Common Sense Atheism

Download or read book Common Sense Recovery written by Adam N. and published by . This book was released on 2019-08 with total page 110 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Religion was once the primary way to understand human behavior. This was certainly true when the book Alcoholics Anonymous was written in 1939. But, we have learned much over the past 80 years. Common Sense Recovery began as the journal of a long-standing member of AA during a time in his life when he was struggling to reconcile the religious language of Alcoholics Anonymous with his new-found atheism and scientific understanding of addiction and the recovery process. The short chapters articulate a non-religious, practical understanding of the fundamental principles at work in the program, and examine the 12 Steps from a secular perspective. Now in its third edition, this work continues to be a valuable guide for many who struggle with the religious nature and language of AA and contains important insights for the future of the fellowship.

Download or read book Theism and Explanation written by Gregory W. Dawes and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2012-09-10 with total page 326 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this timely study, Dawes defends the methodological naturalism of the sciences. Though religions offer what appear to be explanations of various facts about the world, the scientist, as scientist, will not take such proposed explanations seriously. Even if no natural explanation were available, she will assume that one exists. Is this merely a sign of atheistic prejudice, as some critics suggest? Or are there good reasons to exclude from science explanations that invoke a supernatural agent? On the one hand, Dawes concedes the bare possibility that talk of divine action could constitute a potential explanation of some state of affairs, while noting that the conditions under which this would be true are unlikely ever to be fulfilled. On the other hand, he argues that a proposed explanation of this kind would rate poorly, when measured against our usual standards of explanatory virtue.

Download or read book Religion for Atheists written by Alain De Botton and published by Signal. This book was released on 2012-03-06 with total page 298 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the author of The Architecture of Happiness, a deeply moving meditation on how we can still benefit, without believing, from the wisdom, the beauty, and the consolatory power that religion has to offer. Alain de Botton was brought up in a committedly atheistic household, and though he was powerfully swayed by his parents' views, he underwent, in his mid-twenties, a crisis of faithlessness. His feelings of doubt about atheism had their origins in listening to Bach's cantatas, were further developed in the presence of certain Bellini Madonnas, and became overwhelming with an introduction to Zen architecture. However, it was not until his father's death -- buried under a Hebrew headstone in a Jewish cemetery because he had intriguingly omitted to make more secular arrangements -- that Alain began to face the full degree of his ambivalence regarding the views of religion that he had dutifully accepted. Why are we presented with the curious choice between either committing to peculiar concepts about immaterial deities or letting go entirely of a host of consoling, subtle and effective rituals and practices for which there is no equivalent in secular society? Why do we bristle at the mention of the word "morality"? Flee from the idea that art should be uplifting, or have an ethical purpose? Why don't we build temples? What mechanisms do we have for expressing gratitude? The challenge that de Botton addresses in his book: how to separate ideas and practices from the religious institutions that have laid claim to them. In Religion for Atheists is an argument to free our soul-related needs from the particular influence of religions, even if it is, paradoxically, the study of religion that will allow us to rediscover and rearticulate those needs.

Download or read book Waking Up written by Sam Harris and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2015-06-16 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Spirituality.The search for happiness --Religion, East and West --Mindfulness --The truth of suffering --Enlightenment --The mystery of consciousness.The mind divided --Structure and function --Are our minds already split? --Conscious and unconscious processing in the brain --Consciousness is what matters --The riddle of the self.What are we calling "I"? --Consciousness without self --Lost in thought --The challenge of studying the self --Penetrating the illusion --Meditation.Gradual versus sudden realization --Dzogchen: taking the goal as the path --Having no head --The paradox of acceptance --Gurus, death, drugs, and other puzzles.Mind on the brink of death --The spiritual uses of pharmacology.

Download or read book The 7 Laws of Magical Thinking written by Matthew Hutson and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2013-02-26 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A provocative and entertaining look at the psychology of superstition and religion, how they make us human—and how we can use them to our advantage What is so special about touching a piano John Lennon once owned? Why do we yell at our laptops? And why do people like to say, “Everything happens for a reason”? Drawing on cognitive science, anthropology, and neuroscience, Matthew Hutson shows us that magical thinking is not only hardwired into our brains—it’s been a factor in our evolutionary success. Magical thinking helps us believe that we have free will and an underlying purpose as it protects us from the paralyzing awareness of our own mortality. Interweaving entertaining stories, personal reflections, and sharp observations, The 7 Laws of Magical Thinking reveals just how this seemingly irrational process informs and improves the lives of even the most hardened skeptics.

Download or read book Common Sense in the Scottish Enlightenment written by Charles Bradford Bow and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2018 with total page 237 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Common sense philosophy was one of the Scottish Enlightenment's most original intellectual products. The nine specially written essays in this volume explore the philosophical and historical significance of this school of thought, recovering the ways in which it developed during the long eighteenth century.

Download or read book The Son Rises written by William L. Craig and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2000-09-29 with total page 157 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Is the Christian message of Jesus Christ and his resurrection true? Using ten lines of historical evidence, Dr. Craig defends the probability that Jesus was resurrected following his crucifixion. He examines the origin of the Christian movement, and more provocative subjects, such as the Shroud of Turin, parapsychological phenomena and hallucinations.