Atheism For Dummies (For Dummies (Religion & Spirituality)) Read Online Free Page A
Author: Dale McGowan
Joseph Stalin in the USSR, and Pol Pot in Cambodia) and theists (such as Adolf Hitler in Germany, Francisco Franco in Spain, and Idi Amin in Uganda).
But there’s also good news, including the growth of humanism as a movement and court victories for the separation of church and state — something that benefits both the church and the state.
The 20th century also saw one of the most fascinating developments in the history of religion as two God-optional religions formed and flourished: Unitarian Universalism and Humanistic Judaism. Chapter 8 gives you more information.
Atheism today
A movement called The New Atheism was born the moment religion flew planes into buildings on September 11, 2001. Though atheists had been around for centuries, the horror and clarity of that moment, and the very clear part played by religion, was the last straw and a call to action for countless nonreligious people. A powerful, unapologetic new form of atheism grew up in response to that moment, including countless books and blogs calling for an end to the free pass from criticism that religion has traditionally enjoyed.
A huge upsurge in atheist thought, identity, organization, and action followed the initial wave. Driven by the young medium of the Internet, the freethought movement did in ten years what many other social movements take generations to achieve.
A quieter, more humanistic, but no less passionate form of disbelief rose up in the wake of the New Atheists — one that makes an effort to discern between benign and malignant expressions of religion, seeks common ground between the religious and the nonreligious, and focuses on building humanist community and defining a positive vision for the future. These two sides of contemporary atheism spend a lot of time kvetching at each other over the best way forward. Though it does break a little china, kvetching can be a good way of sorting good ideas from bad.
Chapter 9 brings you a hopelessly incomplete but hopefully tantalizing snapshot of the big, messy, complicated wonder of atheism today.
Examining Atheism in the Written Word
The history of atheism is the history of an idea. To understand that history, you have to look primarily at the written word — books, letters, diaries, pamphlets, and more recently, blogs. The chapters in Part III take a survey of the great written works expressing and exploring the idea that gods don’t exist, including
A telling two-sentence fragment from an ancient Greek play
An ancient Indian sutra that suggests religion is a human invention and the authors of the sacred Vedas are “buffoons” and “knaves”
An ancient Chinese philosopher who explains why “heaven” can’t have a mind
An Islamic doubter who calls Muhammad “fraudulent” and dismantles the idea of prophecy
A secret, anonymous 17th-century book of skeptical writings from the past and suggests that every great philosopher has been an atheist
A Catholic priest writing a secret book filled with his atheist opinions
One of the most beloved authors in American history calling Christianity “bad, bloody, merciless, money-grabbing, and predatory”
The 19th century speeches of “The Great Agnostic”
Hilarious satires and other humor that skewers the sacred
The fake scripture of a delicious parody religion
Manifestos of humanism
Powerful denunciations of religious belief in the 21st century
A humanist chaplain’s description of how a billion people are good without God
A “faitheist” who doesn’t believe in God but seeks common ground with the religious
With all those diverse voices of unbelief, you just may see something worth picking up yourself.
Understanding What Atheism Means in Everyday Life
After a person is an atheist, her question about whether God exists is replaced by questions about the best ways to live her life without God following her around, solving her problems, and giving her a place to put her feet after she is dead.
In other words, the
But there’s also good news, including the growth of humanism as a movement and court victories for the separation of church and state — something that benefits both the church and the state.
The 20th century also saw one of the most fascinating developments in the history of religion as two God-optional religions formed and flourished: Unitarian Universalism and Humanistic Judaism. Chapter 8 gives you more information.
Atheism today
A movement called The New Atheism was born the moment religion flew planes into buildings on September 11, 2001. Though atheists had been around for centuries, the horror and clarity of that moment, and the very clear part played by religion, was the last straw and a call to action for countless nonreligious people. A powerful, unapologetic new form of atheism grew up in response to that moment, including countless books and blogs calling for an end to the free pass from criticism that religion has traditionally enjoyed.
A huge upsurge in atheist thought, identity, organization, and action followed the initial wave. Driven by the young medium of the Internet, the freethought movement did in ten years what many other social movements take generations to achieve.
A quieter, more humanistic, but no less passionate form of disbelief rose up in the wake of the New Atheists — one that makes an effort to discern between benign and malignant expressions of religion, seeks common ground between the religious and the nonreligious, and focuses on building humanist community and defining a positive vision for the future. These two sides of contemporary atheism spend a lot of time kvetching at each other over the best way forward. Though it does break a little china, kvetching can be a good way of sorting good ideas from bad.
Chapter 9 brings you a hopelessly incomplete but hopefully tantalizing snapshot of the big, messy, complicated wonder of atheism today.
Examining Atheism in the Written Word
The history of atheism is the history of an idea. To understand that history, you have to look primarily at the written word — books, letters, diaries, pamphlets, and more recently, blogs. The chapters in Part III take a survey of the great written works expressing and exploring the idea that gods don’t exist, including
A telling two-sentence fragment from an ancient Greek play
An ancient Indian sutra that suggests religion is a human invention and the authors of the sacred Vedas are “buffoons” and “knaves”
An ancient Chinese philosopher who explains why “heaven” can’t have a mind
An Islamic doubter who calls Muhammad “fraudulent” and dismantles the idea of prophecy
A secret, anonymous 17th-century book of skeptical writings from the past and suggests that every great philosopher has been an atheist
A Catholic priest writing a secret book filled with his atheist opinions
One of the most beloved authors in American history calling Christianity “bad, bloody, merciless, money-grabbing, and predatory”
The 19th century speeches of “The Great Agnostic”
Hilarious satires and other humor that skewers the sacred
The fake scripture of a delicious parody religion
Manifestos of humanism
Powerful denunciations of religious belief in the 21st century
A humanist chaplain’s description of how a billion people are good without God
A “faitheist” who doesn’t believe in God but seeks common ground with the religious
With all those diverse voices of unbelief, you just may see something worth picking up yourself.
Understanding What Atheism Means in Everyday Life
After a person is an atheist, her question about whether God exists is replaced by questions about the best ways to live her life without God following her around, solving her problems, and giving her a place to put her feet after she is dead.
In other words, the
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