Reddit mentions: The best science & religion books

Well, for mahayana the book I have is this one. However, I don't remember how good it is. What I did for buddhism was simply go through various online resources. The reason being that western misconceptions about the connotations of buddhism are so deep that the only way to balance them out is by reading a lot of different sources, and trying to ignore the obviously interpretive parts. The main misconceptions revolve around ignoring or hand-waving that the Buddha post enlightenment was seen as divine, and that this and the system in general were meant to be very literal.

> I also wanted to ask, do you know of any theistic views that are different to classical and personalist theism that you consider intelligible and consistent?

Well, if you want a book on tillich, this one is good.

You already know about process theism, but I can give you some good reads. The iep page for whitehead is a good place to get the basics down. The important ting to note about process theists is that some of them hold to some of the general points, but not others. And so its a good general basis to explore a general idea that can be taken in different ways. For instance, whitehead's specific ontology of events is obviously a little more specific than someone today would be likely to profess. But the general format of the system is still top of the line. I would also say to read this book written by the first big process theist after whithead who turned it into a distinctly theological project instead of just a philosophical system.

Note that (well, obviously after you'll read them you can note that) the idea of a social conception of god is compatible also with tillich. Both tillich and some of the process theists explore the idea that the living aspects of god should be seen as a collective / social organism by nature of the summation of all the values of individual entities relating together through the absolute. Another way they tie them together is that john b cobb who you mention points out that the process theological concept of "creativity" parallels closely tillich's concept of the power of being. Process theism has a bit more metaphysics than tillich's minimalistic form, but they are very compatible ideas.

Another important person to look into is Carl Jung (yes, the psychologist carl jung). Because interestingly for his profession he actually provides a pretty substantial idea of a pantheist system. Which in short has to do with the idea that gods have a kind of quasi existence since they exist as abstract archetypes in the world at large, and are given form by human consciousness. But that once you properly frame into context what human consciousness even is you begin to see why that despite them being psychological images that they are also real. (its not easy to describe how, but basically it has to do with the fact that people aren't discrete, and the images are images of things external to the mind to begin with, so the mediated form exists as a submind encoded across multiple beings, and the world at large). Its a bit hard to get how it work until you intuitively grasp it, and it helps to know some relevant philosophy of mind that would make it seem more real. But a good book for seeing jung in a religious light is this one. It starts off a little slow, but in the middle it has a metaphorical religious text written by jung itself, and then it picks up in analysis of his real beliefs from it. As a psychologist he talked about the collective uconscious as a human psychological phenomenon, but it seems he really thought it was a kind of world soul relation between entities and the world itself.

Now, I must admit that tillich, the process theists, and jung are the three best modern things to look into. But there's a few more notable things to look at.

this book by the physicist schrodinger is about an idea called open individualism, which is basically a modern secularization of the hindu idea of brahman. He points out at the beginning that he is not a philosopher himself, but merely expressing the idea in an easy to read way. (Which is fortunate, since the actual philosophy textbook I want on the idea is $110). The gist of the idea is that there are no actual metaphysical borders between people, and so all people are abstractions of a super-identity that you can identify with god.

this book by fechner is a quasi religious book that argues for a secular reason to think life exists in a sense after death. The book is 150 years old, so it might have parts that seem overly idealistic, but the general idea and its arguments are something that's relevant even today. There's pantheistic elements in it too, but they are sidelined.

The kyoto school in japan blends modern metaphysics, zen metaphysics, and pantheism into a modern system. I haven't read anything from it, but hear that this anthology is good.

Here is a well-rated anthology of panentheistic writings from many authors in general. Including many I haven't read. You can look into it to see if any of them look like interesting areas of interest to branch off into.

Also, of course there's any number of old traditions one could look into even if one doesn't consider them totally literal to frame into context ways of looking at things that could carry over to a more transtheistic system. Kabbalah and stoicism are good places to look. here Is a book written by a psychologist and stoicism scholar that details their beliefs and how to engage in the practice in modern day. (Though obviously one can disagree with the virtue ethic framework). And here is one of the best kabbalah books. Obviously kabbalah is way too specific for me to consider literal, but it does have beautiful work and ways of looking at things to frame religious experience into context.

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For a few closing remarks, I'd point out to remember that these ideas are not necessarily all competing. Many of them (perhaps all at once depending on how strict you are) are compatible. You'll probably also notice that they all have similar tones of panentheism. That's because that's my general area of interest. The reason for this being that ultimately I think tillich is correct. There may be sentient godlike distinct beings out there, but we need to make religious experience revolve around things we have more of a definite concrete justification for. And the values of the religious experience pervade our world anyways, and so we don't need to rely on the literal existence of these independently sentient beings. Via jungian ideals we can even abstract the idea of gods to positive useful archetypes, and if they exist as concrete instantiations as well, all the better. If you ask me, the universe is likely tremendous in size. Bigger than we can even dream. There's probably more complex segments of it somewhere that very much have tangible sentient entities we would consider godlike. But there doesn't seem to be evidence of them interacting directly with us. So like epicurus says, belief in gods isn't an excuse for belief in superstition. They exist "elsewhere." Its better to focus on the transtheistic absolute.

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.

I would go with Demon Haunted World over the God Delusion. Dawkins may be the polemicist du jour, but I think Sagan's approach is way more effective for situations like this. He's far more subtle about making you think, whereas Dawkins' brash rhetoric can just make people instinctively defensive and shut down honest introspection.

Also, might I suggest Godless by Dan Barker? He was an Evangelical preacher for almost two decades before becoming an atheist, so he knows all about Christianity and may have an approach to which your friend might be more sympathetic.

Do the lectures have to be in person? Where do you live? Skepticon 5 is coming up in Springfield, Missouri and there will be plenty of amazing talks there (though they will be primarily aimed at people who are already skeptics). They have many, many fantastic lectures already posted online from past conferences, so I highly suggest perusing them at your leisure.

If you do choose a lecture on evolution, make sure it's a good one. You can't debate science the same way you can debate philosophical or theological ideas that rest upon logic alone. Everything depends on the data. Make sure it explores what would need to be true if evolution were not true.

For example, if all species on Earth nearly perished in a global flood, they would all have an extreme population bottleneck at the exact same period which would show up very obviously in their genetic diversity. However, this is not true for the vast majority of species on Earth. Cheetahs, however, are so genetically similar due to a population bottleneck during the last ice age that they can accept skin transplants from any other cheetah without an immune response. But, they are still diverse enough that the mutation rate required to gain this diversity in the span of four thousand years would be so great that the species would have gone extinct simply from birth defects.

Anyway, Ken Miller might be a good place to start. He's a Christian as well, but is basically responsible for destroying Intelligent Design.

Also, just because I think so highly of this talk, you should check this out (and here's an updated version more oriented towards effective strategy that goes over some of the same material but expands on other areas). It has tons of valuable suggestions for how to be effective in getting people to question their beliefs and avoiding common pitfalls and red herrings.

I went through a very similar experience in losing my faith; it was rough, and it was rocky. I had a lot of the same feelings--wanting to believe, just in case my doubts were wrong, feeling sad at losing what had been a huge part of my identity, but feeling relieved also...and then feeling really guilty about it. It's a real roller-coaster of emotions, and it's hard to go through; I sympathize!

I feel much better, having lost my belief entirely and let go of religion; those feelings of self-loathing, self-doubt, and fear that are given to those of us who grow up in religious settings are hard to let go of, but we are better off without them. They are not healthy, psychologically or emotionally. Someone else pointed out that the kind of relationship we're taught to have with god is very similar to the relationship you'd have with an abusive spouse; it's a connection I've made before, too, and making it gave me a lot of courage and strength, which is what it takes to walk away from an abusive relationship of any kind.

My advice? Give yourself some time to relax and breathe. It's not the devil making you have these thoughts; it's the exercise of your reason, and you should feel proud that you are intelligent and perceptive enough to see through the bullshit given to you by people whose real motive (whether they know it or not) is to control you.

Also, now is a great time to gather some information. If you've got $10, I recommend picking up Godless, by Dan Barker. It's a great book, and it made me feel a lot more comfortable with my own growing atheism; it addressed a lot of the concerns I had, and talked about some very similar experiences, and gave me a place to start looking for other information.

As for how to get to a place of being comfortable and not feeling guilty...that just takes time, as do all major adjustments. For me, it mostly consisted of examining what it was I was feeling guilty about, and then realizing that there was no objective reason to feel guilty--that I hadn't done anything wrong, and that the things I had been taught to hate about myself (doubt, questioning, curiosity, sexuality, etc.) weren't bad; all of those things are natural, and beneficial as well.

If you're having a really difficult time, I'd recommend spending some time with a support group or spending a few sessions with a counselor. There are lots of sites on the web that offer support and services for those going through the de-conversion process; do a search for "ex-Christian support group" or something along those lines and spend some time exploring, or try a place like Ex-Christian.net or Losing My Religion.

Above all, don't stop exercising your curiosity and your reason! I wish you good luck, support, and a good journey. :)

Define God. What is God to a Christian? What is it that they truly believe in? Love? Kindness? Slow to anger? Show your wife a list of things that you believe in and that she believes in. Show her that you still share belief in many things.

I have not read these books but they are from former Christians. Their logic and perspective maybe helpful.
Godless: How an Evangelical Preacher Became One of America's Leading Atheists
Christian No More: On Leaving Christianity, Debunking Christianity, And Embracing Atheism And Freethinking

Give her time to adjust. And, if you truly love and want to be with your wife, PROVE IT. Be romantic. Tell her you love her. Tell her you want her to be your wife. Tell her you want to grow old with her. Tell her what a great friend she is. Love notes. Flowers. Phone messages. Text messages. Facebook messages. Do whatever it takes. Even give her control of the TV remote.

I don't know of the consequences but if you have to, you can bring up the Bible verses which say that it is good not to leave a non-believing spouse, not bring up the unforgivable sin of blasphemy against God.

Good luck to you. Be patient with her.

That's really sad. But you honestly don't need to worry. As far as I've seen, there very much is a God - and I say that as someone who has heard every atheist argument there is. The thing about atheist arguments, though, is that they rely on belief. You have to believe that the universe is purely made of atoms and that there is no spiritual dimension to anything. It causes them to reject evidence outright and pretend they are being scientific.

I'm not honestly sure what you found in other religions, but you should know that the spread of Christianity has had a profound effect on them. Before we turned up in India they would burn you alive on the funeral pyre if your spouse died. You should also know that in other religions, their Gods aren't even really spiritual beings. They're more like our concept of a super hero or super villein - and that is in the places where they don't just worship objects. It's like humans are wired with the concept that there is something more, but they go looking in all the wrong places.

If you would like to really delve into religion and find out more about it I suggest delving into Christianity too. You are not really going to learn about Christianity from atheists or agnostics. They have a very ideological view of it and they tend to twist things to fit their view. The best method of debunking their ideas about the Bible I've ever found is to read the quotes they give in context. Usually you find out they didn't read the line literally just before that one they are quoting! This holds true even for those atheist books - you should always check their quotes because they are hyper selective. They'll tell you the Jews practiced slavery, for example, but they won't tell you that it was a method of paying debts and that you are set free once the debt is paid. (Also, slave-taking the way we understand it was a crime)

If you want to take a closer look at Christianity, the theologian William Lane Craig has a really good free podcast series where he goes through the proofs for God: https://www.reasonablefaith.org/podcasts. But if you prefer books, here are a few. I have more as well:

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Mere Christianity- and CS Lewis in general. He used to be an atheist, and he talks about it in depth. The Problem of Pain is a great one.

Letters from a Skeptic: A Son Wrestles with His Father's Questions about Christianityis a classic that is formed as a long question and answer between an atheist and his Christian son.

Let There Be Science: Why God loves science, and science needs God Is really good if anyone tells you that Christianity is unscientific. The actual truth is that science flourished under Christianity and there is at least one scientific experiment in the Bible itself.

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And a couple on myths about Christianity:

Heresy: Ten Lies They Spread about Christianity

Galileo Goes to Jail and Other Myths about Science and Religion this one was actually written by a bunch of different experts - some of them atheists.

Thanks for reading, and sorry for the late response. I don't use this account much!

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I will answer, but first let me address this:

> Every time I ask an atheist this question I never get a simple answer.

Two problems:

1. Atheism and evolution are different things. Many atheists believe in evolution, but not all. For example, there are atheists who believe we were seeded on the planet by aliens. Many people who believe in evolution are atheists, but very definitely not all. Some of the most prominent proponents of evolution are Christians. Evolution IS NOT in conflict with Christian views, it is ONLY in conflict with certain, specific interpretations of the bible. This Christian website does a good job of explaining how they are compatible.
   
2. Trying to justify a very complex theory with literally millions of pieces of evidence supporting it with just a single piece of evidence is a fool's errand. No single piece of evidence, in isolation, is enough to justify believing in evolution. But when you look at the overwhelming evidence contained in the entire body of evidence, it suddenly becomes extremely hard to deny.
   
   So I won't try to cite a single piece of evidence. What I will do is cite a particular field that is often overlooked in the discussion: Biogeography.
   
   Note: Simple isn't one sentence. I will simplify as much as possible, but complex topics can't necessarily be stripped down to far.
   
   Biogeography is the study of the distribution of life on the planet. It asks questions like:
   
   

• Why do we find certain types of species-- plants, birds, insects-- native to oceanic island (islands that were never connected to another land mass), but not other species (land mammals, reptiles, amphibians, freshwater fish)? This is the discovery that first led Darwin to develop his theory. Creationism cannot offer a reasonable explanation for this.
  
• Why are there two types of mammals, marsupials and placentals, but marsupials are exclusively native to Australia (where they make up nearly all native mammals) and the Americas? Why are there are no native marsupials species anywhere in Europe or Asia? (And fwiw, this question is pretty concrete disproof of at least the Noah's flood story)
  
• Why do plants in similar environments tend to have similar traits, yet they can be completely distinct species? For example cacti in the deserts of the Americas and the succulents of the deserts of asia have very similar traits-- a fleshy stem to store water, spines to deter predators, small or non-existent leaves to reduce water loss-- yet the actual plants are biologically very different.
  
  These are just a few sample questions raised by biogeography, but they give you a sense of what is going on. These questions are trivially answered by evolution (plus plate tectonics for #2). For creation, they tend to take some rationalizing. Sure you can just say "god works in mysterious ways", but you can't come up with a good explanation for why an intelligent designer would do these things.
  
  Anyway, this is a super brief explanation of a big (but not difficult) topic. Biogeography as a whole I think is a pretty devastating argument against creationism and for evolution. To really understand it, I highly recommend the book Why Evolution is True by Jerry Coyne. It covers the topic thoroughly, plus pretty much all the other evidence supporting the topic. It is highly readable, easily accessible, and absolutely fascinating.
  
  And I want to repeat this because it is so important: Evolution is not in contradiction with Christianity. You do not have to give up your core beliefs to accept evolution as true. It is ONLY in contradiction with certain readings of the bible, most of which are not based on anything that is clearly stated in the bible.
  
  
  

Religions are successful because the line up exceedingly well with the facts of reality. They line up better than atheistic views. The problem is that you have to be a consequentialist to see it.

My argument assumes a few basic things:

1. religions are nations (like nation-states and tribes), and as such act to harmonize many competing interests towards a single end.
   
   
2. the worth of any belief lies not in truth but in the way that it effects real-world behavior.
   
   
3. Demonstrably false beliefs and religions have persisted because they enhance the individual's evolutionary fitness
   
   >And what's most interesting is that when you ask people what it is they do with this false information or false predictions, they claim that it helps them learn. The wrong information is useful.
   
   Wrong information can often be useful. Is right information always useful? If you are an automaton... if free will doesn't exist... is it helpful for you to know this??? No. It's an un-necessary psychological burden.
   
   The key is understanding that there is explicit and implicit truth. Atheists often have more explicit truths (and value them more highly) while believers hold more implicit truths (and value them more highly).
   
   The greatest implicit truth that religions offer is that life is a struggle, and that alignment with a tribe or nation is valuable to an individual. Atheists see religions as hypocritical because religions often assert that we are all one, or all children of god, or whatever, but then act as vehicles of war and dominance. From an evolutionary perspective this is not hypocritical. It's exactly what you would expect. This "hypocritical" reality is just an intrinsic condition of life itself.
   
   Many sociobiologists are now making headway studying religion through this lens. E.O. Wilson, Jonathan Haidt, and David Sloan Wilson are the figureheads.
   
   http://www.amazon.com/Darwins-Cathedral-Evolution-Religion-Society/dp/0226901351/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1453669510&sr=8-1&keywords=darwins+cathedral

You're clearly well-versed in this subject, I actually wasn't expecting a response that involved knowledge of quantum entanglement and particle/wave duality!

> You haven't even functionally defined consciousness, so how could I possibly explain it?

Were you aware, in your mind ("consciousness") that you were alive and typing this at the time you did? If so, that would make you conscious and not a "philosophical zombie".

Of course I could veer this completely off course and say that I don't even known that you exist, and I could just be playing a game in the only consciousness there is. My own.

Solipsism

> I'd have to argue that it's pretty much exclusively your unconscious mind that takes input from the photo-receptors in your mind. This is not a conscious process.

Correct.

> I would certainly agree with your point about quantum uncertainty, but I fail to see how it relates to the discussion of consciousness.

In my personal opinion, it has everything to do with it. It's the only possible solution to how we can have free-will and are not just unconscious robots ("philosophical zombies"). Without quantum effects, we could not be sentient beings that are free to make our own decisions, based on our own choices.

Not just (input in = input out) ... but (input in = conscious decisions = input out).

This quick search on Amazon will show how many books deal with this very subject.

I've read most of them. Some much more interesting than others. I'd say the best book I've ever read on these matters is by Paul Davies ... The Mind of God: The Scientific Basis for a Rational World. "Biocentrism" was also somewhat interesting, as was Fire in the Mind: Science, Faith, and the Search for Order.

Your points are all valid, and I won't go over every single one of them.

Should I assume that you believe in the emergent theory of consciousness? Where it arises at a certain neural threshold, for reasons we have no idea?

And where is the "seat of consciousness"? For a while, it was thought it was the pineal gland, then other places. Then we started removing half of people's physical brain matter and that made them better. So exactly where is this consciousness?

If it's emergent, that means I myself as a software developer just need to write a complex enough system. And then, like magic, my creation is self-aware?

For the record, I did really enjoy the movie Ex Machina.

Hello, and welcome to the club!

The four people considered the "founding fathers" of "New Atheism" are also known as "The 4 Horsemen," and they are:

• Richard Dawkins is a biologist specializing in evolution and public awareness of science, especially atheism. Books: The God Delusion and many other good books on biology, evolution, science, atheism and so on.
  
• Daniel Dennett is a philosopher. His best known book is Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon.
  
• Christopher Hitchens is a journalist, author and amazingly competent debater. His best-known atheist work is God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything.
  
• Sam Harris is a neuroscientist with philosophical leanings. His best-known book is The End of Faith. Another interesting one is The Moral Landscape, where he tries to show how morality can be studied by science.
  
  ----
  
  Here are more people who have gotten respect in the world of atheism, in no particular order:
  
  
• Carl Sagan, meanwhile deceased popular science educator to the masses. Though he never took up the banner of atheism, he tried to make people aware of the benefits of science and the folly of superstition, including religions. Look for his videos on YouTube!
  
• Victor Stenger, physicist. God: The Failed Hypothesis. He's a competent philosopher and I enjoyed watching him tear William Lane Craig to pieces in a debate once.
  
• Neil deGrasse Tyson, astrophysicist. A bit of a modern-day Sagan, he's more of a scientist in his message than an atheist.
  
• Dan Barker, former evangelical preacher. Goes around telling people how he lost his faith. He's also written a book, Godless.
  
• Matt Dillahunty, host of the radio show The Atheist Experience where he does live telephone debates with callers. Quick on his feet and very knowledgeable on his former faith.
  
• Richard Carrier, historical scholar active on The Secular Web and author of Sense and Goodness Without God, a defense of Metaphysical Naturalism. He's working hard to raise awareness for the historical theory that Jesus never actually existed.
  
• ZOMGItsCriss, hot looking atheist activist on YouTube. Don't let her good looks fool you: She's a very smart cookie. And she's funny, too. Well worth a look even if not only for the obvious reasons.
  
  ----
  
  You'll find a few more atheist authors on my book page and even more in the book and video recommendations in the /r/atheism FAQ.
  
  

> Where do atheists and non-Christians get their sense of morality? I’ve been taught that without God there would be no basis for human morality. However, I’ve met non-Christians who are subjectively (and perhaps objectively) more moral than some Christians. I’m asking, philosophically speaking, where morality “comes from”.

The way I see it, treating others how you wish to be treated is both in your own self-interest and in the interest of others. When writ large, it's simple morality. Do you want to be killed? Raped? Your stuff taken away? Then don't treat others that way either. You can take the thought process further or more abstract, in which case you get philosophy. I'm not smart enough for that, or just don't have the patience for it, take your pick. I just do what I'd want others to do, and on most days, I'd rather someone didn't kill me, thank you.

> Where do I start looking for the science behind evolution? I’ve been told that there is a massive amount of science, research, and evidence behind evolution that I’m inclining to believe is true. I know what evolution is and how it works, but I personally need more hard evidence. I’d love some resources if anyone here has any recommendations.

To be honest, I've never taken the time to truly dive into this. Someone else can probably answer better than me.

> From the outside looking at Christians, what are some of the biggest flaws in our arguments for God’s existence?

Most arguments I see involve one or both of two things. First is the Bible. It claims to be the word of God, and is really old, and people have said it's proof of God, so that's basically enough. Spoiler alert: It's not. If I found a 2000 year old Spider-Man comic, would that be proof that he existed? You're taking the oral traditions of primitive people, written down centuries after the alleged events, or in the case of Jesus, third-hand accounts written down decades later, and then centuries after that culled into a canonical document by someone looking to rule his empire with a single religion, as an accurate representation. Second, the concept of "god of the gaps," where anything not sufficiently understood is assumed to be proof of God. Or, the "look around, it's so beautiful/amazing, this couldn't have happened by chance" argument. The realm of things that hasn't been explained by science is rapidly dwindling, and at this point basically all religious people can do is reject the science. Don't be one of those people. I will say, it's impossible to say there is no god, but what is more likely? That there is a being that runs counter to every known tenet of science, that existed before anything else, that is all-seeing and all-knowing, yet gives no concrete proof of its existence, or that there...simply isn't? At this point, I'd accept the whackadoodle ancient alien explanations of the Bible over the supernatural, because at least those are plausible.

One book I'd recommend is Dan Barker's "Godless." He was an extremely passionate Christian, who had the same doubts, followed them to their logical conclusion, and left the faith. He's now actively involved in the Freedom From Religion Foundation.

I can't say one single piece of evidence (or a single study) convinced me, but I can summarize the various pieces of evidence as biogeography - the fact that we see similar (related) creatures living in the same geographic area and even some creatures on different continents with similar features in places where plate tectonics would lead us to expect similarities - and genetics, most notably the human vitamin c gene, which is defective.


The evidence for evolution is not measured in single studies, but in the weight of the collective evidence. For an overview of the collective evidence across many fields, this book by Jerry Coyne lays out the general case for the factuality of evolution. If you read it you do need to be ready for some Dawkins-esque posturing - he wrote a book on why faith and science are incompatible, but the information in the book is very good. For a basic summary, this Khan Academy page does a good job.

Finally, institutions like the Biologos institute convinced me that it's Biblically okay to believe in Theistic Evolution (Evolutionary Creation? Whichever one posits God's active involvement in creation via evolution.). The final "nail in the coffin" was The Lost World of Genesis One by John Walton.

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'm hoping to hear from others, especially Liberty grads, who have had similar experiences of losing/leaving faith while or shortly after receiving an evangelical Christian education.

Not exactly what you asked, but I really enjoyed the book The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner's Semester at America's Holiest University by Kevin Roose -- Roose was actually just a college junior at Brown when he decided, instead of doing a semester abroad like many other students, to instead transfer to Liberty university for a semester, even though he wasn't a fundamentalist, as a kind of cultural exchange that he could write about. This wasn't really a de-conversion story, like Dan Barker's Godless, but it still provided an interesting perspective and I won't spoil the last chapter for you but there were some surprises based on what happened while he was there.

The book Why Evolution is True by Jerry Coyne goes over these questions in detail. It talks about the evidence available to Darwin, and the evidence that we have discovered since then.

I listened to the audio book, but it seemed like a nice, accessible book, and I highly recommend it to anyone with an interest in the subject.

Edit: One of the things that the book covered that I found most compelling was the geographic evidence of evolution, a topic I was not really familiar with previously.

To give one specific example, Marsupials are naturally occuring in only two areas, Australia and the Americas, especially South America. Darwin predicted that when we explore Antarctica, we would find fossil evidence of marsupials there, which was later determined to be true. At some point in history, ice bridges connected these three bodies, and allowed marsupials who naturally evolved in S. America to migrate to Australia (or was it the other way around?). Once the two populations split, they continued to evolve, so the two populations are now distinct species, but dna testing proves that they are very closely related.

I am badly paraphrasing the idea, but that is just one of several very strong arguments that the anti-evolution crowd tends to ignore. You really have to stretch to come up with a explanation for these distributions outside of evolution, so it is easier to just pretend the whole line of evidence doesn't exist.

(Unrelated: Marsupial distribution is also strong evidence against the Noah myth. If Marsupials had been on the Ark, how is it that they were able to travel from the middle east to S. America and Australia without leaving any fossil evidence anywhere along the way?)

Thanks for sharing your story. I was indoctrinated from birth, like you, to be a catholic. Sometime around when I was 10 (in catholic school) I became skeptical of religion largely because of the many discrepensies within the bible but especially because of the genesis story. I had always been interested in space and science and the more I learned about astronomy the less credibility religion had in my mind.

Many years later I came across this book by Carl Sagan and it changed everything. Please give it a try, I hope it will open your eyes not to what I am proclaiming to be the truth, but what I know to be reality.

And as always if you need help or support please PM me.

If you want a good book that will help her feel she's not alone in her search of things other than a god, I HIGHLY recommend "Godless" by Dan Barker

http://www.amazon.com/Godless-Evangelical-Preacher-Americas-Atheists/dp/1569756775/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1252981216&sr=1-1

Dan was a former Evangelical minister, grew up with believer parents, and was as steeped in evangelical, fanatical thinking as you can get. Then one day, he started to think for himself. After a divorce from his then wife, and many other things that ruined his life at that time, he is happier than he was ever during his time in the church. He is happily remarried and is now a co-president of the Freedom From Religion Foundation.

http://ffrf.org/

The book tells the story of his early life in the church, his fall from grace as it were, the reasons he believes Christianity is faulty, and what he as an athiest has to look forward to in life. One o fthe best books I've read in a long time.

I think an excellent book for any questioning christian to read is Godless by Dan Barker. He used to be a fundamentalist evangelical christian, and he clearly articulates and lays out his reasons for his eventual deconversion. He has some excellent youtube debates as well. He's a great guy.

The reason I often enjoy some of his talks more than other big name atheists is because he knows the bible and christianity backward and forward. He has a strong understanding and knowledge of the bible, and is therefore quite easily able to dismantle its credibility and legitimacy.

> I [...] was wondering if there were any books out there [...] about how living peacefully without [religion] is possible.

Maybe I'm just being cynical and reading into the phrasing here too much, but do you really need to read an entire book to convince you that it's possible to be an atheist and live peacefully? Shouldn't that be a given?

At any rate, there are only three types of atheist-related books that I'm aware of - counter-apologetic books (books that deconstruct arguments made by apologists), anti-theistic books (books that attempt to demonstrate the problems with religion), and what I'll call post-theistic books (books that address the issues that religion likes to claim a monopoly on - issues like ethics and morality).

I'm assuming, based on your question, that you are opposed to reading anti-theistic books. As such, I'd suggest Godless. Besides Dawkin's introduction, it's pretty light on the anti-theism. The first half is really more of a deconversion narrative than an argument, and it's pretty sympathetic to Christian believers. Also this video series might be of interest to you.

https://www.amazon.com/Reliable-Knowledge-Exploration-Grounds-original/dp/0521406706/

https://www.amazon.com/Trust-Science-University-Center-Values/dp/069117900X/

https://www.amazon.com/Golem-Second-Should-Science-Classics/dp/1107604656/

https://www.amazon.com/Science-Salvation-Modern-Myth-Meaning/dp/0415107733/

https://www.amazon.com/Art-Science-Boris-Castel/dp/1551113872/

https://www.amazon.com/Scientific-Literacy-Method-Illini-Books/dp/0252064364/

https://www.amazon.com/Representing-Intervening-Introductory-Philosophy-Natural/dp/0521282462/

As to your question - the next layer would be: what is the difference between a scientific theory and an ad hoc fitting superstition?

Maybe one answer has to do with range. A good theory will fit a wide range of phenomena. "ad hoc" usually refers to a narrow range of phenomena.

Perhaps a fair guess would be that it is fairly safe to extrapolate a theory hmmm 20% beyond the range that it has been tested. If you tested a fit out to 10 miles, you can fairly walk another 2 miles before checking your life insurance policy. If the fit has been tested for 1000 miles, you can feel good for another 200 miles. So if you need to walk say 20 more miles to reach those ripe peaches, better to work with the 1000 mile fit.

Hello! Oh yes, my idols, haha. Needless to say, Sagan was an amazing cosmologist, and NDT is just the most amazing personality. Actually, there's a great book written by Tyson, called Death by Black Hole, I wholeheartedly recommend reading it.

Galileo and Copernicus have no bearing in relevancy with regard to "The Grand Design"

I have nothing but respect for Stephen Hawking when he does science, but "The Grand Design" is most definitely not science.

In the beginning of said book, he notes how philosophy is dead, yet goes onto write a book of philosophy. This can be a slippery slope, as Einstein once said, "The man of science is a poor philosopher."

Since you clearly seem to think you're pretty clever, I'm sure you are constantly expanding your not inconsiderate knowledge. I would like to suggest you read a short little book by John Lennox, which I found helpful among the many other refutations of that particular work. In conclusion, I would like to add that science does not say anything scientists do. Therefore, to engage in science one must have a philosophical fiat, and to deny philosophy is to deny thoughts themselves. One cannot hold a belief without holding to a philosophy.

http://www.amazon.com/God-Stephen-Hawking-Design-Anyway/dp/0745955495

Hang on. There is something wrong here.

http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-12-atheist-scientists-children-embrace-religious.html

>Some atheist scientists with children embrace religious traditions for social and personal reasons

Is "Christmas" a religious tradition? Yes. So does celebrating "Christmas" count?

The physorg version of the story makes this sound very different. The OP seems to suggest atheists are taking their kids to church, the physorg article suggests atheists are educating their kids about religion.

That's not the same thing.

>The researchers found that 17 percent of atheists with children attended a religious service more than once in the past year.

Such as? What constitutes a religious service?

>The research was conducted through interviews with a scientifically selected sample of 275 participants pulled from a survey of 2,198 tenured and tenure-track faculty in the natural and social sciences at 21 elite U.S. research universities.

So 47 scientists took their kids to some form of religious service and that is some sort of meaningful finding?

>Ecklund said the study's findings will help the public better understand the role that religious institutions play in society.

Oh I see, she was trying to prove a point.

>"I think that understanding how nonreligious scientists utilize religion in family life demonstrates the important function they have in the U.S.," she said.

So, even if you don't believe in it, because 47 scientists exposed their children to it at one point in the last year, then religion must play an important role in society.

By the way, she published a book about it over a year ago:

http://www.amazon.com/Science-vs-Religion-Scientists-Really/dp/0195392981

The only explanation is not a cosmic designer, please read Victor Stengers refutation of the fine tuning argument. http://amzn.com/1616144432

Long and short of the argument, we don't have another universe with different laws to compare this one too, so we don't know if the laws were different we may have a better universe, it may be worse, but if there are infinite universes then it makes it rather trivial that there would be ones were life evolved. If there aren't infinite, this universe still could have had laws that allowed for life to evolve more easily.

There is another good counter to this, fine tuning implies finite power and ability, you tune a car as you don't have infinite time and space to buy and build the perfect engine, the only way you could define God in this instance is non-omnipotent, non-omniscient.

Yes I would assume the car engine was created in this room, this just shows you failed to read my last point. NON-LIVING material cannot becoming living material instantly. If the engine however showed it was made of self-replicatable cell-like material then it may have actually created itself, just as you were in your mothers womb, and you are far more complex than a simple engine.

Hey Prinkster,

There's a lot of interesting books you can pick up. You should pick this one up, The Varieties of Scientific Experience: A Personal View of the Search for God. Prime eligible!

I'm still reading it myself, but it's been pretty awesome.

Anyway, my thoughts on "meaning in the world." This is a concept I heard or read from Richard Dawkins.

Somebody asked him, "Well, with out god, what is the meaning of it all?"

"That's an irrelevant question," he says.

"Do you wonder the same thing about the mountains?"

And of course, the question "Why do mountains exists?" is a pointless question. That is to say, not how, but why. How, plate tectonics.. blah blah.. Why, though?

It doesn't have an answer.

Sort of like our existence. There is no answer, no general meaning that we all need to try to get to. And in that, there's beauty and also sadness. And, of course, confusion.

Coming to terms with that is just another part of your journey. Good luck, Prinkster.

You should check this book out:
http://www.amazon.com/Godless-Evangelical-Preacher-Americas-Atheists/dp/1569756775

De-conversion can be really tough. You will soon realize how much religion was a part of your life. Not just your thought processes, but your social life as well. You will lose friends, and family will treat you differently.

All I can tell you is, it's worth it. Having thrown off your childhood indoctrination, you will not be sorry. Ironically, you'll finally find the freedom your church always promised you in Christ.

First of all, recognize what fundamentalists already know: conversions/de-conversions don't happen over night. It takes a long time to change someone's mind.

With that in mind, keep pushing her towards critical thinking.

• If God loves everyone, why was he a mass murderer in the Old Testament?
  
• If preaching is all that is needed to change people's hearts in the New Testament, why didn't he have the Jews preach to people instead of killing them?
  
• If the Bible is divinely inspired, how does it get the creation account so wrong?
  
• Why is the Bible at odds with archaeology?
  
• How can you say that God loves us all when his laws condone slavery and misogyny?
  
  It really depends on how deep she wants to get into it. The average Christian does not wrestle with these questions, they just stick them in a mental file called, "To Be Answered At A Later Date". When that file gets too fat, then they start re-evaluating things.
  
  Best book I can think of would be Godless by Dan Barker. I think it's a great book for the average Christian because he really unpacks the evangelical/pentecostal experience.
  
  The main thing is to just be patient with her, and give her room to explore ideas on her own.

I would suggest George A. Smith's Atheism: The case against God which is, while thick, a quick read. Each chapter deals with one aspect and therefore is an easy read. (i read it years ago and found it clear if a bit dry)

For something more emotional, i suggest a "testimony" type book: Godless: How an Evangelical Preacher Became One of America's Leading Atheists by Dan Barker. I quite enjoyed it.

As with everyone else here though, i suggest you read them first to see if they suit "where you are coming from," but more importantly because Evangelical Christians cannot be trusted so you need to check if she kept her end of the bargain.

I am only recommending books to read because you mentioned that she actually kept her mouth shut and was respectful at your wedding. This is not typical evangelical christian behaviour and indicates that you may not be wasting your time in even having these discussions.

Speaking of behaviour, has she tried crying like a petulant child in a passive-agressive attempt to change your mind yet?

jmsr

PS yes, i'm cynical. what gave it away? >:P

PPS speaking of which, remember to check if she kept her end of the bargain. Personally, i bet she doesn't even get past the jacket blurb.

By the way, I completely agree with him that (to me) the best argument that can be made is the same argument that Einstein worried about: How is it that the universe is even comprehensible to humans at all?

People often roll there eyes when this is brought up, but if you read Nagel and Plantenga's books you referenced, and this book by the astrophysicist Paul Davies, I think it begins to be clear that it is (again as Einstein says) utterly incomprehensible that the universe is comprehensible by brains produced by naturalism.

Anyways, I will let people read these books by two eminent philosophers and one astrophysicist underscoring how devastating this problem is both for naturalism (atheist) and the idea that you should ever trust your own thoughts if naturalism was true.

I'll just leave it there and encourage people to read for themselves. And again Lennox himself is great.

If you get the chance, I really want to recommend the book Godless by Dan Barker. It's an in-depth look back at his journey from being a fundamentalist pastor to one of the co-chairs of the Freedom From Religion Foundation. He's gone about as far as it's possible to go from one end to the other.

Another similar story is the YouTube series "Why I Am No Longer A Christian" by Evi3nce. He uses a lot of professional-level graphics to present a detailed philosophical analysis of exactly why and how his born-again faith fell apart. It's both intellectual and moving.

I'm looking forward to hearing a more polished version of your story too. Congrats on being where you are.

Why is this guy getting upvotes? Almost every point he makes is wrong.

>Do you not understand practically every university is a Christian institution.

None of the major American universities (the Ivy leagues, Johns Hopkins, the public ivies, Stanford, etc) are Christian. The vast majority of our universities are secular. Some of them were founded on religious principles, like Harvard (unitarian), but became secular over the years. Others, like Thomas Jefferson's University of Virginia, were specifically founded as secular.

>Do you not understand the whole western (which is now basically the world) intellectual tradition is Christian?

It used to be, but now secular philosophies like humanism influence our society and beliefs far more than Christianity once did. Read up on 20th century philosophy and the culture wars.

>The guy who posted that 75% of America is Christian and 70% of scientist are not is mixing up stats. If you use the same definition of 'Christian' that the 75% population stat uses, I guarantee that the scientist stat would be alot closer to that number.

A very comprehensive study of the religious beliefs of scientists is in this book. Only 47% of American scientists claim a religion, and roughly 36% of them believe in God. Compare this to the 76% of Americans that identify as Christian and the 92% that believe in God.

Do you still believe in God? I'm honestly not sure from what you've wrote. If you just have doubts / differences in opinion with those in your congregation, you can always find one that better suits you. If you now truly don't believe there is a God (or you're agnostic, or an agnostic atheist), then start working now towards a new life. And begin mentally preparing yourself for the hardship of having your parents and many of your friends judge you, try to talk you out of it or "come back to God," ask why you hate God now or want to pray for you / with you. It will not be easy. Whatever you do, don't let yourself be pressured into a life (ministry, etc.) that you don't want. You only get to live this life once - and the clock is ticking. Life is too short to live it under the heavy blanket that now envelops you; live it on your own terms and not someone else's. I wish you all the best.

Edit: "Godless" by Dan Barker might be helpful for you. He was a former (quite well known preacher) who became an atheist and is now the co-head of the FFRF. http://www.amazon.com/Godless-Evangelical-Preacher-Americas-Atheists/dp/1569756775

I'm currently reading Apocalyptic AI: Visions of Heaven in Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, and Virtual Reality by Robert M. Geraci. This book explores how religious ideas have infested our expectations for AI. It's arguments are quite similar to The Secret Life of Puppets by Victoria Nelson which was an even deeper consideration of the metaphysical implications of uncanny representations of human beings whether in the form of dolls, puppets, robots, avatars, or cyborgs. I think it is really important to understand what is driving the push for this technology.

Our Final Invention: Artificial Intelligence and the End of the Human Era by James Barrat is also a good book on the dangers of AI.

You want more book recommendations? Well, one of the creepiest aspects of AI is that Amazon is using it for its recommendation engine. So just go on Amazon and it will be an AI that recommends more books for you to read!

From the submission:

> Several astrophysicists have done independent simulations and found that changing these variables, in some cases drastically, would not actually change a universe’s capacity to develop long-lived stars and eventually life as well. In the words of physicist Victor Stenger, author of The Fallacy of Fine Tuning, “…a wide variation of constants of physics leads to universes that are long-lived enough for life to evolve…”.

If the cosmological constants were different, humanity would almost certainly not have evolved, sure. But other life still could, even if it were non-DNA-based organic life, or silicon-based life, or nanoscopic life on the surface of a neutron star, or gaseous life in the atmosphere of a star...

It's not that the universe happens to fit life perfectly, it's that life has adapted to fit its niche in the universe very well. And that could happen even in a universe with different rules. Self-replicating patterns will always thrive wherever they can form.

You know, I started reading Joseph Campbell's stuff years ago. I really quite enjoyed it and I'm sure that some of what I read seeped into my subconscious and likely informed my work indirectly. For reasons that are lost in the dim recesses of my memory, though, I don't think finished reading any of his work and I haven't drawn on any of it directly.

I don't know of any books currently out there that tackle sacred stories head on from an evolutionary perspective. The final chapter of my dissertation looks at sacred texts as being like the chromosomes and genes of genetic evolution, which is related to your question about cultural borrowing but isn't directly on point. Plus, you know, it's a dissertation so--boring!

That said, if you're interested in books that look at religion from an evolutionary perspective there are some good ones out there. The first one that I'm aware of, and that in many ways started me on this journey is Darwin's Cathedral by David Sloan Wilson. More recent books include a new one by Dominic Johnson, God is Watching You and a closely related book by Ara Norenzayan, Big Gods: How Religion Transformed Cooperation and Conflict. There are others as well, but those are the three that first popped into my mind.

My favorite youtube comment of all time:

>It's worth pausing and reflecting on how a spiritual-like feeling can arise from something generated by math alone, like this visual sequence. Spirituality is the meanings we see in things that have none.

>Habitual thinking would make alot of people disagree with it, but if you think about it without prejudice, it's actually a beautiful idea. We have the power to create meaning where there is none. In a sense, we're the true gods of the universe.

Sagan would approve.

> Ah yes, I can understand that. But I am slightly hesitant because 90% of scientists are unbelievers (and many of those actually despise religion and the idea of Creation; even Creation through TE).

While it is true that there are proportionally less Christians in scientific circles, I don't think it's 90% that is nonreligious; in the USA at least, 25% of scientists identify as Christian, and only 50-55% or so as non-religious (according to one recent survey). Moreover, the majority of those who are not religious are indifferent toward religion. Some even develop their own spirituality (Check out the book "Science vs. religion: what scientists really think" by Elaine Ecklund for more info), so the hostility of scientists toward religion should not be exaggerated.

> Connect this with what C. S. Lewis said (in "Miracles") about how our personal world views will strongly affect how we view scientific evidence; and maybe you'll better understand my hesitancy?

It's true that our worldview affects how we view the world, but the assumptions of science don't amount to much - I wouldn't call it a worldview. Science makes assumptions that amount to the idea that we can reliably study the natural world, there isn't much more to it than that.

> I saw your name up for the Universalism AMA. Is that a scheduled thing? Or do we just PM you to discuss it?

It'll be scheduled like all the other AMAs. The way this usually works is that the guy doing the AMA makes a post on the subreddit, then everyone can reply with their questions and responses etc.

>"Learning about nature is a lifelong quest with an almost limitless subject matter. People are part of nature, and, of course, I love people. The good ones make me feel as though we were made for one another. Even the bad ones intrigue me - how do they reconcile their actions with the web of relationships in which we're all embedded? I'm not talking here about the love I feel for my family and friends, which is so ingrained as a sense of faith that I don't question it. I'm talking about a love amenable to investigation. We are only beginning to understand the nature of human contact, good and bad, and the motivations behind human actions. My love of people helps satisfy my curiosity as naturalist. If there is no destiny, there is no design. There's only life and death. My goal is to learn about life by living it, not by trying to figure out a cryptic plan that the Creator had in store for me." - Greg Graffin, Anarchy Evolution.

Greg Graffin is the lead singer for Bad Religion, but also a proffesor in Biology. I bought Anarchy Evolution about a year ago and this quote has stick with me ever since. It's also my first post to Quotesporn.

If anyone's interested in the book, here's a link to amazon (KingsRoadMerch has it out of stock):

http://www.amazon.com/Anarchy-Evolution-Science-Religion-Without/dp/0061828505

Apart from highschool (No one should count highschool lol) I've had two years of science studies, both from classes from biology to chemistry so I know a bit about both. I also regularly talk to science teachers I've had as well as frequent science forums when I can. For fun I read things such as

“Finding Darwin's God: A Scientist's Search for Common Ground Between God and Evolution”
http://www.amazon.com/Finding-Darwins-God.../dp/0061233501
This was written by a scientist who is a Christian.

To:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B001QEQRJW/ref=redir_mdp_mobile

Why Evolution is True By Jerry A. Coyne

& then I also peruse news networks because every so often people make claims about evolution which leads me down the path of looking at their sources and how they reached that conclusion :)

So I'm stupid but not THAT stupid lol I just have honest questions that confuse me :)

There are two that I quite enjoyed. One is right up your alley, the other less so.

First one I recommend is "Godless: How an Evangelical Preacher Became One of America's Leading Atheists". I found it to be well-written, sincere, and remarkably intense.

Second is "Lost Christianities", which is more a historical text than an atheist one. This one delves into the almost innumerable versions of Christianity vying for dominance following the alleged death of Jesus. It's written from the perspective of a Christian who wanted to learn more about his faith, and was overwhelmed and shocked at the sheer amount of differences and digressions he discovered.

Happy reading.

Religions absolutely do evolve, as part of a larger concept called cultural evolution. In fact, both Christianity and Islam evolved from earlier religions, Judaism in particular, and those religions evolved from even earlier ones like Zoroastrianism.

Furthermore, there have been many forms to evolve from the original Christian and Islamic religions (Methodist, Calvinism, Sufism, etc). Fundamentalism is usually just one of these evolved forms (e.g., Wahhabism). There is actually a great book on this topic by David Sloan Wilson, called Darwin's Cathedral.

Anyways, your argument about the Quran and Western values being at odds is true, but it is just as true about the Bible. Whether it makes sense or not for people to reconcile religion and secular/humanist values, your argument basically implies that there are pretty much no actual Christians in the Western world.

Great video! I highly recommend the book Godless. Dan Barker was an evangelical christian who dedicated his life to christianity. I think the book resonates well with christians because they can relate to his life.

It's from a book. I haven't read it but I mean to. It came highly recommended by a friend who first introduced me to Barker's wager. He was a fundamentalist Christian who was on his way to atheism. I was a comparatively very liberal Christian who took longer to loosen the elastic ties of Faith.

> Science. Religion has been fighting it for thousands of years.

I'm afraid that to even assume that science and religion existed as distinct concepts or endeavours thousands of years ago is a bit naïve, and this idea that they are eternally opposed is a very simplistic view that reflects the biases of anticlerical 19th Century historians more than the actual facts—it's only really been defended by people with a grudge against religion since a reappraisal of the subject in the 1950s, 60s, and 70s (and especially since the reappraisal by James Moore in The Post-Darwinian Controversies). Here are a few books that could help you develop a richer understanding of the historical relationship between science and religion.

• David C. Lindberg, The Beginnings of Western Science: The European Scientific Tradition in Philosophical, Religious, and Institutional Context, Prehistory to A.D. 1450 (University of Chicago Press, 2007)
  
• E. A. Burtt, The Metaphysical Foundations of Modern Science (Routledge, 1931)
  
• Gary B. Ferngren, ed., Science and Religion: A Historical Introduction (John Hopkins University Press, 2002)
  
• Ronald L. Numbers, ed., Galileo Goes to Jail and Other Myths About Science and Religion (Harvard University Press, 2009)
  
  These would probably be illuminating reading as well.
  
  
• Thomas S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (University of Chicago Press, 1962)
  
• Brian Davies, An Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion (Oxford University Press, 2004)
  
  > Here is just another surrender by a guy at the top of the money chain.
  
  No one interested in the subject should be under the impression that what the Pope has said is anything new. Eminent Catholic theologians like John Henry Newman found Darwin's theory of natural selection consistent with Christianity when it was published, and Pope Pius XII very famously affirmed that there was no intrinsic conflict between them in his 1950 encyclical Humani generis. As for the Big Bang, it is downright foolish to characterise the Church as "surrendering" to a theory that was formulated by a Catholic priest in the first place.

>If you know as much about science as I hope, then explain how everything came out so perfect out of (insert atheist way of creation)!

I will refer you to 3 books for that one, but then I will explain why that is not a valid argument and then explain why god does not answer that question either.

First the books: the first two will explain the big bang and inflationary cosmology (this is actually what took over or heavily modified the big bang theory from its original form) they are both by Briane Greene and I highly recommend them if you are interested in physics at all (they are not about god) the fabric of the cosmos and The hidden reality. There are also NOVA specials you can watch from the Fabric of the cosmos and his earlier book the elegant universe though I do not remember if they cover the big bang or inflation. The third book is specifically about the argument you just put forward. It is The fallacy of fine tuning:why the universe is not designed for us by Victor Stenger.

The reason that the argument you made is fallacious involves logical fallacies. Now, I don't want to seem like I'm talking down to you at all (I'm not) but I'm not sure how familiar you are with the intricacies of logic. Basically every argument has a premise, logical steps, and a conclusion. The argument you made (that the universe is perfect) has three flaws.

1: False premise - The universe is not actually perfect, far from it in fact. The reason why we are accustomed to the universe as it is is due to evolution. We evolved to fit the universe, not the other way around. If you mean something specific like how could the constants have got to the exact values we have please read the hidden reality, it answers that question by explaining multiple instances of how the universe can be fractured into slightly variable universes. The god delusion also answers this question but from my experience most theists are not willing to read it.

2: False premise - The burden of proof is not on me to prove or explain anything. I don't know is a completely acceptable answer if I had no evidence to put forward (We do actually have evidence, see the three books). Saying that I don't know how the universe came about does not immediately cede the argument to god. God has to answer to the same standards of logic and evidence that I would require of my own pet hypothesis. Burden of proof was explain in analogy by [Russell](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell's_teapot "This is why our logo is riding in a teapot")

3: Logical fallacy - Argument from ignorance. I already explained this one a little but basically this is the part that says you cannot use what we both do not know as evidence. If we come to a cave, and you ask what is in the cave and I say that I don't know but I bet it's a dragon then I would be using our shared ignorance to try and put forward the idea of a dragon as the inhabitant of the cave (sorry this analogy is bad, I have a flu right now so I'm kind of worn down)

Now, the reason that god fails the logic test (before he fails the evidence test, which he also does) is that if you say that god created the universe then you have put a terminator on the infinite regression that is causality (there are some hypothetical reasons that causality could be violated before the universe but I am skeptical of many of them and it would take me too far off track to get into them). The problem here is why do you give god a break from needing a cause? If we both agreed that there must be a first cause, why the hell should we give it sentience, and intelligence, and supernatural powers? If we also put forward a first cause that did not have those things then we would have an explanation that used fewer assumptions (many fewer assumptions). One of the best logical tools is occam's razor, which says that when we have multiple competing hypothesis we remove the ones with the most assumptions. Now it is only a logical tool and does not guarantee we will be correct but it is still a good probability chooser (remember how I said science is about probabilities).

So anyways, if you read this far I really hope that your takeaway is at least to read the three books i recommended (they are complicated but very interesting). I would also ask that you read the FAQ and probably The God Delusion (as it covers more of the faux science arguments for god than God is Not Great).

Those guys are horrible at history. I would recommend going to /r/badhistory for rebuttals, in the meantime I found some books that I think can really help out debunking this myth.

Science and Religion: A Historical Introduction

Philosophy of Science: An Historical Anthology

Galileo Goes to Jail and Other Myths about Science and Religion

When Science and Christianity Meet

The Genesis of Science: How the Christian Middle Ages Launched the Scientific Revolution

The Beginnings of Western Science: The European Scientific Tradition in Philosophical, Religious, and Institutional Context, Prehistory to A.D. 1450

The Savior of Science

For the Glory of God

The Bible, Protestantism, and the Rise of Natural Science

The History of Science from Augustine to Galileo

Yes this is a long list but that's because it's studied so often ;). I hope this helps.

>I can't understand how both religion and science can be compatible.

The ability or inability to understand something does not make it true or false. If "religion" is true, of course it is completely compatible with science - that's just definitional.

But yes, of course you're right - either science or religion is going to be ultimate. We all hold beliefs that are most foundational and basic, and when those beliefs seem to contradict other facts (even if in reality they are compatible) then the most foundational will win.

To help you understand, I would suggest you read something on the history of science from a religious perspective, like: https://www.amazon.com/Soul-Science-Christian-Natural-Philosophy/dp/0891077669

Godless by Dan Barker

Also, not really coming of age, but some good starting points from the atheistic viewpoint:

The God Delusion - Richard Dawkins

Breaking the Spell - Daniel Dennett

God Is Not Great - Christopher Hitchens

The End of Faith - Sam Harris

Some of John Polkinthorne's earlier stuff had a thread of God as ultimate cause & the idea of continuous creation. But his later work gets beautifully quantum which does
Funny things to causality, and from the ex-Cambridge Professor of Mathematical Physics it's quite an awesome opus.

For all three of you - Death by Black Hole: And Other Cosmic Quandaries, by my favorite astrophysicist of all time, Neil deGrasse Tyson, is a simply amazing book. It's a collection of 42 essays he wrote for Natural History magazine, which he edited together into a book. It's well organized, and answers questions like this and all kinds of other stuff.

FREE
(On The Origin Of Species)
http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1228

KINDLE
(Why Evolution Is True (Jeffrey Coyne)
http://www.amazon.com/Why-Evolution-Is-True-ebook/dp/B001QEQRJW/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1368402079&sr=1-1&keywords=why+evolution+is+true
(Evolution: What the Fossils say)
http://www.amazon.com/Evolution-What-Fossils-Matters-ebook/dp/B007H9RGOK/ref=pd_sim_kstore_8
(Your Inner Fish)
http://www.amazon.com/Your-Inner-Fish-3-5-Billion-Year-ebook/dp/B0010SKTRA/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1368402391&sr=1-1&keywords=your+inner+fish

and there's a really good power point you can download here:
https://ssl.cbsd.org/sites/teachers/hs/jucollins/Pages/Evolution-Page.aspx

Yeah, I was thinking of making some updates to the recommended reading section when I saw that Vic Stenger's newest book The Falacy of Fine Tuning wasn't listed. The question is, just how encompassing should the list be? My own "atheist" reading list contains physics and biology and evolutionary psychology and a number of other (ostensibly) different topics, but all relate to why beliefs in deities isn't rational. How much should be included? Maybe a "best of" and then an "additional reading"?

I'd highly recommend The Varieties of Scientific Experience: A Personal View of the Search for God by Carl Sagan. It's a transcription of his Gifford Lecture from 1985, but it's a very concise summation of his reasoning and it has some amazing quotes.

Also, obviously The God Delusion.

For others, look at the /r/atheism FAQ.

I just finished listening to your book, Death by Black Hole: And Other Cosmic Quandaries. Such a great book.
I just want to say, I love you.

• Death by Black Hole by Neil deGrasse Tyson
  
• Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton
  
• The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexander Dumas
  
  Each of these books hold a very special place in my heart. Jurassic Park, because it demonstrated me the value of science in society. Death By Black Hole, because it demonstrated me the value of philosophy. Count of Monte Cristo because it showed me the value of patience and working towards something.

Welcome. Here's some books you might enjoy:

Hope After Faith

Godless


Deconverted

I also recommend Julia Sweeney's video/audio, Letting Go of God

Finally, depending where you live, there may be atheist/humanist groups or organizations. Where do you live?

Here are a few books which explore the science-religion relationship through history. The first two are more academic books, while the last one is a more popular level book.

God and Nature is a great book on the history of the science-Christianity relationship. It's fairly even-handed - it gives a lot of credit to the Catholic Church for their promotion of education in the Middle Ages, but also criticizes it for its anti-heliocentric stance in the 17th century.

The Foundations of Modern Science in the Middle Ages by Edward Grant: talks about medieval (proto-)scientists, and shows that both Christians and Muslims were heavily involved in the origins of science.

Galileo Goes to Jail - each chapter in the book debunks a myth. These include both common Enlightenment myths (e.g. Christianity caused the Dark Ages, the medieval Church thought the earth was flat) and Christian apologist myths (e.g. Intelligent Design is taking seriously by scientists today, Einstein believed in a personal God).

God is Not Great. Getting it out there, I think it's probably one of the more inevitable ones.

Losing Faith in Faith and Godless each by Dan Barker.

Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon by Daniel Dennett.

First ones that come to mind. I think a few theologians may be worth reading as well. Not sure what ones though. If Kent Hovind wrote a book, we could keep a facepalm count.

The problem is, a lot of the books that Christians here are recommending are very different in both style and direction than the kinds of books that you're talking about with Dawkins and Hitchens. Which, to be frank, ought to be expected. Detailed philosophical argumentation just isn't something most Christians are worried about or interested in since, once establishing faith, theology and discipleship are far more interesting intellectual pursuits to believers.


In any case, here are a variety of more serious academic responses to the kinds of books you've been reading:


Reasonable Faith By William Lane Craig


Warranted Christian Belief by Alvin Plantinga


Where the Conflict Really Lies: Science, Religion, and Naturalism by Alvin Plantinga


Why God Won't Go Away: Is the New Atheism Running on Empty? by Alister Mcgrath


Belief: Readings on the Reason for Faith by Francis S Collins


God and Stephen Hawking: Whose Design Is It Anyway? by John C Lennox


Gunning for God: Why the New Atheists are Missing the Target by John C Lennox


Edit: And don't forget that you don't have to buy any of these books to read them! For serious. Library card + inter-library loan system via internet is the way to win.

Because he is too modest he didn't but his own book, [Death By Black Hole] (http://www.amazon.com/Death-Black-Hole-Cosmic-Quandaries/dp/0393062244). If you haven't read it yet it is great!

I realize this will likely get lost in the jungle of posts, but as a very recent 'de-convert' myself, the two things that helped me the most were

1. The Evidence deconversion videos you've already watched.
   
   
2. A book by Dan Barker titled "Godless" (http://amzn.com/1569756775). This book chronicles an evangelical preacher's journey from decades of preaching to one of today's leading atheists. A grueling journey bared out.. what caused it, how he responded, etc. Godless took me on the roller coaster that pretty much sealed my deconversion.
   
   I cannot recommend it enough.

Yes, anti-matter is real. Neil DeGrasse Tyson has a great chapter on it in his book Death by Black Hole: And Other Cosmic Quandaries

I know of a couple of books written by ex-evangelicals that might be useful to you at this time in your life:

godless

or Why I Believed

Why I believed is also free here

How about the viewpoint of a former pastor turned atheist?

Dan Barker 's Godless or The Good Atheist might be good choices.

Or Jerry DeWitt's Hope After Faith

Is atheism caused by high mutational load? The Industrial Revolution removed all Darwinian selection in the West. (Infant mortality used to be 40%.)

Religiosity was actively selected for over a period of hundreds of thousands of years. See Darwin's Cathedral and The Faith Instinct.

Nobody is saying that beliefs of type X being selected for entails their metaphysical truth. Dutton wants to explain the maladaptive contagion of r/atheism in terms of evo-bio, rather than a sudden enlightenment courtesy of Hitchens & Dawkins (LOL!)

A Response to Dutton

I would recommend Godless by Dan Barker, who is a former preacher. I grew up mostly unchurched and when I first got into reading about atheism, it was all from a scientific (Dawkins) or philosophical (Dennett) point of view, which are great but not exactly rich in biblical scholarship. Godless contains a good chapter summarizing the discrepancies between the Gospels.

Dan Barker, was a pastor and fundamentalist, now head of the Freedom from Religion Foundation.
Video Book Website

Bart Ehrman, studied at seminary, was a fundamentalist, now agnostic (functionally atheist, somewhat by his own admission.) He covers this in at least one of his many books, Jesus Interrupted.

Teresa McBain, Clergy Project member, if you know about Jerry DeWitt, you should know her.

Yeah, take a look at some of the Clergy Project stuff they say that have more than a hundred pastors / church leaders alone. Also check out Recovering from Religion, they deal with people who are not clergy.

Edit: Dan Barker is actually Co-President of the FFRF, he runs it with his wife.

Do I? Because I see Christians come around saying things like that all the time. It wasn't that long ago that Intelligent Design was challenged in court for being taught as science. It was even more recently that Victor Stenger had to write a book disputing fine-tuning.

Maybe you personally don't subscribe to these things. In that case I congratulate you. But that doesn't mean I'm wrong about a lot of other Christians.

You might enjoy Quantum Physics and Theology: An Unexpected Kinship by the priest and Cambridge theoretical physicist John Polkinghorne.

His basic point is that in both science and theology there's an assumption that something is objectively, ontologically the case. The task of the truth-seeker in either context is to arrive at understandings increasingly corresponding to that reality - and the methods used are not entirely dissimilar. He develops his theme by looking at the development of things like particle physics, quantum theory, christology and the historical Jesus.

A good start: Why Evolution is True by Jerry Coyne

If you want to know why I think Sagan was really awesome, check out "The Varieties of Scientific Experience".

Sagan's Gifford Lectures from 1985 contained in the book are still remarkably relevant.

I cant imagine many of the locals in this sub would give you anything trying to prove christianity, but if you want a good read with lots of interesting arguments, then perhaps read Dan Barker's Godless. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Godless-Evangelical-Preacher-Americas-Atheists/dp/1569756775

I've become rather obsessed with deconversion narratives recently

Why I became an Atheist

Deconverted FYI I recommend the audiobook

Godless

Farewell to God

About the universe and what happened between t=0 and now? Well, I'd have to say start with Cosmos and you can also go with the documentary Sagan did of the same name. He touches on this subject in both of those.

Lawrence Krauss wrote A Universe from Nothing which goes into how there are explanations on how our universe could come to be without the need of the supernatural.

Victor Stenger has a bunch of books on this topic but I guess I might recommend The Falacy of Fine-Tuning.

The God Gene by Dean Hamer explores biological explanations of faith and revelation.

Here you go. It is a full but that details the whole thing without pounding on religion. It is also a good primer on the scientific method.

I enjoyed Jerry Coyne's "Why Evolution is True". It's been a while since I read it, but the Amazon description suggests it is evenhanded.

• "Why Evolution Is True does not aim to prove creationism wrong. Rather, by using irrefutable evidence, it sets out to prove evolution right."

One of my favorites. Thanks for posting!

*edit* My comment was vapid. Here's at least something else. I saw this while watching one of the other videos posted in these comments. I had no idea Greg had this book out. I believe I shall have to read it.

Well, ok. Read a biography of Galileo some time. Or a book like "Galileo Goes to Jail and Other Myths" available off Amazon. Or read about why the Conflict Thesis is wrong.

Or, as I started with, just read Dinesh's summary. It's accurate.

From the OP:

>>> if the physical constants could be other values, what predictions we can make using current scientific models seem to imply that other universes couldn't or are unlikely to be life-permitting, to the extent that it's absurdly unlikely for the universe to be life-permitting.

> We can physically model other universes, just like we do our own. This seems to be enough to draw conclusions.

This of course depends on whom you ask. If you ask theologians then you would undoubtedly get the opinion which you posted in the original post.

If, however, you were to ask an actual physicist, a person who can in fact model other universes, then the conclusion reached is just the opposite. A reasonable percentage of universes that would result if the physical constants of the universe were different could be life-permitting. Not humans, sure, but some kind of life.

See The Fallacy of Fine-Tuning: Why the Universe Is Not Designed for Us.

Synopsis: A number of authors have noted that if some physical parameters were slightly changed, the universe could no longer support life, as we know it. This implies that life depends sensitively on the physics of our universe. Does this "fine-tuning" of the universe suggest that a creator god intentionally calibrated the initial conditions of the universe such that life on earth and the evolution of humanity would eventually emerge? In his in-depth and highly accessible discussion of this fascinating and controversial topic, the author looks at the evidence and comes to the opposite conclusion. He finds that the observations of science and our naked senses not only show no evidence for God, they provide evidence beyond a reasonable doubt that God does not exist.

See also: The Problem with the Fine-Tuning Argument: An Excerpt from Victor Stenger’s Last Book God and the Multiverse

Here are some links for the product in the above comment for different countries:

Amazon Smile Link: "Why Evolution is True"


|Country|Link|
|:-----------|:------------|
|Spain|amazon.es|
|Mexico|amazon.com.mx|
|France|amazon.fr|
|Germany|amazon.de|
|Japan|amazon.co.jp|
|Canada|amazon.ca|
|Australia|amazon.com.au|
|Italy|amazon.it|




This bot is currently in testing so let me know what you think by voting (or commenting). The thread for feature requests can be found here.

There is a whole book about this and quite good too.

https://www.amazon.com/Fallacy-Fine-Tuning-Why-Universe-Designed/dp/1616144432/ref=sr_1_fkmr1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1483087646&sr=8-1-fkmr1&keywords=vinge+fine+tuning

Godless by Dan Barker sounds like what you're looking for except that really, you could read the good parts at the bookstore. Half of the book is just all the Bible contradictions.

The last refuge of a desperate man is semantics's.
Someone wise once said that.

Thanks for the link, but it was not a question, rather to point out your straw man.
It's genetic's right? same as belief and god gene?
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2004/nov/14/20041114-111404-8087r/
This is a bit dated.
There are better articles, more in depth, but i currently have an disability to think or find anything, as i have been cursed by a nasty cold, so you will have to excuse me for not finding a better article for your reading.

You can make your own Google search if you so please.

http://www.amazon.com/The-God-Gene-Faith-Hardwired/dp/0385500580

This is a collection of essays from a variety of authors on the subject. It covers a bunch of perspectives, both atheist and theist. It might be a good starting point.

Ken's Guide to the Bible is a great little book. It's broken down into categories such as violence/sex/crazy...like SAB. I think Godless by Dan Barker has a good list of Biblical contradictions.

I'm not trying to be a smart ass but he answers pretty much all of these questions in his book Anarchy Evolution: Faith, Science, and Bad Religion in a World Without God.

What is it with scientists and music? Greg Graffin, the lead singer of Bad Religion, is also a biology professor. Are there any others out there? I remember Dr. Graffin mentions some in his book but I cannot recall them off the top of my head.

Have you read Dan Barker's book Godless ? If not, you might find it interesting.

Side note about the brain and the mind: I heard about this book which you might find interesting (I haven't read it myself.)

I didn’t decide to believe in God. Most people don’t, even most people do believe in God. There are several ways to explain this, scientifically and theologically (which actually parallel nicely). In scientific terms, belief in God is produced by several cognitive mechanisms through evolution that involve agency detection, teleo-functional reasoning, etc. These are the main concepts. The theological explanation, which isn’t out of step with the scientific ones, is the sensus divinitatis.

Theism is the default belief, according to science. You might find this book interesting:Why Religion is Natural and Science is Not

I would also question your use of 'fact' and 'factually' because those words have a narrow range of use. For example, is it a fact that capital punishment is wrong? If that is or is not a fact is determined by your world view; not the other way around. 'Existence' is likewise complicated, because different entities have different modes of existence. So to say "God exists" is very different from saying "Al Gore" exists.

Godless: How an Evangelical Preacher Became One of America's Leading Atheists by Dan Barker

Letter to a Christian Nation by Sam Harris

The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins

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

The Varieties of Scientific Experience: A Personal View of the Search for God

Collection of the transcripts of Sagan's 1985 Gifford Lectures published posthumously.

http://www.amazon.com/Varieties-Scientific-Experience-Personal-Search/dp/1594201072

You should check out his book "Varieties of the Scientific Experience." It is one of the most objective books I've ever read about a scientific search for God.

There is a whole book about one gene and a WikiPedia Article about the gene which makes you more spiritual -- the "God Gene" Dean Hamer has two other books, both of which may answer your question.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0671797182?ie=UTF8&force-full-site=1

The mind of God. A professional physicist's journey. Perhaps this will interest you.

Next on my reading list Fallacy of Fine Tuning

From The Fallacy of Fine Tuning I presume

Both authors state that they are atheist now but both were raised in and held positions of authority in church. The first book "Godless" may be offensive to some people IMO the second seems a little roughly written but pro christian in its own way.


Godless By Dan Barker

A Heretic Tries to Save Christianity by Ray Samuels

Here

This above image is a representation of the pew studies

It's changed in the past 6 years, it used to be 55%, now it's closer to 49% with Atheists/Agnostics holding 28% combined, and 20% just not caring.

Also, here is a book of a study conducted published by Oxford University Press: http://www.amazon.com/Science-vs-Religion-Scientists-Really/dp/0195392981

http://articles.latimes.com/2009/nov/24/opinion/la-oe-masci24-2009nov24 (this ones a bit old, 5 years ago)

Also, a quick Google search would yield the information you seek.

It is true that compared to the general population, more scientists are atheistic, but many scientists are still religious in some way or another.

I naturally never want to do anything that would cause my mother undue pain, and my revelation at this most inopportune time was definitely a mistake.

As far as continued discussion of the reasons why my brother and I rejected religion, I have never sat down and discussed this with her. I dare say I may never do so, unless invited by her. For as evil as I feel religion is in the public sphere, and as ridiculous as I find its teachings, I am loathe to bring to her the internal struggles of my late adolescence.

In all honesty, my parents have now moved on to a much more liberal Methodist congregation, and I don't feel religion is harming them all that much. Their new church runs the local food pantry, a homeless shelter, soup kitchen, feeds children lunch all summer break, and will pay for anyone's utilities or rent to avoid homelessness.

I have now convinced them of the soundness of evolution, that climate change is real (how is this even wrapped up in religion?) and that science in not the boogieman.

If the genie is out of the bottle - so to speak - with your mother, I would recommend reading Peter Boghassian's A Manual for Creating Atheists. Chapter 6: After The Fall deals with this exact issue. He talks of replacing the definiteness about death with wonder and love for family, etc.

Dan Barker's Godless: How an Evangelical Preacher Became One of America's Leading Atheists might also help. Chapter 19 - Life and Death Matters would be a good place to start. While the arguments against religion made earlier in the book may have been better stated by other authors, he is an excellent source on replacing faith with meaningful purpose, as he was a minister for so long.

Best of luck, and if you need any help, I'm just a PM away.

Who Moved My Cheese? by Spencer Johnson - It helped me with learning how to accept change in life.

The Dark Tower by Stephen King - Again, sometimes you need to change in order to avoid making the same mistakes over and over. This book was kind of disappointing (compared to the rest of the series), but the message is loud and fucking clear.

Anarchy Evolution: Faith, Science, and Bad Religion in a World Without God by Greg Graffin - There was so much I learned from this book. It's hard to pinpoint one thing. The notes in the back of the book alone provide a wealth of knowledge. Lots of scientific info on evolutionary biology. You just need to read it.

You might want to check out Godless by (former pastor, now FFRF co-president) Dan Barker.

Just read the editorial review on amazon... I need to read this myself. Looks damn good.

Exhibit 1
Exhibit 2
Exhibit 3

Physicist Victor Stenger wrote a whole book about this topic:

https://www.amazon.com/Fallacy-Fine-Tuning-Why-Universe-Designed/dp/1616144432

Also check out DS Wilsom's "Darwin's Cathedral"

https://www.amazon.com/Darwins-Cathedral-Evolution-Religion-Society/dp/0226901351

In Paul Davies' The Mind of God (written in the '90's) he wrote that there remains a long list of Ramanujan theorems still not proven.

Death by Black Hole: And Other Cosmic Quandaries
By Neil DeGrasse Tyson.

Neil is one of my favourites on the subject. His style is unbeatable,.

his book

https://www.amazon.com/Why-Evolution-True-Jerry-Coyne-ebook/dp/B001QEQRJW/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1492988145&sr=8-1&keywords=Why+evolution+is+true

See also http://www.amazon.com/Apocalyptic-AI-Robotics-Artificial-Intelligence/dp/0199964009/

The Varieties of Scientific Experience: A Personal View of the Search for God

You should read this

Nope. But you might consider gifting this instead: Godless: How an Evangelical Preacher Became One of America's Leading Atheists

They might not only read it, they might actually identify with Dan Barker enough to consider what he has to say.

Neil DeGrasse Tyson's Death By Black Hole.

Dan Barker's Godless

It could be genetic

Tangentially related to the Christian/Pagan thing, Richard Friedman's Who Wrote the Bible? and Randall Helm's Gospel Fictions both demonstrate how the Bible arose as an amalgam of ancient myth and oral tradition. I believe Dan Barker also covers some of that ground in Godless.

He's got a new book too.

The article is about one of the Gilford lectures Sagan gave. They are all catalogued in The Varieties of Scientific Experience.

Godless: How an Evangelical Preacher Became One of America's Leading Atheists by Dan Barker

Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why by Bart D. Ehrman

this is also a possibility?

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B001QEQRJW/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1

Godless by Dan Barker.

www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1569756775/ref=redir_mdp_mobile/184-9645024-5215231

www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/23067.Dan_Barker

This doesn't really have anything to do with feminism. This is an old argument, and you can read about it in things like Mary Midgley's book. It is a philosophical argument, but not specifically a feminist one.

http://www.amazon.ca/Science-Salvation-Modern-Myth-Meaning/dp/0415107733

TIL that if I choose any random fact out Neil DeGrasse Tyson's Death By Blackhole, I will receive a massive amount of karma.

I'm only half joking, I have seen about 7 TIL's that he wrote about in that book. It is a treasure trove of incredible facts. You can cook a 16 inch pizza on Venus in 7 seconds by holding it in the air.

Anarchy Evolution: Faith, Science, and Bad Religion in a World Without God

http://www.amazon.com/Anarchy-Evolution-Science-Religion-Without/dp/0061828505/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1301250690&sr=8-1

One of my favorites it "Death by black hole" by Neil Degrasse Tyson
http://www.amazon.com/Death-Black-Hole-Cosmic-Quandaries/dp/0393062244

Yes, nearly everyone knew the world was round. Eratosthenes measured the earth's circumference with reasonable accuracy in the third century BC.

Medievals knew this. You can even find medieval clerics (like Nicole d'Oresme) hypothesizing about the earth going around the sun centuries before Copernicus. They couldn't prove it yet, but they had suspicions.

A good book on all these subjects is Galileo Goes To Jail, edited by Ronald Numbers. It features dozens of the world's most eminent historians of science discussing myths about science and religion.

Concerning the Inquisition, you can reference Henry Kamen's The Spanish Inquisition for an important 20th century interpretation of what the Inquisition was.

I'd have to disagree. A cursory search led me to this book by John Pokinghorne.

Oxford/Cambridge Mathematician John Lennox is releasing his book, God and Stephen Hawking on it, following a lecture series he gave at Berkley (Christianity and the Tooth Fairy).

Essentially, it boils down to this: Hawking is a great scientist but a poor philosopher in that he is confusing mechanistic Law with Agency. Lennox summarizes it thusly with this anaology: Choose between the laws of internal combustion and Henry Ford. Hawking really makes a nonsensical statement when you break it down to its roots.

Here's excerpts from Lennox's upcoming book: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3_-anTJ67A

Demon Haunted World and The Varieties of Scientific Experience both by Carl Sagan. You're going to need something softly softly that at the same time packs a punch. Anything by the 'new atheists' will be deemed offensive to their sensibilities not to mention the mere name of Dawkins or Hitch may turn them off before you've even gotten a chance in. Sagan is a fucking poet. You'll do more damage with him than anyone else.

Either don't bother -- if it ever comes up why you`re not going to church, remind them then.

Or say, "I'll read your book and give you a report after you read 'letter to a christian nation' or Dan Barker's Godless, etc." Convert them to reality.

If they engage you, let loose a little. "Why don't you believe in Vampires? Oh, but they could dangerous! What method do determine is something is true or false?" Rinse and repeat with leprechauns, Greek Gods, etc. Some people call this engaging in conversation, others call it being a dick. Reserve it for when they're dicks first; they'll eventually stop.