Books about Skeptical from Amazon.com

A startling book that reshapes the debate about global warming and offers a moderate approach to meeting its challenges

Bjorn Lomborg argues that many of the elaborate and expensive actions now being considered—the Kyoto Protocol, for example—have a staggering potential cost of hundreds of billions of dollars, but, ultimately, will have little impact on the world's temperature. He suggests that rather than institutionalizing these programs to “cool” the earth's temperature 100 years from now, we should focus our resources on some of the world's most pressing immediate concerns, such as: fighting malaria and HIV/AIDS, and maintaining a safe, fresh water supply. And he considers why and how this debate has developed an atmosphere in which dissenters are immediately demonized..
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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, as he ministered to various congregations and taught at Christian colleges, 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, brought on by emotional upheavals in his personal life as well as the gathering weight of the doubts he had long entertained.In this honest appraisal of his journey from believer to atheist, Loftus carefully explains the experiences and the reasoning process that led him to reject religious belief. The bulk of the book is his 'cumulative case' against Christianity. Here, he lays out the philosophical, scientific, and historical reasons that can be raised against Christian belief. From the implications of religious diversity, the authority of faith vs reason, and the problem of evil, to the contradictions between the Bible and the scientific worldview, the conflicts between traditional dogma and historical evidence, and much more, Loftus covers a great deal of intellectual terrain. For every issue, he succinctly summarises 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..
Price: $12.39 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Bjørn Lomborg, a former member of Greenpeace, challenges widely held beliefs that the world environmental situation is getting worse and worse in his new book, The Skeptical Environmentalist. Using statistical information from internationally recognized research institutes, Lomborg systematically examines a range of major environmental issues that feature prominently in headline news around the world, including pollution, biodiversity, fear of chemicals, and the greenhouse effect, and documents that the world has actually improved. He supports his arguments with over 2500 footnotes, allowing readers to check his sources. Lomborg criticizes the way many environmental organizations make selective and misleading use of scientific evidence and argues that we are making decisions about the use of our limited resources based on inaccurate or incomplete information. Concluding that there are more reasons for optimism than pessimism, he stresses the need for clear-headed prioritization of resources to tackle real, not imagined, problems. The Skeptical Environmentalist offers readers a non-partisan evaluation that serves as a useful corrective to the more alarmist accounts favored by campaign groups and the media. Bjørn Lomborg is an associate professor of statistics in the Department of Political Science at the University of Aarhus. When he started to investigate the statistics behind the current gloomy view of the environment, he was genuinely surprised. He published four lengthy articles in the leading Danish newspaper, including statistics documenting an ever-improving world, and unleashed the biggest post-war debate with more than 400 articles in all the major papers. Since then, Lomborg has been a frequent participant in the European debate on environmentalism on television, radio, and in newspapers..
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All your favorite Pok - mon are hidden in different places--Professor Oak's House, Pewter City Gym, even the skies!! Can you spot them in the crowd? Gotta catch 'em all, but you have to find them first!.
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In The Credible Company, communication expert Roger DAprix provides a logical and tested strategy to inform skeptical employees in a time of turbulent change. With information being the lifeblood of todays intellectual-capital assembly line, DAprix explains, the internal communication task has taken on an unprecedented importance. Drawing on his experience as a corporate communication executive and consultant, the author offers a practical prescription for effective communication: INFORMS (as in a communication strategy that informs). Based on the principles of Information, Needs on the Job, Face-to-Face Communication, Openness, Research, Marketplace, and Strategy, INFORMS provides a winning formula for those with the insight and motivation to work for greater credibility within companies and other institutional organizations. Throughout the book, DAprix provides numerous illustrative examples from his rich consulting experience as lessons in what to do and what not to do in communicating with the workforce..
Price: $23.77 [Notify me when price goes down.]

bout the Book

A Likewise book.

Most folks think of Jesus as the man who started Christianity.

But it turns out he wasn't just a man, and he didn't just start Christianity

Most folks think of Jesus as an other-worldly religious leader, a great moral teacher, or maybe they don't think of him at all.

But he had dirty feet, partied, cooked breakfast and got himself killed.

Who was this guy? Why did people hate him so much?

And why should I care?

Whether you've never looked closely at the Christian faith or you've dismissed it as irrelevant, you owe yourself a glance at a Jesus unencumbered by stereotypes. You might be surprised at what you see..
Price: $1.35 [Notify me when price goes down.]

In her lively refutation of modern claims about America's religious origins, Brooke Allen looks back at the late eighteenth century and shows decisively that the United States was founded not on Christian principles at all but on Enlightenment ideas. Moral Minority presents a powerful case that the unique legal framework the Founding Fathers created was designed according to the humanist ideals of Enlightenment thinkers: God entered the picture only as a very minor player, and Jesus Christ was conspicuous by his absence. The guiding spirit of the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution, Ms. Allen explains, was not Jesus Christ but John Locke. In direct and accessible prose, she provides fascinating chapters on the religious lives of the six men she considers the key Founding Fathers: Franklin, Washington, John Adams, Jefferson, Madison, and Hamilton..
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Is green tea the revolutionary answer to weight loss? Can cinnamon help diabetics? Is yohimbe the new Viagra? What do herbs really do to your body?.
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Blaise Pascal (1623-1662) earned recognition as a renowned mathematician, physicist—and a man after God's heart. As he came to the forefront of geometry and physics, he turned his considerable analytical abilities to study religion or, as he said, to "contemplate the greatness and the misery of man." Pascal's classic defense of Christianity—Pensées—persuaded many a skeptic in his time.

Today, editor James Houston has organized Pascal's meditations into a logical progression of thought that contemporary readers can enjoy in Mind on Fire. Described as a "Masterpiece of theological scholarship," Mind on Fire also includes selections from Pascal's Letters to a Provincial, a description of his conversion in his own words..
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A spiritual journey for people who steer clear of religion, but still have to deal with life.

Old Bug is the true story of an impulsive cross-country road trip taken by two friends who've barely seen each other in three decades. For one of them, the journey is a chance to "swat at a question that has, for years, buzzed like an old bug in my soul: If I don't believe in traditional religion, then what do I believe in? Not just about God, but about morality, mortality, meaning, and life's many other mysteries?" The conclusions he arrives at are a refreshing resolution to the centuries-old conflict between fact and faith.

He also discovers that, for his friend, this trip is a long overdue attempt to confront a buried demon and reunite with a family he's been avoiding all his adult life. What begins as a mundane drive becomes a soul searching, thought provoking, oddly mythic, often comic, always human odyssey, as these two very different people join forces to keep a '69 VW Beetle alive long enough to reach the distant shores of home..
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