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I am hoping to have a restful November and December. Can anyone recommend a book or two, perhaps from an up and coming star, perhaps outside of the Four Horseman?
Or, can you recommend a recent book by a prominent religious scholar who can offer a mature and intellectual critique? Please, someone better than Dinesh d'Souza or Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, both of whose rather pathetic arguments and tendencies to use shouting as a debate tactic (both seen on youtube) undermined any credibility they might have once had.
I am hoping to have a restful November and December. Can anyone recommend a book or two, perhaps from an up and coming star, perhaps outside of the Four Horseman?
Or, can you recommend a recent book by a prominent religious scholar who can offer a mature and intellectual critique? Please, someone better than Dinesh d'Souza or Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, both of whose rather pathetic arguments and tendencies to use shouting as a debate tactic (both seen on youtube) undermined any credibility they might have once had.
Thanks.
S.
I found the Sam Harris book “The Portable Atheist”, and Russ Kick’s book “Everything you Know About God Is wrong” both to be books which I return to and reread.
I also like the book “The Faiths of Our Founding Fathers” by Alf Mapp. It is full of history trivia. Don't bypass "Letter To a Christian Nation" by Harris, it is short, but loaded with knowledge. There ar lots more, but these stand out in my mind.
I forgot one “God: The Failed Hypothesis”. By V. Stenger. Might make up for the Harris books (one of the four horsemen) I like.
Or, if you wish to read one of the classics on the subject, and actually it is a pretty easy read, he writes well.........Bertrand Russell "Why I am not a Christian". Then again, George gave you a pretty good list too.
Was one of the most recent reads that provided me with (in atheist terms) the 'theory of everything'. It put all the things I'd come to realize or suspect into a whole global worldview.
At the launch event in the northern Portuguese town of Penafiel on Sunday, Saramago said he did not think the book would offend Catholics "because they do not read the Bible".
What exactly is the problem? He is right. Hardly any Portuguese read the bible, many don't even have one. And especially in rural regions quite a number of people are still functional illiterates. I guess catholic people often "inherit" the contents of their belief from their parents etc., rather than by reading the bible. I am from a catholic region in Germany, and there is is exactly the same, people have their set of core stories that they were told by their parents, and the latter by their parents etc. I guess that is quite different from protestant regions where people tend to believe in a more literal way and thus read the bible. Catholics often pick only certain parts from the bible, mix them with their own beliefs, pagan elements, etc. And I noticed that to many Catholics saints, spirits and Mary are more important than Jesus or god.
Because of that book they did interviews in the streets of several cities asking passersby whether they read the bible and many of them admitted that they don't.
That entire outcry is more like a ritual, like when somebody tries to take a child's teddy bear away. Portuguese don't like it when something challenges their ritualistic way of thinking, when somebody disturbs the superficial peace and quiet.
He knows the Portuguese well. He knew people would rip his book apart without even having read it, it is always like this here. And indeed even some of those pissed clergy interviewed the first day the book was out admitted that they had not even read it.
I guess Saramago is one of a few Portuguese intellectuals the country should be proud of.
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