>idolizing these mens ideals would lead to a better earth

Who says we don't? We certainly have great thinkers alive today and in recent years. No, not the majority, but when has it ever been that way?

>Even with our mighty intelligence and technological brilliance, we're still too ignorant to truly advance as a species.

It blows my mind that people think this way. Compare the progress of the last 100 years against the progress made by humans over the hundreds of millenia before then. How can anyone say we're not advancing? 150 years ago we were living in log houses lit by candlelight. Technologically speaking, we were pretty much still in the dark ages.

Our current rate of progress is absolutely astounding. What about the advances in transportation? Food production? Biomedicine? Genome mapping? Microprocessors? Nanotechnology? Instantaneous information delivery throughout the world? The freaking LHC? Our trajectory of progression is steeper today than at any point in human history.

If your argument is more on the humanitarian side than the technological side, I would still say we're making unprecedented progress. Look at the reduction in slavery and human trade, poverty and welfare assistance, equality for women and minorities, working conditions, treatment of the mentally ill, etc. No, we're not all the way there, not by a long shot. But we're starting to see pockets of civility take hold and spread throughout the world.

It's easy to look at the petty political bickering and dismiss our system as a lost cause, but would we rather go back living in a feudal system? It's easy to see the fundamental evangelicals as a harbinger of some new "Age of Ignorance," but when was the last time we had a massive crusade or inquisition? You can go to a bookstore and choose from a range of best-selling books on the topic of atheism, when it wasn't too long ago that both the author and reader may have been burned at the stake for such heretic thought.

It's easy to get depressed, but take a step back and look at the big picture. We haven't "arrived" yet, but we're well on our way.

>I wish these men were our prophets and messiahs

I think a lot of those men would be disappointed to hear someone advocate that.

Question 1 [asked by redditor Prom_STar]: What are your thoughts on Sam Harris' idea that we can eventually use neuroscience to quantify human well-being and use that information to empirically evaluate ethics?

Response. Sam Harris has written a new book, a very interesting book, called The Moral Landscape. And he takes on the almost cliché philosophy that science has nothing to say about morality; science can tell us the how of things, science cannot tell us what's good and what's bad. Well, I think maybe Sam's got a point – Sam thinks that you can. And he thinks that neuroscience can actually be used to tell when people are really, really suffering. You do have to make the assumption that what matters is suffering. You do have to make the assumption that the goal of morality is something like to reduce the total amount of suffering; to reduce the amount of suffering in either humans or sentient beings. But once you've done that, once you've accepted that that's your goal in your morality, then science, especially neuroscience, really can tell you when people suffer, when creatures suffer. And so I think he's good a very good point and I strongly recommend the book, The Moral Landscape.

tl;dr. Dawkins believes Sam Harris has a very good point, working under certain assumptions.

Direct Video Link [0:00]

> The fallout would be spectacular.

Well, if you want to stir up the shit pot a bit more, might I suggest setting the blender on puree with these titles?

• The God Delusion (For obvious reasons)
  
• Why There Is No God (Ditto)
  
• Better Living Through Plastic Explosives (Don't judge a book by it's cover - a great read at jury selection and airports)
  
• Napalm & Silly Putty (George is not very well liked by republicans or people of faith)
  
• Phone books from across the entire state - the very people she would be working for.

LOL, try a different book other than your FICTIONAL LIEble sometime!!!!

HERE i found the perfect one for you!!!!


written by:
> A preeminent scientist -- and the world's most prominent atheist

Bart Ehrman - Jesus Interrupted (2010)

In this deliciously satisfying book, the author, a New Testament scholar, carefully reviews and assesses the New Testament with a detailed and extremely thorough analysis of the figure we call Jesus. This is not a rant, not an attack on Christianity, this is an objective and critical analysis of the New Testament, showing how the entire Jesus myth and indeed, all of Christianity is a purposely-designed fabrication rife with contradictions, inaccuracies, and sometimes outright falsehoods.

John Loftus - Why I Became an Atheist (2008)

If you want a one-stop total critique of Christianity, this is the book you're looking for. The author is a former Christian apologist turned extremely angry and prolific atheist. In this book Loftus attacks the full span of Christianity, addressing the philosophical arguments against theism, the historical incompatibilities and inaccuracies of the Bible, and the contradictions between creationism and modern science, and throughout it all is an undercurrent of personal experience as Loftus explains his own deconversion from devout evangelicalism to enraged atheist.

Concerning atheism.

These are for the people going "Well, I'm an atheist. Now what?" There's more to atheism than eating babies and posting fake facebook conversations on r/atheism. There's much more truth, beauty, and value in a universe without a celestial supervisor, where humans are free to make our own purposes and dictate our own paths. Thinking for yourself and recognizing the natural wonder of the universe is far greater than the false consolation any religion can provide you. These books show how.

Michael Martin - Atheism: A Philosophical Justification (1989)

In this book, Martin attempts a two-pronged defense of atheism: first by attacking theistic arguments regarding the implausibility of morality and purpose without God, second by defending against attacks specifically on atheism. In such a manner he makes a strong case for both negative and positive atheism. Though extremely dated, this book is a classic and a must-read for any atheist.

Erik J. Wielenberg - Value and Virtue in a Godless Universe (2005)

In this book, Wielenberg advances a naturalist philosophy and addresses the problem of nontheistic morality as weakly espoused by the likes of Dostoevsky and C.S. Lewis. First he challenges the claims of theistic morality, next he advances naturalistic ethics and displays how theological justification is unnecessary for a good and moral life. Concepts such as intrinsic morality, inherent human tendencies such as charity and altruism, and the idea of moral obligations are all addressed.

Richard Carrier - Sense and Goodness Without God (2005)

In this book, Richard Carrier, perhaps most well-known as one of the major modern debunkers of the Jesus myth, continues the trend of expanding metaphysical naturalism, but this is a more complex and thorough work covering the full spectrum of a developed worldview, addressing nearly every topic beyond just morality, and presents a complete philosophical outlook on life that is easy to comprehend and evaluate. A solid starting point for the newly atheist.

My personal picks.

Now, since this is my list after all, and after typing up all of that, I think I've earned the right to make my own recommendations. These are books that I think people should read that don't necessarily have anything to do with atheism.

Markos Moulitsas - American Taliban (2010)

This book reads like a collection of loosely-related blog entries, some of them written by angry teenagers, and Moulitsas himself is no philosopher or professor, but is still an important read for those of you who haven't been paying attention. In this book, the founder of Daily Kos draws the extremely obvious and transparent similarities between the religious right of America, and the Islamofascists across the pond, and displays how modern conservatism has largely been hijacked and/or replaced by a complex political machine intent on maintaining the power of a small group of white, male, Christian elite.

Chris Hedges - American Fascists (2007)

Okay, time for a more sophisticated take on the issue than Daily Kos stuff. Those of you who plan on staying and fighting in the US rather than simply getting the fuck out while you still can need this book. With a critical and objective eye, Hedges displays the dark and tumultuous underbelly of America and shows how an extremely powerful and well-organized coalition of dominionists is slowly taking over the country and seeking to transform it into a theocratic state. Those of you who are moderate Christians and similarly despise the lunatic fringe of Christians should also read this book. Hedges analyzes this Christian Right movement, allied with totalitarianism and a denial of reality, that has declared a jihad (or a "teahad", if you're a Tea Partier) on secularism and even on Christianity itself, utilizing religion for its darkest and most sinister purpose - committing cruelty and intolerance upon others in the name of divine supervision.

CJ Werleman - God Hates You, Hate Him Back (2009)

This is one of my favorite books and is a great book to unwind with after a critical look at Christianity. The biggest problem with the Bible is not the contradictions, the outright falsehoods, or even the blatantly made-up and ridiculous bullshit about magic and miracles and supernatural nonsense - it's the fact that, taking it all at face value, the God described in the Bible is the single most despicable and terrifying fictional villain ever imagined by humanity. This is a character that seems to actively despise mankind, and in this book, Werleman shows why with a hilarious and thorough analysis of the Bible. This book reads like Monty Python and is just as funny - not meant to be taken seriously of course unless you're a Biblical literalist, but still a great read.


Well, that's all I got. This list took about half a day to compile and is itself also woefully inadequate, there's quite a bit of books I haven't gotten around to reading yet. But, it should be much more sufficient than the current r/atheism reading lists and I've done my best to include the most recent works. If you have any books to add that you feel are noteworthy, please feel free to post them. I hope this list can help many people in their understanding of philosophy and atheism.

A few pointers:

• Get yourself a copy of Peter Boghossian's A Manual for Creating Atheists and read it yourself. It's a good manual for teaching people how to talk to people of faith about their faith in a non-confrontational way using the socratic method. I liked the audiobook version. Gently challenge him on things he learns at church. Try to get him to explain what he's learned in his own words. Ask him if that makes sense, and so on.
  
• Science: get your kid interested in science, whether it be dinosaurs, astronomy, chemistry, electricity - something. If there's something he's already into, encourage it.
  
• Supplement his church with other mythologies. Take him to a mosque or synagogue. Talk about how different people have different beliefs. Read him Norse and Greek mythology before bedtime. Get him a book like C. Scott Littleton's Anthology of Mythology. It's got lots of pictures.
  
• Cosmos. If you have not seen it with him, you need to see it with him. Prepare to pause each episode when he has a question. Do your best to answer them and if you encounter something you don't know, be honest but follow up afterwards with a visit to wikipedia. You can get it on DVD as well as stream it on Hulu and Netflix, I think. If he likes science shows like that, there are plenty others folks here could recommend.
  
  One common theme here is this: teach him that it's important to value having as many true beliefs as possible. Instruct him on the importance of wanting to have good reasons or evidence for the things we believe. Part of this is the scientific method, but also a general desire for intellectual honesty comes into play here as well.
  
  You might also get some good suggestions are /r/atheistparents.
  
  
  

Hi there, and thank you for your trust!

It sounds like your boyfriend is going about this a bit insensitively. Logical arguments are OK for debates, when both sides do it for the intellectual challenge. It's not humane to tear a person's world view out from under them when they're unprepared for it and a captive audience. I'm sure he means well and wants you to be closer to him, but he's being a bit of a caveman about it. Don't be mad at him, but tell him you think you'll be better off if you do your own information seeking, at your own pace. Ask him to have the patience and the trust to let you educate yourself. If he really cares for you, he should be fine with this: It may even be taking a burden off his shoulders.

I think there are some things you can consider and think about that will put things into focus and make this mess seem less of a problem.

Do you remember that song by Elton John Sting? "I hope the Russians love their children too."

Consider, first, some family in Tibet. Mom and dad live in a simple hut, doing some farming or whatever Tibetans do, and they have a bunch of children. They work hard to feed the family, and in the evening when they get together for supper they talk and smile and laugh a lot. They hug their children, they care for them when they're sick. They observe some kind of religious rituals, though they've probably never heard of Jesus. When a neighbor has a problem, they help them out. When someone dies, they mourn their passing and wish them a happy afterlife. Apart from the fact that they look Asian, they're people just like you, and they're good people. They have similar hopes and fears, they have stories to share and comfort them, and so forth. Two thirds of the world's people don't believe in Jesus, yet they're humans just like you and mostly decent people, just like your neighbors. Do you think they're all going to hell? Do you think they're paralyzed by their distance from your god, from their fear of death? No. Forget what religion these folks are, they're human.

Atheists are just a special case of those "other" humans. They believe in even less "other-worldly" stuff than the folks in Tibet do. Yet you probably meet atheists on the street every day. Some of them greet you and smile, most of them would help you if you had a problem and they were around. Atheists are not like vampires: They're not evil, they don't have to stay out of God's sunlight, and they don't burn up in churches and from contact with holy water ;)

Atheists have stories too, about the creation of the universe, which is really awesomely huge and inspiring. About the struggle of life to evolve to the fine humans we are today. About the many important achievements humans have made in their short time of being intelligent and basically masters of the world.

Rather than wrenching at your faith, I suggest you take a look at other cultures and religions for a bit. Consider that there humans out there who think other things than you, yet manage to be good people and lead happy lives. I'm almost embarrassed enough to delete my sappy paragraph about the Tibetan family, but I'll leave it in there to let you know what I'm getting at.

Then, inhale a bit of science. Go to church if you feel you need to, but also listen to videos by Carl Sagan. Get an appreciation for the wonders of the universe and of nature here on our planet. It's a rich and wonderful world out there. There is so much to see, to learn! Some people are in awe of God for producing all this; but you can just as easily be in awe of nature, of the intricate mechanisms that brought all this about without anyone taking a hand in it.

More stuff on nature and evolution can be learned, more or less gently, from Richard Dawkins' The Greatest Show on Earth. Get your boyfriend to buy it for you! But stay away from The God Delusion. While Dawkins is thoughtful and sensible, you don't want him telling you about how bad your god is - at least not right away.

A thought from me about a metaphor for God. Training wheels! You know how you have those wheels on your bike to keep it from tipping over as you're starting out? And how, once you've learned to keep your cycle straight, those training wheels are no longer really doing anything any more? That's God. It's comforting to feel that God is behind you in everything you do, it gives you strength and confidence. But everything you've achieved... that was you! You're standing up straight and doing fine, God is the training wheels you don't really need. On the other hand, I'm not going to say he really, truly absolutely isn't there. If you want him to be there, let him be there. Your BF will just have to put up with him for a while longer as you outgrow your training wheels.

Finally, about death: The good news is, it's not nearly the problem you think it is. There's a statistic that says, devout Christians are more than three times as likely, in their final week, to demand aggressive life-extending treatment than atheists. In English: Christians are more scared of dying than atheists are. You'd think that with heaven waiting, they'd be anxious to go! Actually, their religion -your religion- is telling them a comforting lie, letting them stick their heads in the sand all their lives. At the end, they panic because they're not sure what they believe is true. And they struggle for every minute of life.

I was religious once, and I had the "fear of death" phase, as many other atheists here report. You know what? I got over it. I confronted the idea, wrapped my head around it, got over it... and I've been completely unworried about death ever since. You'll get other people quoting Mark Twain for you here: About death being the same as the state you were in before you were born, and that didn't inconvenience you either, did it? Seriously, while I worry that my death may be painful or unpleasant, being dead is something I almost look forward to. It's like the long vacation I've always been meaning to take.

Well, I don't know if that will convince you, but... other people have been there too, and it turns out not to be the horrible problem you think it is. Things will be fine! Just allow yourself some time, and remind your BF to not be pushy about things. You can keep a spare room for when God comes to visit, but don't be surprised if that room turns out to fill up with other junk you're throwing out ;)

Even though your understanding of how choice works is correct, the conclusion that follows (life is "worthless") is false. You seem to be keen on explaining your depression with the fact that you have considered how choice works... but I feel like there's an underlying cause you didn't mention. You even hinted at this in your closing line (major factor means there are other factors at play).

I know this is /r/philosophy and not /r/psychology, but heck, I'm going to say it anyway: you might want to reconsider what the real reason is for your depression instead of (arrogantly) assuming that the "no-choice" life isn't good enough for you.

We do make choices, by the way. Every choice may be a culmination of past experiences and events but that doesn't mean there's not a lot to choose from. Introspection, reflection, meditation and creation can change us within the constraints of a formulaic universe.

Edit: Taking a risk here in /r/philosophy by suggesting this, but here goes: you might be interested in Sam Harris' "Free Will": Amazon link (I'd recommend getting it at The Book Depository alas, it's out of stock there).

Trying to talk to believers about their belief is often frustrating and unproductive. Based on a great deal of practice and a deep interest in the best techniques to approach these difficult conversations, I think I can offer some constructive tips. I've written the following to help skeptics have productive conversations about religion. These techniques are heavily based on Peter Boghossian's "Street Epistemology" concept, and Anthony Magnabosco's work. (Anthony's videos are highly recommended to see these strategies in action)

HOW TO TALK TO RELIGIOUS PEOPLE ABOUT THEIR RELIGION

• You cannot convince someone else of anything — You can only provide new information, and if they accept it, they convince themselves. Sounds simple enough, but the problem is the backfire effect. This is the defensive tendency, upon hearing something contradictory, to reflexively reject it in order to preserve a belief. The result is an even stronger belief. Simply put, people like to be right, and they dislike being wrong, especially about something they consider important. So we are faced with the difficult task of getting someone to question their cherished beliefs, while we avoid being contradictory. Sounds impossible, but it's just tricky. The key is to ask questions and inspire empathy.
  
  
• Establish at the outset that you are open to new evidence, that you are willing to change your mind. Religious people like to define atheism as a religion because it's easier to dismiss dogma than an honestly curious person. But atheism has no dogma, and as an atheist, you are unattached to anything except a commitment to finding the truth, whatever it may be. You are not certain or closed-minded. You are agnostic, open, and honest, and it is this attitude that you want to inspire within the believer as much as possible. The best way to do that is to lead by example.
  
  
• Your entire discussion (and every future discussion) should primarily concern the investigation of one subject: "Why do you believe, and is it a good reason?" Instead of engaging in an argument, establish a teacher-student dynamic, with you as the student.
  
  
• How do we determine what is most likely true? Does your proposed method work consistently for everyone, or only when you use it? It's so easy to get entangled with irrelevant details, but stay on point. We want to help the believer discover that their epistemological method is unreliable, because this is the foundation of belief.
  
  
• Socratic method. Ask questions often and make assertions as sparingly as possible. I cannot overstate how important this is. Ask "why" enough, and you'll soon realize how comfortable the faithful are at describing "what" they believe, and how unprepared they are to explain the "why". And the "why" is what matters.
  
  
• Frequently summarize, in your own words, what you've heard. Ask if your summary is accurate. This assures them that you are listening and sincerely want to understand, and helps them to consider their own ideas, which can sound much less convincing when expressed with different verbiage and coming from outside one's own head. (No, I don't mean to summarize Christian doctrine as ancient blood magic. Be charitable.)
  
  
• When you hear the word, "faith", ask for a definition and don't continue until you get something reasonably coherent. Explore the reliability of faith. Ask about scenarios where faith leads to false conclusions. Listen carefully for when they use "faith" to mean something else, then return to asking what faith means. Believers often use "faith", "trust", "hope", and "belief" interchangeably. This is symptomatic of a circular belief structure — If all those words mean the same thing, then, "I have trust in my belief because I have faith" is really saying, "I have faith in my faith because I have faith".
  
  
• Avoid counter-apologetics. There are logical answers to every theistic argument, but they always fall on deaf ears. Why is this? The backfire effect plays a role, but also important to note: Apologetics are typically post facto rationalizations, and not the core reason for belief. Nobody ever converted to theism upon hearing the cosmological argument. Trying to rebut these kinds of excuses is not only argumentative, but irrelevant. If forced to engage apologetics, a good question is, "Were you a believer before you learned about these arguments?" The honest answer is always yes, so try to explore those foundational reasons for belief.
  
  
• The example of other religions should always be at the ready. When a spiritual revelation is mentioned, ask how the authenticity of one revelation can be established over another. When they talk about their holy book, ask how we can determine which holy book is most correct. When they appeal to faith, ask about people who have faith in a false god.
  
  
• "If the Muslim / Hindu / Mormon is mistaken about their revelation / book / evidence / faith... how can they discover their mistake?" You won't believe how effective and incisive this question is until you try it. It's a simple question about falsifiability, and believers, though well experienced with confirmation, don't think much about falsifiability. Whatever the answer, explore the reliability of the method.
  
  
• These kinds of questions tend to make believers uncomfortable because they rarely (if ever) consider their foundational reasoning. Expect responses of rhetorical tap-dancing which don't really answer the questions posed. Expect elaborations on "what" they believe, and not "why". Be patient and try not to interrupt. But...
  
  
• Don't get sidetracked. If you're asking good questions, you'll often get answers to questions you didn't ask. These answers will often contain fallacies or absurdities you'll want to counter, but resist that urge! Stay on topic, but don't be argumentative. If your question isn't answered, listen respectfully, then ask again, as gently as possible. I mean, avoid saying, "You didn't answer the question!" This is an accusation of evasion, and adversarial. Repeat what you just heard, ask if that's a fair summary, say, "Hmm" thoughtfully and then say, "But I don't understand how that explains..." Do you see the difference? The first response is an accusation. The second establishes that you are listening, and accuses yourself of a failure to understand. This humble attitude is important. Lead by example.
  
  
• Where appropriate, instead of saying, "I" or "You", say, "We". For example, "How can we tell the difference between something non-physical (supernatural) and something that doesn't exist?" This is a subtle but effective way to inspire empathy. You are inviting them to be your partner in an honest search for truth.
  
  
• You want to follow the beliefs of the person who is most correct. There are many competing religions and the reasons for belief offered by members of most religions are strikingly similar. Illustrate these similarities in your questions. Can the believer demonstrate that their reasons are superior to what other religions can provide? The object is to inspire empathy and get them thinking about the issue from your open perspective, faced with a variety of god claims, rather than from a position of closed certainty. If you are successful, you won't need to ask why their god hides from an honest seeker of truth — If they trust your sincerity, they'll ask themselves.
  
  I cannot guarantee that these strategies will make atheists out of everyone you encounter. But I can assure with some confidence that your conversations will be more productive, and will better provoke honest self-reflection in the believer. And that's the first step.

The God Delusion

Dan Barker, who later became an outspoken atheist but used to be an evangelical Christian preacher, wrote about how back when he was a Christian he worked composing music and made a Christmas Musical for children called "Mary Had a Little Lamb" based on that pun.

(In his book "Godless" about losing his faith, he tells the story of working with the Christian record producer and getting that made, and how he even ended working for free and not demanding royalties, because he was doing it all for God, and besides it seemed as if Jesus was coming back any day then, so he didn't need to plan for his retirement... needless to say he regrets that decision today.)

Yeah, he made reference to well-known arguments for the existence of God that are easily found in such books as An Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion and The Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology and Proofs of God: Classical Arguments from Tertullian to Barth and New Proofs for the Existence of God: Contributions of Contemporary Physics and Philosophy.

Why are you so angry?

Here's a book: https://www.amazon.com/Manual-Creating-Atheists-Peter-Boghossian/dp/1939578094

You might want to look into street epistemology, which is specifically geared toward making people rethink their religious views in a non-confrontational way. You should check out some of Anthony Magnabosco's videos or the book A Manual for Creating Atheists by Peter Boghossian.

The thesis of this book is : Don’t attack specific truth claims. Undermine faith and epistemology to create critical thinkers.

https://www.amazon.com/Manual-Creating-Atheists-Peter-Boghossian/dp/1939578094/ref=nodl_

No doubt! but, please buy them a replacement copy.

In general, academic philosophy of religion is dominated by theistic philosophers, so there aren't many works defending atheism and atheistic arguments in the professional literature.

But there are still a few notable books:

• J.L Mackie's The Miracle of Theism is considered a classic, but it's a bit outdated by now. Although Mackie focuses more on critiquing the arguments for God's existence rather than outright defending atheism, he is no doubt coming from an atheistic point of view.
  
• Michael Martin's Atheism: A Philosophical Justification is a lengthy book with the ambitious goal of showing atheism is the justified and rational philosophical position, while theism is not.
  
• Nicholas Everitt's The Non-existence of God is maybe one of the most accessible books in the "case for atheism" genre written by a professional philosopher. He even presents a new argument against god's existence.
  
• If you're more into debates, God?: A Debate between a Christian and an Atheist is a written debate between atheist philosopher Walter Sinnott-Armstrong and famous Christian philosopher and apologist William Lane Craig. It's far better than any debate WLC had with any of the New Atheists in my humble opinion.
  
• On the more Continental side of things, there a few works that could be mentioned. There's Michel Onfray's Atheist Manifesto: The Case Against Christianity, Judaism, and Islam (although I must admit I didn't read it myself, so I can't attest to how good it is) and of course any work by the atheist existentialists, a good place to start will by Jean-paul Sartre's Existentialism Is a Humanism.
  
  I didn't add him because others have already mentioned him, but everything written by Graham Oppy is fantastic IMO. He is maybe the leading atheist philosopher in the field of philosophy of religion. A good place to start with his writings is his 2013 paper on arguments for atheism.

I've come to enjoy this youtube channel specifically for the way he engages with people in a largely non-confrontational role.

I believe the techniques are well described in a book by Peter Boghossian called A Manuel For Creating Atheists. The guy in the youtube channel might even be the author, I don't know.

Anyway, I think it's a good basis for discussion. It's not about "You Are WRONG!". It's about taking a closed door and nudging it ajar so the person goes home and thinks about the topic more.

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

The question is not whether you feel close to god. The question is do you believe in God?

If the answer is, as I suspect it might be, "I don't know," then that is what you need to tackle first. You would have to remove all the questions of halal and haram, whether you can drink alcohol or not, eat bacon or not, because at this point they are irrelevant. They are details of what God has asked us to do, which mean nothing if you don't believe in God.

You have to assess whether you believe in God without involving your wants and desires into it. Then you'll have to face a very important and difficult decision: if you do believe in God, and become convinced it is the truth despite your emotions, are you willing to act upon that truth?

That statement you said about taking off the hijab and feeling the wind in your hair was me. I was lost. I too had read the Qur'an so many times with no real comprehension. I was in a swamp of doubt drowning in emotions and desires of what I wanted to do but which Islam was preventing me from doing. It was all Islam's fault you see, why everything was wrong, and everything would become so much better without it, because then I'd be in control of my life and decisions. I would do all the nice and fun things I couldn't otherwise do. See, that's what shaytan does, he masks the real issue in shallow wants and delusions of control that distract you from the real problem in hopes that you go completely off course.

I had a total emotional and faith breakdown one day complete with tears, as I came to the realization that I rationally believe that God absolutely exists and could not lie to myself, even though my heart felt emotionally empty of that belief. I had that breakdown because I thought myself too weak emotionally to face that belief and its consequences, that I almost didn't want to. But I did, I begged Allah for help, put my reason in charge of my emotions, and... I slowly got over it. I won't say I magically overnight went from resentful to pious, it has been a journey of many years. But with every small effort I made to stick with my deen, it became much easier and more good came my way. It still requires daily effort but now, alhamdulillah, my belief is no longer just rational and emotionally empty, but incredibly rich and filled with utter love for my Creator. The more love I have for Allah (swt) the more those wants and desires I used have feel like they were the prison and that now I feel the joy of freedom that only one who was in a prison can feel.

Some of the things that seem to have helped for me and for my younger sister (who went through what I went through a couple of years after me, but her faith was emotional and she needed to work on the rational part) that may help you too: Reading some philosophical works: reading the kalam cosmological argument helped me, she's currently reading There is a God by Anthony Flew (a famous atheist who ended up believing late in life). She also started a Qur'an club among a group of friends who were interested and we meet every other Sunday to discuss a surah. That has helped tremendously for us to connect with the Qur'an on a personal level. Listening to Nouman Ali Khan discuss the Qur'an has also helped us understand it a lot. Also, I feel like I'm sharing this video a lot these days, but here goes: Jeffrey Lang - The purpose of life.

My point is, find whatever works for you.

I pray Allah (swt) will guide you and make things clearer for you.

Edit: added some resources/links. I hope they help!

Definitely. Ironically, /r/Islam is what started me on my journey, because half the content on that sub was stuff I totally disagreed with on a fundamental level. The questions that were being asked were silly (in my opinion), and the answers were even sillier. I didn't realise people actually thought that way. I was a pretty liberal Muslim at the time and thought that you didn't have to follow the Qur'an by the book to be a good Muslim, all you had to do was have good intentions. Seems I was the only one who thought that way.

So I went out looking for a sub that countered that one, which is when I found /r/exmuslim. The more I lurked around this sub the more I started to question organised religion, but still somewhat believed that god existed. Then I read The God Delusion, and that, I think, was the final blow.

But yes, /r/exmuslim played a huge part.

Here are some book suggestions. I have not read them, but they are on my reading list.

Why I Became an Atheist: A Former Preacher Rejects Christianity

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

Losing My Religion: How I Lost My Faith Reporting on Religion in America and Found Unexpected Peace

"Prove" is a strong word. The fossil record provides extremely strong evidence for evolution from a common ancestor, but I concede that if that was all the evidence we have, I might not accept evolution either (though I am not a paleontologist... They might disagree).

But fossils are only one tiny bit of the overall evidence. In fact when Darwin formulated his theory, he didn't even have anything close to the fossil record we have now. His evidence came not from fossils but from comparative Anatomy and biogeology. And nowadays we have far more powerful evidence such as DNA & Genetics. I can completely understand why you don't accept evolution based solely on the fossil record, but if that is all you are looking at, you are ignoring the vast majority of the evidence.

If you sincerely want to know more, you can start on this Wikipedia page.. From there, I recommend either Why Evolution is True by Jerry Coyne or The Greatest Show on Earth. Both go into all the various bits of evidence, from all the various fields. Either one will give you a much deeper understanding of why the fossil record is very compelling evidence, but how it is far from the only evidence.

Sigh..

1. Evolution has been understood to exist for 500 years, and enjoys support by scientists in every country in every century. You're proposing a massive conspiracy that is infeasible. Furthermore, evolution is quite proven by the concept of DNA. The question that is the "theory" part is what drives the change in species. Modern theory consists of natural selection, genetic drift, and other factors which all come into play. After the discovery of DNA, it kind of became ridiculous to deny. We can manipulate genes, we can discover which gene is responsible for specific genetic variations, and we can track the change of species (for instance Avian Influenza) and use modern understanding to create vaccines for them. Quite simply denying evolution is like denying algebra. Both are fundamental cornerstones of their respective fields.
   
2. Of course they didn't interview 100% of scientists, but anyone that has taken a class in statistics understands that any decent survey should represent the overall group very well given an adequate percentage of randomised samples. The fact that you said what you did instead of suggesting the survey was biased or not random tells me that you are not capable of going further in this conversation, so I will direct you to a book by a Catholic Evolutionary Biologist:
   http://www.amazon.com/Finding-Darwins-God-Scientists-Evolution/dp/0060930497

Here are a few that might interest you.

https://strangenotions.com/wright-conversion/

C.S. Lewis - Mere Christianity
http://www.amazon.com/Mere-Christianity-C-S-Lewis/dp/0060652926/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1450724094&sr=1-1&keywords=mere+christianity+by+c.s.+lewis


Catholicism & Reason: Creed & Apologetics by Edward J. Hayes

Anthony Flew's "There is a God"
http://www.amazon.com/There-Is-God-Notorious-Atheist/dp/0061335304

I would say yes, but with a few caveats. I myself am a bit of an autodidact, and I study philosophy as a hobby in my free time. I am currently a university student who works part time, so I sympathize with your concerns about limited time and energy. Some things I think you should be aware of:

• Studying on your own will be slower and generally less efficient than getting a degree. You won’t have the same obligations or motivators that university students have.

• You will lack access to resources that university students have. This includes both academic material (journals, essays, books) but also an environment with instructors and fellow students to consult when you’re confused.

• You will not have the benefit of writing essays and having them graded by an instructor.

Despite this, I still think there is a lot to be gained from self study. You have the freedom to pursue whatever you want, and you can go at a pace that’s comfortable to you. Plus there’s something to be said about challenging yourself and doing constructive things in your free time.

It may be best to start with introductory texts like Copleston’s history to get a general idea for each philosopher and to find what interests you. If you are still interested in the thinkers you mentioned, you should move on to primary sources. I’d recommend the following reading plan which should cover some of the “essentials” and has a sort of progression from one thinker to the next:

1. Readings in Ancient Greek Philosophy: From Thales to Aristotle
   
2. Descartes: Selected Philosophical Writings by Descartes
   
3. Enquiries Concerning Human Understanding and Concerning the Principles of Morals by Hume
   
4. Critique of Pure Reason by Kant
   
   These four books will give you a solid foundation in western philosophy. You have the fundamental ideas and questions from the Pre-Socratics, Plato, and Aristotle, rationalism from Descartes, empiricism from Hume, and the synthesis of the two in Kant. Moving on:
   
   
5. Logical Investigations by Husserl
   
   
6. Being and Time by Heidegger
   
   
7. Being and Nothingness by Sartre
   
   These three cover your interests in phenomenology, from its foundations in Husserl, to Heidegger’s magnum opus, to Sartre’s interpretation and his development of existentialism. Finally we have:
   
   
8. Dialectic of Enlightenment by Horkheimer & Adorno
   
   
9. Speech and Phenomenon by Derrida
   
   These two cover Horkheimer & Adorno’s critical take on enlightenment rationality and Derrida’s deconstruction of Husserlian phenomenology.
   
   None of these books are particularly easy (especially Husserl and Heidegger), but I encourage you to try! Take it one book at a time, read slow and take notes, and consult the IEP and SEP if you’re confused, watch YouTube lectures, or ask on this subreddit.
   
   Good luck!

Try less of being an immature asshole and more of a critical thinker. Read some books on church history, the ces letter, A Manual For Creating Atheists, How to be a really good pain in the ass, etc and provide helpful rational polite commentary as the appropriate topic comes up. Really know your stuff and where the sources are coming from. Think about what their responses are likely to be and how to counter them. Consider it waging a polite private war on seminary if it helps you. If the teacher see you as an articulate and convincing influence on the other kids they won't want you there. Otherwise they will just think you are just another immature kid throwing a tantrum.

Or if that sounds like too much work for you than you can just nap your way through seminary or read a book for the few minutes a day they take up. I got a lot of good reading time in there when I was your age.

If NAMBLA set up on a island and established a culture of raping 3 year olds in the ass and then eating them alive while they were awake would you step back and say "Hey, hey, hey. It's their culture who are you to say raping children in the ass is bad and dismembering them for the purpose of a good goulash is immoral?"

I'm just trying to figure out what your line of reasoning is.

edit
If you're just trying to pose the question of which metric is most valid, without asserting that all moral behavior is relativistic and cannibalism of conscious persons, child rape, torture, etc. are, in fact, moral within a given context then this method is probably a good start.

I believe he's referring to The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins.

Two things to toss on your bed...

THING 1

And THING 2

Yup.

Neither do I, it's nonsensical any way you slice it. If you'd like to know more about the arguments against "free will" I'd recommend Sam Harris' new book.

http://www.amazon.com/Free-Will-Sam-Harris/dp/1451683405

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

If he doesn't want to read something, don't push it on him.

Even if he does end up reading it, it won't be a proper reading, just something to please you that he begrudgingly does.

It is like reading a book that you were forced to read in school years after the fact, and you love the book on the 2nd reading but because you were forced to read it the first time you didn't engage it the way you should have. Same thing.

If you want to have a good discussion with him, you need to stop telling him things and instead start asking questions. With the right questions, he comes to his own answers instead of some kid (which you are in his eyes because he is your uncle) telling him.

This is the socratic method, and it works. If you want to learn more about applying it to atheism, check out A Manual for Creating Atheists.

I've become rather obsessed with deconversion narratives recently

Why I became an Atheist

Deconverted FYI I recommend the audiobook

Godless

Farewell to God

There's a book called "A Manual for Creating Atheists", which talks about various non-confrontational techniques like Socratic questioning.

If you value your relationship (long term), i would suggest taking a different approach.

I went through a similar situation with my GF (now wife). We were both pretty confident YEC's (then i took a Critical Thinking class and boom). The method i used was explaining my thought process and asking her what she thought about it. It's important not to make the issue adversarial, but to make it a conversation. No debate will make her change her mind (or better yet see where you come from).

The problem is not god/religion/church (not directly anyway), but faith. Faith is what causes logic/critical thinking not to work. It allows for magic. Faith is a bad epistemology (how you know what you know). My old CT professor wrote a book about it: A Manual For Creating Atheists. (foreward by Michael Shermer)

The edgy title is a little misleading, the book is about critical thinking and about how you know what you know. It tackles the issue of faith. The method advocated (honest, non-adversarial conversation etc) is pretty well demonstrated by this guy on youtube.

My relationship was very important to me and i almost lost it because of difference of belief. She was also reasonable and agreed to hear me out. Now we both still share utter incredulity that we could have ever held those views. Don't listen to the "just dump her" comments. Relationships with people are too important to just discard.

*full disclosure Amazon link is Smile link to support the skeptic society.

You're not likely to change theists minds through debate or argument. I find that Street Epistemology/Socratic Method is the best method for examining beliefs and what methods someone uses to arrive at a particular belief (e.g. faith vs scientific method). Check out Anthony Magnabosco's Youtube channel or Peter Boghossian's book "A Guide for creating atheists".

yeah the joke was about The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins.

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> I've had spiritual experiences I believe are from God, so in a way, yes.

but you've never met him. the answer is no

> I've never met President Obama. Should I believe he doesn't exist? That's your best evidence?

neither have I but others have and we can prove his existence. are you trolling?

> I'll agree with the ones other than Christianity that I've researched.

ah, so you are an atheists towards other gods.

> Can you provide what convinces you of this in regards to Christianity?

this is going to require some research and time which sadly I dont think you'll do. but here are a few. I could go on and on and on if you'd like.

this, this, this, this, this, this

> if anyone has any experience with college kids and what they like to ask.

First off, your typical college kid has not read anything on religion as sophisticated C.S. Lewis et al. I think it will be less the kids and more the professors that might ask tough questions. I think /r/atheism is about as sophisticated as college kids will be. So, not that I would encourage you to check out that sub, but those are mainly college kids posting overly simplistic things like "religion starts wars" or "faith is inconsistent with science", "The religious are bigots" etc...

Some professors may have read significantly more sophisticated things then typically show up on the sophomoric memes of /r/atheism. But for every one of them, there is someone like those I list below that have just as sophisticated counterpoint.

With that said here is my advice:

1. Don't close your mind at college. There are many great truths the "secular world" knows and you need to treasure them all up. Don't become the Christian who thinks humans rode dinosaurs like horses. Be prepared to learn and work hard to learn.
   
   
2. Though I argue way too much, be careful when arguing/debating about religion that you never lose your cool. Always be civil and respectful. I have seen more people converted by "good examples" then by intellectual argument.
   
   
3. When you see intellectual things tugging at your faith, please allow the Christian Philosophers to also give their side of the story. Some here troubling things and give up way faster than they should. Some notable Christian Philosophers to follow: William Lane Craig, Alvin Plantinga, Richard Swinburne, Alexander Pruss, basically the several authors of the chapters of this book which are all top notch philosophers and deeply faithful, this site has some contributors that are top notch, etc...
   
   And some of them like William Lane Craig have sections of their website devoted to answering questions so if you have any tough questions do be afraid to ask these people. Just please, no matter what confusing question you run into, know that there are incredibly smart and respected intellectuals who have already addressed that confusing issue.
   
   Also, follow their blogs, newsletters, youtube debates and websites (as well as check out their books) so you always stay on top of the latest Christian arguments.
   
   
4. The sophomoric posts of /r/atheism are literally being posted often by college kids so that sub is a good example of what you will find other kids bring up.
   
   
5. And what ever you do, always make sure you do the "little things" like pray and read the scriptures. One danger intellectuals sometimes have is ignoring these little things that bring power like a grain of mustard seed.
   
   

This article is not a great jumping off point if you want to understand Harris's position. If you don't want to read his book, Free Will (which is short, compact, and easy to read), this talk summarizes his position. It is about 55 minutes long after which there is a Q&A session.

In terms of the existence of God, it was largely Anthony Flew's "There is a God" and C.S. Lewis' "Mere Christianity" that got me to a place where I could at least be open the idea of the existence of God.

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


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


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


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



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



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



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



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


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

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.

Check out Anthony Magnabosco on the YouTube practicing 'street epistemology' as taught by Peter Boghossian in Manual for Creating Atheists.

I recommend watching some videos by Anthony Magnabosco. He uses "Street Epistemology" techniques originally described in Peter Boghassian's book A Manual for Creating Atheists, although there are some variations. The core idea is to use the Socratic method to examine the reasons for why someone believes what they believe and determine if those reasons are reliable.

There are several advantages to this method:

• It is not necessarily adversarial; properly done it is framed as a mutual discussion and not as a debate. The goal isn't to "win" but to examine reasons for belief, which makes it far more effective in actually changing minds (and just as important, staying friends afterwards!).
  
  
• It is not reliant on attacking any specific belief system; usually it's best to avoid discussing religion at all! Instead it focuses on epistemology and "faith," trying to encourage the person to examine if their reason for belief is really justified. In Boghassian's book he mentions his theory is that the fundamental source of most people's belief in God is based on a flawed epistemology...fix the epistemology and the God belief will evaporate. His idea is that it's not belief in God per se that causes issues with religion but poor epistemologies that cause people to believe in God.
  
  
• Similar to the above, it can be used to examine any belief, not just God...karma, alien abductions, conspiracy theories, superstitions, etc. are all good targets.
  
  
• Lastly, it tends to be the most respectful way to engage with someone on these topics. Getting bent out of shape and raging against theists helps no one, and is usually hypocritical. The Socratic method relies on emulating the behavior you'd like to see in the other person, which tends to result in everyone being much happier afterwards rather than pissed off.
  
  The disadvantage, of course, is that it takes a long time and isn't as fun of a method to use to debate with strangers online. But for face-to-face conversations, especially with people you want to keep a good relationship with, I don't think there's a better method if you want to address the topic.

I'll second A Manual for Creating Atheists! It's a great read. Here's the link for anyone interested in picking it up:

http://smile.amazon.com/Manual-Creating-Atheists-Peter-Boghossian-ebook/dp/B00LKBT0MC/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&sr=&qid=

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.

> Every time I talk to them, they tell me to go to church or pray or read the bible or some other nonsense.

Agree to their request - IF they do the same for you. You will read the bible and discuss what you find in it with them if they will read something you suggest and they discuss it with you.

Here is a couple of suggestions for reading in the bible:

Luke 19:11-27 The Parable of the Ten Minas - What is the meaning behind this parable? When are your parents gearing up for the slaughter?

Ok, I am too lazy to list other examples - so here is a link - A Book of Blood: Biblical atrocities :D

As for reading material for your parents - check the FAQ for a good list. The God Delusion, by Richard Dawkins, is a popular choice.

Or you can work with your parents to investigate the foundations of the Catholic religion together. The primary most basic foundation to Catholics , and all the Abrahamic Religions (Judaism, Christianity, Islam) is the belief in one and only one monotheistic deity, Yahweh/YHWH/Allah. All of these religions also have established the precedent of accepting the revealed and religious literature/oral history of previous cultures regarding Yahweh/Allah. A fun and informative activity that any good adherent to Yahwehism should undertake is to investigate the origin story for Yahweh. Where did Yahweh come from? Yahweh did not just pop up fully revealed to the early Israelites (as documented in the Torah). SPOLIER: Yahweh started out as a second tier fertility/rain/warrior local desert God under the El, Father God, Pantheon.

Online evidential sources related to the development and growth of Allahism/Yahwehism:

• Israelite Religion to Judaism: the Evolution of the Religion of Israel
  
• The evolution of God
  
• Ugarit and the Bible
  
• The Ascension of Yahweh: The Origins and Development of Israelite Monotheism from the Afrasan to Josiah - PDF warning
  
  Other (off-line references - but if you search, you may find them online):
  
  
• The Early History of God: Yahweh and the Other Deities in Ancient Israel by Mark Smith
  
• The Origins of Biblical Monotheism: Israel's Polytheistic Background and the Ugaritic Texts by Mark S. Smith
  
• A History of God: The 4,000-Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity and Islam by Karen Armstrong
  
• The Religion of Ancient Israel (Library of Ancient Israel) by Patrick D. Miller
  
• Religions of Ancient Israel: A Synthesis of Parallactic Approaches by Ziony Zevit
  
  Allah/Yahweh/God is claimed to be the only true God (ex., “There is no god but Allah.”), yet significant physical archeological and linguistic anthropological evidence documents the doctrinal growth of Allah/Yahweh from a subordinate rain/fertility/warrior Deity in a large polytheistic pantheon of revealed and worshiped Deities into a politically and militarily motivated monotheistic Deity belief system. In other words, the evidence points to monotheistic Allahism/Yahwehism as a human-made concept and not as a self-revealed monotheistic Deity.

Losing Faith in Faith: From Preacher to Atheist by Dan Barker

edit: or Atheism: A Philosophical Justification by Michael Martin

> it's hard to discuss ethics and morality apart from religion

I know what you mean., it is hard to talk about morals without religion. Someone like Sam Harris should write a book about it. It should have a nice and simple title that conveys the subject of the book without hyperbole, something like The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values

Have you read The Moral Landscape? Sam Harris is a neuroscientist and a philosopher, and the book is an argument for Utilitarianism, a philosophical position which states that the morality of an act is determined by the amounts of suffering and/or well-being it causes.

That's not to say that Harris doesn't adopt a scientific approach to this question (or to the questions he examines in his other works of philosophy). His thesis is essentially that well-being can be measured objectively by using scientific tools like MRI scans etc.

But if what you're trying to suggest is that Harris is a scientist who somehow does away with that pesky philosophy nonsense, then you're deeply mistaken, both about what sorts of things science and philosophy are, and about Harris as an individual.

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. :)

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.

I think the first thing you need to do is undermine the idea of faith. The opposition to evolution, and science generally is deeply rooted in faith and if that isn't talked about, there is a good chance you will talk past each other. Peter Boghossian wrote a good book on this

Read A Manual for Creating Atheists by Peter Boghossian. Also, check out Anthony Magnabosco's YouTube channel. He interviews people while using the methods from Boghossian's book. I was able to get my parents out of Mormonism because of that book and YouTube channel.

https://www.amazon.com/Manual-Creating-Atheists-Peter-Boghossian/dp/1939578094/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1480443561&sr=1-1&keywords=a+manual+for+creating+atheists

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.

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

I have no reason to believe the universe is designed. Especially not with 99.99% of the universe being so hostile to human life as to kill us instantly. Only a bare fraction of the observed universe so far is conducive to human life, and of that we have to work pretty damned hard to protect ourselves against death by exposure.

So if this is an example of a universe by design, the designer either hates us or is hugely incompetent.

I'd argue that trying to leave them dumbfounded is actually the wrong approach, instead you need to get them thinking and accepting that when they're really trying to solve problems, even when they claim to be relying on faith, if they're really trying to resolve the problem they'll end up using reason and critical thinking (or rely on those that do so like doctors, engineers, etc).

To do that, the arguments you use will vary greatly depending on the individual, their background, and how open or closed they are to reason and new ideas.

A good recent book that covers an overview of the topic is Peter Boghossian's recent book:

• A Manual for Creating Atheists, by Pater Boghossian
  
  as he points out, sometimes bringing up arguments just for argument- or "gotcha"- sake can set them to trying to refute what you just said or double-down on explaining their own beliefs and can entrench them further that can also insulate them even from reason.
  
  Seek out ways to not only get them to agree with you, but ways in which they want to agree with you that faith is useless (or worse) and reason is the best way to approach their problems.

This summarizes it beautifully. However, to add to the original question, I felt I should share with you all my story.

I grew up a Southern baptist. I always had questions that no one had answers to, and I always felt guilty for asking them. Regardless, I felt like I was "required" to be Christian to be good, and so I was.

As I got older and I started to experience more, my doubts creeped in. My Christian friends told me it was a test of my faith, and I looked up to them for their strength. They seemed strong, good, and loving.

It made me feel guilty for being a "bad" Christian. I didn't believe in all aspects of the Bible, and that made me a hypocrite in my eyes. Could God forgive a hypocrite who consciously knew she was sinning? It felt wrong, but I wanted to live my life as I felt was right -- I didn't want to get married, I wanted to have sex in my loving relationship, I didn't want to be submissive to a man. The list goes on.

Then, last year, I finally broke.

I took a leap of faith and love and flew halfway across the world to spend a month with a man I loved dearly. When I left, I just remember the sinking realization I would probably never see him again. I've never cried so hard in public -- the 16 hour plane ride home was easily the worst experience of my life. I came home beaten, angry, and woefully depressed. I reached out to a friend -- a childhood friend who I had always looked up to for being so strong in his faith -- and his family was there for me, until I told my friend one night during an argument that I felt like his hatred for gays was wrong and not dissimilar to hatred of different races of people. As a result, my friend betrayed me -- he lied to his parents about me, spread rumors all over Facebook, and even called me with a suicide threat. The next day, I lost my dog suddenly to a fat embolism following an amputation that was suppose to save her from cancer.

I fell into a hole so deep and so dark that I've struggled over a year to find my way back. In the process, I did a lot of thinking, questioning, and reading. I hated the idea that I was putting my mortality in what could potentially be the wrong box. I hated that I felt guilty for living my life the way I wanted to. I hated the "grey area." I hated that some believers hid behind the Bible to do things awful or excuse terrible things. I had seen death, and there was nothing pretty or serene about it. It was awful and gruesome and heartbreaking. And more importantly, I realized how not everything has a point -- not everything is part of some radical plan of a higher being -- some things are just bullshit.

Losing my faith was one of the hardest things I've gone through. The worst was exactly the question the OP was asking: how to cope with bad things, especially loss. I felt empty -- I could no longer ignore my questions, my doubts, or my logic -- and I could no longer fill that hole with an idea given to me by an archaic text.

Coping became easier as time went on. I started talking to people who had experienced something similar -- a Catholic friend who had died in Iraq, only to wake up 3 months later in a coma in Germany, realized that in death he saw nothing -- and I realized I wasn't alone with my questions, my contradictions, or my pain.

I began to delve deeper into science, too, in an effort to answer questions I had about where I had come from, if not a higher being. In doing so, I learned some of the most beautiful things. For example, did you know that we are all, essentially, star dust? I remember crying when I heard this for the first time. It gave my life purpose again, or at least meaning. I realized that yes, we were alone, but we are special, we are beautiful, and we are all connected.

I was reborn, to put it theologically, and I have never felt happier.

Edit: Expounded on my original post, since it was originally written on my phone. Also, I wanted to add this NdGT video, because it is choking me up again as I watch it.

Edit 2: Wording, also, I highly suggest The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins, even as a believer. It raises many interesting points (and questions) about religion in general.

If by 'lacking' you mean 'nonexistent', then yes.

I went to public school but with heavy influence from my folks and church, all of whom seem to be involved in some sort of Fundamentalism competition. I learned exactly as much as I had to in order to pass the test, but I was always convinced it was a lie because scientists are all "out to get" Christianity.

I'm still wrapping my head around just how unhealthy this worldview can be.

I'll echo /u/Cognizant_Psyche - kudos on taking that first step and deciding to get smart on this topic.

I talked to my church pastor, who passed me off to his wife (who has apologetics degrees out the ass). She recommended The Language of God, a tactic which soundly backfired on her. That book was fantastic. It explains evolution from a DNA perspective but then tries to tell me I can still believe in God if I want to. For me, from such a fundamentalist, literalist background, the bible had to be true word-for-word, yet this book flew in the face of the entire Genesis account of creation. If that wasn't real, how could I trust any of the rest?

Once I was 'cleared' to learn about Evolution, I grabbed Dawkins' The God Delusion. I watched the Ham-Nye debate. I grabbed Who Wrote The New Testament, and Misquoting Jesus. That pretty much did it for me.

I recommend you read Michael Martin's Atheism: A Philosphical Justification. It's one of the best works of rigorous philosophical atheism. Personally I believe his argument for weak/negative atheism is much stronger than his argument for strong/positive atheism, the former of which you seem to fit into.

Because morality is not determined by the existence or nonexistence of a god. http://www.amazon.com/Moral-Landscape-Science-Determine-Values/dp/1439171211

Hi. It looks like Dr ransom got to you first but it looks like he is going to say much of what I came here to say myself.

I'm a working engineer, highly educated in the sciences, and a devout Christian. I not only accept evolution but recognize it as being as much of a fact as gravity and I have no problem with homosexuality. I have also spoken, at length, on why neither of these two things are in conflict with scripture when it is read in its proper context, (eg.. with consideration of the styles of the original authors, their intended audiences, the historical context of the portions of the Bible being considererd, etc...).

What you are running into is the simple fact that the current, popular, approach of trying to treat the Bible as a scientific textbook on everything isn't what God intended.

If you have any questions that you don't feel others are answering, feel free to PM me and give me a shot at it. If nothing else, I'll point you at some good reading. :)

Like 'Finding Darwins God'

Kennity Miller, the author, is a Professor of Biology at Brown University and has written a host of essays and papers talking about the intersection of evolution and Christianity, (amongst other topics).

So he may be a good place for you to look too. :)

That's an easy one, get "Finding Darwin's God":

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

But you know, this problem has been resolved before, it's just the new version of Christianity called "fundamentalism" that has re-introduced this debate.

Here's a passage from over 1.5K years ago:

-- St. Augustine, "The Literal Meaning of Genesis" (written circa 401-415 AD)

"Usually, even a non-Christian knows something about the earth, the heavens, and the other elements of this world, about the motion and orbit of the stars and even their size and relative positions, about the predictable eclipses of the sun and moon, the cycles of the years and the seasons, about the kinds of animals, shrubs, stones, and so forth, and this knowledge he hold to as being certain from reason and experience."

"Now, it is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for an infidel to hear a Christian, presumably giving the meaning of Holy Scripture, talking nonsense on these topics; and we should take all means to prevent such an embarrassing situation, in which people show up vast ignorance in a Christian and laugh it to scorn. The shame is not so much that an ignorant individual is derided, but that people outside the household of faith think our sacred writers held such opinions, and, to the great loss of those for whose salvation we toil, the writers of our Scripture are criticized and rejected as unlearned men."

"If they find a Christian mistaken in a field which they themselves know well and hear him maintaining his foolish opinions about our books, how are they going to believe those books in matters concerning the resurrection of the dead, the hope of eternal life, and the kingdom of heaven, when they think their pages are full of falsehoods and on facts which they themselves have learnt from experience and the light of reason?

"Reckless and incompetent expounders of Holy Scripture bring untold trouble and sorrow on their wiser brethren when they are caught in one of their mischievous false opinions and are taken to task by those who are not bound by the authority of our sacred books. For then, to defend their utterly foolish and obviously untrue statements, they will try to call upon Holy Scripture for proof and even recite from memory many passages which they think support their position, although 'they understand neither what they say nor the things about which they make assertion.' [1 Timothy 1.7]"

St. Augustine is right to be worried. I was raised a YEC and I'm [now] an atheist. Creationism was one of the first dominos to fall, once I realized how much evidence there was against it I started questioning the other things I'd been taught to believe. Now I understand I was brainwashed and indoctrinated, but it was creationism that gave me my first glimpse of the light.

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

Free will being an illusion doesn't mean you can't change - you can do something today (read a book, go out and meet someone, meditate) that will change your life. But, because free will is an illusion, you don't know why you may choose to do that "something"...it's all a result of causes and conditions that stretch back to before you were born. But what you do today becomes part of causes and conditions that shape tomorrow.

I suggest reading Sam Harris' "Free Will" - or, watching this YouTube video. Free will being an illusion does not mean your future is set in stone regardless of what you do/don't do...Sam Harris explains it well: it simply means what you do/don't do is a result of previous causes and conditions.

edit - fixed link.

1. Morality must be based on something. The real life effects that moral decisions have on beings that are conscious enough to understand those effects is as close to an objective standard as we can get. For more, read The Moral Landscape by Sam Harris.
   
   Kudos to Sam Harris, but as it turns out, my interest level in debating the merits of utilitarianism is much lower than I suspected it might be. All I can say is that Harris fully recognizes that it is a problem that the only people who are absolutely certain of their morals are those who are the most zealous about their religious convictions. And, of course, due to the mutually exclusive nature of religion, not all religious convictions can be right so most moral absolutists must be wrong. A good counter-question might be, "what makes you think that your version of absolute morality might be right?" I suspect that would be labeled as "dancing around the question" so I'll simply make that a rhetorical and move on.
   
   
2. Laura Mersini suggests that there is in fact good reason to think that other universes do exist. Her hypothesis makes novel predictions that have since been observed and, unlike any other hypothesis (if memory serves), her theory explains the blue shift we see in our universe as the interaction of an external universe. Do some research into Mersini's idea of the universe as a wave function on the landscape multiverse.
   
   I think I've answered your questions directly, though not in a great deal of depth. Sadly, I'm a long way away from being a philosopher and I'm even farther from being a theoretical physicist so the best I can do is to point you towards those who have answers (even if just preliminary or as yet unproven answers) to your questions.
   
   I'm interested to see your thoughts particularly about Dr. Mersini's hypothesis.

>Actually, we can source our morality beyond subjectivity.

Sam Harris wrote a book about this.

where did i suggest other religions didnt have dedicated scholars.

>rational contemplations

oh rly. did you read Thomas Aquinas? ghazali? Maimonides? Descarte perhaps? Immanuel Kant? maybe william lane craig?

perhaps read something like this

Creation and evolution can co-exist. Be careful not to force her into a false dichotomy.

To quote another person:

> I think your statement about the compatibility of orthodox Christian belief and the embrace of evolutionary theory is correct. So far as I can see, no contradiction between them obtains. I have Catholic friends who are both devout with respect to Church doctrine and fully supportive of modern evolutionary theory, and I find the theodicy and theology that proceed from that more elegant and robust than special-creationist alternatives. If one is going to proceed under the irrational assumptions of Christian theism in the first place, that seems to be a fairly rational way of proceeding from there. In any case, it doesn't place those Christians in the mental ditch so many drive themselves into with the anti-evolutionary bent, denying reason and evidence in abundance for evolutionary theory.

> Even so, I think you are dismissing the problem in a very simplistic fashion. While I just affirmed that evolution and orthodox Christian doctrine are compatible, evolution is nevertheless quite toxic in many cases to support for Christian belief. Many Catholics, for instance, have maintained a kind of faithful theistic evolution throughout their lives, but for many others, evolution seriously undermines faith in God because it in a significant sense makes God superfluous, an afterthought, an unnecessary part of the explanation.

> I think that explains why so many Catholics here militate against the evidence and the facts on the ground concerning evolution. The objection is NOT that evolution cannot be harmonized with Catholic doctrine -- manifestly, it can be -- but rather that evolution betrays a basic conceit many believers have about their status as humans. Christian theology exalts mankind in an ontological sense -- only man is imprinted with the imago dei, only man has the reasoning faculties to apprehend natural law and the noetic facilities for knowing God in a spiritual sense.

> Man is fallen, but that "fallenness" itself is proof of man's ontological primacy in the world; there is hubris in supposing man had somewhere to fall from in the first place.

> As Christian, I know I was guilty of this conceit. And while evolution does not and cannot discredit the idea that God made the universe, and utlimately designed the world so that man would be man, in such form that he might enventually be invested with a soul, fashioned in some dualistic way in God's image, evolution as a mechanical, natural process really takes the pride out of human exceptionalism. Darwin's dangerous idea was that we are animals in the most thoroughgoing sense, cousins of the chimpanzee and relatives of the lowly cabbage, or even the most virulent bacteria, if we are to trace our lineage back far enough.

> I suggest to you that some of the draw of Christian faith -- not all of it, but some -- obtains from this intuitive desire to classify oneself, one's kind as "special". Not just special in some parochial sense, but "cosmically special". Catholicism can still cater to this innate inclination, but it's a lot harder to cater to through the filter of evolutionary theory. Evolution places man as an ordinary leaf, like all the other leaves, or a very large and ancient tree. Many have a conceit grounded in the idea that man was "formed from the dust" in some special, hands-on way -- a custom job, or as they would say in the UK, "bespoke".

> Evolution works right against this conceit, and while doctrine and faith can be maintained in embracing it, evolution just kills a lot of the joy of the "specialness" many believers are enamored of. If evolution is true, God may still be the Creator, the one forming man with the imago dei, somehow, but it sure does look more remote and mechanistic than it used to. And of course, it continually provides the idea that this is just how things would look if God were imaginary, and that's something many believers understand, and resist strongly on those grounds.

The point of course is that they are compatible, but that one must be humble about it. As Pope John Paul II said when he was accepting evolution, "Truth cannot contradict truth". In other words, if you look at the evidence for evolution, it's very clear that it's correct in at least the broad sense even if some of the specifics are still being researched. From this, you have to ask how this applies to your world view - do you think it's a work of the devil or God is trying to test you or some other nonsense, or will you take it as another building block of truth and apply it where appropriate understanding that even if the entire body is evolved, without help, from a single celled organism that this says nothing about anything regarding souls or spirits or whatever they want to believe. Christians believe we leave the physical world behind when we die, so why fight over it being so special?

Edit:

I also recommend this if she has problems believing dating methods... it's a "Christian perspective" but it's accurate and explains it pretty well.

http://www.asa3.org/ASA/RESOURCES/WIENS.html

And also a Christian biologist talking for 2 hours (with evidence!) about why evolution is true and ID is BS:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JVRsWAjvQSg

And here is a book written about evolution from the Christian perspective (recommended by Dawkins in a video once), starting at $2.61 used paperback. Just buy her a copy and have it shipped to her.

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

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

> 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 was this missionary. Not really, but I could rationalize with the best of them. Logic just did not enter my way of thinking. This missionary is SMART. You have to be smart to maneuver a conversation the way he did.

Looking back on it, I'm not sure if one conversation could change my mind. My mind was changed very, very slowly and by many, many conversations. With that said, I think you should just debate one topic and stick to it. Don't change...don't let him change. The reason to select just one topic is because five years from now, that's all he'll remember.

I had a conversation 10 years before I left the church with a guy. He said "Is the world more righteous now than it was 50 years ago?" I said "NO! We are more wicked now than ever!"

Then he said, "We're curing cancer, providing insulin, creating artificial limbs, and generally healing more people with more technology and medicine than in the history of the world. Surely God wouldn't bless us with such longevity for no reason? We're SUPER righteous!"

That stuck with me for a long time. It made no sense to me. Why would God do that? If God wasn't doing that, then why would Satan bless us with long, happy lives?

I guess what I'm saying is that this conversation might have been a major victory for you, but we won't know for years to come. People need lots of time to abandon their delusions.

Personally, I think you were on the right track when you attacked faith. Everyone feels the spirit. Everyone thinks it tells them what is true. Everyone believes in really different things. Therefore, faith and the spirit must be an unreliable way at arriving at truth. His central message is that faith is the ONLY reliable method for arriving at truth. He's using a method that is deeply flawed at finding ANY truth.

This is directly from Peter Boghassian's book, A Manual For Creating Atheists

Arguing in the sense of counter-apologetics and debate will very rarely change anyone's mind. Generally people have to be open-minded and willing to be wrong in order to change, and a debate setting immediately turns off both of these factors.

If you haven't already heard of Street Epistemology, [this channel] (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCocP40a_UvRkUAPLD5ezLIQ) is an excellent place to start. Based on [this book] (http://www.amazon.com/Manual-Creating-Atheists-Peter-Boghossian/dp/1939578094/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1463408447&sr=8-1&keywords=a+manual+for+creating+atheists), Anthony uses the Socratic Method to get believers to start considering the reliability of their beliefs on their own, which is generally much more effective than slamming down silly arguments with counter-apologetics.

If you get into a debate, especially with fundamentalists, you're only hurting yourself.

You need this book. You're debating on his turf. Try using the Socratic method and treat him like a "patient" on your couch of psychology and find out "why" he thinks these things, then he will (maybe), realize that he is wrong in the future. Other than that, there is no other way for you to make him see the light.

Nicely done, and certainly true.

You could also show an inverted curve on the secondary y-axis that illustrates the former believer's interest in engaging in rational debates with believers. The curve peaks out until finally dropping down again as the former believer realizes that believers are self-delusional (using Dawkins' phrase), and attempts at rational discussion are more akin to pigeon chess (where the bird just shits all over the board).

Watch debates on YouTube. Dawkins is good for cold logic. Hitchens is good for more historical or anti-organized-religion arguments.

Read The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins.

Keep in mind that a good debater should remain a gentleman. A kind word can go a long way. Be blunt but polite. Satire is useful, but crass ridicule may alienate your audience.

http://www.amazon.com/The-God-Delusion-Richard-Dawkins/dp/0618918248

PM me if you want me to mail it to your folks place.

> I would like to see an atheist debate someone like Plantingna

It's not a debate, but if you're interested in a more philosophically-focused response to Plantinga's reformed epistemology, I'd recommend checking out Prof. Tyler Wunder's content. If you just want a brief overview, here's an interview with him covering the content of his dissertation critiquing Plantinga. The link on that site to his dissertation is dead, but I reached out to him via e-mail a while back and he sent it to me. I can forward you a download link if you find yourself interested.

Also, Michael Martin treats much of Plantinga's ideas in some depth in his book Atheism: A Philosophical Justification. There are plenty of atheist philosophers that are much more careful than Hitchens and co. if you look for them. I'm not interested in an extended dialogue on their arguments, but since you seemed intrigued by Rowe, I thought I'd point out some similar resources. Graham Oppy's Arguing About Gods was recommended to me along with the Michael Martin book, but I haven't checked it out yet. I've only read certain parts of Martin's book too (it's a long read if you were to go straight through).

Sam Harris talks about this a lot; he wrote a book called The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values , and also did a TED Talk about the subject.

I wish I could tell you that all you need to do is to stop believing in God and suddenly things will become much clearer. Unfortunately, this is not really the case.

Think of the God idea as a piece of malware, which is running on the computer of your brain. It's malware because it takes up your resources to do something that isn't beneficial to you. Once upon a time you installed the Loving Parents And Social Circle software, and it asked you to install the God program as part of it. You clicked OK at the time, but now you've figured out it's malware, and you need to find a way to get rid of the malware, but you don't want to uninstall the Loving Parents And Social Circle software too.

This is a very touchy process and I can't guarantee you'll be successful. Some people give up and simply decide to go without the Loving Parents And Social Circle software, because the licensing requirements are just too restrictive. I don't recommend this path. Even if the requirements are pretty rough, it's good software.

But here's the kick that no one tells you: by getting rid of the malware, you don't just suddenly have an awesome computer you can use for anything. You have to find and download lots of other software now. Getting rid of the malware was just the beginning, and now the real work begins. You're already way behind people who got rid of their malware ages ago, or maybe never had it to begin with. You need to play catch-up.

Here's the good news: most people, once they've finally gotten rid of the malware, wake up the next day and get really excited about all the new things their computer can potentially do, and they find themselves staying up all night downloading and running new stuff. There's a burst of energy that comes with suddenly finding all these free resources.

Maybe there's some old software sitting there that you never really used, and now you can run it much better than you did before. That was the case with me, and this was the software I ran. Then I started downloading more and more and more. Now I feel like my speeds are better than most and about as fast as the people I find interesting to talk to.

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?)

there appears to be some progress in this field

You can't force someone to change their mind, but there are actually some methods for helping them look at their beliefs that are better than nothing.

The book A Manual for Creating Atheists demonstrates some of those methods.

The question and the follow up steps are there to understand what someone else means. If you try and use what you learn to convince them that they are mistaken, they will start to spout propaganda as a defense mechanism. I covered that a bit when I wrote;

> Why are they convinced? Almost always, they are convinced because they felt something or experienced something. That's it. Yet, if you criticize them or mock them or simply point out why a personal feeling or experience is not very good evidence, they will just switch back to telling you some of the BS about scripture, or the wonders of nature, or some philosophical puzzle; they will stop talking about what they think and they will only focus on the BS.

If you want to get them to change their minds, you have to use an entirely different set of questions and comments but the basis is still on understanding the individual even if their ideas are not (ever?) unique.

> Could you perhaps elaborate on what further questions should be asked and good explanations should they ask something in return?

While there are only a few things that I usually do, I assume that I will not have enough time to deconvert someone. To be honest, if I can get them to stop giving money and time to organizations that do bad deeds, I'm happy. I have no personal interest in deconverting them and it would take a few weeks to do it even if I found it a compelling goal to reach. The time needed is mainly because people tend to take a while to absorb these ideas, and if you are over aggressive they will just reject them and double down on their personal biases out of comfort or to have a sense of certainty.

The primary goal in any conversation is to have the conversation. You don't want to have them drop into a propaganda loop where they just repeat the words and/or ideas they have been indoctrinated with. So, you have to keep them off of their script.

You also have to keep in mind that very few thoughts are constructed in the moment. Our brains don't work that way. Instead, we piece together bits over time and our nerves are biased towards keeping the old structures in place. To change someone's mind over a deeply held socially taught construct takes time and if you rush it they will just re-write the old structures and make them stronger. You want cognitive dissonance. You want them to think things through on their own time for their own reasons, not to robotically reprogram them even if that is exactly how they were trained before to adopt those bad ideas.

So, what are the few things that I discuss with them?

• The moral value of facts; that all moral decisions by humans require facts and that obedience/subservience is not morality.
  
  
• How do they know what they say is true (when they pop back into the BS; I do not challenge the intuitive felt experience ... at least initially).
  
  
• I listen and I show that I understand exactly what they mean and why they say what they say.
  
  To tie those three things together, I point out that while we are in agreement on these points -- that I am not debating the facts nor am I challenging their personal conclusions -- I have reached a different conclusion. With that in mind, I ask why can I understand all that they think, agree with the details, and yet not come to the same conclusion? What is the difference?
  
  The difference is their intuitive felt personal experience that they attribute to some deity or proxy for a deity. **Yet, wait ...*** that's the exact same thing that they said in the last wall of text, so what has changed? Nothing, actually, except for the time you have spent talking with them.
  
  As an experiment, go and ask other atheists that used to be firmly theistic (religious or not) if they have had some similar personal felt experience when they were theists. Many will say yes or that they attempted to have that and failed. Of the atheists that had that experience, many of them did not realize that it was possible not to think any gods existed. They thought that everyone must think that gods exist since that is what they have been told.
  
  So, by showing that you have the same facts, and understand the same ideas, yet you are not personally convinced that any gods exist, you demonstrate to them that what they have thought about what others think is not entirely true. That opens up the possibility that they themselves can also change their minds. So, do they? It depends on many factors, and while emotions are a factor so is the need to be honest about what can be known and how conclusions should be reached.
  
  I don't know if this method is similar to Peter Boghossian's book, but it is likely to be complementary. I've listened to his interviews and his emphasis on epistemology overlaps with some of my 3 points, but I have not read his book yet so I can't say how much of an overlap there is.
  
  Edit: Tag: waterfall part 2

What you're saying actually applies to the much more broad area of talking people out of their beliefs. You're on point about many things.

You do have to create cognitive dissonance. Another term for it is "doxastic openness". The worst way you can do this is start directly attacking God, the Bible, the org, the GB, etc. People immediately go on the defensive and shut down. In other words, don't engage in apologetics. You have to attack their epistemology. Ask them to prove how they know what they know. Provide counter examples to those if you can.

There's a book that I cannot recommend enough. It's called "A Manual for Creating Atheists", by Peter Boghossian. https://www.amazon.com/Manual-Creating-Atheists-Peter-Boghossian/dp/1939578094/

It's a very gentle, accommodating approach and is rather effective.

I know how you must feel. I went through the same thing. I was threatened by my mother, grabbed by the chest, and threatened to be kicked out of my house. I refused because I had no place to go, as my dad tried to calm her down, luckily they had to leave. I've learned a lot since then, and went back into the closet (though you seem to have a job, and security, so I'd say you don't have to do that) I think there's one effective persuasion technique that you may have not been exposed to - but maybe now it's too late because you're out of the closet. You might even be going through what many people call "an angry atheist phase", this can cause you to become more tribal which can send you into a downward spiral of anger and pain, and suck time like hell.

Here's the effective strategy I came across - this must be approached after you are both cool and preferably the other person doesn't know you are an atheist (but again, to me, it just seems too late):

It's called Street Epistemology. It's most concisely put in this book "A Manual for Creating Atheists", and you can see a good example of it on video here.

If you were an American Indian and you were dancing around the fire with feathers in your head gear, and I walked up to you and said "What are you dancing around the fire for?" You don't take your hat and throw it on the ground and say "You know I never thought of it that way!" We can't do that, we look at the world with our background, we have no other way of doing it.

Why is it that a Nazi gets a lump in his throat when he sees a swastika, and an American feels anger? The difference is the environment they've been brought up in. And if you're brought up in an environment with misinformation, you will behave that way.

No Chinese baby was ever born speaking Chinese, no matter how many generations of Chinese.

A child never writes his own alphabet

I believe, all behavior and actions that all people take are perfectly lawful to their environment and background. How your wife reacted, while it is very harmful to you, and I certainly empathize all the pain that my family has caused me specifically, is perfectly appropriate to her background and upbringing. Not saying what she did to you was beneficial. I'm saying that that is perfectly appropriate to the way she was brought up, and because of her indoctrination, it requires a different approach if you would like to change her beliefs and behaviors.

Over the years I've discovered a better way to convince believers. It's not hard either. It just takes some reading, and understanding on how human behavior works and how people are brainwashed. And how they are victims of that, not acting with their own free will and their own ideas.

A few books that helped me with convincing believers were: Nonviolent communication by Marshall Rosenberg, and semantics to clear language, the easiest book: Language in Thought and Action by Hayakawa. To understand psychological biases check out You Are Not So Smart by David McRaney

But perhaps the most helpful person was being exposed to Jacque Fresco - I shared some of his thoughts above. I highly recommend him - his ideas have changed my life.

I shared this snippet from Jacque Fresco on another post in this subreddit, but it bears repeating:

Conflict occurs when a person doesn’t seek your advice but you advise them.
So the way to get along with people is to let them be what they are unless they say I don’t seem to get along with pollocks whats my problem? Very few people say “What do you think of my value system?” If they do that and it’s sincere, not an ego thing...
If they ask a question, thats where you can get in and suggest but if they don’t, don’t s superimpose your values even if they’re better

If you suggest, 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5

and they say I don’t like 4 and 5,

don’t argue.

Your question is: How different is the persons background than yours? And does the person seek information? And if they did, don’t feel like you’re instructing them.
If you come home and you brother is using a shovel in the lawn, and he's struggling with it and you come up to him and say "That's no way to use a shovel!"

That's not going to change him. If, however, you say nothing - and he comes up to you, and says "I can't seem to use this shovel efficiently, can you help me?" then you can instruct them but don't feel like you're instructing them so you say "I used to do it that way, then another person taught me to push it down with my foot, and that was easier"

Sometimes people don’t want advice. They feel they’re being put down. So stop giving one another advice, that produces antagonism, unless they ask for it.
You can’t point out “The trouble with you is you don’t listen to anybody” That doesn’t cause em to now listen. They’ll go on with their same pattern.

Unless they say to you “Am I inattentive? Or Do I appear inattentive?” Very few people talk like that. That’s what sane means. Sane means when a person comes over “I’m not familiar with that jigsaw. How do you use it?” Then you instruct them. If they come over everyday and ask you - watch them and guide them through it.
Making a comment “Your’e dimwitted or slow. The trouble with you is you have no imagination.” That doesn’t alter behavior, it only increases conflict.

In order to avoid conflict don’t generate it. You generate it when you offer something to somebody that they didn’t ask for. Let them be. Whatever they say. Unless they turn to you.

If someone says “I’m a catholic” Say “Do you fully accept everything in the catholic doctrine?” “yes!”

The door is shut. It’s welded.

But if he says “Im not sure” thats an opening.

That goes for any subject. Check for openings before you talk. If you’ve had conflict all your life cause you believe that what you say enters their head the way you want to - thats projection. When you tell something to somebody for their own good. “If you keep drinking the way you are - you may become addicted” But if you come at a person and he says “fuck you” then shut up.

If I’m talking to religious people I would say “The bible says thou shalt not kill” How do you handle war?

I would say “The bible says love thine enemy - if a man strikes you turn the other cheek” How do you deal with that?

Heard that before. Faith is so obvious because the beauty of our environment can "only" be explained by divinity. Faith is "pretending to know things you don't know." Faith is not a reliable source of why/how one knows something for several reasons.

My personal opinion is if there us a God, he's a jackass and fuck him.

I suggest this book, Manual for Creating Atheists by Peter Boghossian, if you have not already read it. You can listen to a sample on Amazon.

Read this A Manual for Creating Atheists

At least look the dude up on youtube for an idea about what the book is about.

I would recommend a few changes to your approach. Instead of telling him what to think in a briefing, begin trying to teach him how to think. Because religion thrives in an environment where kids are told what to think and not taught how to think.

I'd use this video on critical thinking to start:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6OLPL5p0fMg

I would also recommend that you only allow him to go if he reads this book:
https://www.amazon.com/Manual-Creating-Atheists-Peter-Boghossian/dp/1939578094/

It's also a book on critical thinking. The premise is if you learn critical thinking it eventually leads you to atheism. Oh, and you should read it together.

An easier book may be:
https://www.amazon.com/50-Simple-Questions-Every-Christian/dp/161614727X/

Critical thinking is about learning how to ask questions. And this book asks critical questions about Christian beliefs in a friendly manner. It would provide great questions that he can ask his peers.

But if books are not the right approach for him, then you can also try this video series:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?p=A0C3C1D163BE880A

Good luck.

Anthony's approach is based on Peter Boghossian's book A Manual for Creating Atheists, and there is also the Street Epistemology website.

What an awesome perspective! I've been out for four years and I'm constantly frustrated that my exmormon missionary efforts have been mostly fruitless.

Recently I've been studying Street Epistemology and though I'm still inexperienced, I'm hopeful that I can finally talk to friends and loved ones without anybody getting defensive. You should check it out if you haven't already. This book is literally a manual for using Street Epistemology. Interestingly enough, the goal isn't too de-convert people but rather get them to recognize, just by asking the right questions, the flaws in their own reasoning. If you can get them to be less sure of their beliefs, even slightly, then your encounter is considered a success.

Read Sam Harris's The Moral Landscape. And for a primer on the topic you can also watch his TED talk.

EDIT: This TED talk on oxytocin in regard to morality is also interesting.

Read a book: http://www.amazon.com/The-Moral-Landscape-Science-Determine/dp/1439171211

or watch a video:

http://www.ted.com/talks/sam_harris_science_can_show_what_s_right.html

Others have done it way better than I possibly can.

It depends what you mean by "Moral ethics" and what you mean by "opinions". I'd suggest you read Sam Harris's The Moral Landscape for a pretty interesting examination of this topic.

If you think of ethics as rules intended to maximize the well being of sentient creatures, then they hard to measure and quantify, but no, they aren't opinions. Torturing a child to death, while we can't really quantify how bad or wrong it is, is clearly a departure from the maximum well being that could be achieved.

Analogously, we can't really quantify health. We can't say "How healthy" something is, and yet, it isn't an opinion to say that smoking isn't healthy for you, or that a person with a broken limb is less healthy than an Olympian in their prime.

I'll throw out The Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology. A collection of essays that aim to get one to at least deism or classical theism without the use of special revelation (like the Bible).

You should try the Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology. It's a dense philosophical treatise on the best arguments for the existence of God (Fine-Tuning, Kalam Cosmological Argument, Moral Argument, etc.). Probably the most relevant and important work that apologetics has to offer today.

Be warned though, it's not a light read and it will be difficult to understand if you don't already have some working background in philosophy and science.

From a post I made awhile back:

If you want to go for a scholastic/western positive apologetics approach check out: The Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology.

If you want to go for a scholastic/western negative apologetics approach check out Alvin Plantinga's God and Other Minds. This is the work that actually re-kindled serious philosophical debate on the existence of God in Anglophone philosophical circles according to Quinten Smith (a notable atheist philosopher btw). From there you could also check out Alvin Plantinga's warrant trilogy in order: Warrant: The Current Debate, Warrant and Proper Function, and Warranted Christian Belief.

Personally I'm skeptical of the scholastic/western approach in general and I favor the Eastern/Mystical approach. I think the scholastic/western approach cannot escape radical skepticism, and I mean this in terms of secular and religious. If one takes seriously the scholastic/western approach in general, whether one is atheist or theist, radical skepticism follows. This video from a radical skeptic that goes by the user name Carneades.org does a good job of demonstrating this: Arguments of the Indirect Skeptic

The Orthodox approach has always been mystical rather than scholastic all the way from the beginnings of Christianity. From Jesus, to the apostles, to the church fathers, to right now we still have the original apostolic faith in the Orthodox Church. Check out this short documentary to learn more: Holy Orthodoxy: The Ancient Church of Acts in the 21st Century.

Fr. Vladimir Berzonsky explains the Eastern/Mystical approach: "To properly understand the Orthodox approach to the Fathers, one must first of all understand the mystical characteristic of Orthodox theology and the tradition of the apophatic approach to an understanding-if "understanding" is indeed the proper word-of what the hidden God in Trinity reveals to us. This needs to be combined with the insight that what is incomprehensible to our reason inspires us to rise above every attempt at philosophical limitation and to reach for an experience beyond the limits of the intellect. The experience of God is a transcendence born from union with the divine-henosis (oneness with God) being the ultimate goal of existence. This makes the requirement of true knowledge (gnosis) the abandoning of all hope of the conventional subject-object approach to discovery. It requires setting aside the dead ends of Scholasticism, nominalism, and the limits set by such Kantian paradigms as noumena/phenomena. One must return to, or better yet, find in one's heart (or nous, the soul's eye) union with the Holy Trinity, which has never been lost in the Orthodox Church."

Source: Fr. Vladimir Berzonsky, (2004). Three Views on Eastern Orthodoxy and Evangelicalism. p. 178. Zondervan, Grand Rapids

> Calling him a "demon child" and "fucked up" just reeks of insensitivity to me. The kid has problems and should probably be institutionalized, but let's not bash him.

The bottom line is that all bad behavior is the result of deterministic processes in the brain over which we have no control. Despite the profound subjective impression we have that we're in control of our own actions, from a logical and scientific perspective, the notion of free will is untenable. If you were to swap places with Jeffrey Dahmer, atom for atom, you would do everything he did. You'd have every thought he did, ever impulse, his exact ability/inability to resist various impulses, etc.

Doesn't stop me from wanted to slap the shit out of this kid when I see stuff like this, but that's an emotional reaction. And it doesn't mean he shouldn't be institutionalized, if we have no way of fixing someone like him. But it does mean that the notion of "punishment" for punishment's sake is nonsensical.

> 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.

Please take notice of the reply that follows this for a continuation of my response.

First, I think you may find this helpful.

I appreciate your kind approach and apparent openness to persuasion, which motivated me to write this. I hope you'll find it worthwhile. I'll try to start simply:

What is a philosophical argument? Think of it as a mechanism for deriving implications from certain observations of the natural world. If, from these, we arrive at theological implications, they are just as significant as any other information (say, from science...which is built upon philosophy anyhow) in that they are explanatory and represent an advance in knowledge. There has been a considerable change in the Anglo-American collegiate realm regarding Christian theism, especially in philosophy departments. The secularization of academia today was, in large part, due to the privatization of Christian institutions and advances in observational astronomy. The former because Christians left colleges for their own academic strongholds, and the latter because we began to see what had previously been thought of as astrological influences and personifications as what they really are: distant spheres of (hydrogen) gas (which should stop no one from considering Christianity, in light of the fact that our belief system distinguishes the radically contingent universe from a God who exists by the necessity of His own nature).

Since the late 1900s we have done away with positivism, and its attendant verification principle (the idea that only that which can be verified through the senses is true...an idea which cannot be verified through the senses. It's positively self- defeating, meaning that it is self-referentially incoherent) and the works of philosophers such as Alvin Plantinga (the most contributive philosopher of religion in recent years...before he retired he was the president of the American Philosophical Association and the Society of Christian Philosophers) in revamping classical arguments for God's existence (such as the Ontological Argument, which has now become an exercise in modal logic), refuting the argument for atheism from the existence of evil in both its logical and probabilistic forms, and defending the position that belief in God is an epistemologically warranted metaphysical initiative (meaning that, in the absence of a defeater for Christian theism, it qualifies as a belief that can be held without reference to anything in reality, wholly substantiated by the inner witness of the Holy Spirit). The following are some arguments for the existence of God that I have so far studied and found compelling, and consider them in cumulation as indicative of the supernatural and of an orthodoxly conceived monotheistic God:

The Argument from Contingency (God best explains the universe's being existent rather than not), Arguments from our Moral Experience (we perceive an objective realm of moral values and duties that could not otherwise exist without God), from the coherency of the concept of God (the idea of God should not make sense unless He actually does exist. It's remarkable that it would be a rational idea. This is more popularly known as the Ontological argument, and I suggest you look into it as it is defended by William Lane Craig for an approachable start to studying it), from the probable origin of the universe (from which one may deduce a personal cause), from reason (evolution selects on phenotypes, and by extension, on survival value, not truth value. Thus, we have a defeater for naturalism by its invalidation of our cognitive faculties, rendering the naturalistic conclusion invalid), from the inability for non-theism to correspond to one's participation in reality (the consequences to atheism are so great that it seems we are forced, by our nature, to worship God. But to hold atheism is to not recognize God, conversely, holding theism is to recognize (worship) God. From a Christian perspective, should it surprise us that to draw away from the Source of Life in our greatest purpose is to find a life unlivable?), from religious experience, from intentional states of consciousness, from the "fine tuning" of initial cosmological and subsequent universal conditions for the development of intelligent life, from the comprehensibility of the universe, from the applicability of mathematics, and more.

On Intelligent Design--Here's what I think...there's a a great deal of confusion regarding inferences from instantiations of biological complexity to an Intelligent Source. Many equate this with Young Earth Creationism, when it's entirely different. Some stop when they fail to see how it categorizes as science (it doesn't, and that's not what matters anyway). Here you will find arguments such as that from the existence of consciousness.....the first cell of life, irreducible complexity, the linguistic properties of DNA, and the like.

Now, note that it is entirely possible to maintain atheism while still being convinced by some of these arguments towards their conclusions. Why is that? Because they each establish God's existence as more probable than not. My meaning is that they work to raise the probability of God's existence, promoting a sort of generic form of theism. Now, I want to guard against what keeps many from fully seeing the force behind natural theology: they are meant to be taken cumulatively, so that together they can raise the probability of theism's truth value such that it is rational to lend credence to it.

I get this a lot: "if there were evidence for Christianity, then everyone would be a Christian. Therefore, Christianity is not substantiated." I hope you can see why this should not be taken seriously. Firstly, it could be said of any worldview. If there is something evidently true on atheism, why isn't everyone an atheist? And so, if there truly is something rationally compelling about Christianity, I believe you will find it by earnestly seeking Christ where many others have found it (I've described some of these authentications below). Furthermore, college study is oriented towards specialization, which is decided by one's interests.

As for Christian evidences, I was originally convinced of Christianity by simply reading the Bible. If you are interested in pursuing truth, rather than arguments (which bear the inherently biased objective of discerning who's right rather than what's right) then I highly recommend that you seek God where He can be found: in His word, from which faith is derived, as it appears in the actions and words of Christians, and in the text itself. I think you'll find, in the person of Jesus Christ, that He knows us too well, and loves us far too much, to not be our Father. By this, I mean that there is something so true about Christianity: it makes too much sense. And way too much sense out of life and the world. As C.S. Lewis said, "I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else." After I earnestly sought God for the first time, like (I should hope) David ("a man after His own heart"), I found that the scales fell from my eyes, like Paul, and I gained an entirely new perspective of the world and was changed to so great an extent in ways that I can only regard as supernatural. Not only that, I find Christianity to be a remarkably consistent and coherent worldview--not only as correspondent to reality, or as a philosophical conclusion to explain a wide range of the data of human experience, but also as an existentially relevant and experienced reality. Everything Jesus said has proven itself true in my life. Even this: John 8:32 "Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free."

Much like you, I've also recently developed a strong interest in Levinas. I've yet to read him, though, so please take that into account when considering my recommendations.

I recently asked some of my professors and a friend of mine who wrote his master's thesis on Levinas to help me out with getting started. This is what they recommended:

• This introductory book by Colin Davis has been the most recommended to me. Davis succeeds in the difficult task of executing a clear exposition of Levinas' difficult prose without sacrificing too much of its nuance.
  
• Regarding Levinas' own writing, begin with On Escape. This work develops Levinas' fundamental ideas on Being and alterity, demonstrates how he does phenomenology, and reveals his engagement with Heidegger and Husserl
  
• The two next best works to read are Existence and Existents and Time and the Other.
  
  I'm not too knowledgeable of Husserl, so all I can really recommend from him is the Cartesian Meditations, which sort of serves as an introduction to Husserl's own method of phenomenology.
  
  For Heidegger, the most important work in this regard is certainly Being and Time. If you have the time, I recommend picking up the Basic Writings and reading through most of it.
  
  On a final note, Levinas was steeped within the Jewish intellectual tradition. Jewish philosophers often emphasize the role of community and social contextuality in general. It might serve you well to read works such as Martin Buber's I and Thou and Gabriel Marcel's Being and Having.
  
  EDIT: Another good compliment to Levinas is Maurice Merleau-Ponty's Phenomenology of Perception.

I would recommend staying away from the polemics. Authors like Dawkins, Hitchens, Harris all have books worth reading, but not really if you want a primer on atheistic alternatives in the areas of worldview, ethics, etc. I will say that Dawkins's earlier works on science would be good, but God Delusion is not an exposition of an atheistic worldview, but rather an attack on religion, and a messy, at times ignorant and oversimplified one at that (I bet I'll get crucified for saying that). As one religious studies student to another, it is a book that gets awfully frustrating every time you realize that he has a horrible grasp of the relevant data.

Books that would be really great to read:

George H. Smith's Atheism: The Case Against God is an approachable critique of some of the more popular arguments for God's existence.

Julian Baggini's Atheism: A Brief Insight is a really good and thorough survey of the explanation, arguments, history, and ethics of atheism.

Greg Epstein's Good Without God: What a Billion Nonreligious People Do Believe really gets into where someone goes once he/she has already concluded that God doesn't exist. He looks at how one builds a nonreligious life of meaning. Epstein is definitely in the "friendly atheist" category. As the Humanist Chaplain at Harvard (strange, oxymoronic titles aside) he has done a great deal of work with the Pluralism Project in their School of Divinity. He has even worked with inter-religious groups like the InterFaith Youth Core.

A long, but very much worth the time and highly recommended book is Jennifer Michael Hecht's Doubt: A History: The Great Doubters and Their Legacy of Innovation from Socrates and Jesus to Thomas Jefferson and Emily Dickinson. In it, she goes very thoroughly through the long history of religious skepticism. She looks at the lives and questions of philosophers, scientists, poets, politicians, even some religious figures who have gone through the "dark night of the soul." This is a book that I think every atheist should read to learn that religious folks aren't the only ones with a long and storied tradition. It is a good grounding in history for secularists.

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

Wow, almost an exact account of my deconversion, except my wife played a large role. We were in love, but she was an atheist and I was holding on to religion. Then I realized that if we died, how could heaven possibly exist for me if I knew she was in hell, and if god blinded me to the fact that she was in hell or made me forget her, how would that be me? Then I started watching some videos, and doing some reading, and I said, "Fuck this." Now I am happier and more whole than I've ever been. There is a certain freedom that comes with realizing that you are solely responsible for your actions.

• The God Delusion
  
• The Demon-Haunted World
  
  This question comes up a lot. Start with these. But you must understand that atheism IS NOT a religion. It's not LIKE religion. It's the absense of religion. As is famously bandied about, atheism is a "religion" as much as "off" is a channel on your TV.

The only one I can help you with is religion. For Christianity, I always suggest The Bible. I know this is obvious, but it seems that very few people read it from cover to cover. This may be going away from what you want, though. Personally, I read The Bible as literature, so that does, for me, place it in fiction. If you want an atheist perspective, I highly recommend The God Delusion; for some shorter pieces, I think one should look at Existentialism is a Humanism (if you like this read, it is basically taken from his book Being and Nothingness). If you want to get into some Asian faith, maybe get a copy of the Tao Te Ching to better understand Taoism. Just to add another, and this is one of my favorites; look at Food of the Gods. This is a really interesting read about how substances have affected cultures and their beliefs. It ranges from different foods to the most illicit intoxicants. For me, it really gave me a greater perspective of the uses and benefits to "drugs" that go beyond taking them simply for a good time. If any of these interest you, I can list more for what specifically interests you. It's not much, but I minor in religious studies, so I guess I have a decent grasp on what is worth one's time.

I went through almost the exact same thing. After leaving our main church, my wife and I stopped going all together. Several years later, after we moved because of jobs, we started going again. Needless to say, that didn't last long.

My wife and I both come from very strong Christian backgrounds; my wife's father was a Southern-Baptist minister for decades, and my dad went to Dallas Theological Seminary and taught church classes most of his life. So let's just say that leaving wasn't an easy thing.

However, my own search led me to realize the truth. Since my wife and I are very close, I talked with her about these things but was very careful about what I said. I'm still careful. I approach the discussions from the standpoint of "searching for answers" rather than declaring that I've already decided.

My mantra over the last few years has been "If it were possible to know the truth, and one of the possibilities was that God didn't exist, would you really want to know?" Well, my answer is yes. I don't want to be a blind-follower Christian. If God is real, then I want to know for sure!

I recommend approaching it like that. It let's your spouse see that you are truly searching for answers. The truth is all we really want, and we can't use a 3000 year-old book to do it. We need real answers, not mythology.

Be sure to talk about it a lot, and be open minded to your spouse's point of view. Let them know you still care for them deeply.

This sub-reddit has been so helpful and caring, so good job starting here. Also grab some books or find some web-sites that discus these things. Here are a few I recommend:

Sites

• http://new.exchristian.net/
  
  
• http://www.patheos.com/ (you'll find many opinions here. great site)
  
  
• https://richarddawkins.net/
  
  Books
  
  
• https://www.amazon.com/God-Not-Great-Religion-Everything/dp/0446697966/
  
  
• https://www.amazon.com/God-Delusion-Richard-Dawkins/dp/0618918248
  
  
• https://www.amazon.com/Undeniable-Evolution-Creation-Bill-Nye/dp/1250074223
  
  Cheers
  ~Nate

any book by carl, hitchens, etc. https://www.amazon.com/God-Delusion-Richard-Dawkins/dp/0618918248

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

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

Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years - Diarmaid MacCulloch

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

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

The Case for God - Karen Armstrong

The God Delusion - Richard Dawkins



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

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

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

The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius - Translated by George Long

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

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

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

Crash Course: World History - John Green

Books I like The God Delusion myself. That said, I think the best work on Atheism from a philosophical justification is probably Atheism: A Philosophical Justification by Michael Martin. I also like his book The Case Against Christianity.

I could get into this topic down and dirty the best of anyone from /r/Atheism if I really wanted too. But I normally just stick to Isaac Asimov and Stephen Fry.

I normally avoid discussion religion and atheism outside of /r/atheism, but I wanted to respond to your comment because I think it's missing the point of why atheists tend to make these statements.

The point the atheists are trying to make when they bring up certain passages is not to deny that there is good content mixed in with the bad, or to argue about whether the bible on the whole has more good vs bad content. The real argument is that if you read the bible you find plenty of both, and that when people try to claim it is an infallibly good book, it simply isn't true. Atheists do not believe the bible is the divine word of God, and pointing out the many contradictions in the bible (various facts, historical inconsistencies and contradicting moral directives) is just one way of providing evidence of this. When we hear people claiming that other people should "read and follow the bible", we ask "which part?" as a way of reminding them of the problems inherent to their suggestion.

We recognize there is plenty of good in the bible, but that there is obviously bad stuff too. We do not believe it is the inspired divine word of God, rather we generally think it is just a very interesting collection of ideas and stories put together by ancient authors. If the original 'good book' was really just written by ancient men as an attempt to provide a moral guide for their people, why shouldn't we as modern men come up with new versions of morality to live by today; ones that aren't internally and externally inconsistent, and which reflect the vast amount of knowledge we've gained in the interim? Ones that remove ideas about sexism, racism, and homophobia?

To sum up, when it comes to morality, many atheists are in the secular humanist camp - basically the idea is that as modern, self-reflecting, philosophical, intelligent humans we should define what is moral in a modern context, rather than relying on cultural traditions forged in ancient history, from a book that clearly has a large number of moral and factual contradictions throughout it. If you're at all interested to see one view of what this modern reanalysis of morals might look like, I'd highly recommend The Moral Landscape by Sam Harris.

Perhaps it's time to move away from LDS specific arguments, and start questioning the God concept in general; especially as it relates to morality.

One argument I've always liked, is that even if there is a god, by far the strongest test of morality it could ask for is if a person will be moral while believing there is no such being, and no promise of reward or punishment.

If she is willing to read, I recommend the following:

• Start with The Demon Haunted World by Carl Sagan. It's much less confrontational than the stuff from more current atheist writers, and his argument is awesome. He basically debunks religion by dismantling the new age movement, and then showing that religion is basically the same.
  
  
• After reading that I would go with "The God Delusion" by Richard Dawkins, or "God is not Great" by Christopher Hitchens. Both are much more confrontational, and in my opinion, are not recommended unless someone is already close to on the fence. Both also deal heavily with the immorality of religion, but I think "God Is Not Great" probably puts more focus on that particular issue.
  
  YouTube is also a fantastic resource. Here are some of the video series that I found particularly convincing as I was going through my own transition:
  
  
• Why I Am No Longer a Christian
  
  
• Psychology of Belief
  
  
• Morality By QualiaSoup: 1 - Good Without Gods, 2 - Not So Good Books, 3 - Objectivity and Oughtness
  
  
• The Best Optical Illusion in the World
  
  I think it's also important to remember that there is are alternative worldviews out there which are not based on religion, which are just as rewarding and fulfilling, if not more so. Here are a few videos that have sparked that sense of wonder and that I used to associate with the spirit. Most of these are not direct attacks on religion, but rather are just inspiring ideas from a secular\scientific worldview. I recognize that these may not have universal appeal, but they spoke to me, and may do so for you and your wife as well:
  
  
• My Spirituality as an Atheist
  
  
• You are Here (Pale Blue Dot)
  
  
• The Sagan Series
  
  
• The Most Astounding Fact: Neil deGrasse Tyson
  
  
• We Stopped Dreaming: Episode 1, Episode 2
  
  
• Science Saved My Soul
  
  
• Why Didn't Anybody Tell Me?
  
  
• Instruction Manual for Life
  
  
• We Got Scared
  
  
• The Greatest Speech Ever Made
  
  

Along those lines, Dawkins is great for explaining evolution in easy-to-understand detail. Pick pretty much any book by him and you'll get a very good education.

Brian Greene, The Elegant Universe

Eric Schlosser, Fast Food Nation

Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion

Simon Winchester, The Map that Changed The World

I loan out The God Delusion (Amazon Link) by Richard Dawkins quite a bit as friends/coworkers hound me about religion.

Here is a shortened version.

Was born into a very religious Hindu family. Brainwashed from childhood that Vedas/Upanishads and Gita held universal truths. Prayed/meditated/pondered/read Hindu religious texts because I believed in things that I have been told, purely on faith. Read Betrand Russell when I was in my teens which made me a little bit of a skeptic but still continued to be a believer for almost 2 decades . Then a few years ago, read dawkins, watched his speeches on youtube and slowly started questioning. Read some more Hitchens, harris, and watched some James randi videos. Started applying scientific methods to question things that I have been taught from childhood and that opened my eyes.

Good books: 'The Moral Landscape' by Sam Harris and 'Sense and Goodness Without God' by Richard Carrier.

It’s (conveniently) titled “Free Will”. ;)

https://samharris.org/books/free-will/

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1451683405/

I'll preface this by saying that it is not entirely clear what, precisely, your question is. So let me restate your question as I see it.

Science is an enormously successful endeavor. Using the scientific method we can, with high degrees of precision, mathematically describe certain aspects of reality using deterministic equations - e.g. the motion of a cannonball shot across a battlefield. To say that the motion of the cannonball is deterministic is to say that if we know the location and velocity of the cannonball at any given time, then using the equations and assuming no interfering factors, we can infer its location and velocity at any other time. This clearly works for some aspects of reality; might it work for all aspects of reality? In particular, might it work in describing the behavior of a human being? And, if so, would that not then suggest that we do not have freedom of the will?

This is more or less what Sam Harris argues in his book, Free Will, that if determinism is true, i.e. if all aspects of reality are governed by these deterministic equations, then we do not have free will.

There are at least two things I would want to say in reply to this. First, it is far from obvious that all aspects of reality are governed by deterministic equations. Actually, I would want to say that no aspects of reality are governed by equations. Rather, these equations describe what we observe - they do not cause what we observe nor do they govern the thing being observed. When Newton tells us, for example, that the force acting on an object is equal to its mass times its acceleration, i.e. F = ma, this is a mathematical description of a phenomena we observe. It does not tell us what is causing that force, or if it will always hold, or why such a relationship exists in the first place.

Second, I think that higher scientific education, in my experience anyways, is all backwards. If you are thrown into a physics or chemistry class in college, you will immediately come face to face with many equations - equations of motion, rates of chemical reaction, electromagnetic equations, thermodynamic equations, quantum mechanical equations etc. The impression is that these equations are true, and that reality abides by them. But, as I say, this is backwards. Instead, we should begin by studying the motion of cannonballs, how magnets generate fields, specific chemical reactions, converting steam into work using a turbine, electrons going through a slit, etc. and then attempt to develop a mathematical theory which accurately describes the phenomena we observe. When things are done in this order, we are immediately faced with the reality that those equations only work in very limited and often idealized conditions. This, for me anyway, immediately removes any serious thoughts that all of reality might be deterministic.

Sure.

Sam Harris has a great book on it in which he references some great studies.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/d/Books/Free-Will-Sam-Harris/1451683405

Here are links to a few studies.

http://science.sciencemag.org/content/310/5745/116

http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0956797616641943

http://selfpace.uconn.edu/class/ccs/Libet1985UcsCerebralInitiative.pdf

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1053810008001311?via%3Dihub

https://academic.oup.com/brain/article-abstract/106/3/623/271932/TIME-OF-CONSCIOUS-INTENTION-TO-ACT-IN-RELATION-TO?redirectedFrom=fulltext

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4747633/

There are others, but these are a good start!

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

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

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.

A Manual for Creating Atheists, A book about how to have more civil and productive conversations about religion by using the Socratic method and focusing on epistemology.

You could learn street epistemology, which is a method of showing that faith is neither good nor useful.


A manual for creating atheists


Street epistemology in practice

Street epistemology. There's a whole YouTube channel devoted it.

Edit: one example

another example

even atheists can be interviewed

Edit2: Hey u/FirePhantom, here are a couple more I forgot to add.

A Manual for Creating Atheists

Atheos app for Android

I took several classes from Peter at Portland State right after I became an atheist. He is an awesome guy and an incredibly excellent professors, I learned so much from him about skepticism and critical thinking.

If anyone is interested despite the provocative title his book A Manual For Creating Atheists has a lot of good tips for engaging people on a variety of issues relevant to skepticism without creating adversarial relationships.

Anyway I don't have anything to add relevant to the video but I just wanted to give him a shout out since he had such a large impact on my life.

For an approach that isn't argumentative and doesn't ridicule them, I'd recommend checking out the book A Manual for Creating Atheists by Peter Boghossian. It has some good tips for talking to all kinds of people of faith and helping them to critically examine why they believe the things they do, and whether those beliefs are justified. There are lots of examples on YouTube as well under the banner of Street Epistemology.

Try the Socratic method, which is asking probing questions without directly contradicting their (invalid or whatever) answers. Instead, you just ask further questions relevant to their answers that delve down deeper into WHY they believe it. If you keep it up for a while, and keep your own wits about you (don't give in to frustration and give up too soon), you can often arrive at a point where they ae beginning to doubt their own words.

Fortunately, there is a book, an app, and a YouTube series of videos all about the Socratic Method:
    Book: A Manual for Creating Atheists by Peter Boghossian (Amazon link),
     App: Atheos by Peter Boghossian (download link),
      YT: Street Epistemology with Anthony Magnabosco (link to YT his channel).

Try all three!

>Why does Krauss have to be "humble"

Emulate the change you wish to see in someone else.
You want people to be more honest, blunt, and humble? Project that.
Peter Boghossian constantly reiterates this. But let me put it this way, no one has ever changed my mind by coming up to me and yelling at me about how wrong my world view is and how irrational/delusional I am.

If you need further evidence in how bad Krauss is at debating, look no further than here.. Krauss has never read any of the Koran and decided to jump into a debate of Atheism/Islam which went ugly real quick. Hitchens and Harris would have mopped the floor with this guy.

I HAVE THE ANSWER!!

Sorry, got excited there. The single best book I've ever read on evolution (and I've read a few) is Finding Darwin's God by Dr. Kenneth Miller, premier biologist, and devout Catholic.

He makes a very compelling (and surprising) argument that religious faith and evolution are not mutually exclusive, and states even that religion is strengthened by science. Richard Dawkins recommended it as the most concise explanation of evolution he's ever read, and he's flamingly anti-religious.

Edit: Stupid mistake.

Finding Darwin's God by Kenneth Miller is THE book to read on this topic. In the first half of the book, he talks about how all creationism versions (young earth, old earth and irreducible complexity) are not only bunk, but actually bad theology. Then in the second half he goes on the explain how evolution makes perfect sense given a God who gives us free will. In the end, I felt like evolution was actually proof for God, not against. Really, anyone with an interest in this topic should read this book. Amazon Link

Finding Darwin's God was pretty good.

Here you go.

This too.

And this one is probably most important.

FYI, I was specifically told not to use the Stambaugh English translation of Being and Time, the one you linked to.

Anyways, in my edition the chapter is "How the worldly character of the environment announces itself in entities within-the-world."

The sentence you pick out is in bold, here's the surrounding paragraph for context, as I think it will help you see what Heidegger is saying: "To the everydayness of Being-in-the-world there belong certain modes of concern. These permit the entities with which we concern ourselves to be encountered in such a way that the worldly character of what is within-the-world comes to the the fore. When we concern ourselves with something, the entities which are most closely ready-to-hand may be met as something unusuable, not properly adapted for the use we have decided upon."

This comes from the the Macquarrie and Robinson edition which was recently reprinted.

Good without God by Harvard Humanist Chaplain Greg Epstein is a great read to help you realize the inherent good and meaning in life without the need of a deity.

EDIT: Also The Portable Atheist by Christopher Hitchens.

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!

Religion Explained suggests that friends are stored in your head as person-files: file of information linked to a facial image. Hence why death is so unnerving - the person is dead but the person-file still exists in your brain, triggering your brain to interact with them as though they are still alive.

New research shows kids with imaginary friends (imaginary person-files) are actually well-adjusted.

So what I'm saying is...

I'll try getting back into writing. If I can create enough imaginary person-files, maybe I'll feel less lonely. ;)

Here are some books that may help.

• Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon, by Daniel C. Dennett. A philosopher and cognitive scientist examines the evolution from primitive consciousness, through a belief in ghosts, all the way to complex religions with their accompanying requirements and taboos.
  
• Minds and Gods: The Cognitive Foundations of Religion, by Todd Tremlin. More brief and introductory (and less thorough), this book finds religion as a side-effect of the useful cognitive processes of empathy, risk aversion, and facial recognition.
  
• Religion Explained: The Evolutionary Origins of Religious Thought, by Pascal Boyer. A cognitive anthropologist argues that the thing we called "religion" is made up of a variety of unrelated cognitive patterns that evolved as distinct adaptations, and cannot be explained by a single, unified theory.
  

> The academic study of Judaism/Christianity is just one part of a larger project: of revealing the naturalistic origins of religion itself. Of course, we've yet to fully flesh out a..."psychology" of ancient religion.

One book I'm still reading, but have found very enlightening, is Religion Explained: The Evolutionary Origins of Religious Thought by cognitive anthropologist Pascal Boyer.

I was quite interested to see K.L. Noll (Brandon University) applying Boyer's anthropological findings on how religion "works" to the study of historical Judaism in "Was There Doctrinal Dissemination in Early Yahweh Religion?" (BI 16, 2008, 295-427). This seems like a useful approach to take.

>I have had some spiritual experiences that I believe are real, but I’m even doubting that

I don't doubt that you had experiences. Please read Pascal Boyer's Religion Explained.

Consequences in today's world are so far reaching (e.g. financial collapses, power of military weapons and forces, environmental degradation) that if we fail to have a revolution in human cognition, we may hit a major reset button for civilization.

As /u/maga-bigly mentioned, The Closing of the American Mind describes the start of this problem 50+ years ago when moral relativism made it immoral to criticize the ideas of others, effectively shutting down discussions (i.e. closing minds) and coddling those who FELT offended.

The Righteous Mind gives great insight into just how biased all of us are (libs, conservatives, and everyone in between) and how our inability to seek out and identify our own biases can doom us.

A Manual for Creating Atheists, poorly named by the publisher (should be called "Intro to Street Epistemology"), is a great book on methods to get people to contradict themselves, in turn identify their own biases, and hopefully create the critical thinkers necessary to achieve a cognitive revolution in what we actually know, what we don't know, and reliable heuristics for finding out.

When you get past the anger phase, check out: A Manual for Creating Atheists by Peter Boghossian

Or:


A Manual for Creating Atheists https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00LKBT0MC/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_V5F2DbC6SVS4K

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

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

leo puro libro técnico, se valen?

EDIT:
como dijeron que si, ahi van:

• The Little Schemer: Primer libro tecnico en forma de dialogo que lei y cambio mi forma de pensar acerca de estos libros. Fuera de enseñarte las bases de Scheme, te enseña a pensar de forma recursiva.
  
• Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs: Antes de este libro varias tecnicas/librerias/metodologias parecian magia, el capitulo de streams me encanto.
  
• The God Delusion: este libro fue puro circlejerk para mi, pero me encanta como te da argumentos para hablar con religiosos fanaticos.
  

Her er en fin bog alle bør læse - http://www.amazon.com/The-God-Delusion-Richard-Dawkins/dp/0618918248/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1413237319&sr=8-1&keywords=the+god+delusion

Here's mine:

The War that came Early by Harry Turtledove

The Hot War by Harry Turtledove

The God Delusions by Richard Dawkins

god is not GREAT by Christopher Hitchens

Death by Blackhole by Neil DeGrasse Tyson

Congrats from a former Catholic. Be out and open about it. We need more people to not be afraid to identify themselves in public and to their families as atheists. People have no clue how many there are around them.

​

For book recommendations, I like The Demon Haunted World by Carl Sagan and The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins.

One of the key tenants of learning and what often leads to atheism is simply asking questions. These questions often illustrate big problems in some beliefs and lead us away from certain conclusions, like a supernatural entity. It's what we mean when we say we're practicing skepticism and it can take on a variety of forms, but here are some suggestions I find compelling.

The God Delusion - Richard Dawkins

Richard has excellent technical skill in how he discusses questions and ideas that make supernatural belief look very delusional, hence the title. His points on religious indoctrination of children being actual abuse are particularly potent.

Many others will suggest Hitchens' God is not Great and while I haven't read it I think he is a much better speaker than Dawkins, so it may be better. Though I think Dawkins has a more refined technical skill in tackling some more complex ideas.

Any sophisticated discussion on philosophy - Youtube

I really like Crashcourse and its different offerings to get introduced to different studies and find this is a good place to start finding interesting questions you might not have thought of. While much of its content is definitely not atheist in nature they do have a very honest discussion about different topics that practice real skepticism that can lead to atheism like I described earlier.

Sam Harris

The link is of a specific podcast of his, but notably one of the videos in the text called It is Always Now is wonderful. Lots of people have specific issues with Harris, often different, and all I would suggest is to not let something you dislike about him to allow you to dismiss ideas he might stumble upon. His ability to find questions, especially new ways to ask old questions, is really powerful.

I also think that Harris is a great introduction to the idea of what to believe while being a skeptic. This idea of what to believe is very complicated because being skeptical tends to suggest that you should never operate off belief and always be as objective as possible, so please be patient in exploring it. But basically after you use skepticism to get rid of toxic beliefs you need to find ways to build up helpful beliefs and I think Harris is helpful in finding those. A more effective person though is:

Jordan Peterson

He opens with stating he's "not an atheist anymore." So this is a little misleading because he does also say in other areas that he doesn't believe in a supernatural God as well, and he's not lying when he says either statement. Explaining how that can be would take a while and I'm still exploring it myself but I think he has some VERY powerful messages about what is worth believing even while valuing skepticism. Look up his Message to Millennials and Tragedy vs Evil lectures if you're interested, I found those videos very useful.

thislife

The problem you have is very simple. You believe. If you didn't believe you would have options. My wife went through the same process with depression and apathy.

She read two books and within days was on her way to recovery.

http://www.freeminds.org/sales/most_burned.htm

and

http://www.amazon.com/The-God-Delusion-Richard-Dawkins/dp/0618918248


It doesn't take much but wow what a fun ride once you get started.

Read two books and fly.

Hi, I have a degree in Philosophy and teach Philosophy/English to high schooler. The following advice and recommendations are what I give my students who are interested in philosophy. I would not recommend Kant as an introduction (not that he's bad, but he is difficult to understand). Plato and a Platypus Walk into a Bar is a book that explains philosophical topics and questions through humor and uses jokes to illustrate the concepts. It is accessible and thought provoking. If you are interested in logic you might enjoy Logicomix. It is a graphic novel that gives a biographical narrative of Bertrand Russell, an English philosopher whose work is the basis of all modern logic. It is not a book about logic per se, but it does give a good introduction to what logic is and how it can be used. Also, Russell's book A History of Western Philosophy is a good place to start your education in philosophy. If you are interested in atheism, read Richard Dawkins' book The God Delusion. This book goes through the most common arguments for the existence of God, and debunks them using logic and reasoning. Good luck and read on!

Could have saved $5 on Amazon!

A few books I read recently (within the last couple of years) that really stand out for me:

Non-fiction:

• On Writing by Stephen King. The first half is a combination of a memoir of King's early life and professional writing tips on things like grammar, character development, etc. The second half is an application of these skills in a very lucid and memorable description of his recent automobile accident and subsequent rehabilitation. Even if you're not interested in writing as a craft, it's still a good read.
  
• The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins. If you're a non-believer, or someone in the process of questioning your faith, you'll love it. It clearly states many of the things you think and feel much more eloquently and clearly than you yourself could. Even if you're religious and an opponent of Dawkins, it's still a good peek into the mind of an atheist to understand where they are coming from. Because of its eloquence and clarity, it's a dream to read.
  
• Lennon Legend by James Henke. A very simple and accessible biography of Lennon featuring tons of amazing photographs, incredibly detailed reproductions of memorabilia (such as the scrap of paper on which Lennon composed the lyrics to "In My Life"), and an accompanying audio CD containing rarities. It feels like the kind of book Lennon would have written himself.
  
  Fiction:
  
  
• House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski. One of my personal favourites and a book that's become something of a cultural phenomenon. As the Amazon review says: "Had The Blair Witch Project been a book, written by Nabokov, revised by Stephen King, and typeset by Blast." It's a pretty scary book that plays with your mind. You'll understand what I mean once the nightmares start...
  
• VALIS by Philip K. Dick. A semi-autobiographical tale of a man who may or may not be crazy and his quest to find God... Literally. It combines ancient religion with contemporary philosophy and screwup characters.
  
  Unfortunately the two fictional books aren't easy reads. Not difficult, mind you, but not as straightforwardly easy as, say, The Road. But I think they're engrossing enough that you'll get sucked in nevertheless.
  
  I hope this helps!

This is a slightly off-subject, but you should really read The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins. I read it and found that he was articulating many ideas that I had in my head.

Just watch out for his militaristic approach. You don't want to turn into a knee-jerk/circlejerk atheist like some of our friends in /r/atheism...

They have semantic categorization. When you rate Dawkins 5 star Amazon registers you to be interested in books about "religion". (as Ironic as that may sound!)

Source: I am a PhD candidate currently writing a thesis on semantic ontology and data extraction.

Buy this and read it cover-to-cover

It's a good, comprehensive book of the history of thought on religion and the God question. Another good recommendation from the atheistic perspective is Why I'm Not a Christian by Bertrand Russell.

Why I Am Not a Christian by Bertrand Russell

>For instance, nobody desires to be a true sociopath (ie: physically and chemically cannot feel good or evil), and those who are true sociopaths... well... many do not function well in society. Like it or not, what God defines as good... really is good

That is not a sociopath. Sociopaths lack empathy, but they may be acutely aware of societal norms. Jon Ronson just wrote a book about socio/psychopaths. I would suggest you read up on the Euthyphro dilemma. We can debate all day about the meaning of "good", but the god in the bible is not it. Condoning rape, commanding genocide, condemning though crime, those are the acts of the god of the bible. Those are not in any way good. If you want to know a little more about modern views of morality you should read up on the evolutionary causes of morality. Sam Harris wrote a very good book about it recently

>How much evil should God get rid of divinely?

Well, none of it according to the bible. Isiah 45:6-7 (Young's literal translation but you can look it up in whichever version you like)

>So that they know from the rising of the sun, And from the west, that there is none besides Me, I [am] Jehovah, and there is none else, Forming light, and preparing darkness, Making peace, and preparing evil, I [am] Jehovah, doing all these things.'

Atheism asserts no absolutes. Fail.

Morality is an interesting topic, upon which theists are uniquely unqualified (ref: crusades, adolph hitler, the current pedophilia scandals, telling Africans not to use condoms, opposing civil rights, opposing feminism, opposing gay rights, opposing emancipation). A well known atheist named Sam Harris has written a whole book about this called The Moral Landscape which addresses the question better than any theist ever has. (Though I don't claim its a complete answer.) These are actually not matters of logic at all, but are currently in the philosophical or early cognitive science phase.

I assure you I don't need to learn anything about philosophy. Though you might need a little remedial on logic.

Sam Harris can help you with this

In case anyone else committed the blasphemous sin of forgetting one of the Four Horsemen's first names like I did (it's Sam, btw) or are just too lazy to Google the book:

http://www.amazon.com/Moral-Landscape-Science-Determine-Values/dp/1439171211

quickly googles for Sam Harris new book - here it is: The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values

But it says it will be available in October 2010 :(

• this reddit post
  
  
• this entire book

Yes... And...? Did you expect someone on the internet to provide you a dissertation? If so, see here and here.

edit: Just BTW, you actually say you agree... "yes society says that, and drugs being bad is pretty much objectively true by most peoples definitions"

When George Bush dies some people will celebrate and they will be either right or wrong to do so, I'm not going to debate either side on that but there is a right answer.

Killing is sometimes wrong and sometimes right depending on the situation.

I believe that there are situations too morally ambiguous to ever get to the bottom of, but there is always an answer. I'm not gonna get too deep on philosophy on a fucking wrestling forum (how did I get here again?) but a lot of my views on this issue were influenced by The Moral Landscape. If you haven't read it and these conversations are interesting to you I would recommend it.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Moral-Landscape-Science-Determine/dp/143917122X

I loved The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values by Sam Harris.

This is the central thesis of Sam Harris' The Moral Landscape. Not exactly that there is an objective morality... but that science and rational inquiry are better tools with which to answer questions about how to maximize human wellbeing. Excellent read.

> If you deny this, then I don't see what "objective" basis for morality you could possibly have. All morality would simply be relative to the observer, and the idea of "evil" would be meaningless.

Have you actually looked into different kinds of non-theistic morality? Shelly Kagan does a great job of demonstrating the basis and validity of atheist morality in this debate with William Lane Craig.

Also, Sam Harris' The Moral Landscape goes into the subject of morality with God very in-depth.

Theistic claims of morality are only "more objective" if you accept a laundry list of extraordinary claims that are not supported by evidence (e.g. the idea of a personal God, divine inspiration of scripture, etc). Many people find humanistic, scientific, reality-based systems of morality to be much more "objective" and valid.

> The idea that the mind is in some way non-physical.

The mind is a product and an element of the physical brain. It may not be concretely tangible (i.e., you can't hold a mind), but that does not mean it is not a part of the physical universe. Physics explains the mind quite well, actually. The neurons in our brain are developed in compliance to the laws of physics and biology, the neurochemicals in our brain are physical substances, and the electric currents in our brains that communicate signals between neurons operate in compliance to the laws of physics.

Evolution also provides insight into the development of consciousness. While, sure, humans are the only terrestrial species with advanced enough consciousness to develop religious and philosophical ideas, we know now that many animals have forms of consciousness and proto-consciousness like what we would expect if humans evolved consciousness from simple origins. The mind is perfectly explainable through naturalistic sciences, and our naturalistic model of human consciousness makes predictions that are falsifiable.

I'd suggest reading Steven Pinker's How The Mind Works. Here's a talk he gave on the book. I'd also suggest his The Stuff of Thought, The Language Instinct, and The Blank Slate.

I'd also suggest Sam Harris' The Moral Landscape. While it's main thrust is to show how science can inform morality, it offers some pretty decent layperson explanation of consciousness, and it is written by an accomplished neuroscientist (whatever your opinion on his religious works may be). His pamphlet-esque Free Will also covers some good ground here.

> All able-bodied humans are born with the ability to learn language.

Not at all true. You can be able-bodied and learning disabled. There was a nonverbal autistic student at my middle school years ago who ran track. Trivial point, but still incorrect.

> I would argue humans also have a Spiritual Acquisition Device.

I would argue that this argument is SAD. (pun; sorry.)

You're positing a massively complex hypothetical neurological infrastructure to link human brains to a divine alternate universe or dimension that has never been shown to exist. Not only has this neural uplink never been observed, but it is entirely unnecessary, as neuroscientists and psychologists have a perfectly functional, testable model of consciousness without it. You're adding a new element to that model that is functionally redundant and untestable. Occam's Razor would trim away your entire posited element out of extraneousness and convolution.

Apparently, a paperback edition for ~1/3 of that price is due for a British release in October. :D

My university's library and my city's library don't have it, so that might be a good option. Thanks for the recommendation.

why not? because he discusses miracles?

makie's the miracle of theism is a response to that book.

blackwell's companion to natural theology might be something.

I like some of his writings, and in particular find his short Free Will to be useful in refuting materialistic naturalism. When someone accuses Christians or religious more broadly as being a belief in "magic" I often refer them to Free Will to show them that even naturalists believe in "magic" when they believe in the existence of free will.

I haven't read his more seminal works like The End of Faith or The Moral Landscape, but I'm deeply skeptical of his background in philosophy and in particular his apparently unfamiliarity with the is-ought problem.

Sam Harris - Free Will

Also, his presentation of the same content.

Both are excellent! He talks a little bit about a proof for determinism (however, I find it caters to people who already accept determinism). He also debunks the idea that determinism is incompatible with ethics/law.

This

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

I love Anthony's method, which is an application of Peter Boghossian's book. I'd love to try this method the next time I speak de novo with someone about religion. It's so soft yet cuts through all barriers if applied correctly.

Cheers.

Read A Manual for Creating Atheists by Peter Boghossian. He walks you through using the Socratic Method to help someone examine their own beliefs with a critical eye. Rather then pointing out the flaws in their reasoning, you'll be coaxing them into figuring out what they are on their own.

If she said you're not allowed to be an atheist, that means she's still planning on forcing you to go to Sunday School. Not much you can do about that in the short term, but if you want to play spy, read Boghossian's "A Manual for Creating Atheists", check out /r/StreetEpistemology/, and plant some seeds of doubt over there.

http://www.amazon.com/Manual-Creating-Atheists-Peter-Boghossian/dp/1939578094

for those wondering what we're talking about.

I'm fairly sure that /u/alyosha3 is using techniques described in the book Manual for Creating Atheists.

It's a fantastic read and will help you understand that the base problem with TBMs is that they value faith above evidence and instead of piling on easily dismissed facts, you should attack that foundation.

You might want to check out A Manual For Creating Atheists. He describes a good framework for having these sorts of discussions.

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.

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'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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Physicist Victor Stenger wrote a whole book about this topic:

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

From The Fallacy of Fine Tuning I presume

Vic Stenger wrote an entire book on the subject The Fallacy of Fine-Tuning. No creator necessary.

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.

If you're leaning towards trying to talk him out of it and want some resources, I'd highly recommend reading Peter Boghossian's "A Manual For Creating Atheists" I just finished reading it a few days ago, and it talks you through using the Socratic Method. The main idea is that you just ask pointed questions until the arguments fall apart and look silly. You never ever state what you want them to believe, you only ever offer alternate possibilities, and even these you just ask if they are reasonable possibilities or not.

Obviously, he's his own man and might be too tied up with this girl to react to reason, hormones are strong, strong things. But approaching life with reason instead of faith is the best we can do, and it follows that helping others to do so is the best for humanity. Good luck with whatever choice you make!

OK

Check out this book...http://www.amazon.com/Manual-Creating-Atheists-Peter-Boghossian/dp/1939578094

It has some interesting insights on how you may be able to achieve what you are wanting. Ultimately, finding a way to make him give reasoning for how and why he believes what he says....and never give them any information to which they can formulate an answer. Force him to explain it to you...and just maybe his beliefs will intersect, thus causing him to doubt his own words.

Then you walk away and let that seed grow.

Have you read "A Manual for Creating Atheists"? It's really good and shows a method that is completely different from debate. The author, Peter Boghossian, illustrates why debates don't work with religious people (they don't believe based on evidence, but on faith) and shows how you can instead target the foundation of their belief and assist them in realizing that it is a flawed system for forming beliefs. The method doesn't actually require you to know anything about arguments in order to demonstrate the flaws.

Here is the link to the book on amazon.

And here is a link to a channel of a guy on youtube who puts it into practice. Have a watch of some of them and see if either party comes away frustrated or worked-up.

I haven't read this specific book, but maybe a book on epistemology?

https://www.amazon.com/Manual-Creating-Atheists-Peter-Boghossian/dp/1939578094

I'm currently reading through Peter Boghossian's "A Manual for Creating Atheists".

He has some excellent points on why we should get people to leave faith behind. Not religion, but faith. If we can get more people valuing evidence, that can only be a good thing for society.

Keep trucking. I'm curious if you've used any of the techniques from Peter Boghossian's A Manual for Creating Atheists?

I find from reading the comments you seem to be getting a lot of flak for various things. I think part of it may be your insistence on labeling positions as worldviews. I don't think it is necessarily wrong, but the word carries some baggage that may be implying more than you intent, or more than others would wish to be labeled with. While labels can be useful for quickly describing a position you or someone else may hold, be certain to know of the variations and try to attach specific answers to specific questions that underly labels, and to make sure you have specific definitions as well (i.e. Q: Do you believe in God? A: Generally no, but it would help if you could define God, as I can't say if I believe in something that I can't define or describe).

First:
>Atheism is not a stance, not really. Atheists do not believe in anything

I think I can see what you mean here but be really careful with -ists and -isms. Atheism being a stance or not a stance is very much in how someone views themselves. One can be a "strong atheist", as it has been put, and actively believe and assert that there is no God, god, gods, godesses or supernatural beings (which is the term I will stick with), or one can be a looser form of agnostic atheist. There are many who would even say that, regardless of what agnostics say, they are in fact atheists because atheism, being not the opposite but the negaitve of theism (a- theism) is the lack of belief in supreme supernatural beings (this includes Penn Jillette, as he mentions this view in his book "God No!). So I think the error you made here is saying Athiest do not believe in anything, as that is not true. I call myself an Atheist (or Real Big Atheist; mild or moderate anti-theist; Ignostic Agnostic Atheist; etc) but I believe in lots of things. I believe I am sitting in a chair while I write this. What I think you meant to say was Atheism does not imply a belief in something. Under any definition it is either the lack of belief or belief that another belief is false, it is not a statement on the existence of a thing.

Second:
>Anti-Theism, on the other hand, IS a worldview.

Again, worldview is a risky word to use as it suggests that there is larger over-arching position to it. I would call secular humanism a worldview, but I don't know if I would call anti-theism a worldview (and there are secular humanists who would see themselves as anti-theist and some who wouldn't). I would be more tempted to call it a position. Regardless of semantics, I think anti-theism is easier to define. Anti-theism is the opposition to theism. Simple. Theism being the belief in one or more gods (Theos), and thus being anti that.

On anti-theism, I agree with you, but I find anti-theism is subservient to a larger desire for truth. As has been argued below, theism can be used for good or bad. People could be motivated to work harder for Dear Leader, and improve life for us all. If theism is not true though, then can we truly consider that an appropriate course of action? In doing so we would subvert informed consent, and undermine the freedom of a person live their own lives and to choose their own beliefs. However, I have never been shown a case where theism was used where a non-supernatural alternative could be used. The teaching of philosophy to elementary students has shown be very useful for improving not just academic outcomes, but also social outcomes 1. Here is the group that published that document, there are many more on their resources page.

The above paragraph completely ignores any harm that may come from religion, and I do that intentionally. If a given religion is true, then extreme measures can be justifiable if you are preventing someone from enduring annihilation or eternal torture. Utilitarian defenses of religion can only be relevant if they are false. However, if they are false, then any harm that comes along is thus completely unjustifiable unless the benefits outweigh them AND you are willing to admit that truth is not intrinsically valuable. The first constraint is difficult to measure, and does not seem to add up, especially when considering that magical thinking can overlap into other areas, and thus a firm belief in the supernatural (as opposed to an allowance of the possibility, or a thought experiment) could be a hindrance to honest political or philosophical discourse, and technological progress. I prefer discussing religion and supernatural beliefs in an epistemological framework, epistemology being the philosophical study of knowledge, or how we know what we know. While I have enjoyed Hitchens, I find his arguments to fall short of compelling in terms of convincing me of the accuracy of atheism or value of anti-theism; his moral arguments work for a current common moral standard which I happen to agree to a fair degree, but they do not do much to convince me of any implicit truth, nor that the moral standard being used is necessarily correct and thus failing to adhere to it is truly as abhorrent as would naturally appear.

A book I recently listened to on audiobook (from audible.com) was "A Manual for Creating Atheists" by Peter Boghossian. I would strongly recommend this book, especially if you want to actively act as an anti-theist and atheist activist.

I would love to discuss any other aspects of atheism or anti-theism, especially if you disagree with any points I have made. I would also suggest looking into ignosticism (as it is a good additional label for getting people into discussion), the /r/philosophy subreddit and the /r/antitheism subreddit.

You [should read this book] (http://www.amazon.com/Manual-Creating-Atheists-Peter-Boghossian/dp/1939578094), it taught me to argue a bit more structured, not make statements but ask very difficult questions.

Being blunt and honest at the same time, seems to scare the posers(most of them that come in groups) and make the true believer actually think about the validity of things he or she believes and question [faith as a method of getting reliable information] (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WIaPXtZpzBw#t=9m57s)..

Watch this video first

And if you really want. Buy this book

What you should know is you may ostracize yourself from friends and family if you attempt this on them. I would first have light conversions simply asking what they believe and why to gauge how open they may be to a discussion. Don't just start with these attacks on their beliefs.

summer reading

You don't need to hide your (lack of) belief. It's not your job to make him comfortable with his unexamined superstition. Be who you are; don't change to help someone else ignore reality.

Read A Manual For Creating Atheists by Peter Boghossian. Talking to people about God is an entirely different subject. If they are using theism to prop up their decision to eat meat you have to address theism.

Also, watch some of Peter's lectures on YouTube. He teaches to debate/question/query not about facts but rather how one knows what one knows. Theism is based on faith which is an unreliable method for arriving at truth. Illustrate that to be true, or better yet, ask great questions so that your subject discovers it to be true and theism will crumble.

Sway him away from faith, and the rest will eventually take care of itself: https://www.amazon.com/Manual-Creating-Atheists-Peter-Boghossian/dp/1939578094

This reminds me a lot of how people talk about trying to de-convert people. They try showing them evidence of how a particular religion is false, but no matter how much they push the point home the person they're talking to doesn't listen.

(Here's a concrete example for that: Consider someone who believes in a literal interpretation of Noah's Flood [God creates the earth, doesn't like what people are doing, decides to drown them all in a global flood, chooses one man {Noah} and his family to build a boat and collect up 2 of each animal into said boat, they float around on water covering Mt. Everest for 375 days, all animals depart to repopulate the earth]. This story has a list of problems so long in boggles the mind, but ask how Noah and his family simultaneously kept the penguins cold and desert foxes hot without refrigeration, keep the carnivores from eating the herbivores, or whatever else and you get a whole raft of rationalizations if they don't just claim you hate god or are an agent of the devil sent to deceive them.)

What I've learned so far about this problem is that it requires a different approach than facts and evidence. It requires instilling a sense of doubt in what one knows, and how one knows it and modeling an intellectually honest framework for answering such questions.

In the religious example how one knows the truth of claim x is usually answered with faith. They have faith that god helped Noah in every way he needed to get that boat stocked and taken care of. And how do they know their faith is true? To put it one way: They know that they know that they know. It is felt with the same level of conviction that one has asking if they exist.

I hope this was helpful without rambling too much. I am mostly taking from A Manual for Creating Atheists Which I found to be a useful source of information about changing people's minds even outside of religious contexts.


Edit: Please know I'm not trying to hassle anyone about religion here. There are goals worth banding together for and finding ways to help get people out of toxic and counterproductive mindsets is one of them.

Firstly by not using labels. Labels suck anyway.

> perhaps part of the reason people fall in line with all the positions of a particular party is that it's just easier that way

That's partly the reason, the other reason is that we only have two parties. So, in essence you aren't making a "positive" choice but a "negative" one instead. One may not agree with everything Blue but are certainly against Red for instance.

Funny clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e7E9SS-X4YY

If we had a greater variety of parties you would find people gravitating to ones that believe more of what they believe. That, however, is a pipe dream given our current electoral system so no sense talking about it.

I'm not going to talk about any of your other beliefs or points as we could be here all day (both those I agree with and those I don't). But instead stay with your philosophical angst.

> And yet, l have a low opinion of the modern left.

My only advice is this. Don't do what labels are intended to do... box people in. When confronted with someone who claims to be a Liberal, or a Libertarian, Conservative, Democrat, Republican, Christian, Muslim, Atheist, or whatever... don't foist your understanding of what they then should believe onto them. For every person, in every instance, and on every topic you have to ask.

Learn to ask open questions rather than closed questions. Questions like, "Do you believe X" are ok, but even better is "What do you believe?" Rather than, "Do you believe X about immigration", "What do you believe regarding immigration?". The open questions will always produce better results. Often times you will "catch" them in a contradiction, and that's ok. Don't rub it in their face, simply ask them about it as kindly and gently as you can. Make them consider their position through your questions. Don't try and change their mind but instead reconsider... to think. Providing them data sometimes help although a lot less than you might think. The mistake many, including myself, make is that we feel that the person we are talking to is merely ignorant of the facts. But it turns out that when it comes to beliefs, especially personal beliefs, facts are much less important than you might think.

Your goal should be to get to know the person, not the label. This technique is called Street Epistemology and you should look it up if you are interested. It can be done with varying degrees of success, I am still struggling with some aspects of it myself. Here is one of the books that founded the technique: https://www.amazon.com/Manual-Creating-Atheists-Peter-Boghossian/dp/1939578094

Enjoy.

Peter Boghossian argues that in arguing with such deluded people, it's best to step back from the details of what they claim and ask how they know what they know. (The philosophical term for this question is epistemology.)

His point is that digging into the detailed claims themselves will just drive you batty. Things will go in circles.

If you focus on how people know what they know, you might be able to lead them into a place of less certainty. That's not all the way to believing what you do, but it is a necessary first step.

Thanks for the kind words. If I wrote a book it would likely turn out to just be a copy of this one, replacing a few of the words with "Jehovah's Witnesses", etc. and I don't want to be sued for plagarism. 😆

I'm sure asking for more book recommendations on the topic would prove fruitful.

Where is that video? I can't find it. I just don't want for you to get your hopes up. Peter Boghossian has years of experience and he says it's really rare to wake up a believer. All we can do is try.

A great resource that has taught me tons, is "The Atheist Debates Project" run by and featuring Matt Dillahunty. Watch the episodes for free on YouTube. I'm a patron to support the excellent work that Matt does.

Further, you can see these ideas in action, by listening/watching the podcast/YouTube/live stream of the Internet TV show, "The Atheist Experience". Some callers aren't interesting, but some exchanges are just gold.

I myself have written a primer on beliefs and labels to help introduce one to the landscape. Read that to understand the concepts. View the links in the green resource boxes to dive deeper into any subject. Watch the debates linked to, to see how others argue the material.

Just be a sponge for this. Prop up you iPhone in the bathroom and play debates while you brush your teeth or in the kitchen as you scramble your eggs. You'll get in an extra 30+ minutes a day of absorbing this content.

To learn about how best to get people to think without ever really arguing, but instead, using the socratic method to get them to think about their own positions, read the book (or listen to the excellent audiobook), A Manual for Creating Atheists. Based on these techniques, you can watch Anthony Magnabosco as he approaches people and politely asks them questions to get them to think. This technique is called Street Epistemology.

Finally, go through the Philosophy playlist on YouTube, from the channel Crash Course. They do an excellent job of introducing a lot of the concepts and terminology involved in philosophical argumentation--which is what all of this comes down to.

We need more people who educate themselves and can speak intelligently to the issues. So thank you for taking an interest. This is an awesome journey. Welcome.

If they force you to keep going to the same therapist (even if they don't), here's a book you might find useful: http://www.amazon.com/Manual-Creating-Atheists-Peter-Boghossian/dp/1939578094

It talks about "street epistemology" which is basically asking questions of believers (such as your therapist) to get at why they believe there is a god. You can also find some good videos on YouTube that demonstrate how others do it.

If your therapist is giving answers like "it's hard to wrap your head around," perhaps her belief is not as strong as she thinks it is. Show her you're truly "exploring both sides" and make her answer why you should believe god exists - because you want to believe what's true. It may rattle her faith just a bit. She may even get uncomfortable and suggest you change therapists.

[this book] (https://www.amazon.com/Manual-Creating-Atheists-Peter-Boghossian/dp/1939578094) tells you how to deal with religious people

>Or places with suggestions for "things you can do to fight theism and religion" that are likely to make a real difference in the world.

Read this book: A Manual for Creating Atheists

You can "argue" with people in real life instead. I'm not really suggesting arguing, but a better form of conversation to get people thinking.

If so, you might be interested in Peter Boghossian's book, a good start on the subject. The title doesn't do it justice, but it's called A Manual for Creating Atheists

A Manual for Creating Atheists is not directly an anti-cult book, but its logic is highly applicable.

One of the speakers has a book out, called A Manual for Creating Atheists.

just ordered the book A Manual for Creating Atheists. Really loking forward to it!

A Manual for Creating Atheists by Peter Boghossian, which is unfortunately titled because it's not really about atheism. It's about epistemology and how we know what we know and how we can check that we actually know what we think we know. I get the sense that the title of the book was chosen to generate some controversy and probably target a particular market. It's only about godlessness to the extent that that's one conclusion drawn from proper epistemology. He makes the point that it applies equally to beliefs about out of body experiences or alien abductions or vaccines causing autism.

Peter Boghossian is a scholar who teaches at Portland State University and he is getting ready to launch a book in November called A Manual for Creating Atheists. He's not so much out to disprove God as much as he is about improving critical thinking and challenging the way people of faith "know" certain things. If you're interested in an argument for spreading skepticism, look him up.

I dig what he has to say and am eager to read the book.

VIDEO: Jesus, The Easter Bunny and Other Delusions: Just Say No!

VIDEO: Peter Boghossian at Imagine No Religion 3

Twitter

Take your time to detox from the indoctrination.

Regarding your wife: Only use questions here and there. Google for the Socratic method or watch videos from Peter Boghossian

I recommend this book: https://www.amazon.com/Manual-Creating-Atheists-Peter-Boghossian/dp/1939578094/ref=la_B00CXT0V0K_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1526591670&sr=1-1

If you visit the book's Amazon page, you can click the cover to get a preview of the book's contents. I suggest you read through its table of contents as that will give you a rough idea what the book is about.

If you've seen Dawkin's talks on youtube, then chances are that you've already been in contact with a lot of the material mentioned in the book. However, the book is a lot more in-depth and I'd say it's still definitely still worth the read.

If you're having trouble finding the motivation to pick up a book, then maybe an audio book could help you along the way.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Funny you should mention that because those studies that the author of the article mentioned were done at the International Culture and Cognition Institute, which specifically examines what parts of humanity are culture driven and what parts are psychologically driven while trying to figure out the dynamics between culture and cognition. Plus, in Dr. Bering's book, The Belief Instinct (which I read) he addresses Richard Dawkin's view of religion as a culture delusion and suggests there's also a cognitive illusion at play too. So, yes, there's no doubt culture involved to add detail, metaphor, story, and character but the core of these ideas are sustained by our innate ability to think about other minds, think teleologically, and our tendency to imagine the mind continuing to exist after the death of the body.

Why that book is bullshit

Anything Richard Dawkins.

At least you know what to get him for Christmas.

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

Why Evolution is True

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


Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality (free online!)

Guns, Germs, Steel

The God Delusion

Misquoting Jesus (Conceptional this is very compatible with Mormonism--the Bible not being translated correctly so we need the BoM!--but the specifics about what got mistranslated are devastating as Mormonism doubled down on the mistranslated parts. oops.)

Don't even both learning anything more about Mormonism. Just be widely read and you'll soon see that the Mormon version of history is in incongruent with reality. This will cause cognitive dissonance and when you're ready to resolve it, go back and read independent sources about Mormonism and it will be very obvious that the narrative they indoctrinated into you as a child doesn't stand up to scrutiny.

Thanks for responding!

I think that there are a few books which have influenced me greatly, but I have a much more expansive list of books I want to read than ones I have already consumed.

To start, you should try the greats:

• The God Delusion
  
• God Is Not Great
  
• The End of Faith
  
  For a historical perspective, try: The Barbarian Conversion
  
  Evolutionary perspective: The Selfish Gene
  
  And, if you have a sense of wonder:
  
• A Brief History of Time
  
• Cosmos
  
  But this is such a small selection... Try them out and let them guide you to many more works.

http://www.amazon.com/The-God-Delusion-Richard-Dawkins/dp/0618918248

How about putting this book on her desk?

The Case for God and The Bible: A Biography by Karen Armstrong are both good. The God Delusion is a simple breakdown and explanation of most major religious claims. Beyond Religion: Ethics for a Whole World by the Dalai Llama is an interesting book on ethics. The Koran: A Very Short Introduction by Michael Cook is 150 funny and insightful pages on Islam. Under the Banner of Heaven is a shocking and fascinating account of fundamentalist Mormonism. The Demon Haunted World by Carl Sagan discusses religion, and Cosmos and Pale Blue Dot are my secular versions of holy books. And of course given the occasion, I can't leave out God is Not Great.

I recommend avoiding authors like Lee Strobel and Deepak Chopra. Both are essentially liars for their causes, either inventing evidence, or deliberately being incredibly misleading in how they use terms. Popularity in those cases definitely doesn't indicate quality.

Any book by Mary Roach- her books are hilarious, random, and informative. I like Jon Krakauer's, Sarah Vowell's, and Bill Bryson's books as well.

Some of my favorites that I can think of offhand (as another poster mentioned, I loved Devil in the White City)

No Picnic on Mount Kenya

Guns, Germs, and Steel

Collapse

The Closing of the Western Mind

What is the What

A Long Way Gone

Alliance of Enemies

The Lucifer Effect

The World Without Us

What the Dog Saw

The God Delusion (you'd probably enjoy Richard Dawkins' other books as well if you like science)

One Down, One Dead

Lust for Life

Lost in Shangri-La

Endurance

True Story

Havana Nocturne

1984 - George Orwell

The God Delusion - Richard Dawkins

I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell - Tucker Max

you have the demon haunted world

I have the god delusion

Leaving the church can be an emotional and harrowing experience especially, if like me, you are a generational mormon. My dad was a convert but quit the church when he bailed on the family but on my moms side my grandfathers family goes back to the pioneers and my grandmothers parents were converts in California during the depression. For generations my family has been indoctrinated in the mormon belief system. I walked away from the church almost ten years ago but it took about four years to come to terms with it. At 40 years old I still have stuff creep up on me out of nowhere. Leaving tscc is a traumatic experience, we lose part of our identity, we lose parts of our community, we lose parts of our family. We have been the subject of generational psychological abuse and coping with that trauma is difficult enough but when we leave we are subjected to more abuse for having left. Leaving the church is a traumatic event piled on top of a lifelong traumatic event. I was able to come to terms with my hangups when, for unrelated reasons, began doing some research into PTSD and began to understand why my upbringing in the church was impacting me long after I left. I would recommend doing some readings on PTSD and overcoming indoctrination, it really helped me come to terms with me.

If you haven't you might want to take a look at Deism which is basically God created the universe and then moved onto other things. Thats right God has ADD.

The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins and God Is Not Great by Christoper Hitchens are great books to read when coming to terms with the loss/end of religion in your life. You don't have to go full on atheist, Dawkins even has 7 degrees of theistic belief, but reading those two books can help understand many things.

> publishes garbage

Your personal bias is still showing. You're just one random person on the person who dislikes his writing and personally attacks him, calling what he writes garbage without actually providing any single argument as to why that is true. Here's the Amazon listing for The God Delusion with a 4 1/2 star rating from 3,300+ random internet people. https://www.amazon.com/God-Delusion-Richard-Dawkins/dp/0618918248

Are you ready to state why his arguments are bad or why he is garbage, or are you just going to continue to use the defense of "he writes about biology, therefore he can't write about philosophy and everything he writes is wrong", like a child?

You only answered half the question. Strawman. Tell me which books from those atheist philosophers that you listed have you read? Just curious, have you even read The God Delusion or have you been indoctrinated to hate Dawkins from secondary sources alone?

This isn't even fun. I wish you would try to bring up quran or hadith sources are try to prove your points rather than bashing a single author. I would love to showcase how contradictory/evil/sexist the quran is. If only you'd try that. And yes, I've read the quran and various hadith and still have half the quran memorized from my childhood. I actually read the shit I'm talking about, unlike you who hasn't read The God Delusion and has been indoctrinated to hate Dawkins and other atheists. Let me guess, you also hate Sam Harris, but haven't read any books by him, right?

http://www.amazon.com/The-God-Delusion-Richard-Dawkins/dp/0618918248

read this. make your own decisions. I'm still Jewish and constantly trying to inform myself of more and more and more. At the end of the day people can lead you to information, but it's up to you to decide what you'll read or accept. Judaism is constantly shifting so you might be between sects, not to mention most of the religion is based on different accounts and interpretations of the Torah(talmud, mishnah, gemara, etc).

Here, read this book to celebrate his birthday.
 

http://www.amazon.com/The-God-Delusion-Richard-Dawkins/dp/0618918248

First off, great contest! This is making be realize how much there is in my life to be grateful for. I won't be TOO obnoxious, but I'll name a few.

1. My parents: They are incredibly supportive and always there when I need them. I'm truly SO lucky to have them in my life.
   
   
2. My dog: Because he makes me feel SO loved. It doesn't matter if I went outside for 5 minutes or if I have been gone for 3 months he always greets me like he hasn't seen me in years and is so glad that I returned. A dogs love is something everyone should experience, imo.
   
   
3. My boyfriend (/u/pendragone01): Because he makes me feel like the prettiest girl in the world and puts up with my craziness even when I wouldn't want to be around me. True love!
   
   
4. My best friend: Because even when we are miles apart, haven't seen each other in months, and haven't talked in days nothing changes between us we are still the best friends ever! I couldn't ask for a better friendship.
   
   
5. Coffee: Because of that warm, happy feeling it gives me whenever I drink it.
   
   
6. My nephew: Because he reminds me that anything is possible in life no matter if you are 2 or 22! And he makes me laugh because a 2 year old is A LOT like a drunk 22 year old.
   
   Under $15
   
   Under $10

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

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

>Atheism is not a religion.

Really?

>We have no doctrine.

I'm almost positive that that's not the case.

>No creed.

From PZ Myers himself.

>No hymns.

Really? Are you so very certain?

So...are you positive that atheism has not taken on all the trappings of a religion? I would say you even have apostles - Dawkins, Hitchins, Harris.

Finally - I would urge you to look up state atheism and then tell me that certain people didn't kill in the name of atheism.

I'm a little late to the party, but I just thought I'd add my voice.

There are a couple things I would like to say. I'm sure none of it hasn't already been said somewhere here, but I'll just repeat for emphasis.

First of all, hi! And welcome. I'm sure you are feeling so confused and overwhelmed right now. That's okay. There's a lot to take in and consider. Take your time, go at your own pace, and make sure that wherever you end up is a place that is right for you. It's important to always consider what others have to say but that doesn't mean you have to follow what they say. You make your decisions and you determine your path.

If this road you are taking brings you to atheism (or anything unacceptable to your family and/or friends) you do not have to come out before you are ready. Depending on your situation it could be very detrimental to do so before the time is right. If someone will do wrong by you if they know the truth, then you are by no means obligated to give them the truth. And when the right time is, only you can say. Others may be able to help you with it, but when it comes down to it, it is your life and your decision.

And, again, if you eventually begin to identify as an atheist it is possible, and maybe even probable that you will feel angry. Many of us have been through it, or still are going through it. Angry about things that are happening around the world today and angry about things from your upbringing. That is okay too. There are many things we should be angry about. Just don't let that anger consume you. And be sure to still be reasonable. Anger can be a good thing when placed appropriately and if it's kept in perspective. It's a hard field to navigate but you'll figure it out with time and experience.

Don't get so caught up in one worldview that you are stuck in an echo chamber, never exposed to differing thoughts and opinions. Keep an open mind and don't shut things out simply because you don't want to change your opinion or are so convinced of something that you think there's no chance you could ever be wrong. This really applies to everything in life...not just religious beliefs or lack thereof.

I wanted to address you personally, rather than discuss the beliefs because I'm sure you have been given so much to consider and read already. It is likely that everything I have to suggest has already been mentioned, but:

• There are so many good videos at The Atheist Experience
  
  
• Greta Christina's blog has many wonderful and thought provoking writings
  
  
• "The God Delusion" by Richard Dawkins is incredible (as is most of his work)
  
  
• Just about any Christopher Hitchens debate on YouTube is fascinating. I also loved his book "God Is Not Great" but if you aren't a reader it may be tiresome and difficult to get through.
  
  
• PZ Myers blog, Pharyngula is excellent as well.
  
  I could go on, but this post is already so much longer than I intended. So I'll just end on this note: things might look pretty frightening and overwhelming right now, but don't let it scare you off. There is no better feeling than learning and coming to your own conclusions about who you are and what you believe. Especially if you've had those things decided for you your entire life. If you ever need help or have questions, come here. There are many of us who are more than willing to do what we can to help.
  
  Good luck! :)

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 suggest you read The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins.

> We have eye witness testimonies.

We supposedly have eye witness testimonies, because almost none of the witnesses (besides the apostles) are named, nor are they alive, and their "testimonies" were recorded many decades after Christ's supposed ascension. Besides that, witness testimonies are not enough to prove that supernatural events are even possible.

> There was a detective who works cold cases, and would convict people of crimes based on people's testimonies. He was an Atheist investigating the case for Christ. He found that the people's testimonies lined up, and he would consider them as viable evidence in court, and he came to the conclusion that it was all real.

There are many authors like this one, who think they have the silver bullet that will prove their religion, be it Christianity or Islam, who eventually engage in all sorts of fallacies and provide nothing of substance. I haven't read this guy's book to be honest (Cold-Case Christianity: A Homicide Detective Investigates the Claims of the Gospels), but I have read other books by Christians who claim that they can prove the "truth" of Christianity. Short summary: they haven't.

The fact of the matter is that these books do not stand to scrutiny. Have you ever read anything written by Bart Ehrman, or other real scholars? They would vehemently disagree with that guy's conclusions.

Bart Denton Ehrman is an American professor and scholar, currently the James A. Gray Distinguished Professor of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is one of North America's leading scholars in his field, having written and edited 30 books, including three college textbooks. He has also achieved acclaim at the popular level, authoring five New York Times bestsellers. Ehrman's work focuses on textual criticism of the New Testament, the historical Jesus, and the development of early Christianity.

-- from WikiPedia

You should also read stuff by:

• Richard Dawkins (i.e. The God Delusion, The Greatest Show On Earth, Unweaving the rainbow, etc.),
  
  
• Lawrence Krauss (i.e. A Universe from Nothing: Why There Is Something Rather than Nothing),
  
  
• Sean Caroll
  
  and other scientists if you want to see what science actually has to say about reality and about how grossly wrong the Bible is when it tries to make pronouncements on our physical reality.
  
  > Why do you not believe in the gospel accounts? They were hand written accounts by people who witnessed an event, or people who spoke to those people.
  
  That's the claim, not the evidence. It's people claiming to have witnessed supernatural events for which they have no evidence, and even more than that, all these witnesses are long dead. We have nothing but third hand accounts of people from 2000 years ago claiming to have seen or heard wildly fantastical things for which we don't have any evidence that they are even possible.
  
  Heck, we literally have millions of people still alive who swear that they have encountered aliens or have been abducted by aliens - this is a much better evidence than your supposed witnesses who are long dead by now - and it's still not nearly enough to prove that these aliens actually exist and that they have indeed been abducting people.
  
  > Some of the things Jesus spoke about is verifiable today. As I have pointed out about the Holy Spirit guiding people, and people being able to heal and cast out demons in Jesus' name.
  
  Many of Buddha's teachings are verifiable and valid today, yet that does nothing to prove Buddha's claims of the supernatural. Besides, you first have to demonstrate that there are such things as demons before even making a claim of being able to cast them out. Bring one of these "demons" into a research facility and then we'll talk. Otherwise, you're no different than the alien abduction people or the Bigfoot hunters.

https://smile.amazon.com/God-Delusion-Richard-Dawkins/dp/0618918248/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1479680665&sr=1-1&keywords=the+god+delusion

I'd suggest reading more on the subject. Having knowledgeable resources to refer to can make all the difference in the world.

Try "The God Delusion" by Richard Dawkins.

It is an absolutely fantastic book about the nature of religion.

The God Delusion:

http://www.amazon.com/God-Delusion-Richard-Dawkins/dp/0618918248/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1251605853&sr=8-1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mkGpO1lQrLY

You won't regret reading The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins.

I would read The God Delusion. I'm still working on it myself right now, but it has helped me see how religion controls the mind.

The End of Faith by Sam Harris

The Spiral Staircase: My Climb Out of Darkness by Karen Armstrong

Why I Am Not A Christian by Bertrand Russell

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

Why I Am Not a Christian and Other Essays on Religion and Related Subjects by Bertrand Russell

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

>I am not trying to offend anyone who is religious

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

For Atheism:

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

I wouldn't. I'd just go to my bookshelf, and pull off something like this, where a philosophy of religion professor has done the work already. I'd also like to point out that all such philosophical proofs eventually hit an unbridgeable chasm. To get from something to the theist god who cares what you do with your reproductive organs requires personal revelation.

Some people have done a great job of attacking the arguments in this thread, but I don't really see the point of asking psbp123. None of the arguments, in the original form, are treated with much respect by current philosophers. My linked book thoroughly destroys the original versions, then tackles the best moderns versions put forth.

First and foremost, I strongly recommend you cross-post this to /r/askphilosophy (and probably also /r/philosophyofreligion) since they'll be much more qualified than here to suggest topics and lesson-plans.

Second, you should probably include the Leibnizian cosmological argument alongside the Kalam, since they are sufficiently different. There's plenty of good material out there on this: Pruss' article for the Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology (this book is a very good resource, see here for more chapters) is pretty definitive, but both he and Richard Gale have written stuff on this.

Third, I think you should use different atheistic arguments. Drop Russell's teapot: especially given your expected audience you should stick to positive arguments against the existence of God. Russell's teapot you can work in as a side comment that argues that if the negative case (i.e. refuting theistic arguments) succeeds then we should be atheists, but other wise leave it be. Better topics I think would be the Argument from Non-Belief (see also here) and Hume's argument against belief in miracles (I have a bunch of resources on this I can send you, but the original argument in Of Miracles is pretty short and is free online). You might want to read one of Mackie's The Miracle of Theism, Martin's Atheism: A Philosophical Justification or Oppy's Arguing About Gods for a good source of atheistic critiques and arguments.

He definitely believes in objective morality. See here.

If the threat of hell is the only thing that keeps you from shooting and raping people, then you probably aren't a very good person to begin with.

By the way, you should read this:
http://www.amazon.com/Moral-Landscape-Science-Determine-Values/dp/1439171211

Sam Harris talks about it in length in his book The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values

I need to go mow my lawn unfortunately, but for start Ken Miller, an evolutionary biologist at Brown University is wonderfully smart and wrote a book on evolution and god. Was decent. But yeah, he would count as a brilliant guy I think. Google is your aid if you want more.

I have not read it but i've heard that Kenneth Millers Finding Darwin's God is really good. He is a catholic and was an expert witness in the Kitzmiller v. Dover case.

Here is a short snippet from his 2006 lecture on intelligent design: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zi8FfMBYCkk
You can find the whole two hour lecture on youtube and i highly recommend it if you haven't seen it.

I'm a Mormon who believes in evolution. In fact, in a recent discussion on r/lds and from what I've seen in the majority of my conversations with other Mormons most of us do. Links to discussions [1](http://www.reddit.com/r/lds/comments/eiu9e/as_a_member_of_the_church_what_is_your_opinion_on/?sort=controversial
) and 2

We also have doctrines specific to Mormonism that seem to support evolutionary theory to me such as an un-determined period of actual time for the "days of creation" (creation may have taken place outside of time all together), in much of LDS specific scripture God created the world is replaced with God organized the world and that matter (and spirit) has always existed and cannot be created nor destroyed. More on Mormonism and Evolution here

My personal belief (read not church doctrine and pure speculation on my part) is that evolution was the mechanism that God used to create the world we live in. His role was in essence to guide the seemingly random chance of natural selection to make us and everything else what he wanted it to be. Thus religion answers the why question and science answers the how. For an overview on the Why read this. When everything was the way he wanted it to begin the test of man-kind he sent down the first spirit to inhabit a body created through evolution. Making Adam the first complete man with body and spirit.

An interesting read on all this is Finding Darwin's God: A Scientist's Search for Common Ground Between God and Evolution. I disagree with the author on several theological points (he's catholic) but reading it helped me sort out what I thought God's role in evolution was.

Edit- An article about how evolution is taught at BYU Link

Well, I was a Jehovah's Witness until I was 24.

If you're serious about trying to get to them, the book that finally woke me up was Finding Darwin's God by Ken Miller. It's about evolution but since he's a nominal Catholic (and also head of Biology at Brown University) it isn't at all antagonistic toward religion (though it is insanely badass in shooting down all of the intelligent design arguments).

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

That's only going to work if the person's faith is evidence-driven. As the old adage goes, you can't reason someone out of an idea that they didn't come to through reason.

This one's good for witnesses, too: http://www.amazon.com/Crisis-Conscience-Raymond-Franz/dp/0914675044

>What do you think agnosticism is?

An agnostic is defined by Webster's as a person who does not have a definite belief about whether God exists or not and /or a person who does not believe or is unsure of something

>What do you think scepticism is?

Scepticism is defined by Webster's as an attitude of doubt or a disposition to incredulity either in general or toward a particular object and / or the doctrine that true knowledge or knowledge in a particular area is uncertain and / or the method of suspended judgment, systematic doubt, or criticism characteristic of skeptics and / or doubt concerning basic religious principles (as immortality, providence, and revelation

I am not going to pigeonhole any individual agnostic, sceptic, or fill-in-the-blank. Everyone can define themselves and their beliefs/worldview.
.

>Define 'worldview'.

Worldview is defined by Webster's as the way someone thinks about the world

I would add that a worldview is how one sees life and the world at large; a cluster of beliefs a person holds about the most significant concepts of life-such as God, the cosmos, knowledge, values, humanity, and history. They form a big picture, a general outlook, or a grand perspective on life and the world; it's one's basic or ultimate beliefs. This framework supplies a comprehensive view of what a person considers real, true, rational, good, valuable, and beautiful. Philosopher Ronald Nash defines a worldview as "a conceptual scheme by which we consciously or unconsciously place or fit everything we believe and by which we interpret and judge reality

>It's incredibly assumptive, if typical, for a person having your level of self-assurance to accuse others of the same.

I go, as Antony Flew said, where the evidence leads.

I have had a couple of recent discussion with people who, while having no problem criticizing the Christian WV, dropped the discussion when questioned about their worldviews. One refused to even articulate a worldview.

The sad fact is that most who have no problem attacking the Christian worldview have never even given a thought as to their own WV and whether or not it is coherent.

Alright here are some of the best resources I know as a Catholic. Hope they help!

Edward Feser's blog as well as his The Last Superstition and 5 Proofs of the Existence of God

Stephen Barr's Modern Physics and Ancient Faith

Francis Collin's The Language of God

Anthony Flew's There Is a God: How the World's Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind

Thomas Wood's How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization

Brant Pitre's The Case For Jesus

Tim O Neill on the Church and science, the Inquisition and the Galileo affair

Jenny Hawkins on Jesus and God, early Christianity and form criticism

Al Moritz on the Fine Tuning Argument

>There is a reason someone should believe in the supernatural and mystical aspects of Christianity. This is a large issue for me. Solely based on supernatural and mystical ideas, from an outsider perspective, Christianity is no different than animism or Buddhism. I can't have faith alone.

Well when you look at the world's religions, Christianity has a clear and impressive advantage in the miracles/mystical department. Historically, in Christianity, there have been numerous cases of Eucharistic miracles, Marian apparitions, miraculous healings and the spiritual gifts and religious experiences of countless Christian saints -- men and women of great virtue whose admirable character only add to the credibility of their testimony. Examples of these include Paul, Benedict of Nursia, Francis of Assisi, Dominic, Hildegard of Bingen, Anthony of Padua, Thomas Aquinas, Catherine of Siena, Vincent Ferrer, Joan of Arc, Ignatius of Loyola, Teresa of Avila, John of the Cross, Catherine Emmerich, John Vianney, Anna Maria Taigi, Genma Galangi, Faustina Kowalska and Padre Pio. We also have a pair of impressive relics, the shroud of Turin and the sudarium of Orvieto. I'll also throw in Catholic exorcisms.

And these Eucharistic miracles, Marian apparitions and religious/mystical experiences continue to happen today.

What do Buddhism and animism have in comparison?

>Anything that discusses and argues against some common tropes from atheists such as Mother Teresa being a vile, sadistic person.

Honestly, I'm quite stunned at the portrait atheists have painted of her. At worst, she wasn't perfect and made mistakes. She cannot be a vile monster like Hitchens claims she was, that's ridiculous. Here are some articles that defend Mother Teresa -- here, here, here and here.

Check out any of Mother Teresa's personal writings (e.g. No Greater Love, A Simple Path, Come Be Thy Light) to see what she believed in, what she valued and how she saw the world. Check out books written by people who actually knew her such as that of Malcolm Muggeridge, an agnostic BBC reporter who ended up converting to Catholicism because of Teresa and ended up becoming a lifelong friend of hers. Or that of her priest, friend and confessor, Leo Maasburg, who was able to recall 50 inspiring stories of Mother Teresa. Or that of Conroy, a person who actually worked with her. Or any biography of hers. Find out what she was like according to the people around her. Then afterwards, determine for yourself if she resembles Hitchen's "monster" or the Catholic Church's "saint".

That's a very tortured reading of just one of the stories of a post-resurrection appearance.

I was thinking about what you said about us deserving more proof. Frankly, I think we've got far more than we have any right to when compared to previous generations.

In Jesus' day, only a few thousand people saw him work a miracle. Only a thousand at most saw him after the resurrection. In all of human history, seeing the supernatural has been confined to a relative handful of people.

Today, though, every single person in the developed world has access to

• scientific proof the universe began at a finite moment in time
  
  
• solid evidence of intentional design in the fabric of the universe, our planet, and biology
  
  
• documented evidence of miracles
  
  
• documented evidence of a non-material aspect of humans, some would even say of life after death
  
  
• solid evidence that the gospels are trustworthy
  
  
• and evidence that whether the gospels are historically reliable or merely "religious stories", Jesus really did rise from the dead.
  
  No, we don't get to see Jesus in the flesh -- walking on water or otherwise -- but we've got more than any generation since his has had. Far more. And we're going to be held responsible for what we did with that privilege.

There Is a God: How the World's Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind is also a good read about one of the most prominent atheists, Anthony Flew, and what turned him into a deist. Gerald Shroeder's argument was instrumental in this and can be found as number 5 on this page as well as Roy Varghese's book The Wonder of the World: A Journey from Modern Science to the Mind of God.

Might be bullshit, might not.

https://www.amazon.ca/There-God-Notorious-Atheist-Changed/dp/0061335304

>I didn't know continental vs analytical terms are outdated.

Dated perhaps isn't the right term, but just know that they do have certain limits.

As for post-WWII philosophy, there's a lot, but I'm going to let you know that much of it can't be well-understood without a basic understanding of Heidegger, much of whose thought was pre-WWII. His best known work is Being and Time, but it's one of the most challenging texts in the western canon. For an easier introduction to prep you for it, I'd recommend some of his early lecture material, such as The Hermeneutics of Facticity and The History of the Concept of Time. This could just be me, but I've found his lectures to be generally easier than his primary texts. If you want to trace the development of his thought, much of which was post-WWII, the Basic Writings anthology has a number of essays by him. While nothing really eclipsed Being and Time, much of his later thought is still studied. I'd say the most significant work of his later career was his Contributions to Philosophy, which took the form of briefer aphorisms and anecdotes, more similar to Nietzsche in style, but still grounded in much of his own thought and terminology.

If you want to move away from Heidegger, some of the big texts would be Gadamer's Truth and Method (Gadamer was a student of Heidegger's, so the former's thought is very deeply influenced by the latter), Sartre's two texts Being and Nothingness and Existentialism is a Humanism (note the similarity to Sartre's title with Heidegger's Being and Time, and also note that Heidegger would respond rather critically to Sartre's Existentialism with an essay in the Basic Writings), and Simone de Beauvoir's The Second Sex (a key feminist work heavily influenced by Sartre and Heidegger).

Beyond this my knowledge is a bit scattered, as I've only just completed undergrad. I really would recommend David West's text as a decent overview that will guide you in what the key texts are, as well as good secondary sources. I've not brought up Derrida, who was also huge, as well as Alain Badiou, Slavoj Zizek, Michel Foucault and Charles Taylor just to name a few. On top of those, there's a ton of pre-WWII stuff that's hugely important for understanding these thinkers, such as the ideas of Kant, Hegel, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Husserl, and the whole field of psychoanalysis (Freud, Jung and Lacan). Then there's postmodernism, postcolonialism, the various strands of feminism, and tons more. The more I type, the more I'm just reminding myself how little I know about this area (even though it's the area I'm most interested in).

Let me know if there's anything more you need to know or if you want to know a decent secondary source.

I wish I had more info for you. Hopefully someone else reading this can chime in. I can only recommend the [translation I read.] (https://www.amazon.com/Being-Harper-Perennial-Modern-Thought/dp/0061575593/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8), Macquarrie & Robinson. This is a more recent translation and I don't speak German. The classic version was the [Stambaugh] (https://www.amazon.com/Being-Time-Translation-Contemporary-Continental/dp/1438432763).

Those are the two main ones as far as I know. Once again, I'm sure there are people far better qualified to speak to this than me reading.

Good without God is a pretty good introduction to humanism. Good opener. If you want to branch out further you might also want to look into Stoicism ("All men are made one for another") and Epicurean philosophy as these are ancient versions of humanism.

My brother, I feel your pain and struggle. You are losing the only foundation you’ve known and are in free fall regarding your faith, or lack thereof. This struggle is actually good, but painful to go through.

I’m not qualified to tell you what to become, or to believe. That depends on your research and desire. I found solace through Humanism (as an agnostic atheist) and it’s not a sad grumpy existence at all. Others have channeled their faith into other religions. Sadly, others have transitioned to other cults, but that’s a different story by itself.

I highly recommend a book called Good Without God by Greg Epstein. I think it may clarify some things for you.

Maybe others can recommend resources for those inclined to remain faithful to the concept of a deity but in a healthier way.

Good Without God on Amazon

Bart Ehrman's books & videos are a great start for the accuracy of the Bible. He is very clear especially considering he's an academic. Forged would be the best one specifically about the accuracy of the Bible. His books are linked at his website: http://www.bartdehrman.com/books.htm

There are no historical documents of Jesus' life, only a few references to Christians from later documents. Nobody disputes that people believed in Jesus, so those don't really prove anything. It's clear that people believed in Thor and Zeus too. That doesn't mean a thing.

Whether faith is helpful or good, can't help you there. I think it's totally useless except to control sociopaths with low IQs.

For morality, check out Good without God: http://www.amazon.com/Good-Without-God-Billion-Nonreligious/dp/006167012X

or Sam Harris The Moral Landscape: http://www.samharris.org/the-moral-landscape

Science vs religion: that's kind of apples & oranges despite what believers keep saying. Science is a method of investigating hunches. Religion is subservience to an unproven deity.

How about the science of religion? Try Michael Shermer: The Science of Good and Evil: http://www.amazon.com/dp/0805077693/ or The Believing Brain: http://www.amazon.com/dp/1250008808/ or Why We Believe Weird Things: http://www.amazon.com/People-Believe-Weird-Things-Pseudoscience/dp/0805070893/

Thanks for visiting. An unexamined belief system is not worth believing!

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,.

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.

Neil DeGrasse Tyson's Death By Black Hole.

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.

If you are actually interested in religion and evolution this book is an excellent place to start, so long as you can plough through the jargon. In a nutshell, it's not so much that religion is beneficial to us in evolutionary terms, but that religious ideas (memes, if you like) arise naturally out of the normal function of our innate cognitive systems, and evolve into what we now call religions as they are shaped by our social organisations (this is also an inversion of earlier ideas in which religion was thought of as an attempt to impose some form of social order). It's dense, and gets a lot more complex that that of course, but rewarding and not easily refutable. There's probably more recent stuff out there by now, it's a little while now since I was studying this stuff.

Also Religion explained (amazon), which - although apparently controversial - was an interesting read :

>Using findings from anthropology, cognitive science, linguistics, and evolutionary biology, Religion Explained shows how this aspect of human consciousness is increasingly admissible to coherent, naturalistic explanation. This brilliant and controversial book gives readers the first scientific explanation for what religious feeling is really about, what it consists of, and where it comes from.

1. That's not why religion has evolved.
   
   
2. Much of (or most of) religion has nothing to do with death.
   
   
3. Existential worries about death & the futility of life under the guise of religion are pretty much unique to Christianity.
   
   
4. Even when religion is about death, it isn't so much about death in general as it is about dead bodies and how they are processed by our mental processor.
   
   
5. One cannot explain "religion" by thinking of only Christianity, or only the Abrahamic religions, or only organized religions, etc. To explain "religion" we have to be willing to consider all religion -- from Evangelical Christianity to ancestor worship, belief in witchcraft, and belief in ghosts & spirits.
   
   If you want to understand why religion evolved read this book: Religion Explained: The Evolutionary Origins of Religious Thought
   
   Tl;dr: What we call 'religion' originates from cognitive by-products of mental systems that evolved for other reasons. "Religious" views of death are influenced by our mental systems for thinking about specific people we know, for detecting agents & living organisms, and our intuitive psychology or 'theory of mind'.

It would be funnier satire if, in fact, there wasn't a science on understanding the nature of religious belief and relationship with evolution. It does a pretty good job of understanding and explaining it, and nearly has a complete model of it.

I wouldn't doubt that many creationists won't get the satire and think this is real. They have a tendency to re-use bad quotes and refuted arguments, and they tend to be more conservative people who don't seem to understand satire.

I know it's a bit of pop psychology, but I can't help but think that you'd enjoy the works of Malcolm Gladwell, particularly Blink and Outliers. Blink brings forward a lot of the issues about conscious rationalization of unconscious behavior and cognition. The metaphor is that there is a locked door in our mind, behind which a huge series of unconscious processes occur. These processes evolved for specific tasks and have thus evolved, as a necessity, a specifically high accuracy in certain areas.

Described in the book is a particularly interesting psychological case study was done with gamblers. Gamblers were sat at a table with 4 decks of cards, 2 red and 2 blue. They would draw cards that would either net them money or lose them money. The decks were rigged, of course, with the red decks providing a few high payouts with a net loss, and the blue decks providing minor gains and an average positive net. By the 80th draw, on average, the gamblers knew to avoid the red decks and could consciously explain their behavior. At the 40th draw they had a hesitancy to draw from the red deck, but could not explain their behaviors beyond "suspicion". However, by as early as the 20 draw, the subjects demonstrated increased heart rate and sweaty palms when drawing from red that they were not even consciously aware of!

The book Religion Explained takes a lot of these evolved subconscious cognization theories and very convincingly applies them to the realm of religious evolution. It's dryer than Gladwell, but a valuable read nonetheless!

>I am mad at myself for not being this analytic about this earlier in my life

I had this exact feeling.

So one thing to realize is that this process takes time I mean for FSM sake u lived a lot with this Idea.keep reading whatever you do keep reading.

some sources or ideas that were helpful to me:

• parables of Jesus
  
• the history of hell
  
• history before ur religion.
  
• the Christ myth theory (However I do believe he existed but it lowered my certainty) and how exodus never happened look for the exodus myth
  
• Commonsense atheism and proving the negative
  
• talk origin and talk design are also very good sources.
  
• read some books on cognitive sciences and psychology of religion , search for recommended atheism books. (understand what cognitive bias is)
  
• this is the phone line u're looking for
  
• read an introductory account on atheism this is one of the best books on atheism
  
• find a way to express u're doubts or else u'll go crazy (at least if u're anything like me) ,blog about it or write about it , talk to s1, ask others questions.
  
• listen to debates about religions.
  
• think about the fact that u finally could emancipate urself from this.
  
• learn a little more about other religions it helps A LOT .
  
• read books by Xbelievers like John Luftus or Dan barker
  
• read more I mean Way more on cosmology and physics. just search for top books on Cosmology
  
• read comparative books like Karen Armstrong books and read the evolution of god
  
• read Religion Explained
  
  

  keep fear away and ...good luck !

Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion will be a good one to start with.

Maybe he would benefit from reading "A Manual for Creating Atheists"? The procedure described there is non-confrontational.

/r/streetepistemology

And BTW, your Amazon link can be reduced to https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00LKBT0MC

I expected someone to have put this up already The Moral Landscape

It's a really interesting read that, IMO successfully, debunks Hume's is/ought distinction and Gould's non overlapping magisterium idea. It also makes a good case for an objective morality and argues against moral relativism.

This is a HUGE , HUGE, concept to talk about and neither of us are going to get to far on it in this thread.

Sam Harris' excellent book "The moral landscape" does a wonderful job of laying out the foundations of human morality without a supernatural bent: (http://www.amazon.com/The-Moral-Landscape-Science-Determine/dp/B006W3YQTK/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1335301465&sr=1-1)

>That doesn't seem right. Why do we then cause suffering for conscious creatures and call it moral? For example, the imprisonment of criminals. That causes suffering to them. Actually we would say it is immoral not to imprison them

It is true that sometime the most moral actions require suffering of others. (Self defense is but one example.) Actually in Harris' book, he also takes on seemingly problematic topics like sado-maschosism. (People deriving personal pleasure from hurting others.) At first glance, it seems as if someone who doesn't believe in god could NOT say "It is objectively wrong to do this."

However, harris lays out a wonderful case of why that isn't true, and he does a MUCH better job than I ever can here. Actually, for a great example of a debate on this matter, there is a 10 part youtube debate with Christian apologist William lane Craig and Yale philosophy professor Shelly Kagan:

(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vqZ5azg8mlg)

I HIGHLY, HIGHLY recommend watching this debate as both men are very skilled in their respective positions and both sides are laid out beautifully.

It is called "Is god necessary for morality?"

The fact that people get their moral feelings from the culture in which they're raise does not imply that all cultures have the best possible moral code. Just the opposite, human moral codes have often been based on ignorance, superstition, a natural inclination to distrust those who are different, and indoctrination at the hands of the rich and powerful.

Despite this, humans do have natural evolutionary feelings of empathy and compassion which were and are necessary for our species to cooperate and persist. We are a communal species and we survive by working together and by caring both for our young and for one another. You can see the same thing in any herd animal species. We've learned to see a wide range of emotions and empathetic reactions in animals which 50 years ago most people would have considered preposterous because they were "just animals".

The great thing about humans is that with the advance of scientific knowledge we can learn that under our skin we are all the same. We can build on our collective knowledge and improve our philosophy of ethics and morality because we are learning creatures and not simply base, instinctual creatures with no capacity for higher thought.

Here are some other people's ideas on the matter.
Sam Harris
This is a lecture about his new book, which you can get on Amazon for about $3.50. If you're really interested, I think $3-$6 is a pretty cheap price for a book on the subject by a renowned and respected mind.
Here's the link to his lecture about the book.
Science Can Answer Moral Questions

Here's a discussion between Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins titled, Who Says Science has Nothing to Say About Morality?

Here's a wiki page about secular ethics.



It's very, very interesting stuff and there's always more to learn.

Sam Harris thinks so. I tend to agree with him keeping in mind that any objective measure is going to be quite fuzzy.

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.

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 :)

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

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."

How about this.

Don't forget Sam Harris' ideas on morality, which actually helped shape Dawkins' beliefs (see his review of Harris' book on Amazon).

A bit longer, but all are solid suggestions, and although I could add two dozen more, I'm sure others will take up the cause.

• What the dog saw, by Malcolm Gladwell
  
  
• Bad Science, by Ben Goldacre
  
  
• 
  God is Not Great, by Christopher Hitchens
  
  
• The Moral Landscape, by Sam Harris
  
  
• The Shock Doctrine, by Naomi Klein
  
  
• Super Freakonomics, by Levitt & Dubner
  
  
• The Omnivore's Dilemma, by Michael Pollan
  
  
• The Case for Mars, by Robert Zubrin
  
  
• The Value of Nothing, by Raj Patel
  
  
  

No ... Read The Moral Landscape by Harris. It might not convince you to side with Harris, but it will certainly make you think.

>Since there is no objective morality without god

That's what Christians say. Mind you, many things they say turn out to be bullshit.

Your sense of morality arrives from what your parents taught, from your own experiences in school, with your friends, etc.


Sam Harris wrote a good book about that.

For more on this, I suggest reading his book: The Moral Landscape

NukeThePope often suggests this book:

https://nukeexcathedra.jottit.com/2011-03-09%3A_book_review%3A_sense_%26_goodness_without_god

Not exactly 'how to be successful' but it is about morality

some other suggestions:

http://www.amazon.com/Moral-Landscape-Science-Determine-Values/dp/1439171211?tag=dudugo-20

http://www.amazon.com/Practical-Ethics-Peter-Singer/dp/0521707684/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1315260344&sr=8-2


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

(not about morality, but it will help you to avoid being gullible, which would help with the success thing)

Another FYI:

This is the book he was referring to:

The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values

Because the book mentioned relates to the topic being discussed by technothrasher and ojfrown. It is not uncommon for one person on Reddit to recommend a book he himself, or herself, has found relevant to a topic being discussed and feels the other person might find interesting as well.

Since you appear to think Sam Harris is just "some random guy", I'll add a little biographical material:

>Sam Harris is the author of the New York Times bestsellers, The End of Faith, Letter to a Christian Nation, and The Moral Landscape. The End of Faith won the 2005 PEN Award for Nonfiction.
>
>Mr. Harris' writing has been published in over fifteen languages. He and his work have been discussed in Newsweek, TIME, The New York Times, Scientific American, Nature, Rolling Stone, and many other journals. His writing has appeared in Newsweek, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Economist, The Times (London), The Boston Globe, The Atlantic, The Annals of Neurology, and elsewhere.
>
>Mr. Harris is a Co-Founder and CEO of Project Reason, a nonprofit foundation devoted to spreading scientific knowledge and secular values in society. He received a degree in philosophy from Stanford University and a Ph.D. in neuroscience from UCLA.

Should you wish to learn more about the book, see The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values.

Some people are willing to read the works of authors who might have opinions that differ from their own.

Here

Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World

Bullshit Jobs: A Theory

The Moral Landscape

Team Human

ding ding ding we have a winner!

and this is my entire point!

Religious people love to say that without religion objective morality cannot possibly exist. But this is the opposite of what the word objective means. Objective means:

>(of a person or their judgment) not influenced by personal feelings or opinions in considering and representing facts.
"historians try to be objective and impartial"
synonyms: impartial, unbiased, unprejudiced, nonpartisan, disinterested, neutral, uninvolved, even-handed, equitable, fair, fair-minded, just, open-minded, dispassionate, detached, neutral .

see that word FACT? that means something that can be seen verified studied analyzed quantified etc etc etc etc

The whim of a supernatural entity can never be " objective". Only observable reality is objective.

You ask if i think people can never be wrong... well of course they can! Given that I believe that no God has ever given moral instructions to humans i see ALL moralities as made by man. Some of them are wrong. Plainly and unequivocally, because they lead to pain and destruction for humans and their society.

here is in my opinion, an excellent book on this subject
which shows how we can arrive toa a truly Objective ( ie -fact based) sense of justice and morality.

You may be interested in reading Sam Harris' The Moral Landscape. He takes the position that scientific inquiry can identify and evaluate moral systems, using human well-being as the metric for measurement.

Many professional philosophers have criticized his work, and there are many others who disagree with him, but you may find the book to be very relevant to your inquiry.

I wouldn't be writing this sentence if it weren't for the intervention of modern healthcare at several specific moments in my life. Yammer on all you like about the virtues of the noble savage over the horrors of science and civilization... I prefer to have a heartbeat ;)

Only a stunning level of insulated privilege can produce the idea that a life defined by preventable disease, parasites, infant and child mortality, famine, drought, and the ever-present threat of disability, disfigurement, and death is preferable to the luxury of having our basic needs so adequately met that we can afford an afternoon of philosophical discussion on the internet. Or... from a quick glance at your profile, every afternoon.

I fully support the idea of questioning where we should try and evolve our civilization from here, and how to best get there, but not if the only purpose is to shit on the idea of progress altogether and resort instead to vague claims that there is no way to rationalize that some states of existence could be preferable to others. If you really believe that's the case, I'd be very curious to hear your thoughts about the line of argumentation outlined here. Otherwise your contribution here is just run-of-the-mill /r/im14andthisisdeep

Read The Moral Landscape.

Second, read this.

Third, read this.

I imagine that when you were a kid you were able to base your beliefs on the authority of your parents or minister. Now that you are older and able to think critically, you see that they aren't actually in a position to speak authoritatively on that issue.

If you want to believe in God now, it will have to be on different grounds. You will have to find a rationale that you can intellectually accept. There are logical arguments for the existence of God. If this is the sort of thing that you are interested in you might look into getting The Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology. It provides in-depth treatments by well-know philosophers of the arguments for the existence of God based on nature and reason.

Try the First Way. Or if you prefer, user hammiesink wrote a good explication. He also wrote a series of posts on the subject in this community. Here is the denouement, with links to the prior posts.

If you're really interested in this subject, the Blackwell Companion is an indispensable resource.

Have you read and refuted all the arguments in, say, [The Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology] (https://www.amazon.com/Blackwell-Companion-Natural-Theology/dp/1444350854)?

And are you really saying that if something cannot be seen then it does not exist?

Overview of the Week's Blog Posts

>Skepticism about free will has become ever more prominent. If one browses the popular science section of any large bookshop or flicks through recent popular science magazines, one is likely to come across some books or articles arguing that free will is an illusion: a left-over from an outmoded, pre-scientific way of thinking that has no place in modern science. The authors typically cite some influential neuroscientific studies that appear to undermine the idea of free will by showing that human actions are caused not by our intentional mental states, but by physical processes in the brain and body. More broadly, if everything in the universe is governed by the laws of physics, and our actions are part of that universe, then how could those actions be free? This line of reasoning, in turn, puts pressure on our traditional notions of responsibility. How could it make sense to hold anyone responsible for their actions if those actions weren’t done out of this person’s own free will?
>
>Such skepticism about free will is not yet the mainstream view among the general public. Nor is it the mainstream view among academic philosophers, the majority of whom are “free-will compatibilists”: proponents of the thesis that free will – perhaps after some definitional tweaking – is compatible with a law-governed, even deterministic universe. But free-will skepticism is on the rise, as illustrated by Sam Harris’s best-selling book, Free Will (2012). Many free-will skeptics have a noble moral motive, alongside their scientific motivation: they find the present criminal justice systems in many countries unjust and wish to argue for criminal justice reform. But one can certainly agree on the need for an overhaul of our criminal justice systems and advocate a more rehabilitative and less retributivist approach, while still thinking that it is a philosophical mistake to throw the notion of free will out of the window. Moreover, the idea of free will is central to our human self-understanding as agents, independently of its relevance to criminal justice. How, for instance, could we genuinely deliberate about which course of action to take – say, when we choose a job, a partner, or a political cause we wish to endorse – if we didn’t take ourselves to be free in making this choice?
>
>In my book, Why Free Will is Real (Harvard University Press, 2019), I offer a new defence of free will against the growing skepticism. Crucially, I do not proceed by denying science or watering down the definition of free will. Rather, my aim is to show that if we understand the lessons of a scientific worldview correctly, the idea of free will – in a fairly robust sense – is not just consistent with such a worldview but supported by it. In short, I argue that there is a naturalistic case for free will.
>
>In this series of blog posts, I will first describe what I take to be the main challenges for free will from a scientifically informed perspective and then explain what my strategy is for answering those challenges. And I will illustrate this strategy by zooming in on the most widely discussed challenge, namely the challenge from determinism. Of course, I will only be able to sketch some key ideas relatively informally; more detailed and precise arguments can be found in the book itself, as well as in some of my earlier articles (available on my webpage).

The Rest of the Blog Post(s)

Use the link from the OP to find the rest of the blog post summarized above as well as the remaining blog posts from Christian List throughout the week.

The Podcast Version

You can listen to Christian List discuss their book Why Free Will Is Real on the New Books in Philosophy podcast here: https://newbooksnetwork.com/christian-list-why-free-will-is-real-harvard-up-2019/

If you enjoy those kind of conversations, this might be the best $5.25 you'll ever spend.

There is a great argument for the scientifically based idea that we do not have free will. Mark Balaguer and Sam Harris both have books that discuss this from a neurological stand point. Very good reading.

Sam Harris: Free Will

Mark Balaguer: Free Will

As promised here's a short list of sources. If you need/would like more, let me know!

First off is Sam Harris - he's a well-respect author on the subject, possessing a degree in Philosophy and a Ph.D in Neuroscience:

Book link

Youtube video of him speaking on the subject

Next is an article from Scientific American.

Jerry Coyne

That last article links to a few more articles with similar conclusions!

Enjoy!!

>free will by definition requires the possibility of choosing the wrong thing or making a bad choice. and those people who always choose good of their own free will, they exist, but they all live in heaven.

There are many things that human beings cannot do. We cannot fly unassisted or travel faster than the speed of light. However, we are never tempted to say that this restrictions on our ability somehow infringe upon our free will. Even though our possible actions are restricted by a set of parameters, we are still free within those parameters - free will does not require infinite choice.

Given this, it is logically possible that God could have created beings that such that they would always freely choose the good. That is, that these beings would have only innocent inclinations - what Kant called holy will.

>if he interfered then he has compromised our freedom to choose the wrong thing and thus we would not have free will.

Why does having free will necessarily require the ability to harm others? Couldn't God, being omnipotent, have created a world in which people who chose evil harmed only themselves through their actions, and not been able to cause innocents to suffer. I fail to see how this would in any way impinge on those agents' free will.

Clearly, this is not the world we live in. We live in a world in which those who choose evil can inflict harm on others, which seems to suggest that either God does not have the capacity to do this (in which case he is not omnipotent) or does not have the inclination to (in which case he is not omnibenevolent).

>if we choose to live in the material world, suffering and death are unavoidable. it is our choice to live in this world that is the bad choice we have made.

In what way do we choose to live in this world? I'm sorry, but this seems utterly nonsensical to me. We are simply born into the material world; there is no choice involved.

>if you choose to jump off a building, is gravity responsible for your injuries?

Of course not. In that case it is your choice that caused the suffering. However, there are plenty of cases where the free choice of moral agents is in no way responsible for the suffering caused. This is the definition of natural evil.

For example, in the aftermath of the September 11th attacks, rescue efforts were hampered by rain. If not for that rain, it is surely possible that a few more people might have been pulled from the wreckage. Even assuming that the WTC attacks happened because of the perpetrators exercising their free will, there's no reason for God to have made the situation worse by hampering rescue efforts. Surely God could have simply not sent this rain, or made it not rain, without infringing on anyone's free will.

>wasn't sure of your exact argument for libertarian free will so haven't replied to that.

I certainly don't have an argument for libertarian free will. I do have an argument against it, but it's not really something I can sum up in a short reddit post. If you're interested, I'd encourage you to read Sam Harris' excellent book Free Will. As I said in my first post, the free will defense does require libertarian free will and that's not something I think exists, so for me the argument really does stop there.

Yes, I agree and advances in Neuroscience point to that conclusion as well. I admit though, determinism was/is a hard pill for me to swallow. The philosphical debate over the concept (or illusion) of free will is an interesting topic to me, and one that I am still not sure about.

If you are more interested in the topic I would recommend the Sam Harris' short new book called Free Will, or you can check out this video lecture where he basically paraphrases it (I originally found it on /r/Documentaries) . He spends a lot of time discussing how the deterministic conclusion is inevitable, and then goes on to argue why this doesn't strip all meaning from our lives (determinism vs fatalism).

Consciousness is...tricky. From what I've studied, all we are really confident in saying about it now is that it's entirely dependent on the brain. If you change the brain, it directly effects consciousness. How consciousness, a non-physical entity, can arise from exclusively physical attributes is still under discussion. What Dennett is offering in the video is a re-characterization of the entire discussion. People seem to be looking for a "real" magic trick to explain consciousness. Dennett is making the case that just as there really is no "real" magic, there's only illusions to make you believe there's magic, that there's no "real" magic to consciousness. It's an illusion, in a non-deceptive sense. Consciousness is what happens when the extremely complex systems in your brain interact in the way they do.

If you want some books to read about the mind and brain, check out Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman (NY Times Bestseller List 2011) and Connectome by Sebastian Seung. Kaheman will change the way you think about the way you think. He outlines the to "systems" that operated the way you think, and then outlines the biases he's discovered that causes the way you think to be wrong. Connectome outlines the processes of the brain and how the brain is wired to give a somewhat speculative look into Connectome science (mapping all the neurons in the brain and their connections to eachother) and makes claims that once we do this we will better understand the brain and consciousness because the physical structure of the brain is hypothesized to matter a great deal.

As a moderately related point to consciousness, you may want to ask that if consciousness is dependent on the brain, what does that mean for free-will. You should check out Free Will by Sam Harris. It's extremly short--more of an essay. Then look at what Dennett says about free-will. They very strongly disagree, and Sam has said that he hopes to sit down with Dennett and discuss it. When that happens it will be really interesting, and worth having at least a small background on the issue.

i would recommend free will by sam harris, which is brief and unusually lucid for a work of philosophy - you could read this in an afternoon. his take is that free will as it is commonly conceived is an illusion, and that we need to come to terms with how free our will is not in order to become effective decision-makers.

freedom evolves by dan dennett is more technical and dense, but tries to make a compatibilist case that, though our actions are physically determined, we still have freedom in a meaningful way; i.e. the kind you are talking about.

reading about free will will surely blow your mind, even if it doesn't change your mind :)

Sam Harris (neuroscientist) wrote a book titled "free will" on it.

I'd recommend giving this video of his a watch.

I think people have the hardest time coming to terms with the idea that we may just be on this human ride without any real control.

i'm not asserting anything as fact. just looking for another view.

I am a psychonaut AND a hard determinist.

In my experience, most of the emotional upset we seem to encounter when thinking about determinism is that we feel powerless, as if all power resided in choice. Yet, merely being alive as a human, with human capacities and human capabilities is awesome power already!! It is true that you may never become an Einstein, owing to your environmental and biological history, but you will also likely never become a Hitler.

More to the point, the illusion of choice is persistent-- indeed we probably evolved that apprehension as some sort of psychological stress-release mechanism simultaneously with our abilities of higher thinking and reflection. If you like, you can pretend that you have choice, knowing that what you actually "choose" will quite likely not bring you into a terribly atrocious place, relative to other humans, provided that you are already fairly mentally sound and sufficiently ethical.

I recommend Sam Harris's very short book on Free Will as a basic introduction to determinism, including why a lack of free will does not remove our ability to hold persons responsible for their actions, from a harm-reduction perspective, even though it is entirely senseless to judge their soul or spirit in any moralistic sense thereby.

He is most famous for his work on the philosophy of free will. I don't think he is that great of a philosopher but he defiantly is one.

Free will may not be as "free" as we once thought it was. For example, there is a major correlation with rates of violence dropping with the reduction of lead usage. Lead makes people more violent regardless of their "free will". There is also an essay written by neuroscientist Sam Harris called Free Will where he talks about this same subject stating that something as simple as what you are for breakfast can have an impact on your "free will" that day. So like I said, free will isn't as free as we think it is maybe.

I would recommend reading "Free Will" by Sam Harris. Really fascinating stuff, completely changed how I think about a lot of things. It's a pretty quick read, and he keeps it relatively easy to understand.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1451683405

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.

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

When I say "because" I'm not talking about the constitutional basis for the law, I'm talking about something much more basic that led us to the conclusion that humans should have rights at all. "Rights" are a human-created concept. This isn't to say they're wrong – we've had a few good ideas in our time and this was one of them. But even so, they didn't exist until we invented them.

So why did we invent the particular rights that we did, like the right to be free from slavery, to be treated equally under the law, and to not be murdered? Obviously I wasn't around during the Enlightenment so I can't say for sure, but I'm guessing it was because on some level, the people who came up with these concepts thought that a world when everyone had these rights would make the world a better place for everyone. They were also implicitly making the judgement that to disregard these rights would make the world worse and would be immoral.

It bothers me when we say that we shouldn't legislate morality, because we're basically saying that morals are a domain that belongs only to religion. I think that this is a bad thing, because most religions make a terrible basis for morals. I've been reading The Moral Landscape these past few days, and while it's not exactly light reading I'd highly recommend it if you're interesting in non-religon-based morality. There's also his TED talk on the same subject which is shorter and more accessible than the book.

Thanks for the reply. If you liked that essay, you may find Sam Harris's The Moral Landscape interesting. Also, the author of the essay has a number of other writings(on diverse topics) available on his homepage: http://www.uwgb.edu/dutchs/

Yes, I don't believe however that moral-good is any sort of divine or supernatural concept, but merely a set of constructs by which we can minimize human suffering and maximize happiness.

What do you think?

Edit: The Moral Landscape by Sam Harris describes pretty much what I am describing but in much greater detail and clarity.

http://www.amazon.com/Moral-Landscape-Science-Determine-Values/dp/1439171211

Your next mission fellow baby eater is to read these 2 books.

The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values

God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything

Read The Moral Landscape by Sam Harris. His basic thesis is that there are scientific methods that can determine what is positive or negative for society, and that reason should determine how to view actions that are traditionally vague or "relative" because of religion, tolerance for other cultures, etc. instead of saying, "oh, well those people are different than I am, and no matter their opinion they have a right to live their life as they choose". A moral relativist might say that stoning a woman for adultery in a different culture, although they might disagree, shouldn't be condemned because it's a part of their society and not ours.

*edited, we are actually discussing "moral relativism", rather than "cultural relativism" - cultural relativism is a more positive anthropological methodology that says basically "my art/food/music isn't better than yours"

I am not really qualified to represent a scientific explanation of altruism. However, I have read books and some research done. We take care of disabled people because humans have evolved empathy and sympathy. This fits into our evolution as a social species. Our species was stronger with these traits and it benefited our over all survival, or it probably would have evolved away. Sure a blind man may not be useful for physical jobs and required care and attention, however they tend to have usefulness anyways in some cases. Blind people can still teach for example. Evolution doesn't have anything that contradicts taking care of cripples or people who would seem to put a disadvantage to our resources.

The moral landscape goes into good lengths to apply science to moral values.

>I have to imagine you're angry that I have equated your moral realism to christian fundamentalism, but as I keep pointing out, there is a reason for that.

I'm not angry about that. I'm angry I wasted so much time on you. You espouse nothing but poor reasoning. You're an apologist. You've chosen that position and it's an ugly one.

>The only reason you think it is universally wrong is because you believe in your morals blindly—with FAITH.

My morals are quite measured and I do not follow them blindly, with faith. I quoted this because this is all you do. You make stupid and baseless attacks because you have no defense.

>Of course, but that doesn't make those commonalities universally necessary, and certainly not universally moral.

You don't get it. I'm done. I'll leave you with this, because I don't think I've talked to someone who needs to read it more than you:

http://www.amazon.com/Moral-Landscape-Science-Determine-Values/dp/1439171211

Currently reading The Moral Landscape by Sam Harris.

Very good read so far, although it's mostly focused on morality and not so much God. Definitely a thumbs up and recommended though.

You might want to have a look at Sam Harris' new book : http://www.amazon.com/Moral-Landscape-Science-Determine-Values/dp/1439171211

I have not read it nor had I read anything by Sam Harris, but I have heard good things about the book and will likely read it in the future. It seems to in line with the topic at hand.

Edit : On the prisoner's dilemma. You might want to read up on evolutionary stable strategies : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionarily_stable_strategy

An ESS is more or less the prisoner's dilemma expanded to explain behaviours within a population.

Ah man, good luck. Let me see if I can add anything... probably already been said.

1. He doesn't "reject" your belief so much as not accept it (just as you don't accept Islam). Some amount of reasonable evidence (to him) has convinced him that Christianity is false. This happens quite a bit and is becoming more common as people become more educated and have less trouble feeding themselves. People don't need a God if they're already comfortable, religion is comfort. I could provide numerous skeptical lists that show Christianity to be false, but that won't help you do anything if you aren't looking to change your mind. Approach it like this: do you need proof that Thor doesn't exist? Having a list of proofs of the non-existence of Thor will not help you reason with someone who doesn't believe in Thor. My main reason for being atheist isn't evidence against god, but lack of evidence for a Specifically-Christian god. Nothing in the Bible is believable to me and many parts of Christian theology completely clash with my moral compass. Devout Christians usually have a block that prevents them from thinking about the parts that are icky; he apparently lost his block.
   
   
2. This sounds like typical teenagery stuff combined with a new antitheist mindset. Like anything new, it becomes very important until the charm/novelty wears off. I'd say it's normal as long as he's not looking at bombs and stuff. A lot of antitheists are mad at the religious organizations more than the belief structure. You can try to guide it towards more reasonable outlets of antitheism. Like, since he hates religious hypocrisy, try to find a secular charity (Habitat for Humanity or something) and get him involved in activities that prove he's not a hypocrite like the religious people he despises. It will help develop social networking skills that he'll miss out on if he doesn't have any extra curricular social activities like church.
   
   
3. I would give up on trying to convince him of absolute moral truths and instead approach it from a position of logic and reason. If he's really turned his back on your religion, you really don't have a moral framework to approach him from; the Bible is moot, he'll pretty much have to rely on the conscience you've hopefully instilled in him as a decent parent. Morality is usually ingrained by this age, so you're probably safe from him becoming a psychopath. As an atheist I abhor drugs because they severely limit one's ability to maintain a rational mind and this is contrary to the things I hold dear: intelligence, reason, etc; but many atheists are nihilists and view drugs as beneficial. This is going to come down to peer-groups and his moral. It's hard to break conditioning. He's a boy, you shouldn't have to worry about abortion too much, but you're going to have almost no common ground on this topic. There is no reason to not have sex before marriage outside of unexpected pregnancy, STDs, and emotional scarring; you kind of have to work with that. Teach him caution and self-protection. Abstinence does have it's physical and mental benefits, but good luck convincing a teenage boy of that. Look up things on social contract. He's a teenager, he'd like the books of Sam Harris because they're just controversial enough to be edgy, but he argues for secular objective morality.
   
   Basically, like all teenagers, you're just in a holding pattern until he gets into his mid 20s and becomes the man he probably would have regardless of belief structure. Give him structure, maybe stop spying on him, let him know you're there to help him and that you love him even if he's going to hell.
   
   If he's a reader:
   http://www.amazon.com/Moral-Landscape-Science-Determine-Values/dp/143917122X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1394670215&sr=1-1&keywords=Moral+Landscape
   
   http://www.amazon.com/The-Moral-Animal-Evolutionary-Psychology/dp/0679763996/ref=cm_lmf_tit_1
   

Read The Moral Landscape by Sam Harris

Watch The Superiority of Secular Morality by Matt Dillahunty.

Neurology disproves the western notions of the self, so there isnt any object to even HAVE liberty/freedom. Something wholly fictional isnt a useful first principle.

I believe you may be interested in Sam Harris' The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values. There is a brief Q&A if you scroll down.

His first principle is the well being of sentient beings. The methodology is science. Right up your alley.

It all depends on the goal. If OP wants to send a message, then choosing The God Delusion or God Is Not Great would certainly send that message. If OP wants a book that's a good read, both are still good choices, but now there're other books that are equally good choices.

The Little Book of Atheist Spirituality, The Portable Atheist, On Bullshit, On Truth, The Good Book: A Humanist Bible, The Moral Landscape, The Demon Haunted World, Religion and Science, and many others are excellent reads, but don't send that little (possibly unnecessary) jab.

If you get the chance, read "The Moral Landscape" by Sam Harris, talks about science and morals

http://www.amazon.com/Moral-Landscape-Science-Determine-Values/dp/143917122X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1324583856&sr=1-1

Read The Moral Landscape and it will answer that for you.

I would read Sam Harris' book The Moral Landscape or watch Matt Dillahunty's lecture The Superiority of Secular Morality.

Their stuff sums up pretty well where I stand. Basically, I am a moral objectivist.

Sam Harris wrote a whole book on the subject of secular morality.

also read his book

The Moral Landscape

/u/Jayk is correct here because of this. Sam Harris tried to address this problem in "The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values", but he didn't really overcome the problem. Others have tried as well, but it still comes back to science being unable to actually determining anything other than how to achieve a goal, rather than opposed to which goals to achieve in the first place.

Idk about all that god talk, though...

Says who?

https://www.amazon.com/Moral-Landscape-Science-Determine-Values/dp/143917122X

You should really give this book a read:

https://www.amazon.com/Moral-Landscape-Science-Determine-Values/dp/143917122X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1499307509&sr=8-1&keywords=sam+harris+the+moral+landscape

What on Earth are you talking about? This isn't about being stoned (which I don't do anyway). It's about being well educated about evolutionary biology and pointing out that your assertion that humans will be like this forever is inaccurate.

What is so difficult to grasp about that simple point?

Further, as I've also pointed out multiple times, understanding the neurobiological reality of the human mind right now has important implications for how we treat our fellow human beings right now in relation to society, the justice system, etc.

That is very real and very much right now.

I'm not sure how to make myself any more clear.

If you're not smart enough and/or educated enough to grasp modern neurobiology and neuropsychology, on top of my explanations that should be explaining clearly enough the ramifications of those modern day objective realities... that's your shortcoming my friend, not mine.

I can suggest a couple books to help you get a better grasp on this subject... two very approachable and enlightening books I can recommend are "The Moral Landscape - How Science can determine human values" by Sam Harris (a doctorate of cognitive neuroscience) and "Braintrust - What neuroscience tells us about morality" by Patricia Churchland

Is there some other way I can get you to grasp that these are contemporary issues of objective scientific understanding of our own minds right now and how they function right now and how that relates to what we believe, how we relate to each other, how our societies function etc right now?

I understand that you feel the chronospecies issue doesn't have any real bearing on issues right now. I've agreed with you on that in every comment I've written. But that doesn't change the validity of everything else I've said, and for some reason you just seem postively obtuse on that point.

I'm seriously not trying to fight with you, so I'm not sure what has you so upset and so stubbornly resistant to grasping the simple objective realities I'm pointing out, which include some that are very much relevant to right now in our modern society.

Sure.

NGT:

>“Up until early 20th century philosophers had material contributions to make to the physical sciences. Pretty much after quantum mechanics, remember the philosopher is the would be scientist but without a laboratory, right? And so what happens is, the 1920s come in, we learn about the expanding universe in the same decade as we learn about quantum physics, each of which falls so far out of what you can deduce from your armchair that the whole community of philosophers that previously had added materially to the thinking of the physical scientists was rendered essentially obsolete, and that point, and I have yet to see a contribution — this will get me in trouble with all manner of philosophers — but call me later and correct me if you think I’ve missed somebody here. But, philosophy has basically parted ways from the frontier of the physical sciences, when there was a day when they were one and the same. Isaac Newton was a natural philosopher, the word physicist didn’t even exist in any important way back then. So, I’m disappointed because there is a lot of brainpower there, that might have otherwise contributed mightily, but today simply does not. It’s not that there can’t be other philosophical subjects, there is religious philosophy, and ethical philosophy, and political philosophy, plenty of stuff for the philosophers to do, but the frontier of the physical sciences does not appear to be among them.”

Harris: "The Moral Landscape: How Science Determines Moral Values".

Dawkins: Tweet here.

Science can also be used to understand our moral compass.

Recommended book: The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values

The first two are trivial but the last one is not, and I don't suggest you try and deploy evolution as the principle defense of your morality, as that approach tends to be insufficiently rigorous (although it's true that morality evolved, that doesn't mean any particular action is 'good', for instance), especially if you aren't well read on the subject. This approach can be unpersuasive, and if you end up in a debate with someone well versed in moral moral philosophy, you might find yourself very quickly disarmed.

Instead, here is a book I highly, highly recommend.

You must have heard of Sam Harris by now, but if you haven't, check him out online. There are several of his debates and talks (moral landscape, free will, comparative religion, link between belief and behavior, spirituality) up and I think you'll find it interestingly difficult to disagree with him.

I mean... what you claimed is analogous to:

1. Favorite colors are subjective
   
2. There are no favorite colors.
   
   > Please go ahead and link me to the literature claiming that objective morality exists.
   
   Have you heard of Kant? The vast majority of moral philosophy since Kant is positivist. Consequentialism, utilitarianism, realism, cognitivism, humanism, etc.
   
   

• Kant http://strangebeautiful.com/other-texts/kant-prolegomena-cambridge.pdf
  
  
• Nagel https://books.google.com/books/about/What_Does_It_All_Mean_A_Very_Short_Intro.html?id=Nz_XMrjBQEUC
  
  
• Harris https://www.amazon.com/Moral-Landscape-Science-Determine-Values/dp/143917122X
  
  
• Aristotle https://www.google.com/aclk?sa=l&ai=DChcSEwi15MyouJ3lAhUReIYKHegkBy0YABADGgJ2dQ&sig=AOD64_21788sEwZMxKR6XQV75vb2z30EeA&ctype=5&q=&ved=0ahUKEwjVyMOouJ3lAhXnwVkKHfmUCPoQwg8IPw&adurl=
  
  
• Plato https://www.google.com/aclk?sa=L&ai=DChcSEwilgKC6uJ3lAhUZh4YKHYblBf4YABAEGgJ2dQ&sig=AOD64_3YfFiJI7vTwB33w_dRIJD3gqWUDw&ctype=5&q=&ved=0ahUKEwi1ipa6uJ3lAhUl01kKHe0pDs4Qwg8IOg&adurl=
  
  
• https://books.google.com/books/about/Critique_of_Pure_Reason.html?id=7bRychF0y0EC&printsec=frontcover&source=kp_read_button
  
  
• Kagan https://www.amazon.com/Limits-Morality-Oxford-Ethics/dp/0198239165
  
  
• Bentham https://www.google.com/aclk?sa=L&ai=DChcSEwjh7M3Mt53lAhWahVoFHb0wAKUYABABGgJ2dQ&sig=AOD64_3mWpjrlKMHHZMoM__CmFus8jO4xw&ctype=5&q=&ved=0ahUKEwjB5sXMt53lAhWpq1kKHQJaDPkQwg8IOA&adurl=
  
  
• Kierkegaard https://www.amazon.com/Either-Fragment-Life-Penguin-Classics/dp/0140445773
  
  
  > I refer you back to my last comment. An individual can believe that something is moral but not be obligated by it. I am certain that you are not obligated to do every single thing that you believe to be moral.
  
  Then you aren’t a moral agent right? And if you are a moral agent, then to be a rational actor you’d have to act rationally. To be a rational actor, are you obligated to act rationally?
  
  PS do you want me to write a summary of why moral realism is so prevalent so you don’t have to read them all? It’s super straightforward logically.

> How would you use science to learn anything about morality?

Here's two books, written roughly a century apart, that elaborate on how science can and why it should be used as the main approach to tackle moral issues :

• Scientific Humanism, Lothrop Stoddard, 1926
  
• The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values, Sam Harris, 2011
  
  While Stoddard and Harris may disagree on the implications of this position due to living in different time periods with a different scientific consensus, their overall concept of how science should inform morality (rather than eg. religious or ideological dogma) is fundamentally the same.
  
  For an introduction into Harris's perspective, see also this TED talk.
  
  > Science is best viewed as a subset of philosophy, dealing with the limited context of things as they are , rather than the far more expansive and interesting things as they might be.
  
  Science is the only reliable tool to determining the consequences of actions.
  
  I don't see any added value for philosophy or religion whatsoever, really.
  
  In my experience, all they add is blurriness & prejudice rather than clarity & reason.

Its not anger (unless I am the victim or a family/friend of the victim of one of these heinous crimes). Im merely discussing the death penalty with you. But you cant seem to detach yourself from personal attacks

https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/genetic


How is something that is created by humans any less legitimate than something natural? Murder is natural. Shall we embrace murder and shun justice systems because they are man made?

There is a case for objective morality too. I suggest this book. The author is quite famous and has a PhD in cognitive neuroscience from UCLA.

https://www.amazon.com/Moral-Landscape-Science-Determine-Values/dp/143917122X

> Sam Harris seeks to link morality to the rest of human knowledge. Defining morality in terms of human and animal well-being, Harris argues that science can do more than tell how we are; it can, in principle, tell us how we ought to be. In his view, moral relativism is simply false—and comes at an increasing cost to humanity. And the intrusions of religion into the sphere of human values can be finally repelled: for just as there is no such thing as Christian physics or Muslim algebra, there can be no Christian or Muslim morality. Using his expertise in philosophy and neuroscience, along with his experience on the front lines of our “culture wars,” Harris delivers a game-changing book about the future of science and about the real basis of human cooperation.

Morality and ethics have existed long before religion. Human interaction and being benevolent towards ones fellow tribe are how we survived in the first place. Morality is derived from evolution and human fulfillment can be measured within the brain. Therefore we can make claims that there are universal truths about actions that lead to more fulfillment or to more suffering.

> In my opinion it should be the goal of society not to discover objective moral truths, but to create the best possible framework upon which a moral system can be established.

This is where everything about this view breaks down. By what basis can you possibly call one framework better than another if there is no objective better and worse to begin with? It makes no sense.

If good is to mean anything, than it means an increase in the well-being of humans, or even more broadly to all conscious creatures. And there are near infinite ways to improve overall well-being, and near infinite ways to make it worse, and it's up to us with our limited understanding and instrumentation to try to make the most sense of it-- but to a much more scientifically advanced civilization wellbeing would be as quantifiable as apples in a barrel.

A book called The Moral Landscape builds an even stronger case against moral relativism. If you haven't read it, it's well worth picking up and if you have I'd be genuinely curious to hear how you can square that circle and keep your perspective.

I personally liked Sam Harris' book.

The Moral Landscape.

It deals more with morality rather than philosophy in general but yes I agree with you, philosophy won't be something that is simply going to just die.

Get yourself a moral compass with some secular moral science. https://www.amazon.com/Moral-Landscape-Science-Determine-Values/dp/143917122X

You'll be happier, I guarantee it.

See Sam Harris

Facts and evidence are a better guide than mythology and superstition.

Have a look at this book by Sam Harris where he argues "science can do more than tell how we are; it can, in principle, tell us how we ought to be. In his view, moral relativism is simply false—and comes at an increasing cost to humanity. And the intrusions of religion into the sphere of human values can be finally repelled: for just as there is no such thing as Christian physics or Muslim algebra, there can be no Christian or Muslim morality. Using his expertise in philosophy and neuroscience, along with his experience on the front lines of our “culture wars,” Harris delivers a game-changing book about the future of science and about the real basis of human cooperation."

>All subjective.

No, they're really not. The goal is subjective, but the method to achieve that goal is not.

If you call those subjective, you'd have to call medicine subjective. The goal of medicine is "good health" which is also subjective, but the methods we use to achieve it are quite clearly objective. Morality when framed this way is no different, except that we're still practically medieval when it comes to our practice of it because for too long people have been calling it subjective when in reality we can and should begin to make a clear objective structure around it.

A book I highly recommend reading on the topic is "The Moral Landscape" by Sam Harris.

These are four books and a lecture series that would certainly be good at getting you started, all of them are academic rigor level, so not something that you'll be able to flip through at the bus stop. They take a bit of time to digest.

• Evidence that Demands a Verdict- good summary of the reasons we have to think that Christianity is historically true.
  
  https://www.amazon.com/New-Evidence-That-Demands-Verdict/dp/0785242198
  
  
• Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology- Natural theology, the arguments from reason for why we have good reason to think that there is a God. Written by academic philosophers.
  
  https://www.amazon.com/Blackwell-Companion-Natural-Theology/dp/1444350854
  
  
• Philosophical Foundations of the Christian Worldview- Another excellent book providing a systematic narrative from the ground up.
  
  https://www.amazon.com/Philosophical-Foundations-Christian-Worldview-Moreland/dp/0830851879/ref=pd_lpo_sbs_14_img_0?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=6HXK5P412QMRNR2XB37B
  
  
• New Essays on Divine Hiddeness- If God is real, then why doesn't he just appear to me? This collection of essays from both atheists and Christians explores that argument and offers (what I think) are some pretty good responses.
  
  https://www.amazon.com/Divine-Hiddenness-Essays-Daniel-Howard-Snyder/dp/0521006104
  
  
• Faith and Reason Lectures by Peter Kreeft- Excellent lecture series by a philosopher who approaches the topic of religion from an introductory level and takes the time to examine the arguments for and against. A great place to start since it covers everything from a general perspective.
  
  https://www.amazon.com/Modern-Scholar-Reason-Philosophy-Religion/dp/B001JHT8DI

> So I gather. The only recent stuff I've read is Brian Greene's, but he seems to think there being a first moment of time isn't decisively supported by the data, and that there's good evidence for eternal inflation. This was a 2010 book. When was the Vilenkin talk?

The Vilenkin talk was in 2012. I'm about 98% sure he's since made a stronger statement, but I can't for the life of me find it lol. I haven't read Greene's book, so I can't say anything to it, but James Sinclair analyzes string models in his and Craig's essay on the Kalam in The Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology.

> I don't know. I don't know how controversial it is among scientists; all I have are (e.g.) the Wikipedia page, which is perfectly friendly to beginningless universes, and admits that a Big Bang singularity is impossible according to our well-supported physics.

I think you might find this article stimulating.

> It's also inconceivable that time have a sufficiently explained first moment, which is some evidence against it, if the normal pro-PSR considerations are evidence.

Well that's now to move past physics and into philosophy, particularly the intersection of phil of time and phil of religion. There are various ways theists attempt to hash out this perplexing issue. Craig himself grapples with this in his book on the Kalam, in the Blackwell essay, and in his book Time & Eternity. There is a solid Four Views book on this too. I think it must also be said that it is, at the very least, just as inconceivable that there is an infinite amount of time before this very moment than of time beginning.

> And there are many beginningless models; I'm not sure why we should think the disjunction of them has a probability below 0.5.

Yes, of course there are many beginningless models, but that's not to say they are the best-supported or even well-supported for that matter. In philosophy, for example, as I'm sure you're aware, there are dozens of models for the mind-body problem, but that alone doesn't thereby validate any of these models. From my understanding of the current state of the field, which, admittedly, is rather shallow, physicists pushing past-eternal models do so knowing that the current evidence we have is in favor of models with an absolute beginning of the universe. In other words, they are knowingly going against the grain of the evidence.

> In any case, the point of my original comment was to say that I don't know whether principles such as PSR apply to cosmogonic questions. I don't have any intuition in that direction, and it seems possible that PSR is a metaphysically contingent consequence of the physical laws we happened to arrive at, laws that themselves would be metaphysically contingent.

I suppose we just have different intuitions, and thus reach an impasse here lol. However, I'm not sure how PSR could be a metaphysical consequence of physical law. Could you explain that more (or differently)? I can understand it being contingent given it being birthed by contingent physical law, but I'm not sure how physical law can birth a metaphysical PSR. If it's a strictly physical principle, then why say there is a metaphysical PSR? Or am I misunderstanding you?

> But that's precisely what physicists do with physics itself: apply it to everything in the universe but toss it out when we get to the Big Bang singularity. And the beginning of the universe is radically different from everything else in the universe in interesting ways, for example (allegedly) that it's unbounded by time on one side.

Well you're conflating the KCA with the contingency argument. The KCA operates on a causal principle from beginnings ("everything that begins to exist has an efficient cause"), whereas contingency arguments operate on broader explanatory principles, typically focusing on contingent concrete particulars ("everything that exists (concretely) has an explanation for its existence"). With that said, physics only goes so far until we reach metaphysics, of course, and I'm not familiar with any relation between the PSR and cosmogony, let alone it being standard practice of physicists to throw it out completely. In fact, the entire project of cosmology seems completely founded on the PSR.

> But in my experience (I'm not an expert), those religion still (e.g.) anthropomorphize this creative agent or describe its act as will. And I certainly wouldn't want to call these views theistic either.

Well, they would, haha, but I suppose this is now just categorical. But would you consider the existence of a single, impersonal, immaterial, eternal, transcendent cause of the universe closer to theism or atheism? Where would you put this on the spectrum of conceptual schemes?

I don't know what you are asking. It sounds like you want A Compendium of Complete World Knowledge Compiled with Instructive Annotation and Arranged in Useful Order. http://www.amazon.com/Hodgman-Boxed-Set-John/dp/1594631352

More seriously, are you wanting an example of this in a particular topic? For example, you can read William Lane Craig's heady works on time, or the Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology. http://www.amazon.com/The-Blackwell-Companion-Natural-Theology/dp/1444350854

There isn't one book that does everything, obviously. There couldn't even be such a thing. And even if it could be done, by the time it was done, it'd be badly out of date.

I actually deconverted from Catholicism in college. I'm a revert.

I never got into into the party culture. I'm really against drinking and doing drugs, and I've always been skeptical of sex outside of a committed relationship and those morals stuck with me even after I deconverted from Christianity. What I did encounter was a lot of intellectual arguments against religion that I couldn't answer. However, what I also eventually discovered was that most of those objections had been heard before and responded to, at least in some manner.

So, here's my semi-comprehensive list of apologetics apologetics resources that I've accumulated over the years.

IMHO, the following books cover all the essentials very well and are probably must reads. You can buy used or online copies of them relatively cheaply, under 20 dollars if you're in the US. Check out Trent Horn's Answering Atheism, How the Catholic Church Built Western Civ, Mere Christianity by CS Lewis (you can probably get Mere Christianity at your at public library), and What is Marriage? Man and Woman a Defense for defending the concept of natural marriage. You should also read How to Argue which is a free pdf. I haven't researched abortion apologetics as extensively as other areas but I know Trent Horn has some books on those.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I'm not going to say you should read all of my remaining recommendations but I'm putting the rest out there for you so you know they exist.

Now, no list of apologtics is going to cover every argument about Christianity so I would also recommend some online resources. www.reddit.com/r/Catholicism is an amazing forum. It has tons of Catholics who are way more knowledgable and experienced that me who can answer questions and stuff. You may or may not have heard of it ;). I also recommend William Lane Craig's site: http://www.reasonablefaith.org/question-answer. Again, Craig is a protestant so don't look to him for a defense of Catholicism. However, he's good when it comes to defending the basics of Christianity from atheism. Catholic Answers is good. Fr Barron is good. Strange Notions can be good, I link to it in my last paragraph.

The exact relationship between faith and reason was my biggest stumbling block on the road back to Catholicism, so I have some good recommendations on that topic. I recommend the papal encycle Fides et Ratio and How the Catholic Church Built Western Civ. Plantinga's book Where the Conflict Really Lies is also popular and uses evolution to make an interesting argument against materialism. Plantinga's not a Catholic so I don't know how well they would square with Catholic philosophies like Thomism, but, yeah, he exists. He also wrote this giant essay on faith and science, which was helpful. The book God and the Philosophers is pretty good too, it's an anthology of different Christian philosophers and talks about how they converted to Christianity.

Some comprehensive (but expensive) books by non-Catholics include The Blackwell Companion to natural theology by William Lane Craig (not a Catholic). I've heard good things about Richard Swinburne's apologetics trilogy The Coherence of Theism, The Existence of God, and Faith and Reason. Swinburne is Eastern Orthodox, just for the record.

I want to give a special shoutout to Edward Fesser. He's a secular atheist philosopher who converted to Catholicism. You can read his conversion story here. He also has a blog that you can google. Fesser also wrote a bunch of books that are highly recommended by people on this sub, although I haven't read them.

One last comment but I want to share this with you. You already have a lot to read so definitely don't start out with this. This book, assembled by the heavyweights in the philosophy of religion, is basically the gold standard for apologetics.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Blackwell-Companion-Natural-Theology/dp/1444350854

Just want to show you how the professionals think and write. After you've read through the other suggestions, maybe you can get your hands on it through interlibrary loan or on Kindle.

Lastly, the first commentator on Amazon had some great things to say that are also relevant:

>This is a fantastic book. But is it the "greatest defense of theism" ever assembled? No. Why? Because it is (in general) not defensive; rather, this would fall under the category of "offensive" apologetics. In general, this book attempts to prove God through Kalam, ontological, etc. But to say that this is a defense of theism simply shows the other reviewer's misunderstanding of philosophy. A defense of theism is when atheists attempt, through logic, to disprove God, and the theist "defends" theism by showing that the atheist's proofs are false (this is where theism is at its strongest). Disproving an argument FOR God does not disprove God. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

>And when a reviewer writes that they will be "dismantling" the arguments shown here, simply disregard this. The philosophers and theologians who write essays in this book are top notch; atheist philosophers have a hard enough time trying to rebut them, and a 3rd year civil engineer student is attempting to? He is simply preaching to the choir (ironically, an atheist choir). I have witnessed quite a few layman try to disprove the Kalam, or the Modal, etc., only to use faulty logic or completely misunderstand the arguments. Christopher Hitchens admitted to being beat by William Lane Craig in a debate, and renowned atheist philosopher Walter Sinnot-Armstrong admitted to the coherency of theism during another Craig debate, and yet the average layman believes he has a chance??? Go look on Reasonablefaith.org to read all the poor attempts at outsmarting Craig.

>My main point is this: Do not obsess. I went through a time when I was rampantly reading apologetics, and then I would turn around to read atheistic literature. I did this because I was constantly in a state of, "But what if Craig/Plantinga/Moreland/etc. is wrong?? Look at all the atheists today! Surely they can't ALL be wrong!" This line of thinking is natural, though can be very detrimental. Even the great Socrates recognizes the problem here: "I am the wisest man alive, for I know one thing. And that is that I know nothing." We cannot know the answer to every question or every objection. Do not constantly worry about atheists attempting to disprove God, for this leads no where. Eventually you will have to make a choice, and stick with it without having to worry about possible objections.

The last sentence sounds like intellectual dishonesty (at least to me it did, at first.). But I have found that it is true that at some point, you have to make a commitment to yourself to assume X position is true, at least until some stronger argument against it can be found. That sounds like common sense but the above mindset is something that one can get wrapped up in (as I did), so I feel that that piece of advice is worth remembering at times.

You mentioned in this thread that you were interested in WLC. There are several works that might be helpful to you:

Reasonable Faith

and if you have a lot of time

Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology (Craig and Moreland, but includes a large collection of topics from many modern philosophers)

Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview (Craig and Moreland)

Again, these last two are rather extensive, but you may find them to be useful if you're interested in the philosophical/scientific aspects of Christianity. Hope this helps!

Well this is a bit exhaustive, I would suggest reaching out to more than one person, perhaps making a thread in this sub or really many other subs as the abrahamic framework and the monotheistic framework is a point of belief in many mediums.

>Why does being a creator mean that?

well first we would have to define what the creator even means, how familiar are you with Kalam and Plato's ideas of God and greek logic overall?

>morality is about improving the lives and existences of humans

well we would all hope that as well, but one should be wary of utilitarianism and its shortcomings.

You should really seek out questions like the origin of reason, and philosophical commentary on the matter.

If you want to go deeper here are some books that may be worthwhile to read/ take a look at. like this one or this one

Can I offer some other choice reads that will make you question your rational decision based on "how it feels" we make decisions rather than how they "actually are made"? We can now do brain studies that show our unconscious brain makes our decisions before our conscious brain is even aware of the choices. We rationalize our decisions based on our emotions, not logic. The beautiful thing is we feel like we are the ones in charge, the 'I", me, you, they, she, he, whomever, but every single person is as predictable as our Earth's rotation around the sun.

Let's see, some interesting books with hundreds if not thousands of sources in them each: Subliminal, Free Will, Incognito to get you started.

Feelings are only feelings, they are an old response before our prefontal cortex made its appearance. Don't let those get in the way of learning about how we work. Sure it feels like the earth is flat, it feels bad when we get rejected, it feels like your conscious mind made that choice to get a burger over the salad, but don't let feelings get in the way of what's actually happening. It's all an illusion, man..

> assume you might be thinking bout some of the experiments that show we can observe what decision a person will make before they are conscious of the decision

Not at all, although I'm familiar with those as well. Rather, there's demonstrable evidence that you have no free agency in exercising your mind to bring about specific conscious thought on demand. Further, that your biology and your environment are the driving forces that shape your nuerodevelopment, neither of which you have any command of. Thus, by extension, 'you' are the product of concurrent and prior processes that you do not control.

To return to your example,

>Did the neurons that make up my mind not weigh the options and produce an answer on their own?

Yes, and chose an answer based on the sum of your experiences that you had no true free agency in experiencing, and neither did your ancestor's whose biology you share that informed that conclusion.


See: Sam Harris on Free Will, for a deep dive into this topic. Essay Book Lecture

Sam Harris has written a shot but excellent book on the topic of "free will" and how it relates to our current understanding of neuroscience. It is called, oddly enough, Free Will

Sorry you ended up incapable of understanding rational logic. Maybe try school again, there are still minor repairs you can make to the gaping holes in your intellect if you're under 30.

Start here.

People do not have free will. Science is accumulating evidence to back up the theory every day. Famous neuroscientists even write books about it.

http://www.amazon.com/Free-Will-Sam-Harris/dp/1451683405

We are all slaves to genetics, saying he voluntarily did anything is... impossible. I read somewhere that if humans have free will, our brains would be the ONLY thing in the entire universe that breaks the known laws of physics. Or... our brains do follow the laws of physics, and we do not have free will.

But sure, lets go with the idea that our brains rose above physics, sure the kid made the choice on his own.

Free Will

-Sam Harris

Here is a free lecture about the book's ideas.

> You can freely choose to either pick the fork up or not. It is not predetermined and you can freely chose.

I (and neuroscience in general) am saying no, that's not true. Whether or not you pick up the fork is nothing you have any control over. You think you "make a choice" - but you are following your programming. You and I are simply machines. We are doing exactly what we are programmed to do by our biology and our set of experiences, and nothing more. It's causal. Every choice you make is not just influenced by determined things that ultimately happened outside your body, but 100% decided by them.

Edit: Here, an actual neuroscientist can describe this better than I can. Or, read the book.

Free will (in the sense that you and I know it) doesn't exist.

If you're into philosophy, I'd highly recommend Sam Harris's book on the matter. He has a knack for conveying complex ideas simply.

It isn't retarded. Do some background research.

http://youtu.be/KCInjQ4omlA
http://youtu.be/bX8D0yU0pMc
http://youtu.be/C_L-k7KCPPM
http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1451683405
http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1862078947

I'll say no. A big influence on this way of thinking comes from Free Will by Sam Harris. These intoxicated individuals did not chose their genes, their upbringing, and they have no control over what thoughts occur to them (just like any other person). Thoughts and decisions simply arise unauthored from their minds. Those who make the "right" decisions are just lucky, ultimately. I think we should show more compassion to those who make the "wrong" decisions and try to help them in what ways we can.

http://www.amazon.com/Free-Will-Sam-Harris/dp/1451683405 You could probably read the entire thing in a couple hours.

Thank you very much. I haven't studied this subject very deeply, but I know that there are writers who cover it far more eloquently and convincingly than I. Much of my current thinking on this comes from Sam Harris, especially his books on free will and morality. Both are fascinating and extremely well argued, in my opinion.

Thanks for the response. I hoped for a little repartee.

>But there's also a difference between, say, the example you gave of a dragon and these Christian accounts.

No, alas, they are exactly the same. They rely on eye witness (personal anecdote) testimony and have no evidence. Again, if there WAS evidence you (they) would be the first in history to show it. Additionally, you might want to theologically think about your stance on evidence and whether or not there is any. If a god provided evidence of its existence, wouldn't that remove our free will that christians so desperately defend by compelling us to believe? (By the way, you might want to hear what Sam has to say about Free Will)

>you can look at those who have been willing to die for their faith

This doesn't make a thing true. Those who follow Allah say this exact same thing before they blow themselves up on the crowed Israeli bus. The stronger you say your faith is, the faster I walk the other way in fear for my safety. There's no telling where ardent faith leads. Oh yeah, the Crusades for one. 9/11 for another. I'm pretty sure the female genital mutilation crowd is willing to die for their faith too. How about those parents who let their children die of easily cured maladies because they'd rather pray for help to come? I'll bet they're pretty strong in their faith.

Which leads me to...

> insincere or just deluded?

I think the majority of those who profess a belief in supernatural woo-woo actually believe it. True charlatans are rare but exist nonetheless. The easy way to spot a charlatan is the request for money. "God made the universe but you need to give 'til it hurts 'cause he's out of money." Therefore, to answer your either/or question, woo-woo believers are deluded. You know there's a famous book with a title you might recognize, The God Delusion. The clue is in the title.

Since you finished with a question, allow me the same privilege.

Do you care if your beliefs are true?

*Edit: Hyperlinked to The God Delusion by Sir Richard Dawkins. Thought for sure you'd want more details.

Yes, I did. There is no such thing as free will. You merely experience the illusion of free will, when in reality your brain is making decisions that are inevitable given the electro-chemical pathway contained within it and the outside stimuli you experience. You do not have free will.

edit: http://www.amazon.com/Free-Will-Sam-Harris/dp/1451683405

Sam Harris wrote a book just about that. It's called "Free will".

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1451683405

I think you would enjoy Sam Harris's book, Free Will. It confirms and explores many of the insights you have had, and provides a good deal of interesting evidence from cognitive neuroscience to support your suspicion that our brains operate deterministically.

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.

I study evolutionary biology as a hobby and have read many books on the subject, several of which actually argue in favor of a designer (a position I disagree with based on the evidence). The facts and evidence overwhelmingly support the history of the eye's development as I have described it whether you agree with it or not. If you are interested in the subject, I highly recommend checking out "Finding Darwin's God" by Kenneth R. Miller and "Hen's Teeth and Horse's Toes" by Stephen Jay Gould, both of which are very informative and excellent reads.

If you are a blind, ocean-dwelling creature who's food tends to hang out near the surface, a mutation that allows a cell to detect light would make it easier to find food, thus increasing the likelihood that you would survive and pass on that mutation. Furthermore, if another mutation multiplied the number of those light detecting cells, you might be able to better determine your distance to the surface and more precisely hone in on your meal without getting too close to the surface and putting yourself in potential danger. If a further mutation granted you enough of the light-detecting cells that you determine movement, you would be in a much better position to both find food and evade predators.

It is small mutations like this that have selective advantages that result in the development of things like eyes and the rest of our organs. It's not that the creatures "knew what they wanted to see"; it's that mutations provided sensory inputs that increased the likelihood of those creatures surviving. It is the survivors that pass on their genes and spawn the next generation. This is happening constantly in all living things, humans included, and that is an indisputable fact. It can be and has been observed.

I'll grant that.

Since I mentioned it above, the holy book of my religion which gelled with me / spoke to me is the Principia Discordia. I don't know if it's what you're looking for, though. If it doesn't gel with you, all I can say is you're probably looking for a different god. Nothing wrong with that.

To bring things back on track, you may be interested in Anthony Flew's There is a God. It's been a few years since I read it, though, and all I remember is that it was decent enough that I think I read the whole thing.

> I'm fine with granting that the Universe forming is a miracle.

That's cool. What is it about the Universe that leads you to think it could be a miracle? For me, it is the amazing structure of the laws of physics.

I ask you because, what is it about DNA, ribosomes and the amazing structures within biology that make you then think they are "natural"? To me, microbiology is even more amazing than the cosmological argument. Anthony Flew was the most famous atheist of the 20th century. After he studied DNA and the amazing interplay of physics, chemistry, he became a theist. He wrote "There is a God. How the world's most notorious atheist changed his mind" : https://www.amazon.com/There-God-Notorious-Atheist-Changed/dp/0061335304

> Darwin's small changes : Source, please.

See link below. Stephen Jay' Gould's "punctuated equilibrium" is where the evidence leads, and large changes are required to advanced beyond the local minimum: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fitness_landscape

http://sciencenordic.com/suggesting-answers-one-darwin%E2%80%99s-mysteries

Here's Darwin on small changes ("slight modifications") from Origin of Species : “If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed, which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down. But I can find no such case.”

> Until you can show HOW it was "designed", the notion that it IS designed is nonsense.

Huh? That's my whole point. It is a miracle. Atheists often ask for signs, and in microbiology you can see many amazing machines.

Your response sounds like this logically: "unless I think it is not a miracle, I'm not going to believe it is a miracle".

> Second, variation in traits IS evolution by definition.

Unfortunately, the word "evolution" is heavily overloaded. The term "evolution" is used sloppily to apply to mutation, speciation and even abiogenesis. Those are each very distinct concepts. Darwin's book is "Origin of Species", not "new traits". Do you think that blondes are different species than brunettes? Species are things like cats versus dogs. If you love science half as much as I do, please stop trying to confuse the concepts.

Adding one final book before signing off.

There Is a God: How the World's Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind

God has always acted in symbolic ways.especially in the Bible. When a country brought down his wrath, he sent a plague or another country to conquer it. When he planned to absolve everyone of their sins, he sent Christ to die for us. When he spoke to his prophets, he always did it in a symbolic form.

Ex: Moses and the Burning Bush.

He still acts in such ways to this days. Miracles occur on a daily basis thanks to his mercy. Look up Literatures on his existence and read them to learn more. I’ll even offer you a link to help get you started.

https://www.amazon.com/There-God-Notorious-Atheist-Changed/dp/0061335304/ref=nodl_

Do you want to spark a debate? If not, put two words together in amazon.com and you'll get you're answer.

If you did want opinions, there are only fake ones or ones where the guy had some kind of psychological damage.

book 1

book 2

Have you read that book?

Start here -> https://www.amazon.com/There-God-Notorious-Atheist-Changed/dp/0061335304/ref=nodl_

Then compare the evidence that Harry Potter is real with the evidence that God is real.

Take your time. You can’t afford to be wrong.

> The consensus is many are forgeries.

The consensus 'amongst people you subscribe to' is many are forgeries. Most of their ideas are quite frankly full of suspicion and more like conspiracy theories than a search for truth.

The consensus over the past two thousand years is overwhelmingly in favour of traditional authorship.

>I don't necessarily agree with that. I know that's the orthodox view, but I don't mind being outside of orthodoxy. I'd rather be outside of the traditional orthodoxy, since I find it often incorrect.

I'm hardly surprised to see you write that.

You do essentially deny all that makes Christianity Christianity.

I suspect your view stems from the doubts you have over the existence of God and anything miraculous such as the bodily resurrection of Christ.

In relation to these two issues, let me ask if you have considered the 'argument from fine-tuning' as evidence for the existence of God? It is the argument which caused prominent atheist professor Anthony Flew to change his mind about the existence of God (so much that he wrote a book about it ).

The second is related to the resurrection of Christ. Apologist Dr. Gary Habermas has compiled a list of twelve historical facts on which most critical scholars agree with regards to the death and resurrection of Christ. There is enough evidence here to affirm the truth of the event if you are really looking for the truth, rather that trying to doubt it.

> If we had writings of them clearly doing so, I'd certainly appraise him differently. We don't have that though, and we do have evidence of them fighting back and forth.

So you don't consider Galatians 2 to be evidence of this?

> It's not about what I "like", it's about truth.

That isn't how it appears I am afraid.

By the way, I am still interested to hear your response from here.

You wrote this:

> I follow Jesus. I follow him as best as I can despite us having flawed accounts.

I responded with this:

> What exactly do you follow?

> If the accounts are flawed, how can you trust any of it?

> Which parts do you adhere to and how do you choose them?

I am very interested to hear your responses please.

Easy peasy.

Enjoy.

Being and Time by Martin Heidegger

If phenomenology of time peaks your interest, Edmund Husserl speaks about "Internal Time Consciousness." The sort of "how?" of experiencing time.

I wouldn't worry about college; you'll be studying things more attuned to your interests, and you'll be surrounded by similar sorts of people. College is actually great for figuring yourself out for this very reason, since you'll be exposed not just to all sorts of different types of content and perspectives, but you'll also get some chances to go more in-depth on particular topics of interest, especially once you start taking upper-level courses that expect specialization. My favorite college memories are actually of afternoons in the library reading, taking notes and putting papers together. I loved this so much I've even started writing my own stuff post-college.

As for getting to know yourself, I'd recommend reading. Since this is the INTJ-sub, I know everyone here prefers things to be a bit more direct, and while I certainly read more nonfiction, I've found things like art, music, poetry, film and fiction are great ways to understand yourself better than any nonfiction work could tap into. I got into fiction via Joseph Campbell, a literary critic who himself was heavily influenced by Jung, and from there it was writers like Hermann Hesse, James Joyce, George Saunders and Olga Grushin that taught me things about myself that I doubt any nonfiction work could. This isn't to downplay the importance of nonfiction (Heidegger, Marion and Kierkegaard have all been huge for me as well), but since fiction and the arts in general don't seem as valued throughout reddit, I thought I'd throw that out there. Read.

Heidegger wrote an eighty-eight page first draft to Being and Time. Unless you have a crazy amount of time on your hands, I'd recommend going after the first draft. Whichever version of the book you read, it will most likely be one of the most difficult philosophy books you will come across. I don't mean that demeaningly. Heidegger's writing is almost indecipherable. There are a few threads made here in /r/askphilosophy that have better recommendations as to where to begin with Heidegger. Hopefully someone will respond to this post with more and better info!

There's probably a few ways you could go about expanding your knowledge base. The two that seem most fruitful are

1. Reading for a deeper understanding of the topics that you're already familiar with.
   
   
2. Ranging more broadly into other areas that may interest you.
   
   If (1), then I'd probably suggest one of two courses. Either, (a) read the stuff that influenced the existential thinkers that you've listed, or (b) read some literature dealing with issues related to the thinkers you've listed.
   
   For (a) I'd suggest the following:
   
   

• Anything by Kant
  
• (In the case of Kierkegaard) Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit or his Aesthetics
  
• (For Nietzsche) Emerson's essays, Schopenhauer's World as Will and Representation, or Spinoza's Ethics
  
• Maybe some Freud for the later thinkers? Civilization and its Discontents is really good.
  
  For (b) it's really a mixed bag. I'd suggest going through the SEP articles on the thinkers you've listed and looking into some good secondary literature on them. If you're super interested in Nietzsche, I'd definitely suggest reading Leiter's Nietzsche on Morality. I really couldn't tell you more unless you told me something more specific about your interests.
  
  If (2), then I suppose I'd suggest one of the following:
  
  
• Readings in Classical Chinese Philosophy for a good, broad introduction to Chinese Thought
  
• The Analects of Confucius. This translation is excellent
  
• A Short History of Chinese Philosophy
  
• Heidegger's Being and Time
  
• Merleau-Ponty's Phenomenology of Perception
  
• Some of Rilke's work
  
• Unamuno's Tragic Sense of Life
  
  Again, it's hard to give you better directions without more information on what you're actually interested in. I've just thrown a bunch of stuff at you, and you couldn't possibly be expected to read, say, Schopenhauer's World as Will and Representation over break and be expected to really understand it.

http://www.amazon.com/Being-Time-Martin-Heidegger/dp/0061575593?pf_rd_mnb=ATVPDKIKX0D34&pf_rd_stb=center-2&pf_rd_rat=0817NMRY4ZRQZM6P18TH&pf_rd_t3r=101&pf_rd_ptd=470938631&pf_rd_ied=507846&tag=buaazs-20&pf_rd_ptd=470938631&pf_rd_ied=507846

Good Without God: What a Billion Nonreligious People Do Believe might be a start. Check your local library.

> Questions about the role of God and religion in today's world have never been more relevant or felt more powerfully. Many of us are searching for a place where we can find not only facts and scientific reason but also hope and moral courage. For some, answers are found in the divine. For others, including the New Atheists, religion is an "enemy."

> But in Good Without God, Greg Epstein presents another, more balanced and inclusive response: Humanism. He highlights humanity's potential for goodness and the ways in which Humanists lead lives of purpose and compassion. Humanism can offer the sense of community we want and often need in good times and bad—and it teaches us that we can lead good and moral lives without the supernatural, without higher powers . . . without God.

I've already got my mom Good without God as a gift, and she was "offended." I'm done trying to get them to understand my position for the time being.

The strongest thing that keeps people going is a strong sense of purpose that they give themselves.

My motivation is doing good for good's sake. I try to make every day a day where I did something meaningful and to try and experience empathy for someone or something and attempt to show some decency and dignity towards them/it. This can come in many ways but that is the gist of it. Living in a big city leaves a multitude of possible things for me to do. Sometimes I'm dropping off some food+soda to a small group of homeless folks. Other times it's just being able to sit down and listen to someone's troubles. Your life is your responsibility (too adult sounding sorry!) and it's important to find purpose and meaning in it. Human beings are unique and no two are alike and even with the same dna they can become different people. Each human life therefor is priceless and we must find it in ourselves to do justice and dignity to each other because once someone is gone we will never see that person ever again. I don't like thinking about shoulda woulda coulda guilt trips when I see I had failed to do something in hind sight. But I always feel at peace when I do the right thing for someone.

A good book to read sometime is Good Without God. It is a book about secular humanism and really helped me when I was looking for some answers and insight into the way I felt but didn't have all the words to explain it more clearly.

Another thing that keeps me rolling is learning new things about the world around me. When I was a kid I wanted to learn everything I could about everything. Even though kids in school were always mean to me I always had a friend in learning. After I graduated high school there was a time I felt comfortable with all that I knew and didn't feel it was important to learn. I lost something along the way. Ever since I became an atheist I have that strong urge to learn again, like a rekindled fire. i have been rebuilding my math skills using khan academy and have been reading science and technology websites every day so I can learn new things and feel that small sense of accomplishment from learning.

TL:DR
I have a sense of purpose that I assigned myself as a means to self motivate and my life is better for it.

It is a sensitive subject to people, because it is so powerful in how ideas and beliefs influence our actions and thoughts. I know why atheists can be so aggressive and mean. A lot of them are suffering from a lack of a moral/value guidance system, secular humanism can be the cure for most atheists and the irreligious. I would be very careful to remove someones belief if it is the sole reason for being, that is akin to murder, and some will fight to protect that reason/belief for their life. Some people lack non-violent communication and discussion skills. I might challenge a deeply held belief but not without offering a replacement of better value and worth. In a dream I had, while changing my beliefs, I dreamt that I went to the core of reality and my soul and changed it like a light bulb, immediatly the chaos and confusion settled down, and the entire world, or my perspective of the world came into order and meaning. Some atheists have had the light ripped from their soul and they search for something to replace that light source. The fact that so many lack this source of light means that it is a social problem that needs professional attention, it is a matter of life and death. I hope you can understand the source of this hostility and maybe you can offer a light source that works for them, like secular humanism, aristotle eudaimonia, or existential psychotherapy and existential philosophy. All those things can help those who rely on reason for establishing a source of light/meaning. So understand that they can not rely on beliefs with out reason, and that they lack a source of light to show them what is valuable. I hope this helps, it depends on your reason for being here to, if it is to serve the world you would learn these things but if you are here to serve your self you will not. I was a christian before and now I am agnostic and a secular humanist, after much academic study of philosophy and the new testament, and after reading "Good without god" by Epstein.

http://www.amazon.com/Good-Without-God-Billion-Nonreligious/dp/006167012X

or

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secular_morality

Good Without God: What a Billion Nonreligious People Do Believe by Greg Epstein https://www.amazon.com/dp/006167012X/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_6DybBb0ZVMVM3

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.

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.

If you are curious of how people of different cultures relate to religion and the supernatural, then I heartily recommend this book which treats these question from an anthropological perspective There are several valuable insights to be had for both the atheist and the theist.

If you wonder why people experience aliens, miracles, ghosts and things that didn't happen? Why wouldn't we? We can never rule out events to be figments of our minds or perception, nor can we entirely rule out what we believe to be impossible.

I've read the entire Christian Bible. I'm not sure what your point is. There is not a one to one correlation of what's written in scripture and how people learn, practice and intuit religion. I can absolutely assure you of that one, as I'm in the field of anthropology of religion.

I'd recommend reading in evolutionary psychology and cognitive science of religion as well as reading the Bible. Religion Explained by Pascal Boyer is a fantastic overview of how religion operates in the individual: http://www.amazon.com/Religion-Explained-Pascal-Boyer/dp/0465006965

When it comes down to it you just can't tell or convince Christians who are not intolerant that they are intolerant, because they are not intolerant. Whatever they justify that by, they remain genuine.

This same lack of actually acquiring empirical knowledge about the source of one's beliefs embarrassingly has a lot of atheists who "believe in evolution" getting in arguments with Christian creationists for their irrational beliefs while saying absolutely ridiculous things about evolution that aren't remotely accurate. (I've witnessed this enough times to really get to headdesking.)

The human mind isn't rational and acquires logical and critical thinking through practice. The minds of atheists and Christians aren't significantly different, and frequently make the same kind of errors.

Also see Pascal Boyer's "Religion Explained": http://www.amazon.com/Religion-Explained-Pascal-Boyer/dp/0465006965/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1322743084&sr=1-1

http://www.amazon.com/Religion-Explained-Pascal-Boyer/dp/0465006965/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1333094305&sr=8-1

pretty good read if you're really interested.

By their descriptions, these 2 seems pretty good:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Religion-Explained-Evolutionary-Origins-Religious/dp/0465006965/ref=cm_wl_huc_item

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0195178033/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pC_nS_ttl?_encoding=UTF8&colid=1HZOGMRHHFYH5&coliid=I3K9Q1SNLXH4Z2

From a more science-religion perspective, Pascal Boyer's insightful book on the relationship between cognition and religion. He explains why some gods exist and why some definitely don't - and it's because of how our cognitive belief system works (p.29):

> Take for instance the claim that my right
hand is made of green cheese except when people examine it, that God
ceases to exist every Wednesday afternoon, that cars feel thirsty when
their tanks run low or that cats think in German. We can make up
hundreds of such interesting and irrefutable beliefs. There is no clear
limit to imagination in this domain. The credulity arguments would
explain not just actual religious beliefs but also a whole variety of
beliefs that no one ever had

Thanks, I am really proud of him! before my grandma left she left a bible under his pillow haha he gave her this book as a gift.

I was raised Christian and went to a fundamentalist highschool. I started questioning things when I realized my faith required me to suspend my rationality. Read some books on the historical accuracy of religious claims. My thought was always, "Well if what all these people say is true, it should hold up to rational scientific inquiry." The more I dug, the more I realized that it never could. I fought and fought with myself. Christianity (especially of the fundamentalist flavor) has this built in mechanism to dissuade disbelief. You are constantly indoctrinated to see any doubt that enters your mind as evil, sinful and to simply "pray the doubt away". I'm sure you know of this. Keep fighting, let reason and logic be your guide.

Some books that helped me on my way to breaking free:

A History of God by Karen Armstrong

The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins

Pale Blue Dot by Carl Sagan

I also recommend this youtube series by user Evid3nc3.

Those should give you alot to think about.

Remember the most important thing is to decide for yourself. Question everything and never take something as truth from authority simply because they are an authority. See if it makes sense, find the documented evidence that backs up the claims. The light may hurt at first.

"For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring." -Carl Sagan

As a going away gift, give him this.

The Demon Haunted World and The God Delusion are good starting points.

>The Argument from Change

Even if I were to agree with the article, it in no way points to a Christian God, or any God worshiped by humans.

>The Argument from Efficient Causality

If everything needs a cause (SUCH a religious train of thought), and God gave us that cause, who gave God cause? Of course, you think he's timeless and exempt from the rules you put on everything else.

I'm going to stop reading here. As far as I can tell, these are arguments to prove there is A god; not a specific god, certainly not the one you worship, just a god. And the arguments are not convincing anyone with half a brain.

You should check out this book. It will help make sense of religion, the bible, everything that is hard to understand about "god".

That's a good start for not believing in creationism, but The God Delusion would be a better start for arguments against god.

In the order that I read them:

Where the Sidewalk Ends

The Tao of Pooh

The God Delusion

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.

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.

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.

Dan Barker's Godless

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 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

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

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

Next on my reading list Fallacy of Fine Tuning

I'm not sure how helpful this will be... but I've been learning a lot about Street Epistemology. It's a conversational style based on the socratic method, where instead of trying to convince someone of your view, you ask them about their views.

The idea is, when you push a view on someone else, they get defensive and block you. But when you ask them to talk about their own thoughts/beliefs/views, they open up. At that point, you can ask things like "why?", which ultimately makes them back their dumbass views up. When they can't, they may lose some confidence in that view.

Look into it...

/r/StreetEpistemology

https://smile.amazon.com/Manual-Creating-Atheists-Peter-Boghossian/dp/1939578094?sa-no-redirect=1

http://www.atheos-app.com/

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLh10RgQgGuM9RFiarmJkQg_yXIhLgauOZ

Read this. It’s the book that started it all

https://www.amazon.com/Manual-Creating-Atheists-Peter-Boghossian/dp/1939578094

There are lots of entirely secular ways to arrive at morality. The basics appear to be hardwired into most people. The lines of reasoning all arrive at striking similar conclusions (i.e. Slavery is wrong, women are people).

Answer briefly, then put them on defensive. How do they call slavery moral? How do they call 9/11 or the Orlando nightclub shooting or whatever the latest terrorist attack happens to be, moral? There are people who sincerely believe that these are things god wanted. If that is your criteria, and those are your morals, then http://imgur.com/gallery/jEAKxR6

Sorry for the rant. With everything going on in the world today, I just feel like we should have done less to tolerate religion and more to make people responsible.
https://www.amazon.com/Manual-Creating-Atheists-Peter-Boghossian/dp/1939578094

It is my sincerely held hope that atheist, with science and reason and clear, easily understood arguments for the children, will one day be considered the cause of the demise of Islam. Not that I expect to live to see that day.