Not the Impossible Faith
Not the Impossible Faith

Author: Richard Carrier

Publisher: Lulu.com

Published: 2009-01-27

Total Pages: 456

ISBN-13: 0557044642

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Dr. Richard Carrier is an expert in the history of the ancient world and a critic of Christian attempts to distort history in defense of their faith. Not the Impossible Faith is a tour de force in that genre, dissecting and refuting the oft-repeated claim that Christianity could not have succeeded in the ancient world unless it was true. Though framed as a detailed rebuttal to Christian apologist J.P. Holding (author of The Impossible Faith), Carrier takes a general approach that educates the reader on the history and sociology of the ancient world, answering many questions like: How did Christians approach evidence? Was there a widespread prejudice against the testimony of women? Was resurrection such a radical idea? Who would worship a crucified criminal? And much more. Written with occasional humor and an easy style, and thoroughly referenced, with many entertaining "gotcha!" moments, Not the Impossible Faith is a must-read for anyone interested in the origins of Christianity.

The Impossible Faith
The Impossible Faith

Author: James Patrick Holding

Publisher: Xulon Press

Published: 2007-05

Total Pages: 114

ISBN-13: 1602660840

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A Thesis So Explosive, An Atheist Paid $5,000 for An Answer The Impossible Faith offers the proposition that Christianity could not have succeeded unless it had indisputable proof of the resurrection of Jesus. Had there not been such evidence, Christianity would have been an "impossible faith". Using his seventeen years of experience in apologetics ministry, the author will demonstrate the impossibility of Christianity in the eyes of the people of the first century and present an apologetic for Jesus' resurrection. Christians will be encouraged and emboldened by the message of The Impossible Faith, realizing "how firm a foundation" they have in Christ Jesus. Non-Christians will be challenged to consider the truth of Christianity in a new light. The arguments in this book are so powerful that one atheist paid over $5,000 for a response. It is impossible to estimate the evangelistic impact that is possible because of The Impossible Faith. James Patrick Holding is President of Tekton Apologetics Ministries, one of the leading apologetics ministries on the Internet. Tekton Apologetics Ministries was recommended by apologist and prominent author Lee Strobel on Hank Hanegraaff's The Bible Answerman in December, 2001. Holding has written over 1700 articles for his ministry, as well as articles for the Christian Research Journal and for the publications of Creation Ministries International . He has also published The Mormon Defenders: How Latter-Day Saint Apologists Misinterpret the Bible. He lives in Central Florida with his beloved wife and a very small, very spoiled poodle.

Faith as an Option
Faith as an Option

Author: Hans Joas

Publisher: Stanford University Press

Published: 2014-09-03

Total Pages: 205

ISBN-13: 080479278X

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Many people these days regard religion as outdated and are unable to understand how believers can intellectually justify their faith. Nonbelievers have long assumed that progress in technology and the sciences renders religion irrelevant. Believers, in contrast, see religion as vital to society's spiritual and moral well-being. But does modernization lead to secularization? Does secularization lead to moral decay? Sociologist Hans Joas argues that these two supposed certainties have kept scholars from serious contemporary debate and that people must put these old arguments aside in order for debate to move forward. The emergence of a "secular option" does not mean that religion must decline, but that even believers must now define their faith as one option among many. In this book, Joas spells out some of the consequences of the abandonment of conventional assumptions for contemporary religion and develops an alternative to the cliché of an inevitable conflict between Christianity and modernity. Arguing that secularization comes in waves and stressing the increasing contingency of our worlds, he calls upon faith to articulate contemporary experiences. Churches and religious communities must take into account religious diversity, but the modern world is not a threat to Christianity or to faith in general. On the contrary, Joas says, modernity and faith can be mutually enriching.

God Is Not Great
God Is Not Great

Author: Christopher Hitchens

Publisher: McClelland & Stewart

Published: 2008-11-19

Total Pages: 322

ISBN-13: 1551991764

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Christopher Hitchens, described in the London Observer as “one of the most prolific, as well as brilliant, journalists of our time” takes on his biggest subject yet–the increasingly dangerous role of religion in the world. In the tradition of Bertrand Russell’s Why I Am Not a Christian and Sam Harris’s recent bestseller, The End Of Faith, Christopher Hitchens makes the ultimate case against religion. With a close and erudite reading of the major religious texts, he documents the ways in which religion is a man-made wish, a cause of dangerous sexual repression, and a distortion of our origins in the cosmos. With eloquent clarity, Hitchens frames the argument for a more secular life based on science and reason, in which hell is replaced by the Hubble Telescope’s awesome view of the universe, and Moses and the burning bush give way to the beauty and symmetry of the double helix.

The Impossibility of Religious Freedom
The Impossibility of Religious Freedom

Author: Winnifred Fallers Sullivan

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2018-04-24

Total Pages: 330

ISBN-13: 0691180954

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The Constitution may guarantee it. But religious freedom in America is, in fact, impossible. So argues this timely and iconoclastic work by law and religion scholar Winnifred Sullivan. Sullivan uses as the backdrop for the book the trial of Warner vs. Boca Raton, a recent case concerning the laws that protect the free exercise of religion in America. The trial, for which the author served as an expert witness, concerned regulations banning certain memorials from a multiconfessional nondenominational cemetery in Boca Raton, Florida. The book portrays the unsuccessful struggle of Catholic, Protestant, and Jewish families in Boca Raton to preserve the practice of placing such religious artifacts as crosses and stars of David on the graves of the city-owned burial ground. Sullivan demonstrates how, during the course of the proceeding, citizens from all walks of life and religious backgrounds were harassed to define just what their religion is. She argues that their plight points up a shocking truth: religion cannot be coherently defined for the purposes of American law, because everyone has different definitions of what religion is. Indeed, while religious freedom as a political idea was arguably once a force for tolerance, it has now become a force for intolerance, she maintains. A clear-eyed look at the laws created to protect religious freedom, this vigorously argued book offers a new take on a right deemed by many to be necessary for a free democratic society. It will have broad appeal not only for religion scholars, but also for anyone interested in law and the Constitution. Featuring a new preface by the author, The Impossibility of Religious Freedom offers a new take on a right deemed by many to be necessary for a free democratic society.

Religion without God
Religion without God

Author: Ronald Dworkin

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 2013-10-01

Total Pages: 71

ISBN-13: 0674728041

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In his last book, Ronald Dworkin addresses questions that men and women have asked through the ages: What is religion and what is God’s place in it? What is death and what is immortality? Based on the 2011 Einstein Lectures, Religion without God is inspired by remarks Einstein made that if religion consists of awe toward mysteries which “manifest themselves in the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty, and which our dull faculties can comprehend only in the most primitive forms,” then, he, Einstein, was a religious person. Dworkin joins Einstein’s sense of cosmic mystery and beauty to the claim that value is objective, independent of mind, and immanent in the world. He rejects the metaphysics of naturalism—that nothing is real except what can be studied by the natural sciences. Belief in God is one manifestation of this deeper worldview, but not the only one. The conviction that God underwrites value presupposes a prior commitment to the independent reality of that value—a commitment that is available to nonbelievers as well. So theists share a commitment with some atheists that is more fundamental than what divides them. Freedom of religion should flow not from a respect for belief in God but from the right to ethical independence. Dworkin hoped that this short book would contribute to rational conversation and the softening of religious fear and hatred. Religion without God is the work of a humanist who recognized both the possibilities and limitations of humanity.

Why Religion is Natural and Science is Not
Why Religion is Natural and Science is Not

Author: Robert N. McCauley

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2013-11

Total Pages: 352

ISBN-13: 0199341540

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A comparison of the cognitive foundations of religion and science and an argument that religion is cognitively natural and that science is cognitively unnatural.

Why We Need Religion
Why We Need Religion

Author: Stephen T. Asma

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2018-05-09

Total Pages: 273

ISBN-13: 0190469692

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How we feel is as vital to our survival as how we think. This claim, based on the premise that emotions are largely adaptive, serves as the organizing theme of Why We Need Religion. This book is a novel pathway in a well-trodden field of religious studies and philosophy of religion. Stephen Asma argues that, like art, religion has direct access to our emotional lives in ways that science does not. Yes, science can give us emotional feelings of wonder and the sublime--we can feel the sacred depths of nature--but there are many forms of human suffering and vulnerability that are beyond the reach of help from science. Different emotional stresses require different kinds of rescue. Unlike secular authors who praise religion's ethical and civilizing function, Asma argues that its core value lies in its emotionally therapeutic power. No theorist of religion has failed to notice the importance of emotions in spiritual and ritual life, but truly systematic research has only recently delivered concrete data on the neurology, psychology, and anthropology of the emotional systems. This very recent "affective turn" has begun to map out a powerful territory of embodied cognition. Why We Need Religion incorporates new data from these affective sciences into the philosophy of religion. It goes on to describe the way in which religion manages those systems--rage, play, lust, care, grief, and so on. Finally, it argues that religion is still the best cultural apparatus for doing this adaptive work. In short, the book is a Darwinian defense of religious emotions and the cultural systems that manage them.