Read the book "While Europe Slept: How Radical Islam is Destroying the West from Within" by Bruce Bawer.

It is written by a gay man who moved to Europe to get away from Christians in the US, only to discover that the Muslims in Europe were MUCH worse than the most conservative Christians in the US.

http://www.amazon.com/While-Europe-Slept-Radical-Destroying/dp/0767920058

I think you will learn the most by reading five textbooks, such as A History of Philosophy, volumes 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5; or something like Metaphysics: The Fundamentals, The Fundamentals of Ethics, Theory and Reality: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Science, An Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion, and An Introduction to Political Philosophy.

If what you have in mind is more of a "Great Books" program to get your feet wet with some classic works that are not too difficult, you could do a lot worse than:

• Plato's Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, and Phaedo, often published together under the title The Trial and Death of Socrates. Socrates is so important that we lump together all Greek philosophers before him as "the Presocratics," and this cycle of dialogues is a great window on who he was and what he is famous for.
  
• The Basic Works of Aristotle. "The philosopher of common sense" is not a particularly easy read. Cicero compared his writing style to "a flowing river of gold," but all the works he prepared for publication are gone, and what we have is an unauthorised collection of lecture notes written in a terse, cramped style that admits of multiple interpretations. Even so, one can find in Aristotle a very attractive system of metaphysics and ethics which played a major role in the history of philosophy, and holds up well even today.
  
• René Descartes, Discourse on the Method and Meditations on First Philosophy. Descartes is called the father of modern philosophy, not so much because modern philosophers have widely followed his particular positions (they haven't) but because he set the agenda, in a way, with his introduction of methodological scepticism.
  
• David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding. I think Elizabeth Anscombe had it right in judging Hume a "mere brilliant sophist", in that his arguments are ultimately flawed, but there is great insight to be derived from teasing out why they are wrong.
  
• If I can cheat just a little more, I will lump together three short, important treatises on ethics: Immanuel Kant's Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals, John Stuart Mill's Utilitarianism, and Anscombe's paper "Modern Moral Philosophy".

Good way to put it. Dan Dennett says a lot about this in Breaking the spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon.

I don't read books bro.

Just kidding!

The Devil's Game by Robert Dreyfuss
This book is a comprehensive guide to the middle east and western politics
http://www.amazon.com/Devils-Game-Unleash-Fundamentalist-American/dp/0805081372

Edit: (I can't believe I forgot this one)
The Great Game by Peter Hopkirk
The great game was played by Russia and The British, this has everything to do with today's afghanistan
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Game_(Peter_Hopkirk_book)

Taliban by Ahmed Rashid
This is mostly about Afghanistan through the eyes of a well informed and respected journalist
http://www.amazon.com/Taliban-Militant-Islam-Fundamentalism-Central/dp/0300089023

You wanted to be part of the intelligentsia, but throughout your philosophical journey, you always based your convictions only on authority and tradition instead of on evidence and arguments. Don't you realize that this is the epitome of anti – intellectualism?

It is correct that the New Atheists aren't the pinnacle of atheistic thought and didn't contribute many new ideas to the academic debate of atheism vs. theism or religion. But this was never their goal, and it is also unnecessary, since the academic debate is already over for many decades. If you want to know why the arguments for theism are all complete nonsense and not taken seriously anymore, why Christianity is wrong just about everything and why apologists like Craig are dishonest charlatans who make a living out of fooling people, your reading list shouldn't be New Atheists, but rather something like this:

Colin Howson – Objecting to God

George H. Smith – Atheism: The Case Against God

Graham Oppy – Arguing about Gods

Graham Oppy – The Best Argument Against God

Herman Philipse – God in the Age of Science

J. L. Mackie – The Miracle of Theism

J. L. Schellenberg – The Wisdom to Doubt

Jordan Sobel – Logic and Theism

Nicholas Everitt – The Non-Existence of God

Richard Gale – On the Nature and Existence of God

Robin Le Poidevin – Arguing for Atheism

Stewart Elliott Guthrie – Faces in the Clouds: A New Theory of Religion

Theodore Drange – Nonbelief & Evil



[Avigor Shinan – From Gods to God: How the Bible Debunked, Suppressed, or Changed Ancient Myths and Legends] (http://www.amazon.com/dp/0827609086)

Bart Ehrman – The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings

Bart Ehrman – Jesus, Interrupted

Bart Ehrman – Misquoting Jesus

Burton L. Mack – Who Wrote the New Testament?

Helmut Koester – Ancient Christian Gospels

John Barton, John Muddiman – The Oxford Bible Commentary

John Dominic Crossan – Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography

Karen Armstrong – A History of God

Mark Smith – The Early History of God

Randel McCraw Helms – Who Wrote the Gospels?

Richard Elliott Friedman – Who Wrote the Bible?

Robert Bellah – Religion in Human Evolution: From the Paleolithic to the Axial Age

Robert Walter Funk – The Gospel of Jesus

Saw him play this past May in Boston and they were phenomenal. If you get a chance check out his books Is Belief in God Good, Bad or Irrelevant? and Anarchy Evolution. Very smart dude and an incredibly talented vocalist.

Demon Haunted World and The Varieties of Scientific Experience both by Carl Sagan. You're going to need something softly softly that at the same time packs a punch. Anything by the 'new atheists' will be deemed offensive to their sensibilities not to mention the mere name of Dawkins or Hitch may turn them off before you've even gotten a chance in. Sagan is a fucking poet. You'll do more damage with him than anyone else.

Just wanted to restate my case based on all of the PM's I've been getting from people saying I hate America, love terrorists, etc. I am agnostic and did not grow up in a religious household. I just think that if you look at events leading up to most wars you will find that religion was not as responsible for violence as other factors. Most of what I wrote here was a very, very, very crudely summarized version of what much smarter people have said. Most of the facts I stated came from this book for those of you who are interested. Also, I don't hate America, I don't think suicide bombers are saints, and I don't hate atheists. I think that answers all of the questions raised by the PM's. Hope I didn't piss too many people off with this one.

A quote from the prophet Lorenzo Snow:

>“As man now is, God once was: As God now is, man may be.”

Well Mr. alleged exmormon, you're either someone who never seriously studied Mormon doctrine or are purposely obfuscating the truth. The fact is that the LDS Church DID teach it when I was growing up and does not deny nor repudiate what Mormon prophet Lorenzo Snow said.

As far as polygamy goes, the LDS church DOES believe that Mormon men will take more than one wife throughout the eternities and to try to deny or downplay its significance is dishonest. People seeking the truth can verify everything I've said through Mormonthink.org and can even double check it on the church apoologetic and gaslighting site Fairmormon.org to come to their own conclusions.

The mental gymnastics you're capable of are gold medal worthy.

I'd recommend checking these out:

Plantinga, Alvin. God and Other Minds. Cornell University Press, 1990.

Feser, Edward. The Last Superstition: a Refutation of the New Atheism. St. Augustine's Press, 2011.

Plantinga, Alvin. Knowledge and Christian Belief. Eerdmans, 2015.

Pitre, Brant. The Case for Jesus: The Biblical and Historical Evidence for Christ. Image, 2016.

Feser, Edward. Five Proofs of the Existence of God. Ignatius Press, 2017.

From the FAQ. For philosophy of religion, Davies's An Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion and Yandell's Philosophy of Religion: A Contemporary Introduction.

Further Resources: Mackie's book A Miracle of Theism was a text I used in one of my courses on phil religion. There are more recommendations in this entry from PhilPapers.

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy is rigorous and reliable, if you want to just browse some of the entries to get a sense of the relevant topics. For example, some arguments for god(s) include:

• Cosmological Argument(s): which "makes an inference from particular alleged facts about the universe (cosmos) to the existence of a unique being, generally identified with or referred to as God."
  
• Ontological Argument(s): which "are arguments, for the conclusion that God exists, from premises which are supposed to derive from some source other than observation of the world—e.g., from reason alone."
  
• Moral Argument(s): which "reason from some feature of morality or the moral life to the existence of God, usually understood as a morally good creator of the universe."
  
• Design (or Teleological) Argument(s): which argue "some phenomena within nature exhibit such exquisiteness of structure, function or interconnectedness that many people have found it natural—if not inescapable—to see a deliberative and directive mind behind those phenomena."
  
• Religious Experience Argument(s): which can argue "that the religious experience, as well as being valuable in itself, is also evidence, or even proof, of the objective truth of some associated beliefs. That is, there may be an argument from religious experience to" belief in religious phenomena or being, like god. [quote from Mackie]
  
  And more suggestions in this thread. Also, the IEP is sometimes more accessible than SEP.

Yes, nearly everyone knew the world was round. Eratosthenes measured the earth's circumference with reasonable accuracy in the third century BC.

Medievals knew this. You can even find medieval clerics (like Nicole d'Oresme) hypothesizing about the earth going around the sun centuries before Copernicus. They couldn't prove it yet, but they had suspicions.

A good book on all these subjects is Galileo Goes To Jail, edited by Ronald Numbers. It features dozens of the world's most eminent historians of science discussing myths about science and religion.

Concerning the Inquisition, you can reference Henry Kamen's The Spanish Inquisition for an important 20th century interpretation of what the Inquisition was.

Well, it was a pretty long journey, but I'll try to summarize the main points.

I'm a cradle catholic. So when I was young, I attended catechism classes and I just took it all in without thinking about it critically.

As I grew older, I started to question all the things I was taught before. And the more you know about physics and biology, the more you question how the universe really works. Moreover, I got exposed to the writings and ideas of Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins and the other popularly vocal atheist guys. I got exposed to arguments like the God of the Gaps, I saw the corruption in the catholic church both now and in the past; and all these things just added up and eventually pushed me to become an atheist.

After a certain event in my life though, I was forced to really think about what I truly believe in. I did a lot of thinking and a lot of studying of the arguments of atheists and the other religions as well. What I've come to realize is that catholicism, though not perfect, is probably the closest to the truth about how our universe works and how we should live our lives. That's a big statement, and I'm willing to be proved wrong on that, but here's briefly how I came to that conclusion.

I was exposed to the writings of Thomas Aquinas. His five proofs, and in particular, his argument from contingency is quite a revelation, and to me it makes a lot of sense. I also realized that there is a limit to what science can answer, and the only honest statement that science can make about God is that we don't know and can't prove scientifically whether or not he exists. Then you have the argument from absolute morality (which is not the same as 'what's stopping you from committing crimes if you don't fear a higher power?'). You have the proof of the historicity of Jesus and his message. You have the high probability of the resurrection being a real event. There's also the behaviour of the early church fathers and what they believed the message of Jesus was.

And I also came across many scientist-theists and their writings. John Lennox is particularly good (http://www.amazon.com/Gods-Undertaker-Has-Science-Buried/dp/0745953719). Alistair McGrath is another one who bridges the science-religion debate really well.

So now I'm back to the catholic church. I know it's not perfect, there is still corruption there. But just because the people that make up the church are corrupt does not mean it's message is necessarily corrupt as well.

Most of the people who, by all accounts I've seen, carried out the attacks on the WTC and killed those people were from Saudi Arabia...

So why did we attack Iraq?

The spread of fundamentalist Islam was promoted by US agencies to help fight the spread of communism. Please see "Devil's Game" for source material. (http://www.amazon.com/Devils-Game-Unleash-Fundamentalist-American/dp/0805081372)

If you want to know why I think Sagan was really awesome, check out "The Varieties of Scientific Experience".

Sagan's Gifford Lectures from 1985 contained in the book are still remarkably relevant.

You should check out his book "Varieties of the Scientific Experience." It is one of the most objective books I've ever read about a scientific search for God.

>This is a good explanation of in what contexts people are inclined to make snap judgments/stereotype: when the costs of getting it wrong are high and there isn't better information available, we'll be more willing to use a criteria that has a lot of false positives.

I recently read a book that suggested this is the origin of religion.

Those guys are horrible at history. I would recommend going to /r/badhistory for rebuttals, in the meantime I found some books that I think can really help out debunking this myth.

Science and Religion: A Historical Introduction

Philosophy of Science: An Historical Anthology

Galileo Goes to Jail and Other Myths about Science and Religion

When Science and Christianity Meet

The Genesis of Science: How the Christian Middle Ages Launched the Scientific Revolution

The Beginnings of Western Science: The European Scientific Tradition in Philosophical, Religious, and Institutional Context, Prehistory to A.D. 1450

The Savior of Science

For the Glory of God

The Bible, Protestantism, and the Rise of Natural Science

The History of Science from Augustine to Galileo

Yes this is a long list but that's because it's studied so often ;). I hope this helps.

One of my favorites. Thanks for posting!

*edit* My comment was vapid. Here's at least something else. I saw this while watching one of the other videos posted in these comments. I had no idea Greg had this book out. I believe I shall have to read it.

First - don't promote your website here, mysticpolitics, especially after copying an article from another site (obviously you want hits - fuck you). At least change your screen name for practical purposes. And this isn't a mystical matter, nor politics.

Next:

For someone with so much experience in the field, I am surprised by Nigel Barber's lack of understanding of this subject. Then again, the article is such a cursory run at addressing this issue, and provides nothing new, or well-informed, to a point that I think he just shot out a shit article for the sake of vomiting his thoughts somewhere. Adaptionist theories of religious cognition, as opposed to theories of its being a by-product (exaptation), have bore little evidence in both anthropological and psychological literature. Furthermore, this God spot has not been observed to have any natural onset of its function other than that identified via artificial stimulation. Even then, something having such a relevant function doesn't mean it was selected for; Was susceptibility to psychoactives selected for? Was the ability to play the chocking game selected for due to the nature of some people's dreams? How about sleep paralysis? It is just as likely that systems built to process other minds are inadvertently activated by other processes, as they take such a primary role in our thought.

Can we also remember that for something to be selected, alternative genetic structures must die off or fail to reproduce. Also, mutations aren't robust, they don't overnight become autonomous modules like this 'God spot'. So, you're saying people who didn't have slight variation in their ability to randomly have spiritual insight either (a) died off from threatening causes, or (b) were not attractive to mates? Are you fucking kidding me? You study evolutionary psychology, man, come on. Read some damn evolutionary biology for a change.

—Regardless of arguments though, I just want to point out that this is a shit article, I looked at the rest of his work - solid stuff. Don't put this crap out there, don't make such huge claims before reading background literature, especially if you're in the field.

Now, some fun resources for everyone to go be happy and read about what I'd call the most exciting corner of research outside of empathy! Goodies for everyone (buy the first three books, they'll change your lives):

Religion Explained (exaptation/by-product cognitive view)

Why Would Anyone Believe in God? (more concise cognitive view, very accessible to the non-psychologist, very short)

Darwin's Cathedral (Adaptionist, group selection view)

Adaptations, Exaptations, & Spandrels

Haitian Vodou ("voodoo" is the term used primarily to distinguish Louisiana voodoo, which is different) did originate in west Africa (the primary source of slaves for the Atlantic slave trade). Vodou is conceptualized as a syncretic mix of traditional African religious practices mixed with distinctly New World elements.

Vodou is descended from several different west African religious traditions. A French man named Mederic Louis Elie Moreau de Saint-Mery traced the origin of Vodou to Dahomey (roughly modern Benin) and Kingdom of Arada Arada. Vodou has its origins among the Fon people (Dahomey people) in Benin, Nigeria, and Togo. These areas are thought to be ancestral to modern day vodou.

However, modern day Vodou as its practiced in Haiti and elsewhere in the African diaspora, is quite distinct from African traditional religions. It is certainly has African roots, but it has also been profoundly influenced by Catholicism and the experiences of slaves.

Sources:

• Murrell 2010 is a good review of several Afro-Atlantic religions, including vodou
  
• Tann 2012
  
• Also, if you are interested in the topic, I can't recommend Mama Lola enough. It's an easy read about vodou practitioners in New York.

Some stuff that's important in contemporary analytic phil religion:

The Miracle of Theism by J.L. Mackie

God, Freedom, and Evil by Alvin Plantinga

God and Other Minds by Alvin Plantinga

The Coherence of Theism by Richard Swinburne

The Existence of God by Richard Swinburne

Can God Be Free? by William Rowe

Perceiving God by William Alston

https://www.amazon.com/Ghost-Eternal-Polygamy-Haunting-Hearts/dp/0997458208/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1468994106&sr=1-1&keywords=carol+lynn+pearson

I'd suggest beginning with Brian Davies' "An Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion or Keith Yandell's Philosophy of Religion: A Contemporary Introduction.

I'd also suggest looking into a philosophy of religion anthology. Louis P. Pojman and Michael Rea edited a very nice anthology. It includes selective writings on the ontological argument, the cosmological proof, the teleological argument, the problem of evil, divine attributes, and much more. Pieces of both historic and contemporary importance are included, ranging from St. Aquinas and St. Anselm to Samuel Clarke and David Hume — all the way up to Richard Swinburne and J.L Mackie. It's a very good anthology.

Is atheism caused by high mutational load? The Industrial Revolution removed all Darwinian selection in the West. (Infant mortality used to be 40%.)

Religiosity was actively selected for over a period of hundreds of thousands of years. See Darwin's Cathedral and The Faith Instinct.

Nobody is saying that beliefs of type X being selected for entails their metaphysical truth. Dutton wants to explain the maladaptive contagion of r/atheism in terms of evo-bio, rather than a sudden enlightenment courtesy of Hitchens & Dawkins (LOL!)

A Response to Dutton

If you're really interested in this topic, I highly recommend Dan Denntt's Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon...a whole book on why humans are predisposed to be religious (spoiler...it had evolutionary advantages)

This is a pretty big question, Charles Taylor recently wrote a 900 page book about it in fact. Wiki has a fairly decent summary of Taylor's thesis, which I think is fairly strong. There's also an excellent 30+ page review, with a reply by Taylor, in the July 2010 issue of the Journal of Religion. There are assuredly a ton of reviews of Taylor, it was an extremely important book. That would be a good place to get started (with the reviews, I mean, it may be a bit much to digest 900 pages).

While Europe Slept, written 10 years ago, gives one a good understanding of the current crisis in Europe and why being tolerant to the intolerant is a recipe for failure.

From a post I made awhile back:

If you want to go for a scholastic/western positive apologetics approach check out: The Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology.

If you want to go for a scholastic/western negative apologetics approach check out Alvin Plantinga's God and Other Minds. This is the work that actually re-kindled serious philosophical debate on the existence of God in Anglophone philosophical circles according to Quinten Smith (a notable atheist philosopher btw). From there you could also check out Alvin Plantinga's warrant trilogy in order: Warrant: The Current Debate, Warrant and Proper Function, and Warranted Christian Belief.

Personally I'm skeptical of the scholastic/western approach in general and I favor the Eastern/Mystical approach. I think the scholastic/western approach cannot escape radical skepticism, and I mean this in terms of secular and religious. If one takes seriously the scholastic/western approach in general, whether one is atheist or theist, radical skepticism follows. This video from a radical skeptic that goes by the user name Carneades.org does a good job of demonstrating this: Arguments of the Indirect Skeptic

The Orthodox approach has always been mystical rather than scholastic all the way from the beginnings of Christianity. From Jesus, to the apostles, to the church fathers, to right now we still have the original apostolic faith in the Orthodox Church. Check out this short documentary to learn more: Holy Orthodoxy: The Ancient Church of Acts in the 21st Century.

Fr. Vladimir Berzonsky explains the Eastern/Mystical approach: "To properly understand the Orthodox approach to the Fathers, one must first of all understand the mystical characteristic of Orthodox theology and the tradition of the apophatic approach to an understanding-if "understanding" is indeed the proper word-of what the hidden God in Trinity reveals to us. This needs to be combined with the insight that what is incomprehensible to our reason inspires us to rise above every attempt at philosophical limitation and to reach for an experience beyond the limits of the intellect. The experience of God is a transcendence born from union with the divine-henosis (oneness with God) being the ultimate goal of existence. This makes the requirement of true knowledge (gnosis) the abandoning of all hope of the conventional subject-object approach to discovery. It requires setting aside the dead ends of Scholasticism, nominalism, and the limits set by such Kantian paradigms as noumena/phenomena. One must return to, or better yet, find in one's heart (or nous, the soul's eye) union with the Holy Trinity, which has never been lost in the Orthodox Church."

Source: Fr. Vladimir Berzonsky, (2004). Three Views on Eastern Orthodoxy and Evangelicalism. p. 178. Zondervan, Grand Rapids

We are all dealing with some level of religious PTSD. It's no surprise that we are so triggered by aspects of LDS practice and culture. We spent a minimum of three hours per Sunday at church and likely so much more time on mandatory tasks in a high demand religion. We read through Joseph Smith's bible fan-fiction multiple times. We defended policies that stemmed from his inability to keep his pants on. Many of us spent 18 months or two years working full time, as an unpaid volunteer trying to convince other people to abandon their faith and join this American Restorationist, insular, frontier religion with all too many "cult" aspects.

It's ironic that all of us apostates have to be the Christlike people in our relationships when dealing with believers. We have to forgive their actions when they lash out in anger at our interest in scandalous activites like "drinking coffee" or "sleeping late on Sunday" or "funding our 401k instead of tithing". Believers have a doctrinal base for being suspicious of apostates. It's not fair and does not hold up under objective scrutiny. But it will be used as an emotional weapon against us. Forgive them; for they know not what they do.

We have to be better than that. If you are being hurt by the LDS church then simply leaving is your best strategy. If you are on the LGBT spectrum then simple leaving is likely your best strategy. If you can still deal with believers in an emotionally healthy way, then being patient with their socially pressured fears is incumbent on you if you want to have a relationship with them. Do your complaining while in /r/exmormon and be kind when faced with believers.

If you have any interest in books (sorry--that's my jam), Mormon Feminism: Essential Writings is a fantastic collection of essays, sermons, some blog posts, and other writings by Mormon women about feminism. It has the benefit of being easily digested in small chunks that stand alone pretty well, so you can skip sections that don't interest you as much or jump to some areas that really speak to you.

I actually think the book Women at Church: Magnifying LDS Women's Local Impact might be another great option for what you're looking for. It's by a very believing Mormon woman who until a few years before writing the book had worked for the church (I think in PR if I remember right) and it basically has two halves: first, explaining to Mormon men (and many women) who don't see any problems with sexism in the church why faithful members feel that there really is (and they're not crazy); and second, laying out suggestions that could be implemented at the local level that wouldn't be against any church policies but which could alleviate some of the problematic aspects of Mormon culture w/r/t sexism.

A few other book options to consider: Mormon Women Have Their Say Essays from the Claremont Oral History Collection; Mormon Women: Portraits and Conversations (covers everyone from a Utah housewife who started a major charity to a woman who fought the Marcos regime as a communist guerrilla in the Philippines!); Educated: A Memoir (a memoir about growing up in a seriously dysfunctional Mormon family but going on to achieve awesome stuff); literally anything written by Chieko Okazaki (or even listen to some of her talks in General Conference to the worldwide church)--she is beloved by literally every Mormon woman I've ever met, liberal or conservative; and Carol Lynn Pearson has written some great stuff about women and Mormonism, like The Ghost of Eternal Polygamy: Haunting the Hearts and Heaven of Mormon Women and Men and (if you're into one-woman plays) Mother Wove the Morning. Many of these have Kindle editions if you don't like hard copies.

Anyway, hope some of that might sound interesting to you. Good luck!

You should explore prayer and/or meditation, whichever is more your flavor.

Here are two great resources to get you started:

The Road Home: A Contemporary Exploration of the Buddhist Path https://www.amazon.com/dp/0374536716/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_pY1DzbXS0XHVD

Leisure: The Basis of Culture https://www.amazon.com/dp/1586172565/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_qM2Dzb3WVFBX5

I highly suggest reading both. They changed my life and I hope can help you, too.

Anarchy Evolution: Faith, Science, and Bad Religion in a World Without God by Greg Graffin and Steve Olson.

http://www.amazon.com/Anarchy-Evolution-Science-Religion-Without/dp/0061828513

Lot of people in this thread giving some very bad or lazy responses. My undergraduate philosophy thesis was on Plantinga's freewill theodicy but my courses covered the breadth of religious philosophy and so I've actually had to read and discuss this book before.

I don't know how to do the symbols on my keyboard so apologies in advance but if you are looking for a book that provides an insanely comprehensive refutation of "modern-logic" formalized versions of the ontological argument, you want Jordan Howard Sobel's "Logic and Theism", which goes into great detail with the formal logic notation.

Sobel's explanation of why modal axiom S5 is superficially correct but entirely redundant and not applicable to this problem is as good as Mackie's but stated with needless complexity so for that you should read J.L. Mackie's The Miracle of Theism for the goodies there. Mackie and Sobel both think that Plantinga crudely overextrapolates <>[]X-->[]X from <>X->[]<>X. Mackie does it better than I do.

The long and short of it is that Plantinga's argument, while more sophisticated than Anselm's in its formalization, is really not that much more sophisticated in its premises. Sobel hammers on the point that there is a crucial amphiboly on "maximally excellent in possible world X" between "maximally excellent [given the conditions of] possible world X" and "maximally excellent [and also existing in] possible world X" more than he needs to in an otherwise very efficient textbook. His more interesting counterclaim attacks another amphiboly in the inference from "<>[]X(^01&02) in W" to "[]X(^01&02) where X^01 & 02 can stand for whatever property he's looking to establish. He shows through the formulation that there is a "floating," unresolved <> in the argument that actually reduces the entire ontological argument to "<>x" where x is the entire ontological argument.

I won't be in front of the book for a few hours but if you like you can message me and I can try to scan or take pictures of the pages from his book, it's a little expensive to buy just to beat your friend in an argument, but I've never seen it refuted in print.

Former pastor Mike Aus has said it was this book that did it for him.

I'd consider "The Ghost of Eternal Polygamy" by Carol Lyn Pearson https://www.amazon.com/Ghost-Eternal-Polygamy-Haunting-Hearts/dp/0997458208

And the interviews carol lyn pearson did for it, they are all really devastating since she goes to the heart of the "feelings" that have ruined a lot of people's lives over polygamy.

http://radiowest.kuer.org/post/ghost-eternal-polygamy

http://www.athoughtfulfaith.org/carol-lynn-pearson-the-ghost-of-eternal-polygamy-with-lindsay-hansen-park-and-gina-colvin/

We don't know. There are theories. Like here and here.

Summary: To explain stuff we don't understand. To create community. To provide comfort. To distinguish my group from your group.

The article is about one of the Gilford lectures Sagan gave. They are all catalogued in The Varieties of Scientific Experience.

What is it with scientists and music? Greg Graffin, the lead singer of Bad Religion, is also a biology professor. Are there any others out there? I remember Dr. Graffin mentions some in his book but I cannot recall them off the top of my head.

If you like Bad Religion then check out Anarchy Evolution: Faith, Science, and Bad Religion in a World Without God by the lead singer Greg Graffin.

This is Stroud's book on dealing with metaphysical subjects. It doesn't directly deal with the problem of free will, but I HIGHLY recommend you read this book because it allows you to gain insight into what a lot of books and papers are missing, namely, what I was talking about 'coherence' or an 'unmasking explanation' (his terminology, actually):
http://www.amazon.com/Quest-Reality-Subjectivism-Metaphysics-Colour/dp/0195151887

Searle's book on Rationality. What I had paraphrased is actually in this book (... I think, it's been a little while since I read it), but I know he addresses the problem of free will since it's important to him in tackling rationality:
http://www.amazon.com/Rationality-Action-Jean-Nicod-Lectures/dp/0262692821

Here's a book that has a ton of papers from prominent philosophers in the field. This actually gives a good overview of the whole debate. I recommend P.F. Strawson's Essay, Wallace's Essay, and ... I forget the other one. IIRC, there are essays by Lewis and van Inwagen if you're really into logic approaches:
http://www.amazon.com/Free-Will-Oxford-Readings-Philosophy/dp/019925494X

It's only a few but I hope that helps~

> Is it basically an atheist would say "It just is" and a person with belief in God as "God was behind it?"

Yup. If you study naturalistic theology, you'll see some arguments basically like this (but far more articulately):

Either the universe is (i) a sustaining and never ending series of cause and effect, or (ii) there was some effect for which there is no cause.

Some philosophical theists may call (ii) "God" (or "god" if they don't believe in a personal god - perhaps like Einstein - though he's probably rolling over in his grave as I mention his name).

>I'm a heterosexual male that is all for LGBT rights, as I choose to love everyone one no matter their race, sexuality or (dis)beliefs, I was wondering if that is perfectly okay?

I'm heterosexual, married, with children. All for LGBT rights. Church teaching is that sex before marriage is a sin, and that individuals of the same sex cannot marry.

I really struggle with that teaching. It seems to me to reflect outmoded (and scientifically unfounded) beliefs about the natural world, gender, sex, and marriage. A lot of better-than-me Catholics tell me this means I'm a heretic or a blasphemer or that I refuse to assent to the full teachings of the church. I've talked about it with a number of priests (and a couple bishops) who don't try to change my mind - they just encourage me to continue to pray on it. And I do.

Your third question has several parts.
>God is not a "why" because then you have to ask "why did God do the things he did?" and even after you explain that, you can keep asking "why?" ad infinitum.

See above re (i) and (ii). One starts with the simple premise that (ii) is more believable than (i) (though both are logical fallacies), and then we try to infer what we can about (ii) through (a) observation of the world (b) individual experience (c) communal experience (d) scripture (if your faith gets you that far) (e) Church teaching.

The question misframes the argument. An alternative response would simply be, yes, so can a three-year-old, and there is always the oh so compelling epistemological skeptic brain-in-a-vat. Every philosophy starts with a premise.

>-The evidence shows that no god exists, and that no god was involved with either. Reality needs no 'whys'. It certainly has no use for utterly made up 'whys' that explain NOTHING.

I don't know what evidence suggests that no god exists. Conceded, no evidence scientifically proves God does exist, but human kind has, as far back as history allows us to go, experienced something of the divine.

>-Simple logic and reasoning should tell you there isn't a god. Logic/Knowledge > Faith

A good time to quote the Dalai Lama:

>If science proves some belief of Buddhism wrong, then Buddhism will have to change. In my view, science and Buddhism share a search for the truth and for understanding reality. By learning from science about aspects of reality where its understanding may be more advanced, I believe that Buddhism enriches its own worldview.

I think the Catholic Church holds the same to be true. An easy example is heliocentricity (though, it did cost a number of good people their lives... hopefully we will learn more quickly from here on out!).

edit: Providing links to my favorite naturalistic theology anthology and its more readable companion. It goes back and forth between really smart atheists and really smart theists, from Aquinas to Descartes to Spinoza to Nietzsche to Plantinga. to Dennett.

http://www.amazon.com/Philosophy-Religion-A-Guide-Anthology/dp/019875194X/ref=pd_sim_b_1?ie=UTF8&refRID=010VCNYXKDKC4D2E8DVR

http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Philosophy-Religion-Brian-Davies/dp/0199263477

You know, I started reading Joseph Campbell's stuff years ago. I really quite enjoyed it and I'm sure that some of what I read seeped into my subconscious and likely informed my work indirectly. For reasons that are lost in the dim recesses of my memory, though, I don't think finished reading any of his work and I haven't drawn on any of it directly.

I don't know of any books currently out there that tackle sacred stories head on from an evolutionary perspective. The final chapter of my dissertation looks at sacred texts as being like the chromosomes and genes of genetic evolution, which is related to your question about cultural borrowing but isn't directly on point. Plus, you know, it's a dissertation so--boring!

That said, if you're interested in books that look at religion from an evolutionary perspective there are some good ones out there. The first one that I'm aware of, and that in many ways started me on this journey is Darwin's Cathedral by David Sloan Wilson. More recent books include a new one by Dominic Johnson, God is Watching You and a closely related book by Ara Norenzayan, Big Gods: How Religion Transformed Cooperation and Conflict. There are others as well, but those are the three that first popped into my mind.

It's been about 5-6 years since I last studied religious extremism and terrorism, so I'm not the most qualified to answer this question, but I can recommend Terror in the Mind of God by Mark Juergensmeyer. He does a good job of getting into some of the causes, as well as the mindset of those committing the acts of religious extremism and terrorism and their supporters.

One of the better books to start with (barring finding actual living, breathing practitioners in your area) is Mama Lola by Karen Brown.

You might also get something from reading the introductory material to Kenaz Filan's The Haitian Voudou Handbook. (Note: Kenaz isn't Haitian.)

And there's always Stephen Grasso's Clean Living in Difficult Circumstances, and moreso his Smoke and Mirrors series, which is a British-American Voodoo perspective on urban life and music, and a history of the city of London.

Nah, that's what discussion is for. I'm reading Dennett's Breaking the Spell right now, and Sagan's been at the front of my mind for a month or so from watching The Sagan Series. Makes me really want to take some time to finally watch Cosmos (which I still haven't seen, much to my shame)

By the way, if you haven't read it, I really can't recommend Dennett's book enough. It's an excellent lesson in how to discuss religion civilly, while also making a number of very good points. It'll change how you discuss religion.

Permit me to comment on/question the following quote:

> I would like to invite a conversation of how the "radical" perspective might be able to "go postformal" so to speak in the face of this traditional awareness of forms, i.e. by revealing them to somehow be ultimately empty, not truly life-affirming, or else maybe even harmful when dealing with particular and unique individuals, etc.

First, it seems to me that the doctrine of original sin addresses these concerns quite well, although I'm not sure it would concede that form is "ultimately empty" (I'll return to this in my second point). That the church, Catholic or otherwise, should never become too comfortable in its ways, formal or otherwise, is implied by the belief that the time within which the church finds itself is fallen. We can see this sort of thing in Charles Taylor's discussion of the relationship of sin to the church as

> a skein of relations which link particular, unique, enfleshed people to each other, rather than a grouping of people together on the grounds of their sharing some important property... The corruption of this network comes when it falls back into something more "normal" in worldly terms. Sometimes a church community becomes a tribe (or takes over an existing tribal society), and treats outsiders as Jews treated Samaritans (Belfast). But the really terrible corruption is a kind of falling forward, in which the church develops into something unprecedented. The network of agape involves a kind of fidelity to the new relations; and because we can all too easily fall away from this (which falling away we call "sin"), we are led to shore up these relations; we institutionalize them, introduce rules, divide responsibilities; but we are now living caricatures of the network life. We have lost some of the communion, the "conspiratio", which is at the heart of the Eucharist. The spirit is strangled (A Secular Age, p. 739).

If the church becomes too comfortable with formal distinctions, if it is not willing to continually go back and critically appropriate in order to avoid reverting back to a form of community that is based on possessing identifiable properties, then it has reconciled itself to sin. This is, literally, not good.

Second, the idea that all forms or orderings are ultimately empty vis-a-vis the particular and unique individual presupposes what I take to be a rather truncated (dare I say liberal or atomistic?) view of the self and its relation to its past. I'd like to hermeneutically wager that good ways of being lie hidden beneath the forms and orderings. That is, forms and orderings reflect real and distinct ways of being that arise out of the free interaction of enfleshed individuals in skeins of agape. What these forms and orderings, if uncritically affirmed or fetishized, become is what Ivan Illich calls

> the perversio optimis quae est pessima (the perversion of the best which is the worst) (The Rivers North of the Future, p. 56).

This, it seems to me, is precisely the idea which Alison is articulating, except he's pointing to a new way of being that is for the most part unprecedented when it comes to the historical development of Christian forms and orderings.

Third, and finally, I would like to note that this hermeneutic approach need not preclude the possibility of exploring other ways of being that arise out of the free interaction of enfleshed individuals in skeins of agape.

I'm sorry I have no items for a list.

I would skip Lewis, honestly. He's popular among certain Potestant trends of thought, but the Anglicans consider him something of an embarrassment, and he himself readily admits that he's no theologian. If you really want a pop-theology argument, I'd go to Chesterson's Orthodoxy instead, but even that's pretty low tier apologetic.

If you want serious theology and apologetic, Lewis has plenty of contemporaries that are worth reading. I'd suggest the following:

• Rudolph Otto, [The Idea of the Holy][1], which deals specifically with the numinous argument for theism -- that is, the argument that religious belief should be couched in the experience of the ineffable;
  
  
• Tielhard de Chardin, [The Divine Milieu][2], which addresses theism from the other side of a secular worldview, integrating a scientific and philosophical world view into a holistic religious sense;
  
  
• Paul Tillich, [The Dynamics of Faith][3], which begins with an examination of the phenomenon of faith and explores the notion of God as the logical terminus of faith;
  
  Even the longest of those three is still less than 300 pages, so they shouldn't be too daunting in terms of bulk, but they're all three packed with some very serious and challenging thought, so they should give you plenty to chew on. My only caution is that all three of them veer in their latter thirds towards a bias for specifically Christian theism, and particularly Protestant varieties. It's a bit of a disappointing given how they all three start out admirably ecumenical.
  
  All of those are specifically books written by theologians with the intent of making the 20th century comfortable with religion again, but while I'm at it I thought I'd throw out a few books that don't quite fall into the group:
  
  
• Mircea Eliade, [The Sacred and the Profane][4], which is not an argument for theism so much as an anthropological and sociological exploration into the nature of religion;
  
  
• Terry Eagleton, [Reason, Faith, and Revolution][5], which is novel precisely because it features a Marxist atheist arguing against the "New Atheists" to the effect that religion is valuable;
  
  
• Charles Taylor, A Secular Age, which I haven't actually read yet, but intend to, because the reviews that I've read of it mark it as one of the thorniest and most grandiose defenses of religion written in recent history.
  
  Good luck.
  
  [1]: http://www.amazon.com/Idea-Holy-R-Otto/dp/0195002105/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1253024930&sr=8-1
  [2]: http://www.amazon.com/Divine-Milieu-Pierre-Teilhard-Chardin/dp/1903900581/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1253025127&sr=1-3
  [3]: http://www.amazon.com/Dynamics-Faith-Perennial-Classic-Tillich/dp/0060937130/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1253025305&sr=1-3
  [4]: http://www.amazon.com/Sacred-Profane-Nature-Religion/dp/015679201X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1253025876&sr=1-1
  [5]: http://www.amazon.com/Reason-Faith-Revolution-Reflections-Lectures/dp/0300151799/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1253025995&sr=1-1
  

I highly recommend God's Undertaker: Has Science Buried God? By John Lennox

You should also know and point out that the dichotomy is not between science and faith, it's between Christian Theism and Naturalism. That's a pretty big difference.

My apologies. I forgot the part where anecdotal (and unsubstantiated) evidence thrumps scolars and historical research.

The Wahhabi movement (which is the root of the Islamic fundie movements) started in the 19th century but was a marginalized group (even more than the Westborogh idiots) until the Cold War when the US/UK started to fund them. This is the root of the problem.

Add to this the issue of Israel, the colonial/postcolonial fuckups, the support of dictators, and you'll get a brew of anti-Western sentiment that is only able to express itself through Islamic fundamentalism as all the secular alternatives failed.

There are plenty of examples of this:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2014/07/30/how-israel-helped-create-hamas/

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Devils-Game-Unleash-Fundamentalist-American/dp/0805081372

http://www.globalresearch.ca/us-sponsored-islamic-fundamentalism-the-roots-of-the-us-wahhabi-alliance/5303558

Want some more? Get to read.

This is something that I have been looking into for the past month or so. Here are some good books that I've either read or am currently reading, and seem to have gotten positive reception from academics and experts and etc. Not all of these are specifically about all three subjects you mention, but taken as whole they will probably give you a pretty good understanding of what you want to know about.

• Carbon Democracy: Political Power in the Age of Oil (2011)
  
• Devil's Game: How the United States Helped Unleash Fundamentalist Islam (2006)
  
• Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001 (2004)
  
• Sectarian Gulf: Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, and the Arab Spring That Wasn't (2013)
  
• Global Energy Security and American Hegemony (2010)
  
• Capitalism and Class in the Gulf Arab States (2011)
  
• The Battle For Saudi Arabia: Royalty, Fundamentalism, and Global Power (2003)
  
  You might also be interested in this journal paper about "McJihad", which goes over the relationship between political Islam and US hegemony, and was converted into a chapter of Carbon Democracy.

Anarchy Evolution: Faith, Science, and Bad Religion in a World Without God

http://www.amazon.com/Anarchy-Evolution-Science-Religion-Without/dp/0061828505/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1301250690&sr=8-1

I'm not trying to be a smart ass but he answers pretty much all of these questions in his book Anarchy Evolution: Faith, Science, and Bad Religion in a World Without God.

He's got a new book too.

>"Learning about nature is a lifelong quest with an almost limitless subject matter. People are part of nature, and, of course, I love people. The good ones make me feel as though we were made for one another. Even the bad ones intrigue me - how do they reconcile their actions with the web of relationships in which we're all embedded? I'm not talking here about the love I feel for my family and friends, which is so ingrained as a sense of faith that I don't question it. I'm talking about a love amenable to investigation. We are only beginning to understand the nature of human contact, good and bad, and the motivations behind human actions. My love of people helps satisfy my curiosity as naturalist. If there is no destiny, there is no design. There's only life and death. My goal is to learn about life by living it, not by trying to figure out a cryptic plan that the Creator had in store for me." - Greg Graffin, Anarchy Evolution.

Greg Graffin is the lead singer for Bad Religion, but also a proffesor in Biology. I bought Anarchy Evolution about a year ago and this quote has stick with me ever since. It's also my first post to Quotesporn.

If anyone's interested in the book, here's a link to amazon (KingsRoadMerch has it out of stock):

http://www.amazon.com/Anarchy-Evolution-Science-Religion-Without/dp/0061828505

Scott Atran attempts to answer this question in his book, In Gods We Trust: The Evolutionary Landscape of Religion.

It's not light reading, but shit is ridiculous, yo.

I recommend:

Religion Explained: The Evolutionary Origins of Religious Thought by Pascal Boyer on the origins of superstitious and supernatural thinking

-

In Gods We Trust: The Evolutionary Landscape of Religion by Scott Atran on why the tendency towards religiosity was preserved for its social utility instead of being eliminated.

-

More than Nature Needs: Language, Mind, and Evolution by Derek Bickerton on the origins of language.

-

A Natural History of Human Morality by Michael Tomasello on the origins of morals.

You should not take this advice if you have a genuine interest in the subject and wish to extend your knowledge beyond rhetorical polemics, which is all you'll get from Harris.

The Oxford Readings on Free Will would be a better choice. This book is an anthology of important and recent essays that cover pretty much every major positions on the issue of free will. The introductory essays in this series are especially helpful in giving a detailed overview of the respective issues.

Schopenhauer's prize essay on the question of whether free will can be proven from self-consciousness is also helpful and relevant. His answer to the problem will probably seem odd since it is derived from his own metaphysical system and formulated to be deliberately provocative. But he gives a clear explication of the issue in a lively and readable style, and he is sensitive to the problem of moral responsibility, which he attempts to save from his negative conclusion.

There are different kinds of laws and relationship. There are causal relationships between physical objects which from empirical observation we may come to believe are precise and exceptionless, like the laws of physics. But psychological laws or the relationship between an rational agent and their reasons for acting may not take this form.

Think about your OCD: you may have a strong desire for a certain action, but you also have a higher-order desire that your compulsive desire for this action not be so strong. There's no limit in principle to this hierarchy of desires. For a rational agent like yourself no compulsion to do X, no matter how strong, can guarantee that he does X.

You probably possess certain moral values: things you believe are good and reasons for acting that you believe are good. Yet you often find yourself acting for reasons that you don't believe are good and doing things that you know are bad. Having certain moral values does not entail that you will always act one way or another.

People with MI often find this situation frustrating: you know you some action or thought X doesn't cohere with your moral values of ideals, you desire in some way not to do or think X but somehow X still occurs. But this conflict seems the be the only path we can take to getting better.

From my personal experience and from observing others, people with MI are often the strongest believers in free will, because we have first-hand experience with this anomalous relationship between the physical aspect of our mind and the mental or purely rational aspect. There is a constant battle to assert our will and
to act according to the motivations and desires and values we know are good ,against other motivations and desires that are not what we will. Acting randomly or without motivation and desires and values is not freedom. There are lots of good books and papers on compatibilism that you should check out, like this.

This book touches on the many ways that theologians and philosophers have tried to make sense of the suffering that this loving creator has allowed:

https://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Philosophy-Religion-Brian-Davies/dp/0199263477

Also check out DS Wilsom's "Darwin's Cathedral"

https://www.amazon.com/Darwins-Cathedral-Evolution-Religion-Society/dp/0226901351

Religions absolutely do evolve, as part of a larger concept called cultural evolution. In fact, both Christianity and Islam evolved from earlier religions, Judaism in particular, and those religions evolved from even earlier ones like Zoroastrianism.

Furthermore, there have been many forms to evolve from the original Christian and Islamic religions (Methodist, Calvinism, Sufism, etc). Fundamentalism is usually just one of these evolved forms (e.g., Wahhabism). There is actually a great book on this topic by David Sloan Wilson, called Darwin's Cathedral.

Anyways, your argument about the Quran and Western values being at odds is true, but it is just as true about the Bible. Whether it makes sense or not for people to reconcile religion and secular/humanist values, your argument basically implies that there are pretty much no actual Christians in the Western world.

On the topic of the correlation between religion and violence I would recommend http://www.amazon.com/Terror-Mind-God-Religious-Comparative/dp/0520240111 (this one is in many ways better, but in Norwegian: http://www.adlibris.com/no/product.aspx?isbn=8203293220&gclid=CP30lPjT2L0CFeEGcwoduDoAnw ).

On stoning and Islam:

>In the Kuwaiti Encyclopedia of Islamic Jurisprudence, we read the following:
>Ibn Qudamah wrote: “Muslim jurists are unanimous on the fact stoning to death is a specified punishment for married adulterer and adulteress. The punishment is recorded in number of traditions and the practice of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) stands as an authentic source supporting it. This is the view held by all Companions, Successors and other Muslim scholars with the exception of Kharijites.”

>Al-Bahuty said: “The authentic practice of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) supports stoning to death as a punishment specified for adultery. In addition, the verse commanding this punishment was revealed in the Qur’an. Later, it was verbally abrogated but its ruling is still binding. Umar ibn Al-Khattab (may Allah be pleased with him) said: “Almighty Allah sent Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) with the truth and revealed unto Him the Qur’an. Among the revelation (brought by him) was the verse stipulating that married adulterer and adulteress should be stoned to death. We read, comprehended and understood it. The Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) acted in accordance with that and so did all of us. I fear, by the passage of time, that some people will say: ‘We do not find this verse in the Qur’an’, and thus they go astray abandoning an obligation given to them by Allah. Stoning to death is a Divine obligation and punishment specified for any married adulterer or adulteress once there is four witnesses or the confession of the accused.”<br /> <br /> <br /> &amp;gt;In another narration,Umar added: “By the One in Whose hands is my soul, had it not been that people would say: ‘Umar added to the Book of Allah, I would have reinserted it. It (the verse) read: “A married man and woman, if they commit adultery, stone them to death. This is a punishment from Allah. Allah is Almighty and Wise.”<br /> <br /> &amp;gt;Finally, we would like to note that there are many incidents in the Sunnah and the life of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) in which the Prophet stoned the married adulterer and adulteress to death. This happened in the case of Maiz and the Ghamidi woman. All this makes it clear that the punishment is proven and authentic and is not debatable.

(http://web.archive.org/web/20100616223242/http://www.islamonline.net/servlet/Satellite?pagename=IslamOnline-English-Ask_Scholar/FatwaE/FatwaE&cid=1119503545902)

Furthermore:
>When asked about the death penalty for those who leave the Muslim religion, at least three-quarters of Muslims in Jordan (86%), Egypt (84%) and Pakistan (76%) say they would favor making it the law; in Nigeria, 51% of Muslims favor and 46% oppose it. In contrast, Muslims in Lebanon, Turkey and Indonesia largely reject the notion that harsh punishments should be the law in their countries.

http://web.archive.org/web/20120701175526/http://www.pewglobal.org/2010/12/02/muslims-around-the-world-divided-on-hamas-and-hezbollah

I think we can safely say that ignoring the ties between stoning and islam as a religion is rather unfounded.

Funny enough, a "voodoo doll" is a European poppet. Even if we're talking about African-derived magical practices, that remains a totally European thing! 😋

(There's nothing that says you can't practice magical traditions and be a vodouisant but that's not related to serving "the dead and the mysteries.")

Also, I should say I'd recommend Mama Lola if anyone is interested in expanding their knowledge. It situates everything in a social context and doesn't grasp around at theological abstractions.

If I were doing a Vodou priest (and really, all I know is from reading Mama Lola, which is an amazing book), I'd probably go with either a Shaman or Oracle with either the Ancestors spirit/mystery, or another spirit/mystery appropriate to the particular Lwa that the character has the closest relationship to.

Of the two, I'd probably pick shaman because they have a really interesting, diverse spell list, and because, as prepared casters, they can pick different spells each day. Different spells plus, at higher levels, Wandering Spirit and Wandering Hex, bring across some of the flavor of working with different energies at different times.

I took a class on African Religions, so I can help on the Yoruba side!

For a quick primer, pick up Stephen Prothero's God is Not One. It's an introduction to World Religions type book, but it's a great read and he includes an entire chapter specifically on Yoruba.

For more mythology, pick up Osun across the Waters by Muphy and Sanford It's a great history of the Yoruba pantheon and how they crossed to the Americas. Osun has some fantastic myths attached to her.

For a really fun read that's a little off topic, pick up Karen McCarthy-Brown's Mama Lola: A Vodou Priestess in Brooklyn. It's an anthropologist's conversations with a Vodou priestess, with descriptions of the ritual (Vodou is a daughter religion to Yoruba - they share a lot of the same ideas and gods), and every other chapter is a short story written by the author that explores some of the history and themes of the tradition. Her descriptions of the various orishas/lwas are really fun reading.

Read Mama Lola in an Anthro undergrad class - intersperses the ethnographic account with details on the gods.

I am fascinated with both topics as well.

Recommendations on anthropology of religion:

• Recommendations by r/anthropology (includes primers)
  
• The Golden Bough
  
• Hero With A Thousand Faces
  
• Who Wrote The Bible?
  
  Recommendations on philosophy of religion:
  
  
• Blackwell Companion To Natural Theology
  
• Logic And Theism
  
• Theism And Explanation
  

As an anthropologist, you really, really need to read this:

http://www.amazon.com/Breaking-Spell-Religion-Natural-Phenomenon/dp/067003472X

It's a human-centered explanation of where religion come from in our culture, and why some religions persist while others disappear. The author is a philosopher by trade, but this is very much an anthropological theory book. Please find yourself a copy.

Your fears are understandable. This will help you get over them.

Daniel Dennett - Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon

The Master and His Emissary, Iain McGilchrist

A Secular Age, Charles Taylor

Reasons and Persons, Derik Parfit

This is what you're looking for. Well worth the effort and Taylor has a nice dry wit.

I think it's a paper that's a reference to "While Europe Slept."

I don't know a lot about it, but I read a book around the same time that discussed middle eastern cultures and genital mutilation.

I also don't know how prevalent it is, but I read that sometimes they will show a girls vagina closed at a very young age, and it will stay like that until they are married. This results in all sorts of infections, clitoral damage, etc. These women essentially never enjoy sex, and because of hygiene issues I wouldn't be surprised if they are equally dirty to, or dirtier than their asshole.

Edit: According to wikipedia, it's more prevalent in NE Africa. Still looking for the book I was reading (it was 5+ years ago.)
Wiki link

Book: While Europe Slept I don't actually remember anything in the book except the genital mutilation which scarred me for life.

I remember reading the first article quite clearly and the second ought to be common sense. I wonder when these people throw the Christians off, how on earth can they hope for a better life? If their ways afforded a superior lifestyle than ours did then those boats would be heading in the opposite direction.

I recommend While Europe Slept. I read this back in 06 and it's really...coming from a more "open-minded, liberal" background, this book really made me take a step back and look at the big picture.

A used copy can be purchased for $1.00 on Amazon.

Its worth the read.

Yeah, I'm all too aware of the unfortunate situation. I just hate fatalistic talk, as I strongly believe we can and must turn it around. 9/11 got my attention, but I really didn't start understanding the insidious nature of things until I read While Europe Slept back in 2006.

There are reasons for optimism. Pots have to simmer awhile before they boil. I recommend following Dr. Steve Turley who follows these trends on youtube.

I've been thinking about this. The works which first pop to mind are probably too technical for general interest as they are written to be read by other professional philosophers. I'm trying to think of what might be interest to the educated person who isn't a Philosophy major.
*****

Peter Kreeft

Peter Kreeft writes a lot of things for a general audience. He is a Catholic philosopher at Boston College. He often speaks at other universities, and has even been part of a debate with a former professor of mine, so he is at least pretty well-known in philosophical circles. He has a bunch of free readings on the "featured readings" and "more featured readings" pages of his site, which also has lectures and such. Here is his author page on Amazon. His books are also mostly intended for a general audience. I've read a handful of them, so if you're thinking of ordering one, or finding it at a library, let me know and I'll give you my two cents. The Sea Within: Waves and the Meaning of All Things is interesting. He is fairly old, and a lifelong surfer. In that book he draws analogies between the natural pull the ocean has on us and the pull God has on us. He also has many Socrates Meets... books which don't have so much to do with religion, but provide accessible introductions to various philosophers (e.g. Socrates Meets Sartre).
*****

Alvin Plantinga

Alvin Plantinga is a very prominent philosopher, and a Christian. Much of his writing is intended for the professional philosophical audience, but some if it might be accessible to a general audience. Here is his Amazon author page. Let me know if you're thinking about checking out any of his stuff. Like I said, a lot of it is more technical than Kreeft's. Also, he is in the analytic tradition, whereas Kreeft is more in the continental tradition. I think that further distances him from the casual reader.

Some of Plantinga's works which might be good:

• God and Other Minds: A Study of the Rational Justification of Belief in God is pretty much what it's long title says.
  
  
• I see a brand new book, which I might get myself! It's on a topic which often comes up in this very forum, science and religion. (Anybody want to read it with me?!) Where the Conflict Really Lies: Science, Religion, and Naturalism. Publisher's blurb:
  
  >This book is a long-awaited major statement by a pre-eminent analytic philosopher, Alvin Plantinga, on one of our biggest debates -- the compatibility of science and religion. The last twenty years has seen a cottage industry of books on this divide, but with little consensus emerging. Plantinga, as a top philosopher but also a proponent of the rationality of religious belief, has a unique contribution to make. His theme in this short book is that the conflict between science and theistic religion is actually superficial, and that at a deeper level they are in concord.
  
  *****
  

  Søren Kierkegaard
  

  
  If you're thinking more historically, I think Kierkegaard can be very interesting. He is considered by many to be a proto-existentialist (a sort of existentialist before existentialism existed as a movement). Fear and Trembling is relatively easy to read, short, and probably his most read work. I recommend it. Also, here is his Amazon author page.
  
  *****
  

  Others
  

  
  Those three were just a few of the many Christian philosophers I find interesting. There are a whole lot more, some more accessible than others to a general audience. This is still just a fraction of the historical Christian philosophical scene, but I think it will give you a good start. These are all of them off of the top of my head whom I have studied to some extent.
  
  

  Contemporary:
  

  
  

• John Hick (Amazon) (Website) (Wiki): Primarily a philosopher of religion and theologian, comes from a rather liberal, mystic Christian perspective.
  
  
• Bas van Fraassen (Wiki): Doesn't actually do much on religion, just a prominent philosopher who happens to be a theist. In fact, many would not guess him to be a theist due to his ultra-empiricism.
  
  
• Peter van Inwagen (Wiki): A prominent philosopher in both philosophy of religion, and other areas. Some would argue he's even a better philosopher than Plantinga (heresy among some Christian philosophers, lol).
  
  
• J.P. Moreland (Wiki): Christian philosopher, does a lot of apologetics.
  
  
• William Lane Craig (Wiki): Well-known, but not well-liked by many philosophers, does a lot of apologetics and travels the world doing public debates with atheists. Has also done a good deal of publishing.
  
  
• Cornell West (Wiki): Awesome guy!
  
  
• Richard Swinburne: (Wiki) (Amazon Author Page): Has written many books more geared towards a general audience I believe.
  
  

  Historical
  

  
  

• Francis of Assisi
  
  
• Augustine of Hippo
  
  
• Peter Abelard
  
  
• Thomas Aquinas
  
  
• Renee Descartes
  
  
• John Locke
  
  
• George Berkeley
  
  
• Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz
  
  
• Blaise Pascal
  
  
• Johann Gotlieb Fichte
  
  
• Immanuel Kant
  
  
• William James: One badass mo'fo in my humble opinion. Early twentieth century American philosopher, part of the pragmatist school, and a defender of faith.
  
  ****
  Author's Note: I've been working on this entry for about 45 minutes now. I hope someone reads some of it. Time for a break. If you have any questions, or wanna talk philosophy, let me know, it's in my blood.*
  
  

You tell me. Did the text of the Quran change in that time? If not, then it isn't because of something inherent to Islam, now is it?

In all seriousness, there are lots of explanations that start with Cold War and economic intervention by Western countries in Middle Eastern political affairs, including the support of Wahhabist elements in order to subvert nationalist and socialist governments - along with outright overthrowing of democratically elected governments (Iran 1956) and support of tyrannical rulers that led to populist revolutions based in fundamentalist Islam and led by religious figures.

If you're truly interested in the answer to that question: read this book

The Ghost of Eternal Polygamy by Carol Lynn Pearson

Just came out in July, and she's a well-known Mormon author, so not too weird to give him a book by her.

https://www.amazon.com/Ghost-Eternal-Polygamy-Haunting-Hearts/dp/0997458208/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1474751363&sr=1-1&keywords=ghosts+of+polygamy

Give them a copy of a new book, "The Ghost of Eternal Polygamy" for Christmas.

https://www.amazon.com/Ghost-Eternal-Polygamy-Haunting-Hearts/dp/0997458208

It is a call to remove polygamy entirely from the church, made by a respectible-within-the-church author. Until Mormons do this, they are going to be hurting women's minds by making them all worry that their husband will pick up a few extra wives in super VIP heaven.

Read and engage with others! Come check out some of the conversations happening on the sub, they are incredible.

I recommend Joseph Pieper as a good starting point to "wander into the wilderness." His work "Leisure As The Basis of Culture" is easy to read and has some great questions and incites. Or Viktor Frankl's "Man Search For Meaning" may be another good place to start.

For anyone else reading this: don't be deterred by this guy's tone, Josef Pieper's Leisure, the Basis of Culture is an excellent little book which explains that true leisure - taking the time to learn, or create - is the fundamental basis of Western culture. And it's pretty true: everyone from Socrates to Virgil to Dante to Pieper himself (as a professor and philosopher) spent significant amounts of non-working time attempting to achieve something greater than a mere occupation.

Think of the difference between a vacation and a professor's sabbatical. According to Pieper:

>We mistake leisure for idleness, and work for creativity.

Furthermore, in abandoning TV and spending his weekends reading, this guy is trying to spend his free timeaccording to a Pieperian ideal of leisure:

>Leisure is the disposition of receptive understanding, of contemplative, beholding, and immersion — in the real. In leisure, there is, furthermore, something of the serenity of ”not-being–able–to–grasp,” of the recognition of the mysterious character of the world, and the confidence of blind faith, which can let things go as they will; there is in it something of the ”trust in the fragmentary, that forms the very life and essence of history.

However, you can't do High Leisure 24 hours a day. This Redditor illustrates this by spending some of his time bashing people on Reddit and bitching about his fellow parishioners and their iPhones and 'splaining to us how using Reddit on a desktop computer is philosophically superior to having portable devices on WiFi. Socrates illustrated it by getting drunk (read Plato's Symposium).

I'm sure Josef Pieper, being a European professor living in Saxony, Germany, went on a vacation and to a pub now and then.

What this Redditor probably needs to read along with Pieper's book on culture is his book on prudence and virtue.

I highly recommend it for an easy-to-read, Thomist organization of the four cardinal virtues of Catholicism.

Thanks for sharing your story. I was indoctrinated from birth, like you, to be a catholic. Sometime around when I was 10 (in catholic school) I became skeptical of religion largely because of the many discrepensies within the bible but especially because of the genesis story. I had always been interested in space and science and the more I learned about astronomy the less credibility religion had in my mind.

Many years later I came across this book by Carl Sagan and it changed everything. Please give it a try, I hope it will open your eyes not to what I am proclaiming to be the truth, but what I know to be reality.

And as always if you need help or support please PM me.

I'd highly recommend The Varieties of Scientific Experience: A Personal View of the Search for God by Carl Sagan. It's a transcription of his Gifford Lecture from 1985, but it's a very concise summation of his reasoning and it has some amazing quotes.

Also, obviously The God Delusion.

For others, look at the /r/atheism FAQ.

The Varieties of Scientific Experience: A Personal View of the Search for God

Hey Prinkster,

There's a lot of interesting books you can pick up. You should pick this one up, The Varieties of Scientific Experience: A Personal View of the Search for God. Prime eligible!

I'm still reading it myself, but it's been pretty awesome.

Anyway, my thoughts on "meaning in the world." This is a concept I heard or read from Richard Dawkins.

Somebody asked him, "Well, with out god, what is the meaning of it all?"

"That's an irrelevant question," he says.

"Do you wonder the same thing about the mountains?"

And of course, the question "Why do mountains exists?" is a pointless question. That is to say, not how, but why. How, plate tectonics.. blah blah.. Why, though?

It doesn't have an answer.

Sort of like our existence. There is no answer, no general meaning that we all need to try to get to. And in that, there's beauty and also sadness. And, of course, confusion.

Coming to terms with that is just another part of your journey. Good luck, Prinkster.

The Varieties of Scientific Experience: A Personal View of the Search for God

Collection of the transcripts of Sagan's 1985 Gifford Lectures published posthumously.

http://www.amazon.com/Varieties-Scientific-Experience-Personal-Search/dp/1594201072

Just read the editorial review on amazon... I need to read this myself. Looks damn good.

My favorite youtube comment of all time:

>It's worth pausing and reflecting on how a spiritual-like feeling can arise from something generated by math alone, like this visual sequence. Spirituality is the meanings we see in things that have none.

>Habitual thinking would make alot of people disagree with it, but if you think about it without prejudice, it's actually a beautiful idea. We have the power to create meaning where there is none. In a sense, we're the true gods of the universe.

Sagan would approve.

You may find somewhat long article interesting:

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/02/magazine/bring-back-the-sabbath.html
>Sandor Ferenczi, a disciple of Freud's, once identified a disorder he called Sunday neurosis. Every Sunday (or, in the case of a Jewish patient, every Saturday), the Sunday neurotic developed a headache or a stomachache or an attack of depression. After ruling out purely physiological causes, including the rich food served at Sunday dinners, Ferenczi figured out what was bothering his patients. They were suffering from the Sabbath.

>On that weekly holiday observed by all ''present-day civilized humanity'' (Ferenczi was writing in 1919, when Sunday was still sacred, even in Budapest, his very cosmopolitan hometown), not only did drudgery give way to festivity, family gatherings and occasionally worship, but the machinery of self-censorship shut down, too, stilling the eternal inner murmur of self-reproach. The Sunday neurotic, rather than enjoying his respite, became distraught; he feared that impulses repressed only with great effort might be unleashed. He induced pain or mental anguish to pre-empt the feeling of being out of control.
... ... ...

>...It was only much later, after I joined the synagogue and changed my life in a million other unforeseen ways, that I developed a theory about my condition. If Ferenczi's patients had suffered from the Sabbath, I was suffering from the lack thereof. In the Darwinian world of the New York 20-something, everything -- even socializing, reading or exercising -- felt like work or the pursuit of work by other means. Had I been able to consult Ferenczi, I believe he would have told me that I was experiencing the painful inklings of sanity...

>...Customs exist because they answer a need; when they disappear, that need must be met in some other way.

>...Talk of God may disturb the secular, so they might prefer to frame the Sabbath in the more neutral context of aesthetics. The Sabbath provides two things essential to anyone who wishes to lift himself out of the banality of mercantile culture: time to contemplate and distance from everyday demands. The Sabbath is to the week what the line break is to poetic language. It is the silence that forces you to return to what came before to find its meaning.

Her article is from a generally secular jewish perspective, the lessons she learned attempting anyway, etc. If you are a Christian Tim Keller has a very good talk which references this article throughout:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ux0_5zctrsI

The philosopher Josef Pieper has a somewhat dense but very interesting book along these lines as well, called Leisure: The Basis of Culture* where he talks about the difference between rest and true leisure (and was inspired by 'workaholism' of 60 years ago...when we think they had better balance!)

https://www.amazon.com/Leisure-Basis-Culture-Josef-Pieper/dp/1586172565/ref=la_B000AQ4VR2_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1520461522&sr=1-1
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/767958.Leisure

https://www.newcriterion.com/issues/1999/1/josef-pieper-leisure-and-its-discontents
>The introduction by Eliot to Leisure, the Basis of Culture—the first of many books by Pieper to appear in English—is one sign of the seriousness with which he was regarded. Another sign was the book’s reception by reviewers. (The present edition includes excerpts from the original reviews.) The Times Literary Supplement devoted a long and admiring piece to the book, as did The New Statesman. The Spectator was briefer but no less admiring: “These two short essays … go a long way towards a lucid explanation of the present crisis in civilization.” The book was also widely noticed in this country: reviews from The Nation, The Chicago Tribune, Commonweal, and The San Francisco Chronicle are included here. The review by Allen Tate in The New York Times Book Review probably did as much as Eliot’s introduction to stimulate interest in Pieper.

You might be interested in reading Religion Explained. They define "religion" to be superstition with a book describing the content, and "witchcraft" to be superstition spread verbally without any books. We have religion instead of witchcraft because it takes written material to capture governments. The problem you are observing will not get better except by decreasing the fraction of religious people.

https://smile.amazon.com/Religion-Explained-Evolutionary-Origins-Religious-ebook/dp/B009TCW076/

https://smile.amazon.com/Belief-Instinct-Psychology-Destiny-Meaning-ebook/dp/B004HW6ADS/

Plenty of scientific evidence that shows that the same brains that invent gods also invent ghosts and other supernatural entities. Read these books to find out.

Did you know Amazon will donate a portion of every purchase if you shop by going to smile.amazon.com instead? Over $50,000,000 has been raised for charity - all you need to do is change the URL!

Here are your smile-ified links:

https://smile.amazon.com/Religion-Explained-Evolutionary-Origins-Religious-ebook/dp/B009TCW076/

https://smile.amazon.com/Belief-Instinct-Psychology-Destiny-Meaning-ebook/dp/B004HW6ADS/

---

^^i'm ^^a ^^friendly bot

Who Moved My Cheese? by Spencer Johnson - It helped me with learning how to accept change in life.

The Dark Tower by Stephen King - Again, sometimes you need to change in order to avoid making the same mistakes over and over. This book was kind of disappointing (compared to the rest of the series), but the message is loud and fucking clear.

Anarchy Evolution: Faith, Science, and Bad Religion in a World Without God by Greg Graffin - There was so much I learned from this book. It's hard to pinpoint one thing. The notes in the back of the book alone provide a wealth of knowledge. Lots of scientific info on evolutionary biology. You just need to read it.

You should read this

Love them! have read Greg Graffin's book it is pretty interesting stuff. Consistently one of my favorite groups lyrically.
I play their version of Silent Night at family Christmas party every year.

Something you might be interested in: Anarchy Evolution: Faith, Science, and Bad Religion in a World W... https://www.amazon.com/dp/0061828513/ref=cm_sw_r_sms_awdb_t1_ftnHDbZ2QC1FF

Written by the lead singer of Bad Religion. He became a professor and teaches undergrads at UCLA between touring with his band. His dissertation leading up to it interviews other evolutionary biologists and other modern atheist thinkers like Richard Dawkins. The interviews are transcribed in the dissertation but it’s hard to find. Ebay maybe? It was called: Evolution, Monism, and the Naturalist World-View.

Saw them a few years ago with Pennywise and Offspring. I should get his more recent book. I have this https://www.amazon.com/Anarchy-Evolution-Science-Religion-Without/dp/0061828513/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0061828513/ref=oh_o04_s00_i00_details

By their descriptions, these 2 seems pretty good:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Religion-Explained-Evolutionary-Origins-Religious/dp/0465006965/ref=cm_wl_huc_item

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0195178033/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pC_nS_ttl?_encoding=UTF8&colid=1HZOGMRHHFYH5&coliid=I3K9Q1SNLXH4Z2

READ THIS BOOK: I HAVE IT, ABSOLUTELY ESSENTIAL FOR UNDERSTANDING RELIGION

http://www.amazon.com/Gods-Trust-Evolutionary-Landscape-Evolution/dp/0195178033/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1246574393&sr=8-1

"This ambitious, interdisciplinary book seeks to explain the origins of religion using our knowledge of the evolution of cognition. A cognitive anthropologist and psychologist, Scott Atran argues that religion is a by-product of human evolution just as the cognitive intervention, cultural selection, and historical survival of religion is an accommodation of certain existential and moral elements that have evolved in the human condition."

"Atran's work is a brilliant exposition of the evolutionary by-product interpretation [of religion] as well as a mine of references for empirical research into the psychology of religion." -- Pascal Boyer, Current Anthropology

5.) I've heard it said that religion is a product of evolution, but this seems counterintuitive to me. How and for what purpose would religion be implemented into the framework of evolution?

Religiosity is a product of evolution.

Large brains are expensive. The brain is responsible for 20% of the energy human bodies use (compared to 13% for chimps, and 2-8% for other vertebrates - source). Visually-oriented animals in a competitive hunter-prey environment conducive to hiding and stalking (such as a forest or savannah) who can recognise patterns in incomplete data thus generating hypotheses to explain what they are seeing, gain an advantage from this ability to predict., and so tend to have larger (or more active) brains for their body size.

The evolutionary pressure is not towards making perfectly accurate hypotheses. Rather, the advantage goes to the animal who generates an hypothesis quickly enough to escape a tiger before the tiger pounces, and there is a bias towards seeing a pattern where none exists, over missing a pattern where one does exist, because it is better to run away from shadows unnecessarily nine times if, on the tenth time, you escape being pounced upon. (Or, from the tiger's point of view, the reward of catching a meal outweighs the cost of investigating a few rustling bushes that turn out to be just the wind.)

Compared to plants, the bodies of other animals provide a rich bounty of calories and nutrients. Animals, such as wolves, dolphins and apes, that hunt as a group using tactics (and who communicate to coordinate) can afford larger brains if using group tactics provides a sufficient advantage in calories gained that it compensates for the additional calories expended in the thinking needed to do the prediction, coordination and awareness of social roles/status required to carry the tactics out.

Bipedalism offers apes a number of advantages (reach higher, wade deeper, run faster, see further) however the resulting hips compared to the adult brain size means that the children are born at a comparatively earlier developmental point compared to non-bipedal animals or ones with smaller brains. Baby chimps or humans are helpless and dependant upon their mother for much longer than baby lions or horses, despite lions and horses being large animals with a long life expectancy. This vulnerable stage (and the necessity for group defence against external threats) leads to a species with complex social dynamics, interactions and emotions. This extended childhood also provides an adaptive advantage to those family units where the children have a prolonged 'tame' phase in which the children remain in the safety of the authority of the adult parental figures, accepting what they say as true, learning from them, trying to 'fit in'. In dogs and cats that are domestic (as opposed to feral) you also see this personality phase prolonged into adulthood.

There is much more to the tale of why it was humans who have developed the intelligence they have, and where factors like tool use, fire, specialisation, trade, sexually-selected for ornamentation and Machiavellian social politics come into it. Too much to do justice to here - if you're interested I recommend the books "Up from Dragons" and "The Ancestor's Tale". However we have enough of the tale to now start talking about magic and religiosity.

Magical thinking is a by-product of pattern recognition. When a creature sees that two things are correlated and decides that one of them is causing the other, they are sometimes right and sometimes wrong. When it works, that can be very important. The principle of sympathy (like produces like) gives a prediction that's better than a random guess in many situations, and the principle of contagion (what happens to one bit, happens to the rest of the thing) has predictive power in situations relating to disease, contamination, complex social situations, or anywhere there may be a hidden third factor at work.

When magic thinking is combined with the ability to hypothesise the intentions of a sentient being behind otherwise unrelated events (an important ability in Machiavellian social politics), we get Animism (and Totemism) - the hypothesis that there are sentient spirits associated particular locations or things, that can influence physical reality, that have emotions and personalities, and that can be influenced by actions in physical reality.

Combined with some features of how consciousness is implemented in our brains that leads to the illusion that consciousness never ceases, and it is a short step from spirits to ancestor worship and the idea that humans have a spirit that lives on after death. These basics are a cultural universal, which indicates they have a biological basis rather than a culture-specific one. Not only are these polytheistic beliefs present in the earliest hunter-gatherer cultures we know of (the San Bushmen in Africa, and Aboriginal Indigenous in Australia), there are strong indications (eg burial, and flowers left on graves) that Neanderthals had them too.


In terms of the neurology of the brain, modern religions are not much different. Religiosity is how religious a person is - how much they think, feel and behave in a religious manner. Many studies have investigated the question of whether religiosity is due to genetics, shared parental environment, personality or other factors. What they've discovered is that multi dimensional scaling can be used to factor religiosity into three dimensions:

Involvement (Are supernatural agents, eg the Christian God, involved with life on a daily and personal basis?)
Emotion (Are these supernatural agents more loving and forgiving, than wrathful and punishing?)
Knowledge (Does religion tell us more about the big picture, eg "How the world was created?", than about the small picture, eg "How should I vote in the next election?")

and that these dimensions each directly correspond to activity in three specific parts of the brain involved with Theory of Mind. This directly explains why people on the autistic end of the spectrum tend to have a lower religiosity than people on the schizophrenic end of the spectrum (link). It also explains why there is a strong correlation between religiosity and scores on two of the four Myers-Briggs scales ("Sensing (S) vs. Intuition (N)" and "Thinking (T) vs. Feeling (F)" ) with people on the NT end being less religious, on average.

Here's an article with more in-depth information about the neuroanatomy of religiosity, but before I leave the brain, I want to touch on the debate over whether it is the brain causing the religiosity or whether it is how a person has thought and used their brain while growing up that is the cause of the changes in the brain. The latter may have seemed plausible 20 years ago, but they have since done twin studies and even tracked down specific genes. There is definitely a significant genetic component to religiosity, and a majority of the causality between brain and practice is in the direction of the brain affecting the practice not vice versa.

In other words, if there's a supernatural creator who designed humankind, then He deliberately created some individuals to be, right from birth, less likely to believe in Him.

So, if religiosity is significantly genetically based, why wasn't it selected against in the tribal environment? In evolutionary terms, religiosity started as a spandrel - a by-product of something else that is selected for. However, once it had started, it turned out that religions can have positive effects upon the survival of the genes of a tribe of believers. By appealing to the human instinct for a protective authority to shelter them, it improves cohesion and discipline in a tribe. In times of war, the idea of luck and a protective spirit you can pray to (a concept straight out of totems and magical thinking, and something you often see when people roll dice) improves morale. In times of peace, the idea of reward or punishment being handed out in an afterlife makes people more content with the status quo, reducing anxiety (which improves health). For these group selection effects not to suffer from the 'free rider' problem, it is also necessary for religions to include a doctrine of shunning or otherwise punishing members of the tribe who refuse to act as though they believe. (The logic behind the power of blood and sacrifices, by the way, stems from the contagion part of magical thinking, and is very useful for a religious leader when it comes to demanding tithes, altruism or picking people to go out to fight on the religion's behalf in battle.)

We're now going to move on to look at what happened when this instinctive religiosity moved from a tribal environment to larger, more complex societies, and whether it remained an adaptive advantage. However, before I do, here are some links to the growing body of research that's been done on this topic:

Evolutionary Religious Studies - resources page
EXREL
The Adaptive Logic of Religious Beliefs and Behaviour
In Gods We Trust

"Intense specialization"?

Free will, dude? Come on. Preach from your made up ivory towers harder.

>If you're genuinely interested in the topic and want to understand it, here's a good starting point: https://www.amazon.com/Free-Will-Oxford-Readings-Philosophy/dp/019925494X

I have read essays from this book. I am familiar with the topic.

Do you have a rebuttal or just more hand waving and holier-than-thou ramblings?

You might be familiar with some of this already, but I'm going to explain it as though you have no familiarity with this subject.

Philosophy of religion explores topics such as the existence of God, concepts of God, religious language, religious belief, miracles, and so on. Philosophyofreligion.info presents a good primer for the subject.

It seems like your primary interest is in the existence of God. Natural theology, although the approach of doing theology without the assistance of special, divine revelation, in philosophical circles is basically synonymous with arguments for the existence of God. Natural atheological arguments, as some have put it (i.e. Plantinga), are arguments for atheism.

Popular arguments for the existence of God would be the various cosmological, teleological, ontological, and axiological arguments. There's almost too many of them to keep track. Popular arguments against the existence of God would be the various kinds of the problem of evil, divine hiddenness, and attacks on the coherence of theism.

"The Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology" is perhaps the best single resource on arguments for and against the existence of God, although it is highly advanced. "The Cambridge Companion to Atheism" is also a very solid resource. "The Existence of God" by Swinburne is classic, as is his "Coherence of Theism." Again, all of those are fairly advanced. Swinburne has a shorter, more popular level version of "The Existence of God" titled "Is There a God?" Stephen Davis also has a similar book titled "God, Reason and Theistic Proofs." If you're going to be reading Oppy and Sobel, I recommend reading their counterparts in any of these books above (barring the "Cambridge Companion to Atheism," of course), that way you have a good balance of perspectives.

With regards to the philosophy of religion a bit more broadly, William Rowe, C. Stephen Evans, and Brian Davies each have solid, brief introduction books. Michael Murray and Eleonore Stump have a more thorough introduction; Louis Pojman and Michael Rea have a great anthology; and William Lane Craig, J. P. Moreland, and Michael Rea have perhaps the greatest single resource on this subject.

Moreover, William Lane Craig has dozens of debates on topics concerning the existence of God (and other topics) available on YouTube. Here is a fantastic list of his debates with links available in the table. You'll see some popular figures in the list that aren't good philosophers (i.e. Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, Lawrence Krauss, etc.), but there are quite a few very high caliber philosophers on that list too (i.e. Michael Tooley, Quentin Smith, Peter Millican, Stephen Law, etc.).

Let me know if you have any other questions.

Good luck!

Religions are successful because the line up exceedingly well with the facts of reality. They line up better than atheistic views. The problem is that you have to be a consequentialist to see it.

My argument assumes a few basic things:

1. religions are nations (like nation-states and tribes), and as such act to harmonize many competing interests towards a single end.
   
   
2. the worth of any belief lies not in truth but in the way that it effects real-world behavior.
   
   
3. Demonstrably false beliefs and religions have persisted because they enhance the individual's evolutionary fitness
   
   >And what's most interesting is that when you ask people what it is they do with this false information or false predictions, they claim that it helps them learn. The wrong information is useful.
   
   Wrong information can often be useful. Is right information always useful? If you are an automaton... if free will doesn't exist... is it helpful for you to know this??? No. It's an un-necessary psychological burden.
   
   The key is understanding that there is explicit and implicit truth. Atheists often have more explicit truths (and value them more highly) while believers hold more implicit truths (and value them more highly).
   
   The greatest implicit truth that religions offer is that life is a struggle, and that alignment with a tribe or nation is valuable to an individual. Atheists see religions as hypocritical because religions often assert that we are all one, or all children of god, or whatever, but then act as vehicles of war and dominance. From an evolutionary perspective this is not hypocritical. It's exactly what you would expect. This "hypocritical" reality is just an intrinsic condition of life itself.
   
   Many sociobiologists are now making headway studying religion through this lens. E.O. Wilson, Jonathan Haidt, and David Sloan Wilson are the figureheads.
   
   http://www.amazon.com/Darwins-Cathedral-Evolution-Religion-Society/dp/0226901351/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1453669510&sr=8-1&keywords=darwins+cathedral

It's all perception, I would suggest reading the book "Terror in the Mind of God" It details how all major religions from Christianity, Islam, Judaism and even Buddhism have had extremist elements.

It really is the people and not the religions that are becoming fanatic, the religion is only the vehicle.

This does not come as a surprise one bit.
I recommend: Terror in the Mind of God
http://www.amazon.com/Terror-Mind-God-Religious-Comparative/dp/0520240111

You're welcome

Throw in Terror in the Mind of God which is a broader study of religious terrorism in general.

I can, and did. I'm just as anti-Muslim as I am anti-Christian, anti-Hindu, and anti-every other religion. It's all a cancer on the human mind, and I have no tolerance for it at all.

But hey, you can't be assed to even think, so I'll honor your request.

Here's a book exclusively about religious violence of all kinds. http://www.amazon.com/Terror-Mind-God-Religious-Comparative/dp/0520240111 Check the body counts for the various attacks talked about.

Here's an article about how violence against women is accepted as commonplace in many islamic cultures. http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00737-003-0170-x#page-1

Here's a book about the Taliban, "the world's most
extreme and radical Islamic organization." http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=dld2wJ2Z__4C&oi=fnd&pg=PP2&dq=taliban&ots=j-tsOwyWYM&sig=X94BOPMiFDfoQ3ppepr4MfTGRnU#v=onepage&q=taliban&f=false

Here's a journal article from 2+ years before 9/11 talking about how the Taliban is an example of Islamic terrorism that is spreading across the eastern hemisphere. http://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?collection=journals&handle=hein.journals/fora78&div=97&id=&page=

Please show me data how in the 21st century there are Christian terrorist organizations waging a global jihad against non-Christians.

>God isn't the greatest conceivable being

That's the classic definition. I suppose you can dispute it. But you can do that with anything: "Unicorns don't have any horns."

>Things don't exist in possible worlds, unless said possible worlds exist.

It's a concept from modal logic. If you have to dispute modal logic to get out of the argument, then I suppose that's a complement to the argument.

>Omnipotence and free-will are necessarily mutually exclusive.

If this carries weight in atheism, I haven't seen much support for it. The best current books in atheism don't seem to list it. The main atheistic argument these days is Rowe's evidential problem of evil, which is not a logical absurdity argument.

Why I Am Not a Christian - Bertrand Russell

Breaking The Spell - Daniel Dennett

All In The Mind: A farewell To God - Ludovic Kennedy

The straw man fallacy is where you set up a premise that is easy to defeat and then say therefore this other thing that may or may not be related is also false. The false choice (false dichotomy really, my bad) fallacy is where you present a set of outcomes as an either or choice. In this case the OP presents wear a seatbelt == stay on earth and not wear a seatbelt == go to heaven. That leaves out the very real and common 'option' of no seatbelt == horrible handicap.
My source for fallacy info:
http://www.theskepticsguide.org/resources/logicalfallacies.aspx


Your second question is the best one though so I want to address that too. Yes. Many christians (even pastors and priests) who say publicly that they are saved are not sure. Some are even closet atheists. As reference I recommend Daniel Dennett's Breaking the Spell. It's quite good and addresses this very well.

I highly recommend Breaking the Spell - Religion as a Natural Phenomenon by Dan Dennet. He discusses this question in great detail. Of course, being a philosopher he defines the question more so than deciding on an exact answer... :-)

If atheists such as Nietzsche, Jürgen Habermas, Jacques Derrida, and Slavoj Žižek have it right, it's the atheist who has trouble escaping the Christian world view, both in ontology and ethics. Of course, the masterwork on this is Charles Taylors' The Secular Age.

As to more practical questions, modern human rights is based in theism (see Declaration of Independence) and many contemporary philosophers deny the existence of human rights (now that theism has been removed). If anyone is unfamilar with this, I recommend listening to an overview lecture "Human Rights vs Religion?" from the Euhiro Centre for Practical Ethics at Oxford University.

This doesn't answer your question about my decisions, but it answers the question of why atheists have similar worldviews to Christians. It's because they've inhereted it. Of course this will get downvoted bit this would be your answer if asked to many atheist academics (and theists, too).

That's really sad. But you honestly don't need to worry. As far as I've seen, there very much is a God - and I say that as someone who has heard every atheist argument there is. The thing about atheist arguments, though, is that they rely on belief. You have to believe that the universe is purely made of atoms and that there is no spiritual dimension to anything. It causes them to reject evidence outright and pretend they are being scientific.

I'm not honestly sure what you found in other religions, but you should know that the spread of Christianity has had a profound effect on them. Before we turned up in India they would burn you alive on the funeral pyre if your spouse died. You should also know that in other religions, their Gods aren't even really spiritual beings. They're more like our concept of a super hero or super villein - and that is in the places where they don't just worship objects. It's like humans are wired with the concept that there is something more, but they go looking in all the wrong places.

If you would like to really delve into religion and find out more about it I suggest delving into Christianity too. You are not really going to learn about Christianity from atheists or agnostics. They have a very ideological view of it and they tend to twist things to fit their view. The best method of debunking their ideas about the Bible I've ever found is to read the quotes they give in context. Usually you find out they didn't read the line literally just before that one they are quoting! This holds true even for those atheist books - you should always check their quotes because they are hyper selective. They'll tell you the Jews practiced slavery, for example, but they won't tell you that it was a method of paying debts and that you are set free once the debt is paid. (Also, slave-taking the way we understand it was a crime)

If you want to take a closer look at Christianity, the theologian William Lane Craig has a really good free podcast series where he goes through the proofs for God: https://www.reasonablefaith.org/podcasts. But if you prefer books, here are a few. I have more as well:

​

Mere Christianity- and CS Lewis in general. He used to be an atheist, and he talks about it in depth. The Problem of Pain is a great one.

Letters from a Skeptic: A Son Wrestles with His Father's Questions about Christianityis a classic that is formed as a long question and answer between an atheist and his Christian son.

Let There Be Science: Why God loves science, and science needs God Is really good if anyone tells you that Christianity is unscientific. The actual truth is that science flourished under Christianity and there is at least one scientific experiment in the Bible itself.

​

And a couple on myths about Christianity:

Heresy: Ten Lies They Spread about Christianity

Galileo Goes to Jail and Other Myths about Science and Religion this one was actually written by a bunch of different experts - some of them atheists.

Thanks for reading, and sorry for the late response. I don't use this account much!

​

Well, ok. Read a biography of Galileo some time. Or a book like "Galileo Goes to Jail and Other Myths" available off Amazon. Or read about why the Conflict Thesis is wrong.

Or, as I started with, just read Dinesh's summary. It's accurate.

Privileged planet

https://www.amazon.com/Privileged-Planet-John-Rhys-Davies/dp/B0002E34C0/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1485725348&sr=8-2&keywords=privileged

Signature in the cell

https://www.amazon.com/Signature-Controversy-Responses-Critics-Cell/dp/0979014182/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1485725571&sr=8-3&keywords=signature+in+the+cell

Gunning for God

https://www.amazon.ca/Gunning-God-Atheists-Missing-Target/dp/0745953220

God's Undertaker

https://www.amazon.ca/Gods-Undertaker-Has-Science-Buried/dp/0745953719

https://www.amazon.com/Wonder-World-Journey-Modern-Science/dp/0972347313/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_product_top?ie=UTF8

The Wonder of the world- one of the books that changed Antony Flew from an outspoken Atheist to a diest.

I recommend these to start, if you are genuinely interested that is.

There's a book that I believe does a decent job of tackling this subject. In it, the author addresses the order of creation, the meaning of 'days', as well as many other topics.

He's also written another book that tackles the silly notion that science and faith cannot coexist.

I know this is not really conducive to debate, but I thought it pertinent to bring these books to everyone's attention.

So you admit (after, what's it been, 7 opportunities) you have no evidence for your all-encompassing, foundational assertion then?

You'd be smart to investigate this, and see how you not only have no evidence for what you are saying, but that pure naturalism actually contradicts all basis for reason: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionary_argument_against_naturalism

And it would be alright to criticize WLC, if, you know, Hume's Law didn't exist. But since it does, you can't assert any sort of moral superiority - heck, morality even - without it being a completely arbitrary assertion on your part. In fact, the only reason you think the murder of children is wrong is because you've been profoundly influenced by Christian thought and western society. If you grew up in a place where it was acceptable, you wouldn't have a problem with it.

(Whether or not events like these even happened is a topic we haven't bothered to touch upon. WLC has spoken, I believe, along the lines of Paul Copan's book Is God a Moral Monster? and questioned the record since there isn't much evidence for these conquests, and their narrative similarity to other, pagan conquest narratives).

As for me, I believe science works because God created an ordered universe that finds God as its first cause. We expect to find natural laws because we believe in a law giver. This is what the first scientists believed as well (think Newton, etc). http://www.amazon.com/Gods-Undertaker-Has-Science-Buried/dp/0745953719/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1319304844&sr=8-3

If you're looking for books about scientific evidence for God, I'm partway through this book right now and it's really good.

https://www.amazon.com/Gods-Undertaker-Has-Science-Buried/dp/0745953719

I watched some of his debates with well known athiests (Dawkins, Hitchens), and liked him because he specifically defended the God of the Bible, the gospel, and the resurrection, rather than mainly sticking to general arguments for theism, which is a tendency that frustrates me with certain Christian apologists.

It seems that the op deleted his account. Is there any chance to get the source code of hist list to update it?

Three books that I can recommend are:

[The Reason For God - Belief in an Age of Skepticism by Timothy Keller] (http://www.timothykeller.com/books/the-reason-for-god)

The Book That Made Your World by Vishal Mangalwadi

God's Undertaker: Has Science Buried God? by John Lennox

Furtheron it would be great to have a smiliar list for christian apologetic organizations like

bethinking

The BioLogos Foundation

Institut für Glaube und Wissenschaft

God's Undertaker by John Lennox is an excellent book and he is actually a mathematician as well at Oxford. Highly recommended.

Here are a few of the resources that have helped me:

https://biologos.org/
https://www.amazon.com/Creation-Evolution-Do-Have-Choose/dp/0857215787
https://www.amazon.com/Gunning-God-Atheists-Missing-Target/dp/0745953220/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=gunning+for+god&qid=1555348576&s=books&sr=1-1
https://www.amazon.com/Gods-Undertaker-Has-Science-Buried/dp/0745953719/ref=sr_1_2?keywords=gunning+for+god&qid=1555348605&s=books&sr=1-2
https://www.amazon.com/Jesus-Eyewitnesses-Gospels-Eyewitness-Testimony/dp/0802831621
Also, I've visited a lot of different churches and have plenty of friends that are Christians. Seeing that Christians are so very different from JW's- many are well educated, intelligent, thinking people- with a faith that is extremely different from the JW belief system. They have this passion, sincerity and relationship with God that is the opposite of the legalistic JW cult.

"God's Undertaker: Has Science Buried God?" - by John C. Lennox

Hey, I'm glad to hear that! It's a topic of some interest for me.

I think too much of discussion about God today gets wrapped up in politics, especially in the United States. That's certainly something new, and can be found back even to the start of Christianity, or even human civilization. It tends to be rightly shunned and mocked.

However, the idea of God is something more central and serious than that. Sure, most people are idiots, so when they talk about something they don't study up on or look at different viewpoints, which is really really common for religion, they end up saying stupid stuff.

That's why it's worth distinguishing from theologians and philosophers who actually do that stuff, and many of them walk away from it with a clear and respectable, and even persuasive, ideas.

If you want to read up more, I can recommend a few works.

• God and Other Minds by Alvin Plantinga - One of the best respected books today on theism, and sparked a lot of discussion on God's existence in philosophy today. Plantinga argues that ultimately neither the arguments for theism or atheism hold, but that one can still rationally believe in God in a way similar to how you believe in the existence of other minds, despite having no way to directly perceive or prove the thoughts of others.
  
  
• Meditations on First Philosophy by Rene Descartes - This book is most people's jumping on point to philosophy, since it's pretty standard in philosophy 101 classes, since he's extremely important in the history of philosophy, and explains things without much jargon and works from the ground up. Descartes tries to ground his beliefs in pure reason, showing that through the knowledge of his own existence and God's existence, we can be certain of the existence of everything around us.
  
  
• The Euthyphro, the Apology, the Crito, and the Phaedo by Plato - Dialogues leading up to the death of Socrates, and fairly easy to read. Plato is arguably the most influential philosopher in history, and his dialogues are all aimed at teaching you to ask philosophical question and get a sense of what philosophical answers look like.
  
  
• The History of Philosophy Without Any Gaps - An excellent podcast which is exactly what it says on the tin. Works from Pre-Socratics, and has made it up to the Renaissance, with a few other podcasts also started to cover Indian and Africana philosophy. Most philosophers will have something to say on God, and these 20 minute introductions and explanations help shape that understanding.
  
  
• Gregory Sadler - A philosophy professor who puts his lectures for free on Youtube. Plenty on most philosophers you can list off, and takes a special interest in Anselm.
  
  
• The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy and Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy are sites dedicated to thoroughly explaining the arguments of different people in philosophy. Incredibly useful.
  
  You should especially look at the philosophy of Plato, Aristotle, the Stoics, Plotinus, Origen, Pseudo-Dionysus, Augustine, Anselm, Avicenna, Al-Ghazali, Maimonides, Averroes, Thomas Aquinas, Duns Scotus, William of Ockham, Rene Descartes, Baruch Spinoza, Gottfried Leibniz, Immanuel Kant, and Soren Kierkegaard.
  
  If you want to look more at the stuff I was arguing, you can also consider looking specifically at Thomas Aquinas' Summa Theologica, posted for free here, although Aquinas is fairly jargon heavy, and expects familiarity with Aristotle, Averroes, and other points in Christian theological history.
  
  Edit: As a small aside, on the point of how atheism is defined, a moderator of /r/askphilosophy wrote a pretty good summary for what the term means in academic disciplines a while back. Worth checking out.

You're either a troll or a disrespectful. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0801497353/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Why would you care about my belief system?

Government always manufactures problems in order to solve them with solutions that worsen the problem, and then claim the solution wasn't applied enough:

1. Poverty- Create poverty with zoning laws, occupational licensing laws, and white flight subsidized by highways and FHA mortgages, demand welfare as solution. Welfare destroys families in poor neighborhoods. Demand more of it.
   
   
2. Drugs-Ban drugs, which increases prices and engenders violence. Demand harsher drug laws that further constrict supply and inflate prices as solution. Violence worsens. Repeat.
   
   
3. Affordable housing-Pass zoning laws that ban small homes, apartments, and trailer homes from suburbs where jobs are, inflating housing prices. Politicians lament lack of home owners, use it as pretext to use fannie and freddie to buy more morgages. Housing prices are further inflated by lenders giving massive morgages because they do not have any risk.
   
   
4. Affirmative action- justify program because of lack of black graduates, ignore that [students are mismatched and drop out because of the program] (http://www.amazon.com/Mismatch-Affirmative-Students-Intended-Universities/dp/0465029965)
   
   [A must read book about how radical islam was created by the united states] (http://www.amazon.com/Devils-Game-Unleash-Fundamentalist-American/dp/0805081372/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1407766564&sr=1-2&keywords=devils+game)
   
   [A must read book about how American technology and foreign aid were the only things upholding a bankrupt and failing Soviet Union] (http://www.reformed-theology.org/html/books/best_enemy/)

>While there may be a small number of violent Buddhists that inhabit a small corner of the earth, that is obviously an edge case. The issue is that the most populous, fastest growing religion has a conqueror prophet as a founder and a blatant unwillingness to reform into modern times (at least in any meaningful way as far as I can tell). I'm not saying its the only toxic ideology, I'm just saying its the biggest one. And just to be clear, I'm using anything that could be interpreted to justify horrifying practices as a toxic ideology. Which brings me back to my original comment- I'm not promoting pro lifers at all, I just think its weird the left would be marching buddies with someone who probably shares 0 of their values in Sarsour.

I don't think we are going to come to a consensus on reddit.

The point is that you do not know Sarsour's values. I know plenty of Muslims in the US that have no aspirations to conquer anything but their morning cup of Joe.

My point remains... You are demoralizing an entire group based on your preconceived ideas about their religion. You are not a religous scholar so you probably have only a very brief time period you are pulling those ideas from. I do not mean that in an insulting way. I only am stating that you are making a very common error. You are taking an idea that has been used for some ugliness and amplifying it. For example, you hear conquering profit and you think that means that is the defining tenant of Islam. For Christianity, you can take Mathew 10:34 and make a similar argument: "Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword."

Does this mean that Christians are here to slaughter, to divide, or to force conversion? You would probably say that it doesn't because of the context of the verse etc... However, in the past, this, and other ugly verses have been interpreted that way. My distant relatives were forced to convert, or die, because of it. Further, the Muslims who were in the same region of the world were fairly cooperative with other religions (at the time) so long as that religion was not polytheistic. Moreover, in the developing world, those with different beliefs are still being killed by Christians, with verses like this as justification. My point is that you will find radical Islamists who believe that they need to kill infidels. However, it is an enormous leap to place Muslims in the developed world into the same bucket as those radical Islamists. It would be equally wrong to place Christians into the same bucket as those that are committing atrocities in Africa or even those who were historically violent in Europe.

Anyway, I'll add some links at the bottom if you are interested in why there is such a powder keg of radical islamists now (compared to historically). If you are not interested, then I would suggest taking the time to honestly get to know some Muslims in the US. I think you would be surprised with how many things we have in common.

Jihadism

http://press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/520117.html

https://www.amazon.com/Devils-Game-Unleash-Fundamentalist-American/dp/0805081372/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1486080932&sr=8-1&keywords=devils+game

If the web is not your thing, try this book: Devil's Game: How the United States Helped Unleash Fundamentalist Islam (American Empire Project)

https://www.amazon.com/Devils-Game-Unleash-Fundamentalist-American/dp/0805081372/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1502391542&sr=1-1&keywords=devil%27s+game

Book Recommendation

A great book and an active (well known) member who will defend you: The Ghost of Eternal Polygamy by Carol Lynn Pearson author of the beloved children's hymn "I'll walk with you".

Ghost of Eternal Polygamy, by Carol Lynn Pearson

https://www.amazon.com/Ghost-Eternal-Polygamy-Haunting-Hearts/dp/0997458208

She deconstructs any reason for keeping polygamy "sanctioned" in heaven.

I haven't read this yet, but I've been meaning to.

https://www.amazon.com/Leisure-Basis-Culture-Josef-Pieper/dp/1586172565

Dunno if that's quite what you want, but it's what popped into my head at your question.

> There seems to be an assumption that people whose basic needs are taken care of are all going to sit on their asses and watch Judge Judy all day. And I mean sure, there will be a certain percentage that does - but a) do you really want to have that cohort as your coworkers?

Work changes a person. "Free time off" for now leads to a life of inactivity. And yes, almost everyone I know would accept an offer for some free time off. And then when the next generation is coming up, they will be less likely to work when the payoff value is reduced, changing our culture and making us poor.

Leisure isn't bad. But you have to have a healthy understanding of leisure. This is a good source for starters. And leisure should never serve as a person's primary activity. Work that provides value to others (and value is often best measured through market mechanisms) is important.

Leisure: The Basis of Culture

Like I said, it's a waste of time to have a debate on an area of intense specialization with someone who doesn't know the foundations or even basic terminology of the field.

If you're genuinely interested in the topic and want to understand it, here's a good starting point: https://www.amazon.com/Free-Will-Oxford-Readings-Philosophy/dp/019925494X

Here are a few books which explore the science-religion relationship through history. The first two are more academic books, while the last one is a more popular level book.

God and Nature is a great book on the history of the science-Christianity relationship. It's fairly even-handed - it gives a lot of credit to the Catholic Church for their promotion of education in the Middle Ages, but also criticizes it for its anti-heliocentric stance in the 17th century.

The Foundations of Modern Science in the Middle Ages by Edward Grant: talks about medieval (proto-)scientists, and shows that both Christians and Muslims were heavily involved in the origins of science.

Galileo Goes to Jail - each chapter in the book debunks a myth. These include both common Enlightenment myths (e.g. Christianity caused the Dark Ages, the medieval Church thought the earth was flat) and Christian apologist myths (e.g. Intelligent Design is taking seriously by scientists today, Einstein believed in a personal God).

Europe is waking up...

http://www.amazon.co.uk/While-Europe-Slept-Bruce-Bawer/dp/0767920058?tag=duckduckgo-ffsb-uk-21

"Political Islam" is a philosophy that grew in the 2nd half of the 20th century on Western money and influence so western big business could prevent that part of the world from becoming socialist and tap their economies, and it is quite separate from the religion. I highly recommend reading this book to educate yourself on the issue

https://www.amazon.com/Devils-Game-Unleash-Fundamentalist-American/dp/0805081372

It's not trash, these people were our allies when we fought the soviets what proof do you need. It can easily be googled. Who's tax dollars do you think built all those camps in afghanistan? Who trained them to use stinger missiles? Who helped them train in bombmaking? Every enemy we've had since the Korean war is some despotic regime that we allied with then got fucked . Noreiga, Hussein, Bin Laden, the Taliban and the zetas in mexico

http://www.theguardian.com/world/1999/jan/17/yemen.islam

http://www.legitgov.org/graphics/reagan_taliban_1985.jpg


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_war_in_Afghanistan#Foreign_involvement_and_aid_to_the_mujahideen -

The supplying of billions of dollars in arms to the Afghan mujahideen militants was one of the CIA's longest and most expensive covert operations.[118] The CIA provided assistance to the fundamentalist insurgents through the Pakistani secret services, Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), in a program called Operation Cyclone. At least 3 billion in U.S. dollars were funneled into the country to train and equip troops with weapons. Together with similar programs by Saudi Arabia, Britain's MI6 and SAS, Egypt, Iran, and the People's Republic of China,[7] the arms included FIM-43 Redeye, shoulder-fired, antiaircraft weapons that they used against Soviet helicopters. Pakistan's secret service, Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), was used as an intermediary for most of these activities to disguise the sources of support for the resistance.



No Americans trained or had direct contact with the mujahideen.[119] The skittish CIA had fewer than 10 operatives in the region because it "feared it would be blamed, like in Guatemala."[120] Civilian personnel from the U.S. Department of State and the CIA frequently visited the Afghanistan-Pakistan border area during this time.



Here's a great book on the subject
http://www.amazon.com/Devils-Game-Unleash-Fundamentalist-American/dp/0805081372

In an effort to thwart the spread of communism, the U.S. has supported--even organized and funded--Islamic fundamentalist groups, a policy that has come back to haunt post-cold war geopolitics. Drawing on archival sources and interviews with policymakers and foreign-service officials, Dreyfuss traces this ultimately misguided approach from support for the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt in the 1950s, the Ayatollah Khomeini in Iran, the ultraorthodox Wahhabism in Saudi Arabia, and Hamas and Hezbollah to jihads in Afghanistan and Osama bin Laden. Fearful of the appeal of communism, the U.S. saw the rise of a religious Right as a counterbalance. Despite the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the declared U.S. war on terrorism in Iraq, Dreyfuss notes continued U.S. support for Iraq's Islamic Right. He cites parallels between the cultural forces that have promoted the religious Right in the U.S and the Middle East and notes that support from wealthy donors, the emergence of powerful figures, and politically convenient alliances have contributed to Middle Eastern hostilities toward the U.S. A well-researched and insightful book.