The End Of Faith

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"The End of Faith articulates the dangers and absurdities of organized religion so fiercely and so fearlessly that I felt relieved as I read it, vindicated....Harris writes what a sizable number of us think, but few are willing to say."—Natalie Angier, New York Times In The End of Faith, Sam Harris delivers a startling analysis of the clash between reason and religion in the modern world. He offers a vivid, historical tour of our willingness to suspend reason in favor of religious beliefs—even when these beliefs inspire the worst human atrocities. While warning against the encroachment of organized religion into world politics, Harris draws on insights from neuroscience, philosophy, and Eastern mysticism to deliver a call for a truly modern foundation for ethics and spirituality that is both secular and humanistic. Winner of the 2005 PEN/Martha Albrand Award for Nonfiction.

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The Boston Massacre. The Dred Scott decision. The Chicago Seven. O.J. Simpson. These are some of the trials that have both shaped and fascinated American society. Alan M. Dershowitz, who has been either a lawyer, consultant, or commentator on some of the most celebrated cases of the 1970s, 80s and 90s, highlights the trials he believes to be the most significant in our history, and discuses how they were central to the development of America's political and social structure.

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A criticism of Christianity from the secularist point of view.

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In The End of Religion, Bruxy Cavey shares that relationship has no room for religion. Believers and seekers alike will discover anew the wondrous promise found in our savior. And Christ’s eternal call to walk in love and freedom will resonate with readers of all ages and denominations.

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Sam Harris dismantles the most common justification for religious faith--that a moral system cannot be based on science.

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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.

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When you pray, are you talking to a God who exists? Or is God nothing more than your "imaginary friend," like a playmate contrived by a lonely and imaginative child? When author Sam Harris attacked Christianity in Letter to a Christian Nation, reviewers called the book "marvelous" and a generation of readers--hundreds of thousands of them--were drawn to his message. Deeply troubled, Dr. Ravi Zacharias knew that he had to respond. In The End of Reason, Zacharias underscores the dependability of the Bible along with his belief in the power and goodness of God. He confidently refutes Harris's claims that God is nothing more than a figment of one's imagination and that Christians regularly practice intolerance and hatred around the globe. If you found Sam Harris's Letter to a Christian Nation compelling, the book you are holding is exactly what you need. Dr. Zacharias exposes "the utter bankruptcy of this worldview." And if you haven't read Harris's book, Ravi's response remains a powerful, passionate, irrefutably sound set of arguments for Christian thought. The clarity and hope in these pages reach out to readers who know and follow God as well as to those who reject God.

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Sam Harris, bestselling author of THE END OF FAITH takes on one of today's liveliest issues: whether or not we actually have free will.

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Do we know what it means to question well? We need not fear questions, but by the grace of God, we have the safety and security to rush headlong into them and find ourselves better for it on the other side. Faith isn't the sort of thing that will endure as long as our eyes are closed. The opposite is the case: Faith helps us see, and that means not shrinking from the ambiguities and the difficulties that provoke our most profound questions. In our embrace of questioning, we must learn to question well. In our uncertainty, we must not give up the task of walking worthy of the calling that Christ has placed upon us. For we have not yet reached the end of our exploring. This book is written to aid you in faithfully questioning your foundations.

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In this dialogue between a famous atheist and a former radical, Sam Harris and Maajid Nawaz invite you to join an urgently needed conversation: Is Islam a religion of peace or war? Is it amenable to reform? Why do so many Muslims seem drawn to extremism? The authors demonstrate how two people with very different views can find common ground.

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From the best-selling author of The Perfect Heresy, and in the spirit of Barbara Tuchman’s A Distant Mirror, a rich narrative account of the millennium of religious wars that destroyed the Byzantine Empire while shaping the Muslim/Christian conflict that haunts us still. The Medieval Mediterranean was a sea of two faiths: Christianity and Islam. Though bitter rivals, they shared a common history. Here are the epochal moments during that 1000-year struggle: the fall of the Christian Middle East at Yarmuk, Martel’s “wall of ice” at Poitiers, Byzantium’s rout at Manzikert, all the way through to Saladin at Jerusalem, Lazar at Kosovo and the suicidal defence of Malta against the Ottomans. Stephen O’Shea tells a riveting story, which stretches from Syria and Israel to France and Morocco. Today, the two faiths again collide. Sea of Faith is a magnificent work of popular history and a timely reminder of our shared past.

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“A triumph. This novel’s haunting strength will hold the reader until the very end and make Faith and her story impossible to forget.” —Richmond Times Dispatch “Extraordinary.” —Orlando Sentinel From the #1 New York Times bestselling author Jodi Picoult (Nineteen Minutes, Change of Heart, Handle with Care) comes Keeping Faith: an “addictively readable” (Entertainment Weekly) novel that “makes you wonder about God. And that is a rare moment, indeed, in modern fiction” (USA Today).

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Wilfred Cantwell Smith, maintained in this vastly important work that Westerners have misperceived religious life by making "religion" into one thing. He shows the inadequacy of "religion" to capture the living, endlessly variable ways and traditions in which religious faith presents itself in the world.

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Diana Butler Bass, one of contemporary Christianity’s leading trend-spotters, exposes how the failings of the church today are giving rise to a new “spiritual but not religious” movement. Using evidence from the latest national polls and from her own cutting-edge research, Bass, the visionary author of A People’s History of Christianity, continues the conversation began in books like Brian D. McLaren’s A New Kind of Christianity and Harvey Cox’s The Future of Faith, examining the connections—and the divisions—between theology, practice, and community that Christians experience today. Bass’s clearly worded, powerful, and probing Christianity After Religion is required reading for anyone invested in the future of Christianity.

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Fostering mutual understanding by viewing religion from an outsider perspective Depending on how one defines religion, there are at least thousands of religions in the world. Given such religious diversity, how can any one religion claim to know the truth? Nothing proposed so far has helped us settle which of these religions, if any, are true--until now. Author John W. Loftus, a former minister turned atheist, argues we would all be better off if we viewed any religion--including our own--from the informed skepticism of an outsider, a nonbeliever. For this reason he has devised "the outsider test for faith." He describes it as a variation on the Golden Rule: "Do unto your own faith what you do to other faiths." Essentially, this means applying the same skepticism to our own beliefs as we do to the beliefs of other faiths. Loftus notes that research from psychology, anthropology, sociology, and neuroscience goes a long way toward explaining why the human race has produced so many belief systems, why religion is culturally dependent, and how religion evolved in the first place. It's important that people understand these findings to escape the dangerous delusion that any one religion represents the only truth. At a time when the vast diversity of human belief systems is accessible to all, the outsider test for faith offers a rational means for fostering mutual understanding.

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Not everyone has a destiny. Separated and miserable, Thanquil Darkheart and Jezzet Vel’urn both have their reasons for wanting to leave the Dragon Empire. Jezzet flees from the wrathful fury of an Empress scorned while accompanied by the ever insidious Drake Morrass and Thanquil sets out to find and judge his one heretical loose end.

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From the author of Animal Liberation, an examination of the chasm between the words and actions of George W. Bush, who claimed the moral high ground more than any president in recent US history During his time in public office, George W. Bush framed a striking number of his major policies and initiatives with the concepts of good and evil. From his christening of the “axis of evil” to the wars in the Middle East to his condemnation of stem cell research, Bush consistently deployed moral language in discussions of the day’s major issues. But to what degree could his moral philosophy be considered coherent? In The President of Good & Evil, Peter Singer offers an eye-opening analysis of the ethical outlook of America’s forty-third president. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Peter Singer, including rare photos from the author’s personal collection.

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Noted science writer Nicholas Wade offers for the first time a convincing case based on a broad range of scientific evidence for the evolutionary basis of religion.

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For the millions of Americans who want spirituality without religion, Sam Harris’s latest New York Times bestseller is a guide to meditation as a rational practice informed by neuroscience and psychology. From Sam Harris, neuroscientist and author of numerous New York Times bestselling books, Waking Up is for the twenty percent of Americans who follow no religion but who suspect that important truths can be found in the experiences of such figures as Jesus, the Buddha, Lao Tzu, Rumi, and the other saints and sages of history. Throughout this book, Harris argues that there is more to understanding reality than science and secular culture generally allow, and that how we pay attention to the present moment largely determines the quality of our lives. Waking Up is part memoir and part exploration of the scientific underpinnings of spirituality. No other book marries contemplative wisdom and modern science in this way, and no author other than Sam Harris—a scientist, philosopher, and famous skeptic—could write it.

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This 2005 book asks: how will theology and the religions be studied in higher education in the coming century?