(Part 3) Top products from r/TrueAtheism

> How do you have a purpose in life if you don't believe in God?

Why do I need God to have a purpose? Why do I need a purpose?

I find that in life, you must find your own purpose. And that can differ from person to person. I find purpose in three things: Family, Fun, and Impact.

• Family: Spending time with family and friends brings me great joy, and I would do anything for them.
  
  
• Fun: It is a short life, so I do what I can to minimize my own suffering, and do the things I enjoy.
  
  
• Impact: Whether it's through work or charity, I seek to leave an impact on the world and make it a better place.
  
  > What's the point of you being here then?
  
  I could ask a Christian the same thing, and I don't think I would get a clear answer backed up by passages in the Bible. Nobody knows why we're here. You're literally asking for the meaning of life. To which I must reply "42."
  
  > How can you believe in other things or anything, but view God as an abstract or not real?
  
  I only believe in things that I can test. I know you don't want me to say Science, but that's literally the reason. Science involves the practice of being able to repeat something and figuring out what rules it follows. The only things in which I believe are things that I have found from testable evidence. (regardless of if my interpretation is correct)
  
  > She does not want you to answer "science" because she says science cannot explain everything.
  
  But science CAN explain everything. It just hasn't yet.
  
  > She wants an answer that doesn't involve science I guess.
  
  Without science, it is not an answer .
  
  > so her questions might sound a little sheltered to you.
  
  They do. But I was there too. Heck, I was baptized 7 years ago. It was my increased interest in affirming my beliefs that led me to lose them. I ventured out to different church services every week. I visited Catholic churches, Baptist, Methodist, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, Mormon, etc. and began reading about these belief systems. Then I started challenging my beliefs by talking with athesists, and reading books like "The God Delusion," "God Is Not Great," "The Portable Atheist," "Breaking the Spell," and many more.
  
  It was my increased exposure to other religions and the book "A History of God" that led me to my current conclusions. "A History of God" discusses who wrote the books in the bible, why they were written, the political motivation behind them, who compiled the bible, etc. It was then that I realized there is no reason I should believe that these texts are divinely inspired. Especially if the only reason I believe the Bible is Divine and the Quran isn't is because that's how I was raised.
  
  Christians are atheists in terms of thousands of gods. I only go one god further.
  
  How do you compare?
  
  And this may sound rude (I really don't mean it that way) but I would encourage your roommate to take a few important classes. 1. A class on world religions, 2. A class on ethics, and 3. A class on the Scientific Process (Chemistry and Physics would also be a big plus)
  
  > she said a lot of your responses regarding a purpose sounds like, "Moralism".
  
  Forgive me, but this seems like an oversimplification of a grander issue. I would highly encourage you both to do some more study on ethics and moral theory. I suggest starting with something like "The Elements of Moral Philosophy" which goes over most of the primary methods of deducing morality. "Moralism" is kind of a weird umbrella term that doesn't really mean anything. I think you'll find that atheists incorporate a wide variety of these theories to deduce morality on a day-to-day basis. And while most Christians would subscribe to "Divine Command Theory" I think you'll find yourself supplementing using other theories as well. For instance, nothing in the Bible tells you who to choose if you are going to accidentally kill either 2 people or 10 people. You would have to resort to utilitarianism to deduce that you should pick the 2 (or look deeper into the surrounding circumstances and incorporate another theory).
  
  Anywho, I think it's great that your friend is branching out and seeking to understand. It's sometimes hard to respect Christians who stay in their own little bubble their whole life and believe what they were told to believe. So, good on ya mate! And I hope I didn't come across as rude or pretentious in any of this, I was trying my best to describe the things that I didn't understand when I was a believer.

• Watch this Yale introductory course to the old testament. (multiple videos) It's eye-opening, all the actual facts about the old testament they don't tell you about in Sunday school class.
  
  
• The new testament course is interesting too, it's good to know when it was written and by who. Then consider how little is said of Jesus outside of the bible.
  
  
• Watch any debate between an atheist and a religious figure, try to figure out which ones are actually making points you can relate to, and why. Even though Bill Nye vs Ken Ham is fascinating, I'm thinking more of Bill Craig with Sam Harris or Chris Hitchens with Bill Craig.
  
  
• Read "A short history of nearly everything" and you'll see how science, including evolution, has gotten to where it is.
  
  I don't think I ever believed in a god.
  
  Certainly I was there on Sundays and testified to my friends if they asked, I was a pretty decent missionary's kid. I participated when called on, but didn't ever initiate anything religious, just went with the flow.
  
  Going to college was the first big step. Getting out of one bubble, but that got substituted for another containing a Christianity I didn't recognize. I stopped going to church, never liked it, even worse than school ... because I wasn't learning anything. Every sermon, class, lesson I heard over and over. In college, without parents to drag me out of bed, I started appreciating that sweet Sunday morning sleep a lot more instead.
  
  (The singing was fun though)
  
  I started questioning everything about my faith, for 2 years trying to make new information and new personal convictions fit into what I already believed. It became harder and harder to do. At first it was easy, some shifting and everything fit in perfectly. But that wasn't working anymore.
  
  One night, I wanted to let it all go, start from scratch, but too terrified that I would change and wouldn't be the same "good" person I took myself for.
  
  I decided that whatever was true would present itself when approaching it with a clear mind, just practice healthy skepticism, roll every new idea around in my head and see it from every possible angle, I was always good at thinking exercises, decent at deductions, the truth would present itself. I had to trust that.
  
  Years went by and I realized how little religion was a part of my life, how little I cared for it. How little sense it made, especially after being gone for a while and going to a service ... it felt like a cult.
  
  Being a moral person is about making that decision, not something that comes from faith, faith that if you don't do it the destination will be hell...
  
  For a long time it was all I could think about, I took in books, debates, documentaries, anything that stirred the controversy. Now, it's just another (weird) thing on this planet that I get reminded of from time to time.
  

It depends. But I'm glad you asked, for the following suggestions might also be helpful to others.

If I understand you correctly, you seem to think that pointing out fallacies is an efficient way to "fight the good fight". At least, that's my impression. Please correct me when I'm wrong.

Unfortunately, almost all the evidence points to a different direction: It's usually not very effective, because those committing the fallacy usually don't care much about a logical analysis of the situation, anyway. This does also apply to non-believers. Assuming all humans process information in two ways (see Kahneman's System 1 and 2), even atheists often seem to ignore their own system 2, because it actually takes effort to use it.

However, if you're looking for resources about fallacies, any good book on logic will help. One of the best one, I've been told, is "Introduction to logic" by Gensler. You may only need the first 5 chapters, because it becomes quite technical after that. Maybe, Amazon can help find a less technical book.

If, however, you're looking to persuade people, that's a completely different story.

Here, a very common recommendation is Cialdini's "Influence". You can research its contents easily online, so there's no need to buy it. Cialdini emphasizes six common areas to get people to agree with you.

I've looked at your comment history, so here's a short overview what you may want to change to be more effective:

• Liking: People say yes to people they like. Being offensive to believers is thus unlikely to help you make your point.
  
• Scarcity: People often want they don't think is hard to get. It's thus okay to say that we as atheists may indeed by the exception. It might help to say, you understand if your opponent is unable to understand your position.
  
• Authority: It helps to have bookmarks, or notes, from authorities who believers respect (typically other believers).
  
• Social Proof: It helps to have notes and bookmarks about being a non-believer is on the rise, generally speaking.
  
• Reciprocity: People tend to return a favor. This is hard to apply online, but it may help offline.
  
• Commitment: If people commit, verbally or in writing, to an idea or goal, they are more likely to honor that commitment. It's thus worth trying to get your opponents to agree to a certain set of principles. For instance, the fight about gay marriage was won by appealing to one of the most common principles among Americans: Freedom. A simple change of words (from the "right to marry" to the "freedom to marry") made a big difference.
  
  Hope this helps.

Personal research, mostly. I'm a big history nerd with a slant toward religion and other macabre subject matter. I'm actually not as well read as I'd like to be on these subjects, and I basically blend different sources into a knowledge smoothie and pour it out onto a page and see what works for me and what doesn't.

I'll list a few books I've read that I enjoyed. There are certainly more here and there, but these are the "big ones" I was citing when writing all the comments in this thread. I typically know more about Christianity than the other major faiths because of the culture around me.

Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years - Diarmaid MacCulloch

A History of God: The 4,000-Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity and Islam - Karen Armstrong

The next two balance each other out quite well. Hardline anti-theism contrasted with "You know, maybe we can make this work".

The Case for God - Karen Armstrong

The God Delusion - Richard Dawkins



Lately, I have been reading the Stoics, which like Buddhism, I find to be one of the more personally palatable philosophies of mind I have come across, although I find rational contemplation a bit more accessible to my Westernized nature.

Stoic Philosophy of Seneca: Essays and Letters - Translated by Moses Hadas

Discourses and Selected Writings (of Epictetus) - Translated by Robert Dobbin

The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius - Translated by George Long

I'm still waiting on Fed Ex to deliver this one:

A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy - William B. Irvine

Also, if you're into history in general, a nice primer for what sorts of things to dive into when poking around history is this fun series on YouTube. I usually watch a video then spend a while reading more in depth about whatever subject is covered that week in order to fill the gaps. Plus, John and Hank are super awesome. The writing is superb and I think, most importantly, he presents an overall argument for why studying history is so important because of its relevance to current events.

Crash Course: World History - John Green

>Why not just call your religion Science or Darwinism?

As mentioned before, this really depends on the definition of religion. We need to be able to use this term without capturing political parties, sport team fans, charity groups, or hobby clubs.

Your question creates a false dilemma too. There are millions of Christians who agree with the general scientific consensus and Darwin's theory of speciation through natural selection (evolution).

While a majority of atheists tend to support Modern evolutionary synthesis (not "Darwinism"), there's no rule that demands the odd atheist cannot reject evolution, by positing something like space aliens.

Besides that, do you really want to place science and religion on opposition? To say that the scientist is a priest? Consider which "priests" creates reliable cures to disease. Which "priests" sends men to the moon and machines to mars?



>I've also made it my personal business to seek out arguments on both ends.

This statement is too vague. Which ends? The existence of god(s)? The veracity of Evolutionary theory? The strengths and weaknesses of the Scientific Method?

Please list the books/topic you're talking about and perhaps readers here can comment better on this subject.



>Anything that's provable. I get it! I love me some science.

Well, that's not wrong, but I think you're pushing this a bit too far. A better way to put it is that for any given number of statements about the world, those with repeatable, verifiable evidence for those statements we can place a greater confidence in.



>One must choose to believe pretty much all things or basically be nihilist.

This doesn't sound right and reads in my mind as a sloppy statement (and another false dilemma). But I'm not a philosopher, so I can't exactly point out where you go wrong.

As a layman I'll try to at least mention there's a middle ground to be found between absolute gullibility and absolute skepticism. We can grant Fallibilism and move towards creating a system of thought that attempts to filter out statements that are meaningless or false, and hone statements we think are true to better model and predict the world around us.

That's why a lot of atheists appreciate the Scientific Method. Plagued as it is by certain philosophical problems (like induction), the Scientific Method tries to at least reach soundness by testing predictions of a certain hypothesis against the actual world itself.

See Richard Feynman on the Scientific Method for more.



P.S. I'm mostly a Humanist. I say "mostly" because I don't go to Humanist meetings, or tithe donations to Humanist organizations. Their listed values just seem the closest to what I'd describe to someone.

Edit: P.P.S. I think you may be interested in the book Finding Darwin's God: A Scientist's Search for Common Ground Between God and Evolution.

> The world actually is more peaceful now than it ever has been before

That is true. Steven Pinker has recently written a book on the subject that I found quite surprising.

http://www.amazon.com/Better-Angels-Our-Nature-Violence/dp/0143122010/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1419049729&sr=8-1&keywords=The+Better+Angels+of+Our+Nature%3A+Why+Violence+Has+Declined

BTW, I should point out that true world peace without any violence is not necessarily even a goal to which I would aspire. Reducing violence and deliberate cruelty is another matter. But, when I think of world peace, real peace with no violence at all, I look up on most clear nights and see what that peaceful world looks like.

We call it "the moon".

> It's not about choosing, it's about searching for the truth.

Serious question. What will you do if your search for the truth leads you to the same conclusion as most of us on this subreddit? Are you truly prepared for the possibility that your search may lead you to the conclusion that we live in a gods-free universe?

I'll let Jared Diamond explain:

--------------------------------------------

A recent interpretation among some scholars of religion is that belief in religious superstitions serves to display one’s commitment to one’s religion. All long-lasting human groups — Boston Red Sox fans (like me), devoted Catholics, patriotic Japanese, and others — face the same basic problem of identifying who can be trusted to remain as a group member. The more of one’s life is wrapped up with one’s group, the more crucial it is to be able to identify group members correctly and not to be deceived by someone who seeks temporary advantage by claiming to share your ideals but who really doesn’t. If that man carrying a Boston Red Sox banner, whom you had accepted as a fellow Red Sox fan, suddenly cheers when the New York Yankees hit a home run, you’ll find it humiliating but not life-threatening. But if he’s a soldier next to you in the front line and he drops his gun (or turns it on you) when the enemy attacks, your misreading of him may cost you your life.

That’s why religious affiliation involves so many overt displays to demonstrate the sincerity of your commitment: sacrifices of time and resources, enduring of hardships, and other costly displays that I’ll discuss later. One such display might be to espouse some irrational belief that contradicts the evidence of our senses, and that people outside our religion would never believe. If you claim that the founder of your church had been conceived by normal sexual intercourse between his mother and father, anyone else would believe that too, and you’ve done nothing to demonstrate your commitment to your church. But if you insist, despite all evidence to the contrary, that he was born of a virgin birth, and nobody has been able to shake you of that irrational belief after many decades of your life, then your fellow believers will feel much more confident that you’ll persist in your belief and can be trusted not to abandon your group.

Nevertheless, it’s not the case that there are no limits to what can be accepted as a religious supernatural belief. Scott Atran and Pascal Boyer have independently pointed out that actual religious superstitions over the whole world constitute a narrow subset of all the arbitrary random superstitions that one could theoretically invent. To quote Pascal Boyer, there is no religion proclaiming anything like the following tenet: “There is only one God! He is omnipotent. But he exists only on Wednesdays.” Instead, the religious supernatural beings in which we believe are surprisingly similar to humans, animals, or other natural objects, except for having superior powers. They are more far-sighted, longer-lived, and stronger, travel faster, can predict the future, can change shape, can pass through walls, and so on. In other respects, gods and ghosts behave like people. The god of the Old Testament got angry, while Greek gods and goddesses became jealous, ate, drank, and had sex. Their powers surpassing human powers are projections of our own personal power fantasies; they can do what we wish we could do ourselves. I do have fantasies of hurling thunderbolts that destroy evil people, and probably many other people share those fantasies of mine, but I have never fantasized about existing only on Wednesdays. Hence it doesn’t surprise me that gods in many religions are pictured as smiting evil-doers, but that no religion holds out the dream of existing just on Wednesdays. Thus, religious supernatural beliefs are irrational, but emotionally plausible and satisfying. That’s why they’re so believable, despite at the same time being rationally implausible.

Source: http://www.salon.com/2013/01/13/jared_diamond_its_irrational_to_be_religious/

--------------------------------------------

You may also want to read the book Religion Explained by Pascal Boyer (alluded to in the passage by Diamond) to understand religion on a deeper psychological level:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_Explained

http://www.amazon.com/Religion-Explained-Evolutionary-Origins-Religious/dp/0465006965

Reading between the lines of Chris82179's comment, I think he's just pointing out that there may be no single best morality, but that there can definitely be better moralities than others. Let's try this little tweak:

I think my morality is not 'incorrect', it's incomplete. But it's as correct as can be based on the best information available to me.

> what kind of practical existence are we shooting for, and what kind of behaviors and social structures facilitate that existence?

If we base our decisions on the single parameter of "maximizing human wellbeing", then the entire framework for a science of morality emerges. It's the central argument of Sam Harris' excellent The Moral Landscape

>I am mad at myself for not being this analytic about this earlier in my life

I had this exact feeling.

So one thing to realize is that this process takes time I mean for FSM sake u lived a lot with this Idea.keep reading whatever you do keep reading.

some sources or ideas that were helpful to me:

• parables of Jesus
  
• the history of hell
  
• history before ur religion.
  
• the Christ myth theory (However I do believe he existed but it lowered my certainty) and how exodus never happened look for the exodus myth
  
• Commonsense atheism and proving the negative
  
• talk origin and talk design are also very good sources.
  
• read some books on cognitive sciences and psychology of religion , search for recommended atheism books. (understand what cognitive bias is)
  
• this is the phone line u're looking for
  
• read an introductory account on atheism this is one of the best books on atheism
  
• find a way to express u're doubts or else u'll go crazy (at least if u're anything like me) ,blog about it or write about it , talk to s1, ask others questions.
  
• listen to debates about religions.
  
• think about the fact that u finally could emancipate urself from this.
  
• learn a little more about other religions it helps A LOT .
  
• read books by Xbelievers like John Luftus or Dan barker
  
• read more I mean Way more on cosmology and physics. just search for top books on Cosmology
  
• read comparative books like Karen Armstrong books and read the evolution of god
  
• read Religion Explained
  
  

  keep fear away and ...good luck !

I would suggest The Book of Genesis Illustrated by R. Crumb. Robert Crumb was an underground comix (with an "x") artist who became popular in the 60's, because he was very counter-culture. It's not an atheist book; in fact, I think Crumb intended it to be some sort of homage to the Bible. But, whereas every other illustrated Bible has sought to polish the stories through their imagery, Crumb presents a very gritty, "warts and all" type of work, and it can be a little jarring at times. Intelligent folks will get the message loud and clear, though, how bizarre the Old Testament really is.

Lighter fare is Julia Sweeney's Letting Go of God. Sweeney is a former SNL comedian, and this comes from her one-person show of the same name. It's funny stuff, and it shows how so many Christians have just glossed over the history of the faith without thinking critically about it. It's also available on YouTube.

> The Bible is about one thing, man's relationship with god. A well-educated Christian will realize this and not try to make it a science or history lesson.

Perhaps I'm missing your point.

That's a nice sounding thesis, and it's one that allows a lot of "well educated" Christians to sleep well at night and quiet the demons of cognitive dissonance. However, it's pretty incoherent when you critically examine it.

The bible defines man's relationship with God in terms of some pretty clear truth claims. You have an eternal relationship with God via some concrete acts (e.g. Jesus was a person who existed, then died in a specific way, for a specific reason) which get their power via history (covering the sin which entered the world through Adam, a person who existed and acted in certain ways), and so on.

Any attempt I've seen (and I've seen quite a few) to tease the story from the history quickly become totally arbitrary, empty platitudes, because they have no basis other than ones own interpretation.

The book Evolving out of Eden is really well put together, and catalogs many (failed) examples of attempts to 'harmonize' or 'rationalize' or 'spiritualize' or 'mythicize' in the face of the clear differences in the biblical account vs observable reality.

Here are some links for the product in the above comment for different countries:

Amazon Smile Link: Richard Davidson


|Country|Link|Charity Links|
|:-----------|:------------|:------------|
|USA|smile.amazon.com|EFF|
|UK|www.amazon.co.uk|Macmillan|
|Spain|www.amazon.es||
|France|www.amazon.fr||
|Germany|www.amazon.de||
|Japan|www.amazon.co.jp||
|Canada|www.amazon.ca||
|Italy|www.amazon.it||
|India|www.amazon.in||




To help add charity links, please have a look at this thread.

This bot is currently in testing so let me know what you think by voting (or commenting). The thread for feature requests can be found here.

Great book: Raising Free Thinkers

My boys are only 18 months and 11 weeks, so I've only skimmed it, but my wife's read quite a bit of it and it seems great.

If you will read only one book read The End of Faith by Sam Harris.

This is the best critique of faith that really explains why believing on bad evidence is itself a problem, but also why omnipotent, intelligent being would not demand it from other sentient, intelligent beings.

• Considered (by many) the "best" layperson's book on evolution: Why Evolution is True by outspoken atheist biology professor Jerry Coyne.
  
• This accommodationist drivel turns my stomach but may be exactly what you need: Finding Darwin's God: A Scientist's Search for Common Ground is written by Christian biologist Ken Miller, who is a no-nonsense advocate of evolution (and an excellent explainer) but also has the Christian cred that will let believers lend him their ear.

Buy The Book of Genesis Illustrated by R. Crumb.

It is a respectful and unabridged translation with awesome drawings, comic book style.

A very good book on this (has been the most popular introduction to comparative religions for over 50 years now) is The World's Religions, by Huston Smith

sitting around and debating the topic is exactly what I have a problem with. I am in no way qualified to answers these questions, and never claimed to be. I only pointed out that the philosophers aren't qualified either. Since this is /r/trueatheism, can I recommend a few books on the topic? Science of Good and Evil or The Moral Landscape are both good reads, and I think they have advanced the study of Ethics by leaps and bounds.

If you'd like to read more about the historical backdrop behind the various stories in Genesis, there's a really good book on the subject. The author is a biblical historian.

http://www.amazon.com/How-Read-Bible-Guide-Scripture/dp/0743235878/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1396028025&sr=1-1&keywords=kugel

"Hey, I got you a great book that's all about Creationism!"

Not exactly a reinterpretation, so much as a completely new take on the idea, A.C. Geryling wrote a humanist bible called "The Good Book."

There is also The Jefferson Bible, which is basically the story of Jesus without all the woo.

Neither of these are exactly what you are looking for, but I think both are interesting.

Check out Huston Smith's The World's Religions.

Smith is not a Dawkins or a Hitchens. He's probably not even an atheist. What he is (as I remember the book anyway) is objective and fair.

The World's Religions is exactly that--a (light) history of major world religions with a more in-depth look at the tenets and practice of each. He's not out to convince anyone of anything, and for some people that's a very good thing.

When I read it (going on 10 years ago), it really gave me a lot of perspective and helped me step outside the bubble of christianity that I'd been raised in.

A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson is a good overview of the history of science. PDF (or MP3 audiobook) available online if you're OK with torrenting copyrighted stuff, but a hard copy wouldn't be a bad investment.

I would suggest books written by ex-christians. Here are some that I have enjoyed:

[This] (http://astore.amazon.com/exchrisnetenc-20/detail/B00AM4UFSG)

[And this] (http://www.amazon.com/End-Faith-Religion-Terror-Future/dp/0393327655/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1427226664&sr=1-1&keywords=the+end+of+faith)

[And this] (http://www.amazon.com/Letter-Christian-Nation-Sam-Harris/dp/0307278778/ref=pd_sim_b_2?ie=UTF8&refRID=149ZKC19M7DB7MC831Q9)

[And this] (http://www.amazon.com/God-Virus-The-Religion-Infects/dp/0970950519/ref=pd_rhf_se_s_cp_7_F6GR?ie=UTF8&refRID=0ZE3TFDAPY4Z6BD4RN71)

Maybe try The Good Book, made by A.C. Grayling.

This is a very good book on the history of christianity. It's long (just like it needs to, but good).

I recommend that she read Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion by Robert Cialdini. Even people with finely-tuned BS meters fall for all sorts of psychological tricks in very reliable ways. It's important to know about them beforehand so that you know when you experience them being used on you.

Also, that Harvard series uses "How to Read the Bible: A Guide to Scriptures Then and Now" as a textbook. I highly recommend this book, which attempts to follow biblical interpretation through the ages.

If anyone is interested in reading more about the neuroscience of meditation, check out the work of Richard Davidson.

> Morality is subjective and there are NO moral absolutes.

Honest question: have you ever taken an ethics class? I ask because there is an entire class of people - ethicists - whose task it is to study exactly the question of right and wrong and very few of them hold your position. This is not an argument that democracy determines truth, but rather that when 99% of experts think X and random Joe Shmoe thinks Y, you have to consider that Joe Shmoe is probably wrong (an appeal to authority, which contrary to popular belief is a valid inductive argument and not a fallacy, as opposed to appeal to false authority).

If you're interested in the arguments against moral relativism - of which there are many - ethicist James Rachels deals with them nicely in The Elements of Moral Philosophy(free pdfs online if you don't care about piracy). If you were to be able to demonstrate that his reasoning and proof against relativism was wrong you'd become pretty famous pretty quickly.

But basically, to say that all moral statements are equal is to say that we cannot consider reason when determining ethical answers. That is, if I were to ask you why it's wrong to steal you could probably come up with a good argument. If, however, you were a radical Muslim who believed that subjugating women was right, your argument would have to contain some sort of fallacious reasoning (e.g. an unproved premise such as god, or an appeal to tradition, etc).

The major ethical systems - utilitarianism, deontology, etc - are not based on whims but on well reasoned, deductive arguments. If you want to argue they are invalid then you must find a flaw in the reasoning. You cannot simply state that all morality is subjective without first dispelling the arguments for moral systems which already exist.

If you want more information on how the Bible was written, look into the book "Who Wrote the New Testament: The Bible with Sources Revealed"
http://www.amazon.com/Sources-Revealed-Richard-Elliott-Friedman/dp/006073065X

Check Parenting beyond belief by Dale McGowan.

God is not great by Christopher Hitchens. If you are looking for someone that had a sound knowledge of Christianity, its history and scripture, Hitchens is the man.

The books mentioned. Amazon Zombie bot should be around to reply shortly.

"The Bible Unearthed" by Israel Finkelstein.

"Jesus, Interrupted" by Bart Ehrman

"Forged" by Bart Ehrman

It is really important to read the Pentateuch in a book which shows the sources. The Moses with Pharaoh story is actually from J, P, and E! 6:1 happens to be from the E source, the rest of chapter 6 and the first half of chapter 7 is P. The part of E where they leave Egypt is 12:30-33 where you can see that Pharaoh is pushing them to leave ASAP because all their firstborn just up and died.

I recommend The Bible with Sources Revealed.

>So it doesn't sound like I'm setting up an anonymous strawman, basically.

To be fair, anyone who doesn't consider the Garden of Eden as a literal event can be considered a skeptic. So that means there's plenty of Chrisitian denominations with their own prominent figures that you could write about also.

The only recent "Skeptic vs Literal" debate I can think of is the Bill Nye vs Ken Ham debate. I didn't get to far into it though so I'm not sure how much they touched on the Garden of Eden. I do know that Bill was so frustrated by the debate that he went out and wrote his book Undeniable afterwards. He might have something.


Generally though, it's going to be hard to find an atheist who's not skeptical of the whole Bible and not just a literal interpretation of the Garden of Eden.

If it helps, my realizing that the Bible wasn't inerrant is what helped lead to my deconversion.

EDIT: The book itself doesn't have a chapter that directly addresses the Garden of Eden or problems with the story. I meant he might have criticisms of it on a website or in an interview.

I was raised Jewish with all the schooling but never believed in a god. TzniusNotMyNameOh writes good questions to ask yourself. This year I refused to even be seated at the seder table (in the past I sat but didn't participate) because the entire Haggadah is just praising a god for killing other people. If you reread the stories of Lot and Dinah, they are also just as disgusting. And ask Orthodox about what they believe was the reason for god not intervening in the Holocaust- because he is too great for us to understand his reasons.

Some other books to check out:

God Is Not Great: How religion poisons everything by Christopher Hitchens

Unorthodox: The Scandalous Rejection of my Hasidic Roots by Deborah Feldman

The Year of Living Biblically by AJ Jacobs

Unchosen: The Hidden Lives of Hasidic Rebels

interview with Nathan Englander

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dx7irFN2gdI

http://www.theatheistrabbi.com/

http://jewishatheist.blogspot.com/

http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/

http://i.imgur.com/YWUig.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/7UdCA.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/rNOET.jpg

http://www.southparkstudios.com/clips/411550/its-raining-frogs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=6axdZAxyt2g&feature=endscreen

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5JtxrR6msg&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E67ommy95-o&feature=related

http://vimeo.com/25149893