"The greatest authors of atheism did more to push me toward belief in God than any Christian apologist writer." --Timothy Morgan. After a decade of major disappointments, Timothy Morgan was ready to reject God. Atheism offered an escape--an opportunity to dismiss God permanently. But as Morgan delved into the thinking of great atheists past and present, he was stunned. In book after book, he found their reasons for rejecting God to be intellectually unfulfilling. In Thank God for Atheists he candidly shares his journey by letting atheists speak for themselves, examining their logic to see whether it holds up or not. Along the way, deals with these key questions: What are the key elements of the atheist worldview? Who are the leading modern-day atheists, and what are they saying? How can you effectively respond to atheism? You'll find this a personal and thoughtful book on why the evidence for God is much more compelling than the evidence against Him.
Presents a philosophy that unifies evolution and religion, discussing evolution as a divine process, how to use insights derived from evolution to improve spiritual life, and how to work for systemic change within this framework.
Caught between the beauty of his grandchildren and grief over a friend's death, Frank Schaeffer finds himself simultaneously believing and not believing in God--an atheist who prays. Schaeffer wrestles with faith and disbelief, sharing his innermost thoughts. He writes as an imperfect son, husband and grandfather whose love for his family, art and life trumps the ugly theologies of an angry God and the atheist vision of a cold, meaningless universe.
Warning! This book may be dangerous to your faith! This book is not for the faint of heart. This is not a work of Christian apologetics designed to arm the believer with biblical and theological strategies to counter humanist arguments. It is not designed to buttress your Christian faith against attacks from atheists and other unbelievers. On the contrary, this book takes the claims of atheists seriously. It listens to the arguments of atheists against the existence of God, and it comes to the conclusion that in a number of areas, atheists are right and Christians are wrong. For that reason it may actually undermine your faith. So please, if you are a Christian, think twice before you read it. Drawing upon the writings of the 21st century New Atheists, as well as previous generations of atheists, the author explores the most convincing arguments that atheists make against theism. His conclusion is that the New Atheists have important things to say to today's Christians. He goes so far as to say that atheists are God's prophets to the Church today, sent by God to purify the Church by proclaiming hard truths that Christians are not willing to hear. He make a case for nonbelieving prophets in the Bible, and then explains how atheists are playing the prophetic role today by echoing the same themes as the biblical prophets. Old Testament prophets regularly confronted the religious authorities and orthodoxies of their day, often paying for "speaking truth to power" with imprisonment and death. Likewise atheists are among the most mistrusted people today. Davis suggests that instead of instinctively resorting to confrontational, evangelistic or apologetic approaches, Christians should listen to atheists with open minds and hearts. They might just hear a word from God! He examines the New Atheists' arguments against God, with particular emphasis on the atheists' strongest argument: the age-old problem of evil and suffering. Along the way he explores the issues of violence ordered by God in the Bible, scriptural historicity, biblical literalism, creationism, hell, prayer, miracles, resurrection, and the problematic doctrine of substitutionary atonement. This book examines the weaknesses and vulnerabilities of Christianity as exposed by the New Atheism. It also explores the responses of Christian apologists who oppose the New Atheism. In the last section of the book, Davis "reimagines" Christianity in the light of reason, evidence, science and historical criticism. Marshall Davis tests the Christian faith from the viewpoint of skepticism to see if it is worthy of our devotion. His conclusion is that it is, but that the New Atheism can help put Christianity on a stronger footing ... if Christians are willing to listen to God speaking through the New Atheists. "This book transcends the typical atheist-theist debate over the existence of God as a supernatural being. He takes a number of pro-science, pro-future insights from religious skeptics and offers a fresh interpretation of Christianity in light of the Evidential Reformation now emerging throughout the world. I highly recommend it." ~ Rev. Michael Dowd, author of "Thank God for Evolution" and host of "The Future Is Calling Us to Greatness"
This book proves to atheists that they don't exist, reveals to agnostics their true motives, and strengthens the faith of the believers. This book answers questions such as Who made God? and Where did Cain get his wife? The book uses humor, reason, and logic to send a powerful message. Here are some reactions from atheists who read the book . . .
We live in an age of skepticism. Our society places such faith in empirical reason, historical progress, and heartfelt emotion that it’s easy to wonder: Why should anyone believe in Christianity? What role can faith and religion play in our modern lives? In this thoughtful and inspiring new book, pastor and New York Times bestselling author Timothy Keller invites skeptics to consider that Christianity is more relevant now than ever. As human beings, we cannot live without meaning, satisfaction, freedom, identity, justice, and hope. Christianity provides us with unsurpassed resources to meet these needs. Written for both the ardent believer and the skeptic, Making Sense of God shines a light on the profound value and importance of Christianity in our lives.
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.
"The greatest authors of atheism did more to push me toward belief in God than any Christian apologist writer." —Timothy Morgan After a decade of major disappointments, Timothy Morgan was ready to reject God. Atheism offered an escape—an opportunity to dismiss God permanently. But as Morgan delved into the thinking of great atheists past and present, he was stunned. In book after book, he found their reasons for rejecting God to be intellectually unfulfilling. In Thank God for Atheists he candidly shares his journey by letting atheists speak for themselves, examining their logic to see whether it holds up or not. Along the way, deals with these key questions: What are the key elements of the atheist worldview? Who are the leading modern-day atheists, and what are they saying? How can you effectively respond to atheism? You'll find this a personal and thoughtful book on why the evidence for God is much more compelling than the evidence against Him.
Everyone's addicted to their devices. It's called the dopamine response. We're so interested in what's coming next, we don't stop to appreciate what's already here. Somewhere along the way, everything's gotten watered down and shallow. In our rush for the quick fix, we're losing our ability to think for ourselves. No matter how idealistically, I'll suggest how we might break the dreary chain of causality that's created our willing imprisonment. Despite the media's insistence that we focus on the mundane, I'll explain how we can focus again on those things that ought to matter. Belief is important. Religion is our way of reconciling ourselves to dying, but it shouldn't become so powerful that it prevents us from living. If we notice an ant crawling around on the lip of a drinking glass caught in an unending circle, we're amused at first. Hours later, when the ant continues on its relentless trek around the glass's edge, we start to get mildly annoyed. We're dismayed by how this apparently stupid creature hasn't yet figured out that it's been going around in this little circle. In fact, if we don't intercede in some way, it will likely go on like this for the rest of its life. What most of us fail to take into account, is the fact that one of the ways scout ants blaze new paths, is by laying down a pheromone trail that will aid it in returning to the colony later. If the trip was successful in yielding up new food sources, then that same trail can be followed by other members of the colony at some future point. Since there have been ants, that's a pretty good way to run a business. It's a safe bet that most of the world's ants won't end up on the edge of a glass somewhere, since such items are relatively rare in nature. I wonder what some dispassionate observer would think if they were to look at some of the things we believe. Would they laugh at our plight, or would they be appalled by our short-sightedness? Sometimes it's best to recognize the futility of going around in this big, unending circle.
Dr Francis S. Collins, head of the Human Genome Project, is one of the world's leading scientists, working at the cutting edge of the study of DNA, the code of life. Yet he is also a man of unshakable faith in God. How does he reconcile the seemingly unreconcilable? In THE LANGUAGE OF GOD he explains his own journey from atheism to faith, and then takes the reader on a stunning tour of modern science to show that physics, chemistry and biology -- indeed, reason itself -- are not incompatible with belief. His book is essential reading for anyone who wonders about the deepest questions of all: why are we here? How did we get here? And what does life mean?
