Here is a book that was neither written by a human nor dictated by the Holy Spirit to a human. It is the perspective of an angel, a disinterested third party who is neither human nor divine. Augie is a working angel who, like most angels, troubleshoots and serves God as a messenger, guardian, avenger, chaperoneyou name it, Augie has done it. For reasons unknown, Augies superiors select him to write a book, giving him no reason and no guidelines. Augie figures it must be to help humans understand the spirit world a little better. It was strange that Augie was selected because he takes a rather dim view of the human species. He feels that the sacrifice of Jesus to purchase mankind was like a human who spent a fortune to buy the Brooklyn Bridge. Being a good angel, however, he takes to his task willingly and digs into his case filesreports that all angels must submit following encounters with humans. He includes an after-action summary as a sort of debrief in which he records the important details that he feels humans are too ignorant to see on their own. The result is this book. Since heaven submitted it for publication, I guess they think Augie did an okay job.

In this unique book, readers are taken on a journey to explore the role of the imagination in the face of mystery, whether it be the mystery of God, whose full reality lies beyond our earthly horizons, or the deepest mysteries of life hinted at in the work of fiction. By attending to a series of novels, Paul Lakeland proposes serious fiction as an antidote to the failure of the religious imagination today and shows how literature might lead the secular mind at least to the threshold of mystery.

The God Delusion is a clarion call to the faithless, the waverers, and even firm religious believers, to follow the author into radical atheism not merely as a private conviction but as a public profession. Wouldn't humankind be better off without religion, he asks. John Cornwell's Darwin's Angel is not so much a combative repudiation of Dawkins' arguments as a playful conversation with them, posing alternative view-points, exposing lapses in logic and errors of fact, from the vantage point of a friendly Guardian Angel.

Critiques the radical mindset that rages against religion and faith, and identifies the pillars of the new atheist belief system, revealing that the stringent rules and rigid traditions in place are as strict as those of any religious practice. The new atheists, led by Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris, do not make moral arguments about religion. Rather, they have created a new form of fundamentalism that attempts to permeate society with ideas about our own moral superiority and the omnipotence of human reason. Journalist Hedges makes a case against both religious and secular fundamentalism.--From amazon.com.

A compelling history of atheism in American public life A much-maligned minority throughout American history, atheists have been cast as a threat to the nation’s moral fabric, barred from holding public office, and branded as irreligious misfits in a nation chosen by God. Yet village atheists—as these godless freethinkers came to be known by the close of the nineteenth century—were also hailed for their gutsy dissent from stultifying pieties and for posing a necessary secularist challenge to the entanglements of church and state. In Village Atheists, Leigh Eric Schmidt explores the complex cultural terrain that unbelievers have long had to navigate in their fight to secure equal rights and liberties in American public life. He rebuilds the history of American secularism from the ground up, giving flesh and blood to these outspoken infidels. Village Atheists demonstrates that the secularist vision for the United States proved to be anything but triumphant in a country where faith and citizenship were—and still are—closely interwoven.

For about two decades John W. Loftus was a devout evangelical Christian, an ordained minister of the Church of Christ, and an ardent apologist for Christianity. With three degrees--in philosophy, theology, and philosophy of religion--he was adept at using rational argumentation to defend the faith. But over the years, doubts about the credibility of key Christian tenets began to creep into his thinking. By the late 1990s he experienced a full-blown crisis of faith. In this honest appraisal of his journey from believer to atheist, the author carefully explains the experiences and the reasoning process that led him to reject religious belief. The original edition of this book was published in 2006 and reissued in 2008. Since that time, Loftus has received a good deal of critical feedback from Christians and skeptics alike. In this revised and expanded edition, the author addresses criticisms of the original, adds new argumentation and references, and refines his presentation. For every issue he succinctly summarizes the various points of view and provides references for further reading. In conclusion, he describes the implications of life without belief in God, some liberating, some sobering. This frank critique of Christian belief from a former insider will interest freethinkers as well as anyone with doubts about the claims of religion.

National bestselling author Sharon Shinn returns to the compelling world of Samaria in an extraordinary novel of angels and mortals, music and mystery, science and faith... More than a hundred years after the time of Rachel and Gabriel, Samaria is in deep turmoil. Charismatic Archangel Delilah has been injured and forced to give up her position, and she has been replaced by shy, uncertain Alleluia. What’s worse, ungovernable storms are sweeping across the country, and the god never seems to hear the angels’ pleas to abate the bad weather. Unless those prayers are offered by the new Archangel...

From the author of The Architecture of Happiness, a deeply moving meditation on how we can still benefit, without believing, from the wisdom, the beauty, and the consolatory power that religion has to offer. Alain de Botton was brought up in a committedly atheistic household, and though he was powerfully swayed by his parents' views, he underwent, in his mid-twenties, a crisis of faithlessness. His feelings of doubt about atheism had their origins in listening to Bach's cantatas, were further developed in the presence of certain Bellini Madonnas, and became overwhelming with an introduction to Zen architecture. However, it was not until his father's death -- buried under a Hebrew headstone in a Jewish cemetery because he had intriguingly omitted to make more secular arrangements -- that Alain began to face the full degree of his ambivalence regarding the views of religion that he had dutifully accepted. Why are we presented with the curious choice between either committing to peculiar concepts about immaterial deities or letting go entirely of a host of consoling, subtle and effective rituals and practices for which there is no equivalent in secular society? Why do we bristle at the mention of the word "morality"? Flee from the idea that art should be uplifting, or have an ethical purpose? Why don't we build temples? What mechanisms do we have for expressing gratitude? The challenge that de Botton addresses in his book: how to separate ideas and practices from the religious institutions that have laid claim to them. In Religion for Atheists is an argument to free our soul-related needs from the particular influence of religions, even if it is, paradoxically, the study of religion that will allow us to rediscover and rearticulate those needs.

This collection features more than two dozen narratives by atheists from different backgrounds across the United States. Ranging in age, race, sexual orientation, and religious upbringing, these individuals address deconversion, community building, parenting, and romantic relationships, providing a nuanced look at living without a god in a predominantly Christian nation. These narratives illuminate the complexities and consequences for nonbelievers in the United States. Stepping away from religious belief can have serious social and existential ramifications, forcing atheists to discover new ways to live meaningfully without a religious community. Yet shedding the constraints of a formal belief system can also be a freeing experience. Ultimately, this volume shows that claiming an atheist identity is anything but an act isolated from the other dimensions of the self. Upending common social, political, and psychological assumptions about atheists, this collection helps carve out a more accepted space for this minority within American society.