/B004W0I00Q/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1537598004&sr=8-1&keywords=carl+sagan+demon+haunted+world

It has become painfully obvious that scientists and politicians have different definitions of truth, and that evidence and data are not very relevant to politicians. Especially Republican politicians.It is not accidental that only a small minority of scientists identify as Republican.

Let me help you.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B004W0I00Q

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B004X6U5DY

I read The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins about 25 years ago. I's been taught about natural selection, but didn't really understand the mechanisms until after reading that book.

The Demon-Haunted World by Carl Sagan. You need to keep your bullshit detector in fine working order.

Though I realize that it is still a Demon-Haunted World for some, normally I would dismiss you as a troll rather than an example of Poe's Law, but I'm not certain, so please tell me you have no children.

Read this and free yourself. The Demon Haunted World - Science as a candle in the dark.

Hard to tell. I believe today is one of the best times to be alive. I know some people detest his thesis, but I really enjoyed Pinker's Better Angels of Our Nature.

However, I also think that the prosperity and peace we take for granted are very precarious, and we cannot take them for granted. Religious fundamentalism is resurgent around the world. The concern there is not necessarily violence, but their rejection of modernity itself, post-Enlightenment values, secularism, and science as the best explanatory method we have of the world. Science and rationality are fragile, with Sagan calling them a candle in the dark.

>Some people see our TV shows and movies as too immoral and violent and our society deserves to suffer because of it.

Our media isn't that violent. Compare it with Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus or other Elizabethan revenge tragedies. There has always been violent entertainment, and lowbrow entertainment as well. I think our modern culture goes too far in celebrating lowbrow culture, but I wouldn't call it exactly alarming. It's not the end of the world.

>Billions of people live in poverty.

Yes, but that has gotten better. Capitalism made the situation better, not worse.

>And the total world debt is staggering.

That is true, but the solution is to raise taxes to pay for the services people want. Debt is largely a political problem.

>So I believe at any moment of time, there will always be equal evidence of curses and blessings.

I think that's reasonable. We have problems, but also cause for optimism. I'm middle-aged (just turned 46) and it's normal to get pessimistic as you get older. But I find myself being optimistic about many things. Many things both excite and alarm me, like the promise (and threat) of automation and Artificial Intelligence.

I don't think things are going quite as badly as some gloom-n-doom enthusiasts warn, but neither are we headed (in my opinion) to a post-scarcity utopia. I have no idea. But my chances of dying of violence are the lowest they'e ever been.

> Both signs of the end-times and signs of a new renaissance exist equally

What concerns me is how many people we have rooting for end-times, though. An awful lot of people want the world to end. That freaks me out quite a bit. I'm not referring exclusively to religious end-timers. I encounter libertarian non-believers who want a "reset" to civilization. I've heard more than a couple Trump supporters enthuse that Trump's election would cause the system to just up and fail, so we could start over with a clean slate. I find myself so aghast at that that I can't even begin to communicate with them.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B004W0I00Q/

There's been some good suggestions already, but here's a few more:

read The Demon Haunted World by Sagan
Watch Cosmos (I prefer the Sagan version, but both are quite good)
Search Youtube for Matt Dillahunty's clips. He's a bit in-your-face at times but he was deeply christian and studying to become a pastor when his faith collapsed so he's got a lot of insight into the problems with christianity in particular, the process of moving from religious faith to a more rational mindset, etc. He's got some good longer-form explorations of particular topics on his own channel and lots of debate clips both from callers on the Atheist Experience and more formal debates.

If I may recommend a book that offers a good grounding for this:

https://www.amazon.com/Demon-Haunted-World-Science-Candle-Dark-ebook/dp/B004W0I00Q/

Well some one had to go and ruin it.
http://www.amazon.com/Demon-Haunted-World-Science-Candle-Dark-ebook/dp/B004W0I00Q/ref=la_B000AQ27JQ_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1410515531&sr=1-2

I love Carl Sagan's book, The Demon-Haunted World. He gives instructions on how to construct your own bullshit detector, and then he uses it on a whole host of pseudoscience: ghosts, witchcraft, extraterrestrials, past lives, etc.