I am wanting to get some books about or in favor of atheism and I am wondering what would be a good list to start with.

I have been an atheist for a long time, when I was in 8th grade I wrote a paper saying that if the Adam and Eve story were true then Eve eating the Apple of knowledge was the best thing that ever happened to the human race. Otherwise we would all be little god bots , happy perhaps but no real thought and would only be following the "progam" so to speak. Animals have more thought than the bible seemed to think we had before eating the apple.

I have not really read a lot of atheist literature , perhaps since I did not need to be convinced.

What I would like is some books that can help me layout the atheist argument in a very persuasive way to fence sitters. The ones who fully believe in their religion I don't bother arguing with , they are not being rational imo anyway. I am not trying to "convert" anyone, but I want to give rational people a well reasoned rational viewpoint and let them decide from there.

I am going to get The Portable Atheist and am considering God is not Great and Letter to a Christian Nation.

What other books, essays, websites etc.. would you recommend?

The God Delusion and Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon have both been recommended to me, but I have not read them myself yet.

Sam Harris has a list of recommended books here: http://www.samharris.org/site/book_readi...

Message edited by its author, Feb 7, 2008, 12:12pm.

Thanks fleela, that looks like an interesting list of books. I will definitely check some of those out.

I havent read it in a looooong while, but I remember it as being quite witty entertaining and a jolly good romp of a read:

Baron d'Holbach's "Good Sense".

Under-rated perhaps and maybe more Deist than Atheist, but a good read nevertheless is Tom Pain's "Age of Reason"

For a nice short and sweet work by a first rate thinker, try Bertrand Russel's
"Why I am not a Christian".

I loved "Letter to a Christian Nation" which I just read.

But the very first book I ever read that criticized religion was Madeline Murry's book "All About Atheists". I checked this book out of the library when I was in high school and I had to read it under the covers and hide the book in my closet under my dirty clothes. My mother would not have been happy. I don't know if it is such a great book now, but at the time in the late 1970's we had no Internet, no way of contacting other like thinkers and almost no religion critical books in the library.

I am about to read "The God Delusion" but keep putting it back at the bottom of my to-read stack, just seems to be more preaching to the choir I don't feel I need right now. But Sam Harris' book is so quick to read and well thought out that I could not put it off.

Susan

After reading these posts I got Letter to a Christian Nation out of my branch library, and felt it was so good, so cogent, so well-reasoned that I need to own it. I also read and can recommend Christopher Hitchens' God is not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything and found that to be a marvelous and easy read as well. I've read Richard Dawkins stuff as well -- it was a little denser than Hitchens but still illuminating.

I've been reading Susan Jacoby's books The Age of American Unreason and Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism and have just ordered them on-line -- they're books I want to have permanently as references.

We have a group at my high school, parent and NOT student driven, who are pressuring our headmaster to force me to alter my curriculum. I teach American history (U.S. history, that is) and anyone who has ever read our Founding Father's own words knows that they were not what people today would consider orthodox Christians. But this parent (and a few teachers, too) group wants to force me to teach the untruths that the Christian right is promulgating -- that the USA was founded as a right-wing, devoutly Christian nation and that our Founding Fathers were all devout Protestants. Bull-puckey. I am standing my ground, and looking for scholarly and historical works to bolster my position. Unfortunately, the one book everyone's heard of, Alexis de Tocquevilles Democracy in America is no help -- de Tocqueville was blown away by how prevalent Protestant values were in American life. My pointing out that he was writing in the 1830s, long after our Founding Fathers' work, has not helped my case.

I have little doubt that you are aware of this powerful primary source, the Treaty of Tripoli: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_T...

Both the text and President John Adams' (close enough to the founders, I think) signature, along with his emphatic signing statement promulgating "every clause". One of those clauses, as the reader will observe, states that the United States was not founded in any sense upon the Christian religion.

I know that what I will say here is not much direct help, but I am confident that it will lead you to some excellent books of the kind you are seeking. I myself, for several reasons, do not engage significantly in the "Christian America" debate, and thus take no note of books on that subject. However, I can tell you that Oxford University Press USA has, within the past year, published some books that looked very trenchant, formidable, and scholarly. I strongly recommend that you visit the website of Oxford UP USA and search for recent titles in American History and Religion. You will certainly find some treasure there.

billtaichi: In case you're still interested, here is a reply to your request for recommendations of pro-atheist books. Offhand, I can name a few old standbys: J. L. Mackie, The Miracle of Theism (Oxford UP, 1981); Critiques of God (Prometheus Books); and Richard Robinson, An Atheist's Values (Oxford UP, 1964; reprinted later, sometime in the '70s, I think by Blackwell). Mackie is known for treating both sides fully and fairly before coming down on the side of atheism. It is to be noted that this work is dauntingly technical. Critiques of God (I don't know who "N. Buffalo" is, but the editor is Peter A. Angeles) is an anthology of early to mid 20th century works. Frankly, I remember little about it, since it has been almost 20 years since I read it. I do remember being at least somewhat impressed by it at the time. Robinson is harder to describe, but it is a book that made a profound difference for the better in my own life. Largely, Robinson (who died in 1996 at the age of 94) enumerates and describes values and beliefs that he, as an individual atheist, espouses. This is a beautiful book by an exemplary man, whom I wish I had met. It is, I think, out of print. It can, however, be ordered from some large internet used book vendors, and borrowed from any good university library. I know someone who bought a virtually pristine 1964 copy just last year.

Here is a list of recent books (published in the last five years) on atheism I received in an email message:

* Nicholas Everitt, The Nonexistence of God (2004)
* Michael Martin & Ricki Monnier (eds.), The Impossibility of God (2003)
* Michael Martin & Ricki Monnier (eds.), The Improbability of God (2006)
* William L. Rowe, Can God Be Free? (2004)
* Jordan Howard Sobel, Logic and Theism (2004)
* David Ramsay Steele, Atheism Explained (2008)
* Victor J. Stenger, God: The Failed Hypothesis (2007)

They came recommended with a Web site, http://www.atheismblog.blogspot.com

I regret to say that I have always avoided recommending any work by Michael Martin to anyone, least of all to someone who is undecided about but interested in atheism. I've undertaken to read two of his books: Atheism: A Philosophical Justification and The Case Against Christianity. I was too appalled by the abysmal quality of the writing to finish either one. The books were riddled with mistakes in usage that should not have been permitted in a freshman composition course. I could not understand how this kind of text could be published as the trenchant argument of a distinguished thinker. The errors were in such simple matters as grammar, diction, and intelligible sentence structure. For a reader who has the bias that use of language reflects power of intellect, I fear that Martin's work may do more to set back atheism than to promote it.

I am not saying this in order to be right. I am saying it because I think it is true and that the warning needs to be sounded. If you know of any considerations against what I have said here, you will do me a service by registering them.

I haven't so much as glanced at any of them, so it's good to hear from someone who has.

My heart goes out to you. I am starting my Masters in American History in order to teach. I do not want to teach high school, mostly for this reason. I do not want to have to deal with parents who think they know more than I do. (they might but I don't want to hear it)

I haven't decided what era to declare, but most of the recent classes I've taken are Civil War and before. The founding fathers were clearly not advocating religion, and did their best to leave it out.

I heard one argument some time ago that America is a Christian nation and as proof they pointed to how the document ended with "in the year of our Lord XXXX" If that isn't reaching I don't know what is.

I hope you have a headmaster that can stand up for what is right. No group of parents should be allowed to pressure teachers to include XYZ, if parents want their children to learn it, they can teach it at home or church.

Susan