Books about Disbelief from Amazon.com

Huston Smith, the author of the classic bestseller The World's Religions, delivers a passionate, timely message: The human spirit is being suffocated by the dominant materialistic worldview of our times. Smith champions a society in which religion is once again treasured and authentically practiced as the vital source of human wisdom.

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Price: $5.50 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Society rarely acknowledges the many and varied gifts that disbelievers give to the world. Churchmen generally contend that great figures in history, such as America's founders, were conventional believers. That isn't true, and this insightful, witty collection sets the record straight! This collection chronicles dozens of famous people such as Isaac Asimov, W E B DuBois, Thomas Edison, Albert Einstein, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Benjamin Franklin, Omar Khayyam, Abraham Lincoln, James Madison, John Stuart Mill, Ayn Rand, Gene Roddenberry, Margaret Sanger, George Bernard Shaw, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Voltaire, with many quotes that reveal their rejection of the supernatural..
Price: $23.50 [Notify me when price goes down.]

In this bold and provocative new book, the author of In the Beginning and The Reenchantment of Nature challenges the widely held assumption that the world is becoming more secular and demonstrates why atheism cannot provide the moral and intellectual guidance essential for coping with the complexities of modern life.

Atheism is one of the most important movements in modern Western culture. For the last two hundred years, it seemed to be on the verge of eliminating religion as an outmoded and dangerous superstition. Recent years, however, have witnessed the decline of disbelief and a rise in religious devotion throughout the world. In THE TWILIGHT OF ATHEISM, the distinguished historian and theologian Alister McGrath examines what went wrong with the atheist dream and explains why religion and faith are destined to play a central role in the twenty-first century.

A former atheist who is now one of Christianity’s foremost scholars, McGrath traces the history of atheism from its emergence in eighteenth-century Europe as a revolutionary worldview that offered liberation from the rigidity of traditional religion and the oppression of tyrannical monarchs, to its golden age in the first half of the twentieth century. Blending thoughtful, authoritative historical analysis with incisive portraits of such leading and influential atheists as Sigmund Freud and Richard Dawkins, McGrath exposes the flaws at the heart of atheism, and argues that the renewal of faith is a natural, inevitable, and necessary response to its failures.

THE TWILIGHT OF ATHEISM will unsettle believers and nonbelievers alike. A powerful rebuttal of the philosophy that, for better and for worse, has exerted tremendous influence on Western history, it carries major implications for the future of both religion and unbelief in our society.

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Price: $8.67 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Why does it seem so hard to transmit the Catholic faith today? What are the obstacles that hinder modern men, women, and children from hearing and embracing the Gospel? Are science, technology, and mass media at odds with Christianity? Are new teaching methods helping to solve the crisis in catechesis or making matters worse? How can the Church do a better job of handing on her precious patrimony to subsequent generations?

To address these provocative questions, some of the great churchmen of our times, including Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, the man who would become Pope Benedict XVI, gathered in France in 1983 for two important conferences.

Handing on the Faith in an Age of Disbelief brings together the four illuminating lectures presented at those meetings, along with commentaries by Pierre Eyt, Bernard Bro, O.P., Georges Bonnet, and Jacques Guillet, S.J. Also included is a candid interview with the then Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger about the pressing problems associated with teaching the faith.

"The fact that there can be long-lasting periods of decline in the Church, is, unfortunately, plain enough from history. Yet history also shows that the totality of the Church—which extends through the whole world and through all times, and is held together and embodied by the Petrine office—bears within itself the powers of regeneration, so that it rises again and again from the dust to proclaim the message of salvation." —Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Handing on the Faith in an Age of Disbelief.
Price: $12.60 [Notify me when price goes down.]

The last few years have seen a great assault upon faith in the publishing world, with an influx of books denouncing religious belief. While attacks on faith are not new, what is notable about these books--several of which have hit the bestseller charts--is their contention that belief in God is not only deluded, but dangerous to society.
In The Delusion of Disbelief, former Time senior correspondent and bestselling author David Aikman offers an articulate, reasoned response to four writers at the forefront of today's anti-faith movement: Sam Harris, Daniel Dennett, Richard Dawkins, and Christopher Hitchens.
Aikman shines a light on the arguments of these "evangelists of atheism," skillfully exposing their errors and inconsistencies. He explains what appears to motivate atheists and their followers; encourages Christians to look closely at what they believe; arms readers with powerful arguments in response to critics of faith; and exposes the social problems that atheism has caused throughout the world.
Aikman also takes on one of the most controversial questions of our time: Can American liberties survive in the absence of widespread belief in God on the part of the nation's people? The answer to that question, says Aikman, is critically important to your future.The Delusion of Disbelief is a thoughtful, intelligent resource for anyone concerned about the increasingly strident and aggressive new attacks on religious belief. It is the book that every person of faith should read--and give away..
Price: $10.06 [Notify me when price goes down.]

After handling thousands of civil and criminal cases, former prosecutor Geoff Henley takes on the world's biggest culprit: God. In Beyond Reasonable Doubt, the attorney applies accepted legal precepts to scripture with devastating results for religion. Much like science has confounded religion's depiction of the natural word, Henley shows how well-settled common law principles undermine religion's claims that a just God exists. Whether you are a skeptic or a believer, a layman or a lawyer, you will not want to miss this pointed analysis of myths, the Bible, the Koran and Anglo-American law..
Price: $14.99 [Notify me when price goes down.]

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Price: $9.95 [Notify me when price goes down.]

"Not Every Spirit" explores the notion of Christian faith as disbelief and how the task of 'testing the spirits' develops and comes to be understood within Christianity as a theological discipline called 'dogmatics'. This book is a fresh and timely dogmatic text that will take its place as a standard work on Christian teachings. To believe in God is not to believe everything. To trust everything without awareness of what is untrustworthy is not genuine faith in God. In a biblical understanding of faith in God, then, what is the role of the call not to believe every spirit? What disbeliefs does faithfulness require? Are there some things that Christian faith refuses to believe? If so, how do we come to recognize what they are?'The presence of faithful disbelief in the church', Professor Morse suggests, 'gives the church's teaching and practice its timeliness in every cultural situation'. Part One of his book therefore explores the notion of Christian faith as disbelief and how the task of 'testing the spirits' develops and comes to be understood within Christianity as a theological discipline called dogmatics. Part two focuses on uncovering disbeliefs of the Christian faith concerning the Word of God, the being of God, Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit, creation, salvation, humanity, the church, and the life to come.Here, then, is a fresh and timely dogmatic text that will take its place as a standard work on Christian teachings. 'Professor Morse's meticulous scholarship in this book convinces Christians to examine not only what they believe but also to give attention to what they are called to disbelieve. In today's world of turmoil, distrust, and violence, Morse's work challenges Christians to reflect seriously on what they are to believe and what they are to do' - Delores S. Williams, Union Seminary, NY. Christopher Morse holds the Dietrich Bonhoeffer Chair in Theology and Ethics at Union Seminary, New York, and is the author of "The Logic of Promise in Moltmann's Theology"..
Price: $19.95 [Notify me when price goes down.]