(Part 2) Top products from r/atheism

On science and evolution:

Genetics is where it's at. There is a ton of good fossil evidence, but genetics actually proves it on paper. Most books you can get through your local library (even by interlibrary loan) so you don't have to shell out for them just to read them.

Books:

The Making of the Fittest outlines many new forensic proofs of evolution. Fossil genes are an important aspect... they prove common ancestry. Did you know that humans have the gene for Vitamin C synthesis? (which would allow us to synthesize Vitamin C from our food instead of having to ingest it directly from fruit?) Many mammals have the same gene, but through a mutation, we lost the functionality, but it still hangs around.

Deep Ancestry proves the "out of Africa" hypothesis of human origins. It's no longer even a debate. MtDNA and Y-Chromosome DNA can be traced back directly to where our species began.

To give more rounded arguments, Hitchens can't be beat: God Is Not Great and The Portable Atheist (which is an overview of the best atheist writings in history, and one which I cannot recommend highly enough). Also, Dawkin's book The Greatest Show on Earth is a good overview of evolution.

General science: Stephen Hawking's books The Grand Design and A Briefer History of Time are excellent for laying the groundwork from Newtonian physics to Einstein's relativity through to the modern discovery of Quantum Mechanics.

Bertrand Russell and Thomas Paine are also excellent sources for philosophical, humanist, atheist thought; but they are included in the aforementioned Portable Atheist... but I have read much of their writings otherwise, and they are very good.

Also a subscription to a good peer-reviewed journal such as Nature is awesome, but can be expensive and very in depth.

Steven Pinker's The Blank Slate is also an excellent look at the human mind and genetics. To understand how the mind works, is almost your most important tool. If you know why people say the horrible things they do, you can see their words for what they are... you can see past what they say and see the mechanisms behind the words.

I've also been studying Zen for about a year. It's non-theistic and classed as "eastern philosophy". The Way of Zen kept me from losing my mind after deconverting and then struggling with the thought of a purposeless life and no future. I found it absolutely necessary to root out the remainder of the harmful indoctrination that still existed in my mind; and finally allowed me to see reality as it is instead of overlaying an ideology or worldview on everything.

Also, learn about the universe. Astronomy has been a useful tool for me. I can point my telescope at a galaxy that is more than 20 million light years away and say to someone, "See that galaxy? It took over 20 million years for the light from that galaxy to reach your eye." Creationists scoff at millions of years and say that it's a fantasy; but the universe provides real proof of "deep time" you can see with your own eyes.

Videos:

I recommend books first, because they are the best way to learn, but there are also very good video series out there.

BestofScience has an amazing series on evolution.

AronRa's Foundational Falsehoods of Creationism is awesome.

Thunderfoot's Why do people laugh at creationists is good.

Atheistcoffee's Why I am no longer a creationist is also good.

Also check out TheraminTrees for more on the psychology of religion; Potholer54 on The Big Bang to Us Made Easy; and Evid3nc3's series on deconversion.

Also check out the Evolution Documentary Youtube Channel for some of the world's best documentary series on evolution and science.

I'm sure I've overlooked something here... but that's some stuff off the top of my head. If you have any questions about anything, or just need to talk, send me a message!

> Science has always been a way to understand God better for Christians.

has it? Or have Christians been forcing their 'worldview' on others for 2,000 years claiming to have special knowledge about the mysteries of existence and life after death with no other evidence than a book and their own personal 'revelations'. For most of that time, their claim to absolute truth was absolute and unchallengeable. The advancement of sciences in the areas of physics, biology, astronomy and chemistry, especially in the last 200 years, have been able to explain many of the mysteries that confounded our ancestors, and have transformed our lives in tangibly positive ways. Take leprosy: People in Biblical times thought leprosy was a sign of sin against God, and so you were 'unclean'. Of course nobody believes that anymore (to his credit, it seems Jesus didn't buy into it either). According to wikipedia: In the past 20 years, 15 million people worldwide have been cured of leprosy, which is caused by the bacteria Mycobacterium leprae. It's one example but I'm sure you can think of many more. The church has lost so much ground to science that there are only a few little islands of mystery from which to they try to claim authority and justification for their philosophies, such as:

> the Bible is kind of like an ethical cheat sheet, from an omniscient God who actually knows the answers
> even those who didn't hear about God know what's right & wrong

and you have your own theory:

> God started things off, realized natural selection was a great way to set up a diverse planet, and probably intervened a bit in the ape -> human transition.

Now, you are basically saying that the differences we perceive between a human and a chimpanzee are actually the direct result of a deliberate intervention, at a specific time in the past, by a creator god (from outer space), who engineered the development of our culture, giving us laws, clothing, marriage, and possibly music and mathematics. It's an interesting theory, but whats the motivation?

> man is different from the animals

This is the central issue. Logically, if we are animals than either animals have souls (and we should all be vegetarians, or burn as murderers), or humans do not have souls (and there is no eternal life for believers). This is a catch-22 for a bible believing christians and meat-eaters. Maybe you can say animals do have souls, but God said we can eat them so its OK. This is kind of like saying God is an asshole who arbitrarily makes up the rules as he goes along (which is a solid theological position - just ask Job: the Lord giveth, the Lord taketh away).

I think to separate ourselves from the animals is to deny the truth of what science has shown us about ourselves. For Christians, science may be just a way to understand God better, but for the rest of us it is a way to understand reality better. Of course Christians want there to be no conflict between faith in the Bible and reality because no philosophy can exist without being rooted to some degree in reality; otherwise it is just a fantasy.

Let me back up a second. You said you believe the Bible is true and historically accurate, and I won't ask you what evidence you have for believing that. I used to believe as you did, that the Bible is true, and so is evolution but that somehow there is no conflict and the two work together - that somehow there in the whole mix of life evolving naturally, God intervened and sent Jesus to fulfill his mysterious plan so that we can all live forever in heaven. I just didn't want to accept that all those people (including my family) could be wrong; they are obviously sincere in their beliefs. For several years I found various ways to explain it all without accepting a 'naturalistic worldview', and all that implies including a very high probability of there being no life after death. I might still believe in the Bible if I hadn't started reading science books and watching BBC documentaries... yep Attenborough offered me the red pill and i took it.

If you can pretend for a moment you were born in Africa or Asia, in some remote tribe with no written language. You wouldn't have any reason to trust in a book you could not read; everything you know about the universe has been explained to you by those around you, those who came before, those who were close in the beginning. This is the same experience as any animal that learns how to hunt or fly or build nests from their parents.

The book I mentioned, Our Inner Ape documents the social behavior and societies of bonobos and chimpanzees, written by noted primatologist Frans de Waal who has studied these unique primates for decades. It's a fascinating read and may surprise you to see how many behaviors people tend to think of as uniquely 'human' are, in fact, shared by our closely-related ape cousins. In fact, de Waal shows, all major traits are shared, including language, toolmaking, and the full range of emotional states. Within the ape societies, the apes have their own standards of 'right' and 'wrong' behavior that they enforce in the same ways we do: shunning some, rewarding others, punishing the worst offenders. They learn from each other, and pass on skills to their offspring.

Evolution, as I understand it, is the theory that explains how more efficient/adapted forms emerge from the natural processes of entropy and diffusion. The theory explains how natural processes have driven our biological development, and also why men have nipples. Biological evolution is a special case; Evolution itself is a law of Nature, at a more elementary level, in the realm of Physics or Math.

All of our languages, customs, art, music, and every other thinking pattern has evolved through these same natural processes. Basically, I'm describing Memes. Have you ever thought about Christianity as a Meme? Of the Catholic Church as an organism whose main goal is to ensure its own survival? We have been and continue to evolve, quite rapidly, both biologically and culturally. Every individual and every idea wants to survive, but not everything gets successfully passed to the next generation. Every meme and species is only one generation away from becoming extinct. Adapt or die. This is why the mainstream church is becoming warmer to the idea of evolution, why the Vatican apologized for Galileo - survival of the religion is more important than orthodoxy.

The line between science and philosophy and religion get blurred with evolution because it answers, quite elegantly, the 'big' question: where did we come from? For this reason, it is a threat to all memes based on the idea of a 'creator god' because it nullifies this concept directly. Indirectly, it has the potential to erode the foundations underneath many religions. But I don't think the ideas of evolution are really a threat to you, me, our standards of morality, our way of life or anything else. The victims are a literal interpretation of the Bible and belief in a 'creator god'. Why not let it go? If you had never read the Bible, would you really be a less moral person? really? If not for that one book all people would know nothing but evil and be totally selfish to each other? Is this one book worth deliberately lobotomizing yourself? You'll go crazy trying to reconcile it; do you want to end up like Ray Comfort or Ken Ham?

A couple other interesting books you might enjoy if you feel like taking the red pill:

Kluge: The Haphazard Construction of the Human Mind

Your Inner Fish

Sorry for the novel, kind got caught up in it :)

Since you are actually talking about majoring in a field of biology, I would recommend two books to start playing catch-up with what your high school science teachers misinformed you about.

The first I'm going to recommend is Your Inner Fish by Neil Shubin. I'm recommending this first because the author is the paleontologist who found tiktaalik and describes exactly how he did it. He wanted to see the intermediate form specifically of the arm bones, before the well-known pattern of one bone (upper arm), two bones (lower arm), lots of blobby bones (wrist, fingers, etc.; his words from my memory at the lecture and book signing in New York).

So, when he went looking for this intermediate fossil (yes, it was not a chance find), he knew the time frame of the evolutionary change (if I remember correctly, 365-375 MYA). He picked up a geology text and looked for exposed sedimentary rocks (because they may contain fossils) of the right age in a place that had not already been pored over by other paleontologists. A quick look at a map in the book and he found that Canada's Ellesmere Island (way the fuck up north and relatively untraveled even by paleontologists) had the right age sedimentary rocks. It took 3 short summers of extreme expeditions to the island, but he found the fossil that he allowed the Inuit people who helped him to name "Tiktaalik" in the Inuit language.

It's an excellent book that explains not only about the fossil but points out that when searching for a "missing link" predicted by evolution, it is possible to actively go looking for them in the right type and age of rock. It also describes a whole host of features of human anatomy and fetal development that only make sense because of our long history as members of the taxa sarcopterygii. Yes, we're still members of the taxa of lobe-finned fish from which we evolved for the same reason we are still mammals and apes. We are still in the taxa in which we evolved.

The other book I'd recommend is more of a general book on evolution by the late great Steven Jay Gould. Gould was far less anti-religion than Dawkins and is more matter of fact about evolution and less vitriolic. He came up with the idea of "non-overlapping magisteria", an idea I personally reject quite strongly. He also, along with Niles Eldridge, came up with the theory of punctuated equilibrium. So, he was kind of a big name in evolution as well as having been excellent at explaining the concepts.

His book Full House is not only truly excellent, it also ends (spoiler alert) with a great quote from Darwin, "There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved."

Indeed there is! Far more so than the hubris of attempting to explain us as the creation in his own image of a narcissistic god.

As a last comment, please note that any attempt to dismiss intermediate forms is likely possible only because we're stuck with the Lamarckian binomial naming scheme that does not allow for any mechanism by which to state that a particular fossil is 63 percent of the way between species one and species two which also happen to be randomly chosen points along some random branch in the evolutionary bush of life.

TL;DR: Two book recommendations and the reasons for recommending those in particular and a bit of information about each of the books. Then, my own opinion of the Lamarckian naming scheme. Sorry, bad TL;DR. But, this post was long enough to need one and this is the best I could do.

P.S. Best wishes for success in your very important field of study!

> as I have no proof that we evolved from other animals/etc.

Such proof abounds. If you're going to debate these people, you need to know some of it.

I don't mean enough to ask a couple of questions, I mean enough to carry both sides of the conversation, because he'll make you do all the heavy lifting.

Start with talkorigins.org.

First, the FAQ
Maybe the 29+ Evidences for Macroevolution next,
then the pieces on observed instances of speciation

See the extensive FAQs index

Here are their questions for creationsists - see both links there

and then read the index to creationist claims

That's just to start. Take a look at the Outline (which starts with an outline of the outline!)

If you're going to talk with a creationist, you either need to get some idea of the topography or you'll end up chasing in circles around the same tree again and again.

Yes, it looks like a major time investment, but once you start to become familiar with it, it gets easier quickly. Don't aim to learn it all by heart - but you should know when there is an answer to a question, and where to find it.

read books like Your Inner Fish and Why Evolution Is True and The Greatest Show on Earth

I list Your Inner Fish first because it tells a great story about how Shubin and his colleagues used evolutionary theory and geology to predict where they should look for an intermediate fossil linking ancient fish and amphibians (a "transitional form") - and they went to that location, and found just such a fossil. This makes a great question for your creationist - given fossils are kind of rare, how the heck did he manage that? If evolution by natural selection is false, why does that kind of scientific prediction WORK? Is God a deceiver, trying to make it look exactly like evolution happens?? Or maybe, just maybe, the simpler explanation is true - that evolution actually occurs. (Then point out that many major Christian churches officially endorse evolution. They understand that the evidence is clear)

It's a good idea to read blogs like Panda's Thumb, Why Evolution Is True, Pharyngula, erv (old posts here) and so on, which regularly blog on new research that relates to evolution.

Make sure you know about the experiments by Lenski et al on evolution of new genes

Don't take "no proof" as an argument. The evidence is overwhelming.

Hey BouncingBettie! Congratulations and well done on digging your way out of that intellectual hole, and welcome to the rapidly growing club!

Thanks also for your shout out. I pour a lot of myself into this place and often earn criticism for being so hardnosed. I'm happy to hear some people like it and, most importantly, benefit from what I do.

In that spirit, a couple of three posts of mine that might help you a bit:

• Advantages of being an atheist
  
• NukeThePope on purpose (love that title)
  
• Dying for after fun and profit - the Disneyland analogy.
  
  If you have any questions about anything, by all means post here!
  
  Hey, is your hubby a cerebral type? The kind that would read a philosophy book for fun and enlightenment? My current favorite is Sense & Goodness Without God by Richard Carrier; I hope to be writing up a book review on it soon. This is a nice book to give someone if you want them to consider a different world view and don't want to hammer them over the head with the (relatively) confrontational The God Delusion. The nice thing about S&GWG is that it doesn't just tell you to kick God to the curb (in fact, I think it never explicitly advises this); it instead tells you the whole inter-relating story of how stuff works in the real world, including the Big Bang, Evolution, language, human brains, logic, thinking, love, and so on. In other words, a whole world view, not just one with a God-shaped hole in it. Recommended, obviously. I love Richard Carrier for being one of the minds behind the historical proposition that Jesus never even existed.

I've had a similar obsession with the bible over the years. It made no sense to me when I was part of a church but everything opened up once I realized it's one of the best insights we have into the ancient mind and I find it fun to read now.

The top response to this post says the god of the Old Testament is the same as the god of the New but that's because they are looking at it only as a religious text. Looking at it as a historical document you can clearly see a progression over time from a Polytheistic War god at the beginning who demands blood sacrifices to a Monotheistic vengeful god of a chosen few. The New Testament is clearly written with Greek/Roman influences and a kinder god that was changed in ways to better fit and grow in that society.

If you haven't read it already, a good first book on the subject is Who Wrote the Bible by Friedman. I like The Bible Unearthed by Finklestein and Ehrmann's books are good too. There are dozens of other good overviews that show the Bible's progression from ancient campfire stories to the form we see today. After reading a few, I don't see how anyone can seriously believe the Bible is the unerring word of god.

I know I'll never convince my family members that Christianity is wrong so I've focused my efforts to get them to understand the bible was written by man. Even if we grant them that a god actually spoke to Moses and Jesus is his literal son neither man wrote the words in the book. Later men took the stories and wrote them down. The books of the Torah were finalized 600+ years after Moses is supposed to have lived. The Gospels were written 50 years after Jesus is said to have died. These writers were not gods and to say they were divinely inspired is a cop-out. They interpreted what they heard but these men were also products of their times. They practiced blood sacrifice and accepted slavery nor did they have a fraction of our understanding of the world. It's why you can't take the book literally.

There may be truths in the Bible but you have to look behind the words to find them.

Overviews of the evidence:

The greatest show on earth

Why evolution is true

Books on advanced evolution:

The selfish gene

The extended phenotype

Climbing mount improbable

The ancestors tale

It is hard to find a better author than Dawkins to explain evolutionary biology. Many other popular science books either don't cover the details or don't focus entirely on evolution.

I will hit one point though.

>I have a hard time simply jumping from natural adaption or mutation or addition of information to the genome, etc. to an entirely different species.

For this you should understand two very important concepts in evolution. The first is a reproductive barrier. Basically as two populations of a species remain apart from each other (in technical terms we say there is no gene flow between them) then repoductive barriers becomes established. These range in type. There are behavioral barriers, such as certain species of insects mating at different times of the day from other closely related species. If they both still mated at the same time then they could still produce viable offspring. Other examples of behavior would be songs in birds (females will only mate with males who sing a certain way). There can also be physical barriers to reproduction, such as producing infertile offspring (like a donkey and a horse do) or simply being unable to mate (many bees or flies have different arrangements of their genitalia which makes it difficult or impossible to mate with other closely related species. Once these barriers exist then the two populations are considered two different species. These two species can now further diverge from each other.

The second thing to understand is the locking in of important genes. Evolution does not really take place on the level of the individual as most first year biology courses will tell you. It makes far more sense to say that it takes place on the level of the gene (read the selfish gene and the extended phenotype for a better overview of this). Any given gene can have a mutation that is either positive, negative, of neutral. Most mutations are neutral or negative. Let's say that a certain gene has a 85% chance of having a negative mutation, a 10% chance of a neutral mutation, and a 5% chance of a positive mutation. This gene is doing pretty good, from it's viewpoint it has an 85% chance of 'surviving' a mutation. What is meant by this is that even though one of it's offspring may have mutated there is an 85% chance that the mutated gene will perform worse than it and so the mutation will not replace it in the gene pool. If a neutral mutation happens then this is trouble for the original gene, because now there is a gene that does just as good a job as it in the gene pool. At this point random fluctuations of gene frequency called genetic drift take over the fate of the mutated gene (I won't go into genetic drift here but you should understand it if you want to understand evolution).

The last type of mutation, a positive mutation is what natural selection acts on. This type of mutation would also change the negative/neutral/positive mutation possibilities. so the newly positively mutated gene might have frequencies of 90/7/3 Already it has much better odds than the original gene. OK, one more point before I explain how this all ties together. Once a gene has reached the 100/0/0 point it does not mean that gene wins forever, there can still be mutations in other genes that affect it. A gene making an ant really good at flying doesn't matter much when the ant lives in tunnels and bites off its own wings, so that gene now has altered percentages in ants. It is this very complex web that makes up the very basics of mutations and how they impact evolution (if you are wondering how common mutations are I believe they happen about once every billion base pairs, so every human at conception has on average 4 mutations that were not present in either parent)

This all ties back together by understanding that body plan genes (called hox genes) lock species into their current body plans, by reducing the number of possible positive or neutral mutations they become crucial to the organisms survival. As evolutionary time progresses these genes become more and more locked in, meaning that the body plans of individuals become more and more locked in. So it is no wonder that coming in so late to the game as we are we see such diversity in life and we never see large scale form mutations. Those type of mutations became less likely as the hox genes became locked in their comfy spots on the unimpeachable end of the mutation probability pool. That is why it is hard to imagine one species evolving into another, and why a creationist saying that they will believe evolution when a monkey gives birth to a human is so wrong.

Hopefully I explained that well, it is kind of a dense subject and I had to skip some things I would rather have covered.

Well I think all kinds of sources are needed. "Enemies" of a religion might not be fair minded, but many intelligent critiques of religions are not by enemies. Also believers are highly unlikely to highlight (or even acknowledge) obvious problems with their religion.

The best sources are the original documents or as close to those as exist. I.e. the best critique of the Bible is the Bible, etc. Applying scientific and logical thinking (i.e. thinking which actually attempts to check itself against bias and coincidence) to original texts has left no good religion unsullied.

Or maybe the best source would always be a faithful graphic novel of the original sources. This seems to bring the wackiness of Genesis to life in a humorous way:

http://www.amazon.com/Book-Genesis-Illustrated-R-Crumb/dp/0393061027/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1260227764&sr=8-4

How the universe was made?

I think the real crux of the question you're asking is how can something come from nothing? (feel free to correct me if I'm wrong; I don't want to speak for you) Let me just start off by saying there is no definitive scientific answer to this question... yet. However, there are very prominent research scientists who have tackled the question and come up with very cogent theories (backed up by current mathematical models).

I won't pretend to understand most of these theories as I'm a biologist, not a physicist. There is one recent book written on the very topic called A Universe from Nothing by Lawrence Krauss (he is a published theoretical physicist and cosmologist). He posits that particles do in fact spontaneously come into existence and there is scientific proof and reasoning for how and why. I haven't gotten around to reading it myself (it was just published this year), but I've been told it's good for the layman on the topic.

Now let me move on to some of the problems with this question. Perhaps you yourself don't have this supposition, but the supposition many theists make with the question (where did the universe come from?), is that if it can't be answered than God must have done it. This is a logical leap that defies rational reasoning, and is a leap theists have been making for millenia. What makes the tides go in and out? We don't know; must be God. What causes disease? We don't know; must be God. Where did the universe come from? We don't know; must be God?

It's what's known as a God of the gaps; wherein anything that can't be explained is conveniently claimed to have a divine explanation. Until a rational scientific answer comes along and religion takes a step back. There will likely always be gaps in our knowledge base (most definitely in our liftetimes). That doesn't mean we should make the same mistake as our ancestors and attribute these gaps to God. It's okay to simply not know and strive to understand.

Another huge problem with your question is that the theist answer only serves to further complicate the original question.

1. How can something come from nothing?
   
2. Well it can't right? So God must have created that original something.
   
3. God is something. Go back to step 1.
   
   Theists tend to skip that third step, or explain it away as God just always existing. Yet the universe always existing is something that is logically unacceptable to them. If anything, throwing God into the equation only makes it more complicated. A sentient being capable of creating the initial state of the universe would be more complex than what it is creating (meaning God is more complex than the universe). Trying to explain than how God came into being is more complicated than the original question, so nothing has really been answered or solved.
   
   If you're really trying to stump atheists, the best common theist argument I've seen is the cosmological constants one (how are they so fine tuned?). No doubt there are answers, but that's one of the better arguments out there. I won't go into it here, just search for it.

The evidence is all around us. Start with the fact that, by helping to focus the process of natural selection, we generated broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower and kale from a wild mustard plant known as Brassica oleracea. Similarly, all dog breeds are descendents of a small population of wolves. In the end, though, to get a handle on the specificity, power, scope and sheer quantity of evidence you (and she) will need to dig a little deeper into the subject.

That being said, if you're interested in a (relatively) quick explanation of what Evolutionary Theory actually is (and a little of the evidence for it) I'd suggest Evolution in Cartoon Form by Darryl Cunningham. It's long for a cartoon, but amazingly short for the number and depth of ideas about evolution it conveys.

Why Evolution is True by Jerry Coyne is an excellent book, written for general audiences with an interest in science, which lays out the evidence clearly and concisely. I'd suggest it as a good place to start. Dawkins' Greatest Show On Earth is also great and I personally prefer his writing style.

But if you're going to go with Dawkins, I can't help but also suggest The Blind Watchmaker. It's purpose isn't so much to provide all the evidence for evolution, but more to explore the underlying philosophy, implications and further insights which stem from the fact of evolution.

Becoming educated about evolution is a great ride, but its full impact might not be available in a quick, easy format.

Hope this helps. Have a blast.

Edit: I'd also like to second Loki5654's suggestion of Talk Origins.

Lead by example and let it go from there. Let him ask questions when he's ready. If he asks why doesn't he go to church like his friends do, you can tell him that you don't really believe in God, that you think you and your family are still good people, but would he like some information? Encourage him to ask questions and develop his own opinion.

Here are some resources for you, too.

Website: Atheist Parents

Books: Parenting Beyond Belief and Raising Freethinkers

Good luck, and congrats on your new family! You'll be a great parent. :)

>new source that disputes the existence of Jesus.

There are no sources which dispute the existence of Moses or Romulus but that doesn't mean we should start accepting them as real historical figures.

>Jesus and other similarly or worse attested characters like Hannibal and Alexander the Great.

Alexander is way better attested than Jesus, we even have more evidence of Pontius Pilate than Historical Jesus.

>no respected expert in the field believe in it.

There are several, most prominent ones are Robert M. Price who holds double doctorate in NT studies and Thomas L Broody who's also a biblical scholar.

>Neither Koresh or Jim Jones had a large following

At its peak Peoples temple had a following in upward of 20,000 so i don't think its a right comparison but yeah Koresh or Marshal Applewhite kinda fits the bill.

>but is more rickety than any of them. It doesn't explain why or how. There are no sources supporting it.

I suggest you read some works on Christ Myth theory because all those point were covered by many authors, here's a good introductory article and as for books, Richard Carrier's On the historicity of Jesus is pretty comprehensive and there's also The Christ Myth by Arthur Drews which you can download freely.

Why Evolution is True is an excellent book on the subject. It clearly explains evolution while remaining respectful to any reader. While I read it after becoming convinced of evolution it has all but completely convinced my formerly YEC mother.

I am currently reading A History of God: The 4,000-Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, while I am unsure of the accuracy of all of it's claims it provides very interesting insight into how the idea of God has changed. It talks about Israel's polytheistic roots and how monotheism came out of polytheism. It provides a very interesting perspective to the idea of God.

If you're coming out of Christianity Why I Believed: Reflections of a Former Missionary is an interesting read. It's here for free.

Next on my reading list is Who Wrote the Bible which I understand to be a good intro to documentary hypothesis.

Which god?

If we're talking about Yahweh, then consider that those who claim he's all-good, all-knowing, and all-powerful believe in a god that is logically impossible. See Problem of Evil.

Aside from that, we all have plenty of evidence that gods (including Yahweh) were made by humans. See A History of God part 1. We have historical and literary evidence that Yahweh used to be one of many gods worshipped by Hebrews but that members of the cult of Yahweh took steps to cement Yahweh as being the only god.

On top of that, there's no credible evidence to suggest that gods need to exist. Our understanding of the natural universe so far does not require the existence of a god to explain anything. So far it appears that the universe is capable of being as it is without the intervention of any supreme being. Consider reading Lawrence Krauss' A Universe From Nothing. Youtube talk by Krauss here.

On top of that, people who believe in a god have yet to present credible reasons or evidence for a god. This is how the burden of proof works: people who claim something are required to provide evidence to support that claim. Consider that, if such reason or evidence were presented, you'd never ever hear a Christian say "you just have to have faith" ever again.

So I'll ask you: why do you believe, since it seems there's no good reason to?

There seems to be something about the age of 14 that makes this situation come up. :) Just a week ago there was a similar thread to this one in which a religious mother came to this subreddit asking for advice on how to understand her 14-year-old's atheist views. Here's the thread, in case there's any useful information in there.

Unfortunately your son seems a lot "angrier" than the one that was the subject of that thread. Sorry to hear that, it sounds like it's pretty rough. However, it also sounds like the two of you have already made some excellent progress reconciling your differences and views, so that's promising, and the fact that he's 14 gives both of you plenty of time to come to a better understanding of each other before he heads off into the world and opportunities become fewer.

One idea that comes to mind to possibly help dial back the antagonism your son feels toward religion might be to get him a book about the philosophy of atheism, so that he can maybe develop a more nuanced view toward it. Often extreme viewpoints come from a lack of understanding of the issue - extremism is simple and easy.

I haven't read a lot on the subject myself so perhaps others will have better suggestions, but one book I came across that seemed pretty good is The Portable Atheist, which is a collection of essays and articles from a wide variety of prominent nonbelievers throughout history. You might even find it interesting yourself (I imagine you'd want to give it a read before passing it along anyway, just to be on the safe side :).

I do tell my child there's no good reason to believe in a God. I don't tell him there isn't a god.

Take the Yeti for example. I don't think there's a good reason to believe that the Yeti exists, but I don't think we can rule it out entirely quite yet.

I'm agnostic towards the Yeti, just like I am towards the deist, panentheistic, and pantheistic gods. I don't think they are either necessary or likely, but they are plausible.

On the other hand, I'm pretty sure YHWH as seen though the Bible is total bullshit, just as I am quite sure that there isn't and never has been a flying unicorn.

I teach my kids appropriately. Having the appropriate amount of confidence in your conclusions is a critical part of rational thought and the scientific method. Every part of our knowledge should have error bars on it. When we forget this, we become fundamentalists, no better than the religious. Surety is great, but the goal is to make our surety match the available evidence, and not overclaim for what we know.

And yes, I am a Bayesian. ;-) (Gentler explanation and high level "small words and sock puppets" overview).

[BTW, if you do have little noodles, I highly recommend Parenting Beyond Belief]

Not by a Horseman, but during my deconversion I found 50 Reasons People Give for Believing in a God by Guy P. Harrison to be helpful. Since you've already read The God Delusion and God is Not Great you may not find anything new in it, but for someone wanting a gateway book toward more militant literature, it's a good one. In it the author gently refutes common theistic reasoning. It might be a good one to recommend to budding atheist friends.

As to your question about whether God Delusion is thoroughly critical of religion, I feel that yes, it is--I think Dawkins spends a good deal of time explaining why we should be intolerant of religious thinking.

> If there isnt a creator then how did all this life get here?

Abiogenesis is our best working guess for now, but there's a lot of work left to be done. The key thing here though is to be honest and admit that we don't have all the answers rather than wave our hands and say that it was a magical sky faerie.

> I under stand the big bang, at one point all the matter in Universe was compact then it all expanded outwards, well from school I learned that matter cannot be created nor destroyed. How did all that compact matter get there in the first place? I dont know.

It's ok to not know - that's honesty. This excellent book by Lawrence Krauss is fascinating. If you don't have access to it, there's also a talk he gave a few years back.

> I guess I'm getting old enough where my own opinions are forming I'm just trying to decide what I want those opinions to be.

Remember that ultimately our opinions are just that - opinions. The universe is as it is regardless of what we may wish to be true and what we may believe.

yeah, as /u/TheBraindonkey mentioned, atheist are pretty normal people that are sometimes good and sometimes bad, like any other population of humans on this beautiful blue, brown and green ball.

Most of us just would like religion completely separate from politics and for religious people to not pester us at least as much at our front doors. Other than that we don't care.

unfortunately this desire to keep religion out of politics and annoyance when our doors are knocked on has caused society to brand us as "angry". There is a good book on that Why are you athiest so angry? 99 things that piss of the godless that you might be interested in reading. Mostly just commentary on why atheist are justified to be pissed off at certain things, like, idk, trying to force religious dogma upon our kids in classrooms?

other than that, we are pretty chill.

hope for the best man.

EDIT: also, might you be able to get a job in religious studies? maybe religion interest you as a subject, and you could teach world religions or something? your preaching background might be an asset in a job search of that type.

EDIT 2: also, the barber dream sounds cool. look into the feasibility of it!

> How did the big bang happen?

"Humankind has not found the answer to that one yet. But, father, isn't it exciting that us mere humans are able to appreciate the grand scope of the universe? It is so much more than any religion admits. Father, since humans do not yet know the answer, I will concede that whatever it was that started the initiation of the creation of the universe some 13.7 billion years ago we can call "god." I accept this god and I will identify as a [Deist](Deism (or maybe as a Pantheist). Please know this oh Father oh mine, as a Diest, I do not see anything evidence to support a belief in a personal creator God, or a God that in anyway interacts with within this grand universe. Prayer, worship and contemplation is not required and if pursued takes time and effort away from other more meaningful things - such as sleeping."

Just a suggestion. Good luck.

Edit:

> Anybody know about this book?

Sorry I don't. Perhaps you can make a deal with your Father. You will read and discuss that book if he does the same with a book you suggest. A suggestion: The God Delusion [Hardcover]

Remember that there are multiple ways to interpret most parts of the Bible. It's very easy to scoff at the literal view that many fundies take, but not all Christians take the bible literally. If i'm asked to swallow the creation stories in Genesis as actual accounts of how the world came into being, i can't but roll my eyes. However, when I view the creation stories in Genesis as mythology, I can appreciate them as poetry on the same level that i appreciate the mythology of ancient Greece. So, approach the bible as you would Homer or Ovid (but with less coherence to the stories).

Also, remember that the authors of the bible were usually using fictionalized or fantastical stories to relay something that actually happened. Quick example: Jonah and the whale. Though many fundies take this story as literal, it was actually written as an allegory for Israel not heeding their God's instructions. Jonah is Israel, being swallowed by the whale is Israel being taken into captivity as punishment for ignoring their deity. This type of interpretation holds for quite a few of the old testament stories.

Also, learn about how it was written, and who it was written for. Gain a sense of literary context, if you will. I recommend this book for an overview of how the Torah was written. It's actually pretty interesting.


tl;dr: If you read the bible the way fundies do, you'll end up with a poor understanding of it, just like the fundies. If you approach it as an academic, you'll understand their own sacred text better than they do themselves.

The Marxist explanation is the simplest I think: They wish to control (and regulate) the means of production. Specifically the means of production of more hosts for the god virus.

Also, by making something that all humans can't help to avoid a sin... they ensure that sin is committed, guilt and furtherance of their control over them through that guilt.

These two together I believe form powerful reasoning.

I'll add that in the case of women, virginity is valued because traditionally, especially in the time period the bible was written, they were considered property. Therefore... in an awful way a product that has been opened and used is less valuable than one that is still in the packaging. There is of course the old, more practical consideration that a woman who isn't a virgin may be bearing another man's children, thus her husband would expend resources raising children that weren't his and didn't advance his line.

I mean there are so many things at work here it is ridiculous. Original intent is one thing, but over time it gained other advantages. Still, you have to notice that the burden and pressure on women is much greater than men, it's about controlling women.

If you want an in-depth explanation I would suggest the great book "The God Virus" by Darrel Ray. He also has a podcast called secular sexuality, but that's more about exploring sexual behavior(s) than explaining the religious effect on it. If you don't want to buy it, check it out from a library, it really is enlightening when you examine religion in the way he does. (And in fact is one of my top book recommendations for atheist literature after "The God Delusion" and "God is Not Great")

https://www.amazon.com/God-Virus-Religion-Infects-Culture/dp/0970950519/

On evolution:

I urge you to read some books on the issue that aren't written with a fundamentalist Christian slant. The science is decisive, and the distinction between "macro" and "micro" is itself a religious confusion. (as others have already pointed out).

On the Big Bang: The biggest problem with the Big Bang is that we don't know how it happened. That is a problem, and scientists are working obsessively to solve it. But saying "God did it" buys you a whole host of new problems. How did God happen? Who created God? Why did he create the universe? You haven't answered anything by saying "God did it": you've just kicked the can down the road and added an additional unfalsifiable and unsupported assumption.

Also, the evidence for the Big Bang is all around you: look up background microwave radiation,distribution and evolution of galaxies, the abundance of light elements, and the expansion of space.

On the supernatural:

Any thinking that starts with "Do you think it's possible that..." is a HUGE RED FLAG. Almost anything is possible, but usually the sort of logic that must be defended with a "Well, it's possible..." is absurdly improbable. This is a good example. Yeah, it's possible that an entire other world could be layered on our own - but it's more improbable than winning the lottery, and I don't buy lottery tickets.

If I had to explain the fundamental difference between the way I think about the spiritual and the way you think about the spiritual, it would be this. You ask "Is it possible that..." and "Do you think that maybe..."

I ask "Is there empirical support for..." and "Does the evidence support the assertion that..."

As for the hope that human consciousness continues on....

Nope. This is it. That sucks, and I'm sorry. It's among the hardest pills to swallow about being an atheist - but it's true whether you believe it or not.

It might be a way to ease someone into the realities of the next existence by not shattering their worldviews too quickly. (Just saying.)

I've read of at LEAST one NDE where the "incredibly bright being of love and light" actually transformed itself into various incarnations to represent the mental ideal of the person. A bunch of others showed that you can project a form of yourself, it seemed to be a skill.

note: I've read probably hundreds of NDE's. Surveying the eyewitness testimony, you see. The most interesting ones are those of congenitally blind people who see in this state, despite having no working brain function to process visual imagery nor ways to explain it. (You can tell they're seeing, based on their struggle to describe "sensing things at a distance".)

Based on reading hundreds of NDE's, which I'm sure almost no one here has the patience or inclination to do, I think it is best to just keep an open mind about it and not necessarily blithely chalk it all up to dimethyltryptamine.

Also, as a possible extra point of validity, a LOT of the ideas that MANY people talk about in NDE's would be considered heretical in most of the world religions (example: the idea that very few people end up in any kind of Hell). The life reviews that were described, I found especially poignant (stuff like "none of my professional achievements seemed to matter, but hugging my sister late one night when she was in a bad state was a big deal")

[EDIT: I found this book, which I actually hadn't heard of until I came here, on Amazon (I will leave the irony of /r/atheism advertising a supposedly spiritual book to me successfully as an exercise for the reader), but I did see that someone posted the OP image to the book images which is fucking hilarious. This book itself certainly does seem "tainted with Christianity". Can't wait for the Buddhist version! :) ]

This is a general rule of debates in fact, attack away at the topic / subject at hand or rather the other side's view, but never start using ad hominems and personal blows at a person's character.

The thing is, people automatically equate attacking their (or other people's) views personally, or as a personal attack. A lot of these attacks are ambiguous, but I'd give them the benefit of the doubt and if there is a Facebook pic of a religious person saying something just plain ignorant, I would be laughing at their philosophy or position, rather than them themselves, personally, their character.

I love this article on a popular atheism blog:

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2012/08/08/reddit-atheism-i-still-love-you/

The best part that is relevant:

> And you’re damn right atheists want other people to lose their faith. When you see the awful policy-decisions made because of support from religious groups, it’s hard not to want them to come to their senses. We’re trying to educate them, not annihilate them.

And I'm sure others have put it even better.

[I bought this book but never read it.](
http://www.amazon.com/Atheists-Angry-Things-Godless-ebook/dp/B007MCMKV6) I really need to.

Found this video relating to the book and need to watch it, but I'm guessing it's relevant, so oh well. Hope it's good, rofl.

I just found about him this year, but reading him (specially his essays on "arguably" or stuff edited by him, like "the portable atheist") has inspired me not only to be more foursquare and vocal in my stance against the religion I apostatized from, but to rekindle my lukewarm, dormant and forlorn love for poetry and literature, he was an eloquent man, and he has inspired me to be eloquent (and proud of being circumloquent) again, despite my engineering degree and technical day-job.

Adieu, Hitch.

No worries, David, I totally remember what it was like being a student; the last couple weeks of any quarter were always the hardest.

I would want to add that this isn't "my position" so much as "the scholarly consensus". I'm not a theologian or a biblical scholar, I rely on those who are more educated in these matters to inform me. You'll find this is the case with most atheists you meet; we place a lot of value on the words of scholars, particularly specialists in the field we're studying.

But yes, the documentary hypothesis is fascinating. There's an excellent book on this by Richard Friedman, a preeminent scholar on this hypothesis. I highly recommend it! (because I know as a college student you've got loads of free time to read, lol!)

http://www.amazon.com/Wrote-Bible-Richard-Elliott-Friedman/dp/0060630353#_

Good luck on finals!

I am not a theist btw -- I am a diest at best. I just don't like reading nonsense (in any form).


If you believe that Jesus is 100% mythical, I would like to present Barth Ehrman, a highly respect HISTORIAN who has spent a great deal of his career on separating the myth of Christ from the reality.

He is just one of many HISTORIANS who work on things like this. They have a wide variety of tools for the work of separating myth from history. Are you aware of any of them?

Here are some of Bart's books:

http://www.amazon.com/Jesus-Interrupted-Revealing-Hidden-Contradictions/dp/0061173940/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1278421235&sr=8-1

http://www.amazon.com/Jesus-Apocalyptic-Prophet-New-Millennium/dp/019512474X/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1278421235&sr=8-4

http://www.amazon.com/New-Testament-Historical-Introduction-Christian/dp/0199740305/ref=sr_1_8?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1278421235&sr=8-8

You may also want to check out "the Context Group" -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Context_Group

Here are some of their books:

http://www.amazon.com/Life-Galilean-Shaman-Anthropological-Historical-Perspective/dp/0227173201/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1278421621&sr=1-1

http://www.amazon.com/Jesus-Peasants-Matrix-Mediterranean-Context/dp/1597522759

Now it's your turn -- please present scholarly and respected sources for the idea that Jesus is 100% myth.


I can help you:

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

http://www.thegodmovie.com

http://www.amazon.com/Jesus-Puzzle-Christianity-Challenging-Historical/dp/096892591X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1278422009&sr=8-1

These people DO have an ideological ax to grind. I'm not buying it. Are there myths in the story of Christ? Of course. Is it 100% myth with no historical figure behind it at all? No way.

'The Book of Genesis Illustrated' by R. Crumb is very good.

Reviews

“Starred Review. Crumb’s vivid visual characterizations of the myriad characters, pious and wicked, make the most striking impression. His distinctive, highly rendered drawing style imparts a physicality that few other illustrated versions of this often retold chronicle have possessed. The centenarian elders show every one of their years, and the women, from Eve to Rachel, are as solidly sensual as any others Crumb has so famously drawn.” (Booklist)

“To say this book is a remarkable volume or even a landmark volume in comic art is somewhat of an understatement.... stands on its own as one of this century’s most ambitious artistic adaptations of the West’s oldest continuously told story.” (Paul Buhle - The Jewish Daily Forward)

“It’s a cartoonist’s equivalent of the Sistine Chapel. It’s awesome. Crumb has done a real artist’s turn here—he’s challenged himself and defied all expectation. ... I’ve read Genesis before. But never have I found it so compelling. By placing it squarely in the Middle East—and populating it with distinctively Semitic-looking people—Crumb makes it come alive brilliantly.” (Susan Jane Gilman - Morning Edition, NPR)

“[A] beautifully drawn and relentlessly faithful rendition of the first 50 chapters of the Bible by an apostle of the 1960s and sometimes profane progenitor of underground comics. Crumb has produced what could be the ultimate graphic novel.” (David Colton - USA Today)

(I have two boys 2 & 5)

"I would highly prefer her to be atheist as well"

I think this is mistake number one. I think you should want her to be rational and skeptical, atheism is typically just a byproduct of these vastly important characteristics. In the end, atheism is right and if you raise a kid to question and be skeptical, religion won't win I promise you. It can't, it ONLY works when people are convinced as children and raised to believe doubt is wrong. Teach Doubt and you will be fine. Right now my five year old tells me he believes in god, last week he didn't. I don't really care because he is 5 and that is what kids do. Don't worry too much about that part is my advice. Don't worry about other people so much trust that you can raise a daughter who is intelligent enough to come to the rational decision on her own. I don't know about you but that decision is still probably the most monumental decision I've made in my personal life and I cherish going through it and getting to this point.


On death, I say just be honest. Tell them about how are bodies break down and go back into the circle of life. All of that stuff that actually happens and is really quite beautiful. Kids can handle reality better than fantasy I think, because kids will naturally have questions and being able to have REAL answers is key.


Here are some good resources that helped my wife and I quite a bit.

Raising FreeThinkers: http://www.amazon.com/Raising-Freethinkers-Practical-Parenting-Beyond/dp/0814410960/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1334847247&sr=1-1

&

Parenting Beyond Belief: http://www.amazon.com/Parenting-Beyond-Belief-Raising-Religion/dp/0814474268/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpt_2

I really enjoyed "Rocks Don't Lie: A Geologist Investigates Noah's Flood", which I don't think I've ever seen mentioned here (I only heard about it myself because it was a local author).

It's been a while since I read it, but what I remember enjoying was how the religious beliefs of our earliest geologists influenced their understanding of what they were discovering in the field. The early explorers set out to find evidence for Noah's flood, so it was amusing seeing them trying to wrap their heads around things like finding mammoths in Siberia, that were obviously washed away in the deluge!

I've not read it myself, but I really enjoyed the Your Inner Fish documentary series and have been reading to pick this one up.

1. Have I always been an atheist? No, I was raised in protestant christianity.
   
2. If you have not always been an atheist, what were you before and what changed your mind? First? Learning science and realizing that I could prove that the Bible is fallible through independent analysis of reality, rather than depending on what other fallible people told me was true in contradiction to what I can prove to be true. Second? Realizing that not only is the Bible fallible, but that it is massively self-contradictory ... which led to: Third? Discovering conclusively that the Bible is a hodge-podge of mythological tales that have been edited, redacted, and cobbled together numerous times over the last ~28-2900 years to serve the agenda of men ... which led to: Fourth? Discovering that christianity as it is known today didn't exist some 19-2000 years ago, and that what you currently practice has very little in common to what christians in the first century CE practiced and/or believed ... which led to: Fifth? Discovering with an almost perfect certainty that Jesus never existed as a human being, and that the people that lived in the early to middle of the first century CE never believed that he did ... Paul certainly didn't, and he wrote the first books that were later included in the new testament.
   
3. If today, Jesus Christ appeared to you directly and showed you that He exists, would you be willing to follow Him and His teachings for the duration of your life? Why or why not? Why say "Jesus Christ"? This is as likely as saying that the Easter Bunny, Santa Claus, the Ghost of Christmas Past, the Flying Spaghetti Monster, or Xenu might appear in front of me to demand the same thing, and just as ridiculous a hypothetical. So, let me ask you a much more pertinent question:
   
4. What would it take for you to reconsider your faith in christianity? I can reasonably prove that Jesus never existed and is a historicized mythological construct based upon first century mystery religions syncretized with messianic Judaism (read me). I can absolutely prove that the old testament was redacted multiple times based upon the political and religious views of the time of the redaction/edit (read me). I can absolutely prove that the creation myth of Judaism was based in Canaanite mythology and later was syncretized during the Babylonian captivity (i.e., it's bullshit) and that life evolved through natural processes (read me). I can point to thousands of contradictions, impossibilities, and outright lies in your "holy book" which undermine any claims made by any of the Abrahamic religions (which is a funny title, given the absolute certainty that Abraham never existed ... nor did Moses, or any number of other prominent figures in Judeo-Christian historical mythology). I can point to the faith of members of any other religion, note that it's no weaker than the faith you have in your own, and point out that faith alone in the face of reason proves nothing. I mean ... I could go on forever on this subject, but honestly: you're asking us what it would take for us to believe, when in reality the more important question is what it would take for you to stop believing a tall tale simply because someone told you it was true in the face of actual, verifiable reality.
   
   For my part, I'd believe that Santa Claus was real if I could objectively, scientifically, and reliably demonstrate such a claim. I'd believe that Vishnu, Horus, Odin, or Zeus were real for the same reasons. In fact, I can conjure up any number of fanciful scenarios in which strange, supernatural claims could be verified and "believed" by atheists, because that's how we operate: we believe in reality, however strange it may be. Just because such a fanciful scenario can be imagined, however, doesn't give that scenario any sort of validity. Your claims are as baseless as someone that wants me to believe they have an invisible and undetectable dragon in their garage that will burn my invisible and undetectable spirit FOR ETERNITY if I don't fork over 10% of my income and obey their every incomprehensible and often immoral edict. So put yourself in the position that you so "cleverly" thought you'd put us in: what would change your mind?
   
   Oh, wait ... you don't even want to question your "faith"? That's what I thought.
   
   edit: Watch this, pause, and reflect on your beliefs.

>As long as they don't hurt anyone with their ideas

Like a few million gay people? Like children who have died from lack of medical care in favor of prayer healing? Like children abused because their parents wanted to train them up? Like the idea (from Genesis) that global warming isn't real? Like how creation "science" is being injected into public classrooms?

Just because they aren't hurting you doesn't mean they aren't a real, tangible problem.

>I can't imagine why we would want to crush their beliefs

I want to know how you would crush someone's beliefs. I'm honestly curious, because I don't think that's how religious beliefs work. I don't think they can be "crushed."

>As long as we respect each others beliefs

I absolutely will not respect a belief if it is harmful, backwards, or otherwise malignant. Respect is earned.

If I may make a suggestion? Ask her to read 50 Reason People Give for Believing in a God. I'm currently reading it to see how well it's arguments are presented compared to The God Delusion. I wanted to find a book to give to my "devout" Catholic wife to read, but I found God Delusion to be too confrontational and condescending (at least to a faithhead's point of view). 50 Reasons is written in a much more understanding and placating tone, and so has a much better chance of sparking doubt than any other piece of atheist literature that I've read so far.

I used sarcasm quotes for "devout" because even though my wife considers herself Catholic, she holds many social values that go completely against the church's official doctrine. She supports gay marriage, safe sex before marriage, and the use of condoms. She knows that she is married to an Atheist, and she's ok with that- even though if the church found out about that she would be excommunicated.
All she needs is a spark of doubt, and I can open her eyes to reason and she'll see that holding on to her faith is a vice, not a virtue- 50 Reasons, I hope, will be an eye-opening read for her.

This is a good book on raising kids without religion, it might help you with some of your questions:
http://amzn.com/0814474268

I guess you should also find out why your girlfriend is open to letting your daughter go to church. If you both don't practice religion anymore then why would she want her daughter to be involved with religion? Is it just to appease her parents or some other reason?

Also, if you both want the community and support aspect of a church without the dogma you could look into Unitarian Universalism:
http://www.uua.org/index.shtml

Depending on where you live you might be able to find a UU church around you where you can attend some services. They welcome people of all faiths and cater more to living a good life vs. following an ancient doctrine.

>They ended up being more convincing against Christianity than anything else I read.

Darrel Ray (author of God Virus) quipped a saying I like: "You can't reason out what wasn't reasoned in in the first place."
My experience has mirrored this difficulty of trying to use logic/evidence to convince (or some times even have meaningful conversation) with people who pride themselves on faith and have been convinced largely through indoctrination/emotion.

Does any of this speak to your experience? Did you just grow up thinking the evidence was on the side of christianity? Did you have a faith -> evidence conversion before a chrstianity -> atheist conversion?

No answers yet?

Many of the atheists here agree on Bart Ehrman as a good source. He's a Bible scholar who used to be Christian but whose studies have left him an atheist. He's written a whole series of books about how the Bible was cobbled together and, self-plagiarized, forged and fiddled, and so on. There's a field or method of study called critical analysis that makes the Bible's authenticity problems apparent, and Ehrman writes that stuff into popular books.

Two of his hits have been Misquoting Jesus, Jesus, Interrupted and Forged. The latter is perhaps his most explicit indictment of the intellectual crimes behind the Bible. Lost Christianities and other books talk about the many gospels and other writings that never made it into or were excised from what's known as the Bible today.

Ehrman also has a bunch of talks on YouTube where he engagingly presents those same ideas.

There are alternatives, of course, and it could be argued whether Ehrman is "the best." But he certainly knows what he's talking about (mostly), is a recognized authority on this kind of stuff, and presents it well. Best of all (from our point of view) he doesn't Lie For Jesus.

"The God Delusion" by Richard Dawkins. Dawkins doesn't really go into anything new or original, but the strength of the book is that is a great, concise summary of all the beginning arguments for atheism.

http://www.amazon.com/God-Delusion-Richard-Dawkins/dp/0618680004

I'd follow it with Daniel Dennett's "Breaking the Spell", also a good recommendation. Same goes for Carl Sagan's "A Demon Haunted World"

http://www.amazon.com/Breaking-Spell-Religion-Natural-Phenomenon/dp/0143038338

http://www.amazon.com/Demon-Haunted-World-Science-Candle-Dark/dp/0345409469/

Christopher Hitchens is a bit vitriolic for some, but "God is not Great" has some nuggets in it.

http://www.amazon.com/God-Not-Great-Religion-Everything/dp/0446579807/

I personally didn't like Sam Harris' "End of Faith" but I did like his "Letter to a Christian Nation".

http://www.amazon.com/Letter-Christian-Nation-Vintage-Harris/dp/0307278778/

For the topic of evolution, Talk Origins is great (and free) http://toarchive.org/
Dawkin's "The Selfish Gene" is also a good read (and short). Not so short but also good are Dawkins' "Blind Watchmaker", "Climbing Mount Improbable" and "Unweaving the Rainbow"

http://www.amazon.com/Selfish-Gene-Anniversary-Introduction/dp/0199291152/

http://www.amazon.com/Blind-Watchmaker-Evidence-Evolution-Universe/dp/0393315703/

http://www.amazon.com/Climbing-Mount-Improbable-Richard-Dawkins/dp/0393316823/

http://www.amazon.com/Unweaving-Rainbow-Science-Delusion-Appetite/dp/0618056734/

Just by posting this, you've already surpassed my parents in open-mindedness and understanding. Your kids are lucky to have you as a parent.

For me, the best thing my parents could have done is just said something to the effect of "This is one belief among many. Some people believe in x, others believe in y, and others don't believe in religion at all, and those are all alright." Just the acknowledgement that different beliefs are right for different people could have prevented years of bitterness and confusion. Whatever their decision, they'll come to it on their own no matter what you actively expose them to. In my opinion, there's absolutely nothing wrong with bringing them up in your faith and encouraging to participate in something that has brought you joy as long as you inform them that other faiths are an option at all. I wouldn't worry about their disinterest in the services. Most kids would rather play their gameboys than sit through a religious service.

As for a good book I can suggest, I really like The Portable Atheist because it has a good variety of texts and perspectives. It's a good starting point, and it was compiled by Christopher Hitchens, who is awesome. Dawkins is amazing, but he can come off a bit strong sometimes, which can turn non-atheist readers off sometimes and give the easily offended the wrong impression. Even though I'm an assertive atheist, I find myself avoiding books that serve as a sort of atheist pulpit. Just as I don't like theists telling me how to be religious, I don't like atheists telling me how to be nonreligious.

> Did Jesus exist?

I recently read three books on this topic by Ehrman, Doherty, and Carrier.

I found Carrier's case for a Mythical Jesus to be compelling. I found Carrier to be annoying as a writer, but his book is scholarly and well documented.

Ehrman argues for a historical Jesus. His book was almost the opposite of Carrier's. His tone was friendly and approachable. He seemed calm and reassuring. I kind of wanted him to prove his case. But his arguments sucked.

Doherty dissected Ehrman's case paragraph by paragraph. (I read Carrier first, then Ehrman, then Doherty.) Doherty raised many of the concerns I noticed myself. Ehrman's arguments just didn't make sense. Never mind the history or the evidence — I'm no scholar — his arguments didn't make logical sense.

I wouldn't say it's proven either way. Given the scarcity of evidence, it may never be. That said, Carrier made a surprisingly strong case against a historical Jesus. If Ehrman's defense of Jesus is the best that academia can do, I'd say Jesus is pretty much dead.

But I would love to see a serious and scholarly attempt to refute Carrier's work. Ehrman's work didn't cut it.

Congratulations! I know what a big step that is, as I've been in the same boat. Books are the best way to become informed. Check out books by:

• Christopher Hitchens - God Is Not Great & The Portable Atheist
  
  
• Stephen Hawking - The Grand Design & A Briefer History of Time
  
  
• Richard Dawkins - The Greatest Show on Earth
  
  
• Carl Sagan - The Demon Haunted World
  
  
• Sam Harris - The Moral Landscape & The End of Faith
  
  
• Richard Panek - The 4 Percent Universe
  
  
• Robert Ingersoll - Some Mistakes of Moses
  
  
• Viktor Frankl - Man's Search for Meaning
  
  
• Sean Caroll - The Making of the Fittest
  
  
• Spencer Wells - Deep Ancestry
  
  
• Ayaan Hirsi Ali - Infidel
  
  
• Alan Watts - The Way of Zen
  
  Also check out the video series Why I am no longer a creationist.
  
  The more you know, the more confident you will be.

Of the four, I'd probably recommend Harris. Given the freedom, I wouldn't recommend any of them if you're trying to expand a theist's mind.

Suggestion 1 from me is Guy Harrison's "50 Reasons People Give for Believing in a God". He goes through the 50 most common reasons people gave him when he asked, and explained why an average skeptic/atheist doesn't find those reasons compelling.

Suggestion 2 is probably a volume on naturalism (for example "Encountering Naturalism" or Carrier's "Sense and Goodness Without God"). Firmly establishing a coherent, complete worldview that doesn't require gods can be a valuable step.

Ok, I'll give it a go...


The first thing that got me questioning religion was seeing massive amounts of hypocrisy in church leadership. I was extremely involved as my father was a deacon and my mother worked at the church we attended. It was a common practice for us kids to go to one friends' house or another between morning and evening services, so I saw how the adults acted differently at home then they did at church. I realize not all religious people are like this, but it was the first step for my questioning. Once I was old enough I became a leader in the youth group and started seeing the same hypocrisy in myself.


Despite realizing my hypocrisy I continued to believe, even to the point in participating in multiple missions trips held by the organization Speed the Light. While on these trips we were told to write down our personal testimony so that we could present it during presentations and services. When I tired to put into words why I believed in God and, more importantly, why the audience should believe, I couldn't come up with a good reason. I sat in a bed in the country of Belize thinking, "If I can't come up with a good reason why these people should believe what I do, then why do I believe it?". Despite this thought I continued my charade for two more missions trips and a few more years.


Eventually I stepped down from youth leadership and entered a state of apathy towards religion. I didn't go to church, but I didn't really think about it much. Every now and then something really bad would happen and I'd wonder if God was punishing me, but they were more of fleeting thoughts than anything.



The next big hit for me was when I went to Iraq for a year. When you see good people with families who love them (some of which who were religious) die, the answer "God allows us to suffer so we learn/build character/build faith etc" just doesn't cut it anymore. About a year after I came home from the deployment I actually started looking for information that refuted religion. I'd say that was when my state started the path from apathetic to agnostic to atheist.



The book Letter to a Christian Nation was a big eye-opener for me. Along with other works of Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, Christoper Hitchens, and other authors I'm sure you'll become aware of if you continue to question things. The more I investigated, the more absurd religion seemed; and the more science explained all of the things that I attributed to the supernatural. When I was a child I believed, truly believed, that when I was lying in bed one night I saw an angel appear in my room. It wasn't until I read The God Delusion that I realized there was a scientific explanation for things like that.



The more I found that science could prove things, really prove things, the more I realized that "it's true because the Bible says so" didn't work for me anymore. In the last few years I've learned things that have blown my mind. Things that I thought would take away the wonder of the world have actually enhanced it. I'm a good person because I want to be, not because I'll burn in hell if I'm not; I don't steal because I realize that it's unproductive in the long run, not because some ancient stone tablet and a preacher told me not to, etc.



I'm not saying I don't have personal issues like anger, sadness or depression. You can only fight evolution to a point, we are still human. I guess I'm just saying that the answers I found leading me to atheism were far more satisfying and comforting than anything religion ever offered me. Hope that helps.


tl;dr: it's basically a de-conversion story, read if you'd like I suppose.

Well, I think a good place to start is r/exmuslim or r/exislam.

Also, there is a book that recently came out written by an atheist named Dale McGowan called [Parenting Beyond Belief.] ( http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0814474268?pc_redir=1411128277&robot_redir=1)

Here's Dales [site.] (http://parentingbeyondbelief.com/resources/)

There is also [raisingfreethinkers.com.] ( http://raisingfreethinkers.com/)
This site is good for the mothers perspective especially.

Also, my advice. Have her read Greek mythology first. I found when I was a kid that it was not only more entertaining than the bible but, it helped me.

And when she is old enough to read and comprehend better, have her read the books of current religions themselves.

Hope this helps and be careful out there with it, yeah?

Edit.

>without a God how did the universe come into existence?

I could rephrase that into a question that would be even more baffling:

>with a God, how did the universe come into existence?

The 2nd one is more crazy to explain, because now you need to know how a god was created, not just why there is or isn't more or less matter and energy.

If you are genuinely interested in astrophysics, here are some good books written by people who know more than me about the issues you mention:

http://www.amazon.com/Universe-Nothing-There-Something-Rather/dp/145162445X

http://www.amazon.com/Briefer-History-Time-Stephen-Hawking/dp/0553385461

Remember, even if you don't know the answer to a question about nature, it's always OK to say "I don't know." It's not OK to pretend that a story about the supernatural explains an issue in the natural world, if embracing the myth about the supernatural wouldn't really explain how things work, and would really only raise more questions.

If the Bible is the word of God, it'd have certain properties. I'd expect it to be right about the history and nature of the world. All evidence suggests that it isn't. Biblical understanding of history and nature is right in line with what you'd expect from ancient people.

I would expect God to be able to keep his facts straight. The Bible does not. From what I've read, scholars seem to have a pretty good handle on who wrote the various parts of the Bible based on the agendas revealed by these contradictions.

Finally, if the Bible was the word of God, all his prophecies would come to pass. They have not.

Finally, I'd like to note that there are Biblical scholars that hold this view. They include Robert M. Price, Bart D. Ehrman, Richard Elliot Friedman, and Burton L. Mack. I guess they're all misinformed too. If only they had studied the Bible.

This is referring back to:
Genesis 1:26
Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground."

I do not believe I was created; therefore, I find the evolutionary progress of all life astounding. Instead of thinking that god put animals here for my amusement or consumption, I take the time to appreciate life’s ability to survive the ages.

You should read this book: Your Inner Fish!

It all depends on the goal. If OP wants to send a message, then choosing The God Delusion or God Is Not Great would certainly send that message. If OP wants a book that's a good read, both are still good choices, but now there're other books that are equally good choices.

The Little Book of Atheist Spirituality, The Portable Atheist, On Bullshit, On Truth, The Good Book: A Humanist Bible, The Moral Landscape, The Demon Haunted World, Religion and Science, and many others are excellent reads, but don't send that little (possibly unnecessary) jab.

Here's my story: http://personman.com/religious-autobiography

And my favorite book on the subject so far: http://www.amazon.com/Reasons-People-Give-Believing-God/dp/1591025672

Good luck and please feel free to contact me.

Funny you should ask, since that is the subject of his latest book.

In short, yes, Ehrman believes that there was a first-century Jewish man named "Yeshua" (the proper English transliteration of the Aramaic ישוע, which we incorrectly call "Jesus") who made messianic claims, garnered a sizable following among his fellow Jews, and was probably crucified.

However, Ehrman has made a career out of demonstrating exactly how the New Testament is unreliable as a source of historical information (see for example, Misquoting Jesus or Jesus Interrupted).

If you're interested to learn more about his new book, here is a brief reading he did for the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

For more on Ehrman's opinion on the reliability of the Gospels, see his debate with fellow New Testament scholar Craig Evans.

Hope that helps!

I would start with the classic Some mistakes of Moses, by Robert Ingersoll.

There is a short book called Why There Is No God: Simple Responses to 20 Common Arguments for the Existence of God, by Armin Navabi, that is also a nice read.

One that I recently finished reading and enjoyed very much is The Foundational Falsehoods of Creationism, by Aron Ra. The book is not exactly about atheism; it's Aron's rebuttal to many creationist arguments, but Aron is a widely known atheist activist, and the book is very enjoyable.

I usually listen to The Thinking Atheist podcast, from Seth Andrews (a podcast I highly recommend, by the way). There are some book he suggested in his podcast that I haven't read yet, but which I included in my to-read list:

• A Manual for Creating Atheists, by Peter Boghossian.
  
• God: The Most Unpleasant Character in All Fiction, by Dan Barker.
  
• [The God Virus: How Religion Infects Our Lives and Culture] (https://www.amazon.com/God-Virus-Religion-Infects-Culture/dp/0970950519/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1486982921&sr=1-1&keywords=the+god+virus), by Darrel Ray.
  
• Sacred Cows: A Lighthearted Look at Belief and Tradition Around the World, by Seth Andrews himself.

>something had to come from something

well, we know this to be true, but we do not know if something can come from nothing. Look up Lawrence Krauss' "A universe from nothing"

>For example, if you believe in the big bang wouldn't have something had to start the big bang (God).

for the sake of argument, i'm going to assume that your god did start the big bang. What caused god?

>So what do you believe was that first push in the creation of whatever the first think in the creation of the universe?

the correct answer is we do not know. Science doesn't make up answers like religion and assert them to be true. Currently, we have no evidence about anything before the big bang or what caused it. Therefore we cannot assume anything at this point.

I recommend The God Delusion if you like science. Dawkins does not pull punches. The book is full of good arguments and interesting information.

For friends and other people who could use a gentle introduction to the idea that atheists aren’t evil, I strongly recommend Letter to a Christian Nation. It’s the sort of book you might give your mom.

Old dead classical dudes are always good. I ransack Epicurus and Marcus Aurelius for good ideas and advice fairly regularly. There are some excellent secular philosophers and thinkers out there. I enjoy Sam Harris' work the most. One of my favorite reference books is The Portable Atheist, which is a collection of secular philosophers, edited by Hitchens.

To get a sense of your place in the universe, try to find an old full-color hardback copy of Cosmos.^1 For your place in the Human story, Guns, Germs, and Steel, and your place in the American story with A People's History.


[1] As a minor biographical note, I credit this version of Cosmos for getting me through horrible angsty teenager time.

Edit: Also, good question.

I don't know if you care enough, but Why Evolution is True by Jerry Coyne is the single greatest book thus far for introducing evolution to the layman. If you have any doubts, questions, or ideas on evolution, but are fairly new to the topic, you will love this book.

Also Evolution by Donald Prothero was a good one along the same line. He has a couple of talks on youtube based on the book. Your Inner Fish is decent but less substantial. It has a 3 part educational PBS series that I believe is on Netflix. Dawkins is easy to read but he doesn't lay out the evidence as much as he talks about the processes, but those are still good books. The Selfish Gene is excellent.

>I believe that my people were enslaved in Egypt, and that a miraculous series of events occurred that resulted in them escaping to freedom.

The biblical account stands in direct conflict with the historical evidence on this matter. The pyramids were built by wealthy workers who were also honoured by being buried near the pyramids they built. There's no evidence at all pointing to a Jewish presence in Egypt at the time.

>It is a shared history of my people, and I believe that a lot of it did happen.

It's a shared pseudo-history. If you really want to learn about the history of your religion and your people, I suggest you read up on it. Some suggestions:

A History of God by Karen Armstrong.

Who Wrote The Bible by Richard Elliot Friedman.

There's also a video summary of part of A History of God created by a person on youtube called Evid3nc3: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MlnnWbkMlbg&feature=channel_video_title

>and has continued interact with the earth

How, and what's your evidence of this?

>What is G-d? A thing I believe in. Beyond that, I don't know.

Well, 'god' is only a label. Labels refer to some kind of concept. If the label doesn't point to some concept, then the label is meaningless. 'God' doesn't exist because 'god' isn't anything.

Also, if you don't know what god is, how can you ever hope to identify him?

Here is a good book for Christians on evolution. It was recommended by Dawkins once for people that didn't like him and would never read his own books.

http://www.amazon.com/Finding-Darwins-God-Scientists-Evolution/dp/0060930497

The author (Miller) is Roman Catholic, and also has several other good books on the topic if you look at the author's page on amazon.

This one by a different author is also very good.

http://www.amazon.com/Why-Evolution-True-Jerry-Coyne/dp/0670020532/ref=pd_bxgy_b_img_b

If you'd like the basics online, here:

http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/search/topicbrowse2.php?topic_id=46

EDIT: Sorry man, someone already recommended this below.

Lawrence Krauss has a new book about this subject. I know, a book is a little much but it's a pretty important question.

Here's the link:

http://www.amazon.com/Universe-Nothing-There-Something-Rather/dp/145162445X

Peace.

Thanks, I am really proud of him! before my grandma left she left a bible under his pillow haha he gave her this book as a gift.

If you're going to hand these books over to others, you might want to go with something a little less technical as a first introduction. I highly recommend these books:

By Neil Shubin: Neil is a paleo-ichthyologist (he studies ancient fish) who discovered Tiktaalik. The link between modern humans and ancient fish are very well-known.

Your Inner Fish: A Journey into the 3.5-Billion-Year History of the Human Body


And for the link between organic and inorganic materials:

The Universe Within: The Deep History of the Human Body: Discovering the Common History of Rocks, Planets and People

And by Jerry Coyne

Why Evolution is True

And for a more detailed technical book, on a level for graduate school, this one by Jerry Coyne and H. Allen Orr:

Speciation

I hope these serve you well.

http://www.amazon.com/Wrote-Bible-Richard-Elliott-Friedman/dp/0060630353/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1309524934&sr=1-1

If you are interested in an academic, albeit theologian's (IIRC), point of view on reasons for differences in the bible, such as the several different versions of the creation story in genesis, the several different versions of the flood and ark story, etc., the above book, "Who Wrote The Bible" by Richard Elliot Friedman, is an excellent layman's read. It is a bit dated, but is well researched and an interesting. It is not a Christian or apologist book per se, from my memory, but a book based on Mr. Friedman's doctoral dissertation at Harvard. It only covers the contradictions from the first 5 books of the bible (the Pentateuch), but still a worthwhile read in my opinion, and can be purchased for cheap on Amazon.

The selected work by Ibn Warraq in The Portable Atheist is a pretty good start. I've not done much research about the subject myself, but there are bound to be a few leads either by this particular author or in his footnotes. :)

Edit: Wow, down-voted for sharing a link? Classy.

The tale of Noah was created by sewing together two separate documents, written by the Priestly and the Jahwist sources, around 450 BCE. Note the improved internal consistency of each story, particularly with respect to:

• the name of the deity
  
• the character of the deity
  
• the length of the flood
  
• the number of animals
  
• the linguistic idiosyncrasies
  
  This distinction has been known to scholars for more than a century, and in my opinion deserves a larger audience. More resources here. To learn more, I highly recommend this book.

> Heaven is for real

amazon.com

Isn't this the book about the 4 year old preacher's kid who regales his tale to heaven during surgery? Why would anyone believe the story of a 4 year old and take that as evidence or truth?

If someone was looking for answers to the truth of an afterlife, they are not in that book. I'll take a scientist over a 4 year old any day.

If you do have him read a book of your choosing, I recommend Guy P Harrison's 50 Reasons People Give for Believing in a God. It's not as combative as Hitchens and Dawkins, but it addresses a lot of points...50, actually. ;) If you haven't read it, I recommend it whether or not you ask your dad to read it, but I think if you do ask him to read a book of your choosing, make sure it's one you've read, so you know what you're giving him!

Although I doubt either one of you will change the other's mind, I hope that your dad's vitriol calms down and you can find a way to at least just drop the subject until you are able to move out.

You are not ready for a debate, but perhaps you are ready for an education. Read/watch these and then report back to us:

Universe from Nothing Video

Universe From Nothing Book

The Selfish Gene Book

How New Organs arise video

Why Evolution is true Video

Greatest show on Earth Book

Richard Elliot Friedman also has an excellent book on the Documentary hypothesis called "Who Wrote the Bible." For those interested in reading each of the authors contributions to the Pentateuch I highly recommend "The Bible with Sources Revealed."

Some books that have been often mentioned here in /r/atheism are:

Your Inner Fish

Why Evolution Is True

The Greatest Show on Earth

The folks at /r/evolution might be interested in giving their view, too.

The Book of Genesis Illustrated by R. Crumb I know this isn't exactly what you were looking for but I flipped through this while at the library and thought it was pretty neat.

If anyone is interested in a great back and forth between a mythicist and a historicist, check out this debate between Richard Carrrier and Zeba Crook.

I think Crook ultimately comes out looking better, but they both make some good points.

Richard Carrier has published a peer reviewed book called "On the Historicity of Jesus: Why We Might Have Reason for Doubt".

A few other books you might want to add which fit nicely with the Bible (in no particular order):

• The Satanic Bible
  
  
• The Original Folk and Fairy Tales of Grimm Brothers: The Complete First Edition
  
  
• The Qur'an
  
  
• The Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster
  
  
• Deities & Demigods (Dungeons & Dragons 3.0 Edition Roleplaying Supplement)
  
  
• How to Practice: The Way of a Meaningful Life
  
  
• Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health

The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings - Bart D. Ehrman

I didn't see anything by him in the FAQ but I think he's a great author on the topic of Christianity and The Bible; he started out as a biblical scholar before becoming an atheist.

Edit: That book is actually a bit heavy to start with, it reads like a text book. I'd recommend starting with Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why or Jesus, Interrupted: Revealing the Hidden Contradictions in the Bible

As others are saying, don't let yourself get drawn in. You shouldn't be expected to have the answers to life and the universe.

It takes a long time to become familiar enough with all the fine points to be able to debate well. And some people will never debate well. And that's okay.

For your own general use, though, here are three books which have helped me a great deal. They are especially good for atheist/questioning newbies and are easy, quick reads:

The God Virus: How Religion Infects Our Lives And Culture

The Born Again Skeptic's Guide To The Bible

Does God Get Diarrhea?: Flushing 4,000 Years Of Lies, Myths, And Fairy Tales Down The Toilet This one is rude and crude. Just a heads up.

(edit: added a book)

Bible scholar Bart Ehrman has written a book about this. I haven't read it yet, but I've found his other works fascinating and very well researched. Seems to me that the historicity of Jesus as an actual person is well-documented, and not just in religious texts.

How about these:

• The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion
  
  
• The God Virus: How religion infects our lives and culture
  
  They're not novels unfortunately but I want to at least give you something.
  
  EDIT: Here are two that I remember as being in novel format:
  
  
• http://www.amazon.com/Gods-Debris-A-Thought-Experiment/dp/0740747878/
  
  
• http://www.amazon.com/Religion-War-Scott-Adams/dp/0740747886/ (This sequel is the more relevant of the two, the first one is more like a big brain teaser on the concept of God)

> It could have been a lie by the parents, wanting attention

From the Amazon listing:
> Told by the father, but often in Colton's own words

So, yeah. Definitely a possibility.

> Would having something they deeply believe in not help?

Why would it? Christianity and/or religion doesn't magically impart morality. Christianity's form of morality is "Be good or you'll burn in hell for eternity" It's telling them not to be good, but to do good or else.

I haven't read it but a friend has suggested it: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0814474268

Here's my recommendations:

Start with This video. It's based off the book "A History of god" by Karen Armstrong. This is what the bulk of biblical scholars agree with. Note that the author was a former nun & is still a Christian.

& I recommend the following books:

On the Historicity of Jesus: Why We Might Have Reason for Doubt

Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why

Nailed: Ten Christian Myths That Show Jesus Never Existed at All

I agree with this and it is indeed well written. I reckon a lot of the inspiration was from this - http://www.amazon.co.uk/Atheists-Angry-Things-Godless-ebook/dp/B007MCMKV6

I suggest moving the Lataster (Washington Post) and Tarico (Alternet) to the top of the list. These are concise well written articles that serve as a good introduction, and are more authoritative (reviewed and edited by the publisher) than the many personal blogs on the list.

There's a few duplicates as well.

One link to add - Richard Carrier's book:

https://www.amazon.ca/Historicity-Jesus-Might-Reason-Doubt/dp/1909697494

Nice points and in regards to Obama I concur with your opinion.

As for the children issue, I disagree. I have three children of my own and my wife is still a theist (non-practicing). I don't have a solid answer for what to do about their belief system, but I fear doing anything in support of a conformist message. Yet I have still done the Snata Claus thing with them, since I remember that with joy in my own childhood.

So I don't really have a great response to the question of children. I haven't bought this book yet, but I have heard good things about it.

Well, there's this about Mother Theresa if you're truly interested.

The Book of Genesis Illustrated by R. Crumb isn't exactly what you're looking for (i.e. it's only Genesis) but it is awesome and the illustrations really bring the book to life (though there are some passages that may not be suitable for your girls...I'm looking at you Lot).

All of these are from an actual book entitled "Why are you Atheists so Angry?". Its a great read, but don't plagiarize and take credit for yourself

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B007MCMKV6/ref=redir_mdp_mobile

My $0.02.... don't try and ban religion/god from your kids. The only time you need to step in is if they are scaring your kids with hell/etc, which is totally inappropriate for children.

1. Raise your kids to to thinkers and have a love of science
   
2. Teach them about religion, so they'll know about it and what the grandparents try to teach them won't seem new or interesting (eg, read them bible stories as fiction once in a while, etc).
   
3. If your kids do start talking about god (and they probably will at some point, if not from the grandparents then from somewhere else) remember that for a small child everything is their imagination... just play along and compare god to superman or santa claus. Eventually they'll mature more and separate make believe from reality.
   
4. Haven't read it myself, but this was recommended before....
   http://www.amazon.com/Raising-Freethinkers-Practical-Parenting-Beyond/dp/0814410960

That search is what made me atheist. The truth is that there is no true history of the bible. It's long lost, a mystery. For instance, we have no idea who wrote the gospels.. .totally anonymous. We don't know who wrote the OT... At best we know Paul's letters and a few other books, and we know when certain things were added or changed (for instance the famous John 3:16 was added by a monk later on).

If you want some insight into the history of Christianity, here are some links. It's a messy world filled with 2000 years of apologetics muddying the waters.

http://www.reddit.com/help/faqs/atheistgems#HistoryandLiteraryAnalysis (specifically this one: Examining the Existence of a Historical Jesus: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvleOBYTrDE )

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

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecumenical_council#List_of_ecumenical_councils

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlemagne (responsible for converting most of Europe... by the sword. Dealth penalty for having any pagan items, sacked whole villages, etc). more: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constantine_I_and_Christianity

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

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

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

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

Now, if you want some good books... I recommend:

http://www.amazon.com/Lies-My-Teacher-Told-Everything/dp/0684818868

http://www.amazon.com/Misquoting-Jesus-Story-Behind-Changed/dp/0060738170

http://www.amazon.com/Wrote-Bible-Richard-Elliott-Friedman/dp/0060630353/ref=pd_sim_b_6

Any other questions?

Must read:
Parenting Beyond Belief: On Raising Ethical, Caring Kids Without Religion - Dale McGowan

Thanks, just checking whether there was something new.

Carrier talks about this in his "On the Historicity of Jesus". His claim about Tacitus is that he was probably quoting the Gospels indirectly through Pliny, so Carrier claims it might not be an independent source.

He reviews a bunch more, including Josephus, in his chapter 8 "Extrabiblical Evidence".

If I wanted to fact-check Carrier, I would start by reading both his and Ehrman's blogs when they argue with each other, and both Carrier's and Ehrman's books on the topic.

I don't have a personal opinion on the existence of Jesus either. I asked only because it would be interesting if there were an easy way to poke holes in Carrier's work, since Carrier is so thorough.

The God Virus: How Religion Infects Our Lives and Culture by Darrel Ray

https://www.amazon.com/God-Virus-Religion-Infects-Culture/dp/0970950519

I’ve not read it, but Peter Boghossian endorses it in A Manual for Creating Atheists.

That's a good start for not believing in creationism, but The God Delusion would be a better start for arguments against god.

I was raised Christian and went to a fundamentalist highschool. I started questioning things when I realized my faith required me to suspend my rationality. Read some books on the historical accuracy of religious claims. My thought was always, "Well if what all these people say is true, it should hold up to rational scientific inquiry." The more I dug, the more I realized that it never could. I fought and fought with myself. Christianity (especially of the fundamentalist flavor) has this built in mechanism to dissuade disbelief. You are constantly indoctrinated to see any doubt that enters your mind as evil, sinful and to simply "pray the doubt away". I'm sure you know of this. Keep fighting, let reason and logic be your guide.

Some books that helped me on my way to breaking free:

A History of God by Karen Armstrong

The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins

Pale Blue Dot by Carl Sagan

I also recommend this youtube series by user Evid3nc3.

Those should give you alot to think about.

Remember the most important thing is to decide for yourself. Question everything and never take something as truth from authority simply because they are an authority. See if it makes sense, find the documented evidence that backs up the claims. The light may hurt at first.

"For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring." -Carl Sagan

Bart Erhman wrote a great book on the subject: Did Jesus Exist:The Historical Argument for Jesus of Nazareth.

Tl;dr - Maybe/probably

He never makes an absolute proclamation either way, but presents evidence from both sides. There are several secular sources that mention his existence. Jesus existing as a person is certainly not out of the realm of possibility. But we can be sure, if he did exist, he wasn't a god.

I actually picked up this book recently that entertains that very idea throughout and it's better than I thought.

50 Reasons People Give for Believing in a God - http://www.amazon.com/Reasons-People-Give-Believing-God/dp/1591025672/ref=sr_1_sc_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1368060082&sr=8-1-spell&keywords=50+easons+god

This guy basically interviews people from all over the world and collects their most popular reasons for believing. I think once believers see that the same reasons they hold their belief are used by people with completely incompatible beliefs, it will get some cognitive dissonance going. ;)

You may be interested in these five books: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. These examine the claimed evidence of the existence of a historical jesus without presupposing any of christianity is true (i.e. they were written by atheist scholars). They judge it way more likely that the jesus story is a melting pot of earlier myths and stories without any basis in fact.

The question of why christianity emerged has a fairly complex answer. It's tied to the roman occupation of jerusalem, influence from mystery cults, societal discontent, a feeling that the jewish leadership was immoral, a constant re-reading of scriptures to search for hidden truths, and a kind of darwinian elimination of other competing sects.

If you're actually interested in the case against historicity, Richard Carrier has a masterful work called On the Historicity of Jesus Christ - Why We Might Have Reason for Doubt. This is incredibly well researched, heavily footnoted (i've never seen a book more thoroughly documented), and over 700 pages.

Dr Carrier wrote the book in such a way as to push this discussion into a format that can be analyzed in a scientific way. Up until now, this debate has just basically been a series of opinions. He's changing things by trying to take all of the assumptions and assign them probabilities. All of the evidence and assumptions are broken into the smallest pieces and assigned an "element number" which can allow historians to push this conversation along. Disagree with Dr Carrier? Great - point to the element that isn't right, and we can refine the model.

Well if you have the time, there's The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution by Richard Dawkins and Why Evolution Is True by Jerry A. Coyne. You could check if your local library has one of them.

Also, although this will not teach you evolution, Richard Dawkins notes a flaw in the idea of a designer in that there are clear imperfections that one would not expect from an intelligent designer, but would from evolution.

Dan Barker, was a pastor and fundamentalist, now head of the Freedom from Religion Foundation.
Video Book Website

Bart Ehrman, studied at seminary, was a fundamentalist, now agnostic (functionally atheist, somewhat by his own admission.) He covers this in at least one of his many books, Jesus Interrupted.

Teresa McBain, Clergy Project member, if you know about Jerry DeWitt, you should know her.

Yeah, take a look at some of the Clergy Project stuff they say that have more than a hundred pastors / church leaders alone. Also check out Recovering from Religion, they deal with people who are not clergy.

Edit: Dan Barker is actually Co-President of the FFRF, he runs it with his wife.

I have the FSM emblem on my car. So far I've only gotten positive reactions to it.

To be fair, I do live in SF...

My one-stop book recommendation would be Sam Harris's Letter to a Christian Nation. It's a short read, but nearly every paragraph is its own distinct argument, and it covers a lot of territory.

If you're aiming to construct your paper around a set of the most popular arguments, here are some common refutations to arguments for the existence of God. Keep in mind that many of our arguments are in the form of refutation instead of assertion, since the burden of proof is on the claimant:

Ontological Argument (Argument from experience) - We assert that feelings do not equal facts; revelation is not a reliable basis for a factual claim. We also realize that to criticize someone for feelings that are personal can seem like a personal attack. Most of us wouldn't tell someone who claims he/she had a spiritual experience that it didn't happen, but we would try to find a scientific explanation rather than coming to the immediate conclusion that it was God's doing. As a brief example, a friend of mine said he "felt the touch of God" when his daughter was born, but we interpret his feeling as a normal, natural high that most people feel at such an emotional moment.

Teleological Argument (Argument from design) - We accept the evidence for evolution and realize that it is inconsistent with the biblical creation story. For further reading about what proof we have for evolution, I'd personally recommend The Greatest Show on Earth by Richard Dawkins, and he promotes Jerry Coyne's Why Evolution Is True though I haven't read the latter yet.

Cosmological Argument (Causal Argument) - This is a case of people assigning the "God" label to something difficult to comprehend. The best we have to go on so far is the Big Bang Theory, and scientists will continue to test the theory. We don't have evidence that the beginning of the universe was brought about by an omnipotent/omniscient being outside of what is claimed by religious texts, and that goes back to the. We might also ask, "who/what made God?" inviting an infinite loop of "which came first" questions.

Moral Argument - We believe (normal) people are able to tell the difference between right and wrong without religious guidance. In turn, it seems that the Christian Bible teaches, excuses, or condones actions that our enlightened society would deem immoral, such as slavery, killing of children and non-heterosexuals, oppression, rape, and genocide. Interpretations of the Bible differ, of course, and most modern Christians don't believe they should actually kill their disobedient children (or that the laws of the Old Testament no longer apply since the coming of Christ, which is another conversation). Regardless of arguments from the Bible, we believe that science can tell us a lot more about morality than we give it credit for.

Lastly, here is a wikipedia list of lots more arguments in case you'd like to ask about specific ones: link

Good luck, and I hope you enjoy writing your paper. Not that you should necessarily crowd-source coursework, but you'd probably get quite a strong response if you posted up a final draft, too.

I highly recommend two key books by renowned New Testament scholar and professor Bart Ehrman. Professor Ehrman is among the most respected authorities on New Testament Studies and Scholarship in the United States.

(1) Jesus Interrupted: Revealing the Hidden Contradictions in the Bible (And Why We Don’t Know About Them) (2010);

https://www.amazon.com/Jesus-Interrupted-Revealing-Hidden-Contradictions/dp/0061173940/ref=mp_s_a_1_11?ie=UTF8&qid=1548990181&sr=8-11&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_QL65&keywords=bart+ehrman+books

and

(2) Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why (2007).

https://www.amazon.com/Misquoting-Jesus-Story-Behind-Changed/dp/0060859512/ref=mp_s_a_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1548990181&sr=8-3&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_QL65&keywords=bart+ehrman+books&dpPl=1&dpID=51Th%2BI5OOGL&ref=plSrch

Jerry Coyne has a great book you might want to pick up

Or maybe the one by Dawkins

Or there's always this

I recommend 2 books.

http://www.amazon.com/Raising-Freethinkers-Practical-Parenting-Beyond/dp/0814410960

http://www.amazon.com/Habits-Highly-Effective-People/dp/0671708635

The first deals specifically with raising them without religion. The second one, he uses many examples of his family and it's quite a good book as far as parenting goes although you wouldn't know it from just the title.

Only $14 on Amazon I'm buying it. And if it's good, I'll probably give more away on Christmas.

This is my way to support the author/publisher so that can make more comics based on the books of the Bible. And maybe one day, Michael Bay will make a movie out of it.

No no no, you all have it wrong. Harris, Hitchens and Dawkins are great and all, but the best case against Christ is written by Bart Ehrman: Jesus Interrupted

You sound like you want to be agnostic/atheist but your afraid of having the title associated with yourself out of fear of judgement.

Nothing you have said makes any sense if you are a real believer. Why cherry pick the Bible like that while claiming it is still divine? It makes no rational sense whatsoever.

I challenge you to read Jesus Interrupted by Bart D. Ehrman to learn a little bit of the true history of the Bible and Jesus and see if you still have the same view afterwards.

http://www.amazon.com/Jesus-Interrupted-Revealing-Hidden-Contradictions/dp/0061173940

This one came via divine delivery using Amazon, link below.

http://www.amazon.com/Gospel-Flying-Spaghetti-Monster/dp/0812976568/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1368502954&sr=1-1&keywords=flying+spaghetti+monster

Who wrote the Bible. I would suggest this as a subtler, long term approach. Make them actually think objectively about the book they base all of their beliefs on. Once they begin to see it not as the word of God but as the result of centuries-long political squabbles, they will be able to wonder which parts are true and which aren't.

> i'd love to hear what you've got, though.

Have you read "A Universe From Nothing" by Lawrence Krauss yet?

Krauss is a physicist from the University of Arizona who has become a bit of a rock star in atheist circles over the past few years. His book explores what our modern understanding of particle physics might tell us about the Big Bang.

http://www.amazon.com/Universe-Nothing-There-Something-Rather/dp/145162445X

Good to hear there are still open-minded people out there. I think Richard Carrier is closer to the truth though 1, 2.

Gotta love Greta. She actually expanded that blog post into a book.

1. In addition to the Iron Chariots website that someone else mentioned, I'd suggest a book called "50 Reasons People Give for Believing in a God". I wouldn't consider it a scholarly approach but it does a good job of articulating why atheists reject the reasons theists give for believing.
   
   
2. Your son (or anyone, of course) can have feelings of hate for all things religious and still have rational reasons for rejecting their claims. I think it's fair to say it's not uncommon for a new atheist, not just teenage atheists, to experience some time of intense emotion with respect to their ex-religion. So, surprising? No. I don't think so. You'll probably just have to ride it out.
   
   
3. Tough one. It's great that you recognize he will need something more from you than the "Because God said so" response. I think it's going to be emphasizing the natural consequences of the behaviors in question. I don't have much of an answer beyond that.
   
   I am a father to boys, also. And ex-Christian, due in part to the atheism of my sons. And I still have trouble talking to them even though we're supposedly on the same wavelength now. And it kills me.
   
   Keep it at. Keep asking. Keep listening. Don't know if I can be of any further help but PM me if you want.

Raising Freethinkers is a great book. It gives many tips about not influencing your children, making them think and arrive to their on conclusions.

The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice

Is a great book by - Christopher Hitchens

This is awesome and goes into it at some length:

http://www.amazon.com/Your-Inner-Fish-Journey-3-5-Billion-Year/dp/0307277453/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1293751873&sr=8-1

Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion will be a good one to start with.

we've known this for quite some time. Check out this book! it's fantastic

http://www.amazon.com/God-Virus-Religion-Infects-Culture/dp/0970950519

Nope. There's atheists who believe absurd bullshit like healing crystals and flat earth. Some are very active politically while others don't give a shit. There's no "holy book", you can't be "excommunicated", you don't have to tithe, etc. All there is an answer to a question: Do you believe in god(s)? No? Congrats! You're an atheist.

While I won't presume to speak for everyone, I would say that most of the "active" ones; like people here on this Reddit, Aronra, guys at Scathing Atheist, Seth Andrews, etc; are more inclined to want to believe true things and discard not true/not proven/unprobable things.

Oh, and there's no "belief" in science. Science is a tool like a DeWalt drill. Whether you ACCEPT the conclusions or not is the question.

EDIT: as for why atheists are "angry", might wanna try this book.

Now I wanna ask you: Why are theists so angry? ISIS, Lord's Resistance Army, Focus on the Family, Jerry Falwell, this christian woman, etc....all very angry.

I haven't read it personally, but I heard that 50 Reasons People Give for Believing in a God is good because it's specifically written to be non-offensive and in your face.

For anyone interested, there is a great talk from David Fitzgerald about the evidence of Jesus. And then there is a talk by Richard Carrier about the Jesus myth theory. Then there is also great deal of debates where Richard debates opponents of the myth theory. You can look and see, if their arguments seem valid. Lastly, Richard Carrier wrote a book which should be his complete case for the Jesus myth theory along with apologists arguments (didn't read it but I'm going to).

Here is an excellent anthology of atheist writings through the ages: The Portable Atheist: Essential Readings for the Nonbeliever.