Books

New Book Out Today: There Is No God: Atheists in America

April 16, 2013 By Hemant Mehta 24 Comments

Today marks the release of a new academic (and expensive) book called There Is No God: Atheists in America by David A. Williamson and George Yancey:

It’s a look at atheists from a sociological perspective — not an argument for it or against it — but I’m already put off by the title, which suggests that atheists have this absolute certainty that God doesn’t exist… instead of what most of us really live by, which is probable certainty. We might live like God doesn’t exist but we’re open to evidence to the contrary.

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Filed Under: Books, General 24 Comments

God or Godless?: A Written Debate Between an Atheist and a Christian

April 15, 2013 By Hemant Mehta 16 Comments

Atheist John W. Loftus and Christian Randal Rauser have co-authored a new book in which they debate a variety of questions about faith. It’s called God or Godless?: One Atheist. One Christian. Twenty Controversial Questions.

The introduction to the book is below:

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Filed Under: Atheist/Christian Cooperation, Books, General 16 Comments

Why Straddling the Fence on LGBT Issues Doesn’t Work: Andrew Marin’s Response to Dan Savage

April 14, 2013 By Hemant Mehta 54 Comments

Yesterday, I posted about a Dan Savage book review in today’s New York Times that criticized the Marin Foundation.

Andrew Marin‘s goal is to bridge the gap between the LGBT and Christian communities, but along the way, he strategically chooses not to answer questions like “Do you think homosexuality is a sin?” “Do you think that gays and lesbians are born that way?” and “Can an LGBT person ‘change’?”

While I don’t care about the answer to the first one, the other two are non-negotiable to me. There are right and wrong answers to those questions and to not answer them so as to straddle the fence is a cop-out.

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Filed Under: Books, General, GLBT 54 Comments

A Torrent of Atheism-Related Books Is About to Be Unleashed

April 13, 2013 By Hemant Mehta 34 Comments

I said yesterday that the “New Atheists” helped revive a movement that has since grown in both size and scope.

Here’s even more evidence of that: The number of books being written about atheism are coming out of the fire hose at full blast. And far from being more “arguments against faith,” they’re covering a wider range of material than ever before. Kimberly Winston wrote about the trend in Publishers Weekly: