Book Recommendations

Greetings,

I thought to open a corner for recommending books to each other on various topics, mostly Atheism & religion of course.
please don't post a list of books or a title without explaining why the book is worth reading and what's the subject/s, a level of difficulty would be useful too. In depth reviews are obviously deeply appreciated.




My latest I have read recently a work of Polish philosopher Leszek Kolakowski, Conversations with the Devil.
The book takes a refreshing and some times humorous take on biblical stories on which some of us thought of but never articulated.
A light read, recommended for those who want a different perspective on God of the bible (some times cynical).

I'm about to finish the book "The Atheist's Introduction to the New Testament: How the Bible Undermines the Basic Teachings of Christianity" by Mike Davis.

It is a very well researched book about the contradictions in the New Testament. It has 179 pages and is an easy read. But one should have some knowledge of the New Testament.
I highly recommend it to everybody who wants to be prepared for discussions with fundamentalists.

One of the best introductions to mainstream biblical scholarship I would highly recommend is Bart D Ehrman's book Jesus Interrupted. He does a fairly good job of introducing the method of textual criticism, the Q gospel, and which passages scholars think date back to the historical Jesus. I like Jesus Interrupted because Ehrman doesn't try to argue for or against the merits of religion and attacking religious followers but simply focuses on laying out the facts of biblical scholarship. This is a good book to start with if you want to get beyond surface level contradictions in the bible and get to the real meat behind the formation of Christian mythology.

Some worthwhile readings re atheism:

Everything You Know About God Is Wrong: The Disinformation Guide to Religion – Neil Gaiman and Richard Dawkins, Russ Kirk – Editor. ISBN-10: 1932857591, ISBN-13: 978-1932857597

God: The Failed Hypothesis – Victor J. Stenger. ISBN-10: 1591024811, ISBN-13: 978-1591024811

The God Delusion – Richard Dawkins. ISBN-10: 0618918248 ISBN-13: 978-0618918249

The Portable Atheist: Essential readings for the Nonbeliever – Christopher Hitchens. ISBN-10: 0306816083 ISBN-13: 978-0306816086

All of these can be found and purchased at Amazon.com and when you do, you'll find links to related books.

Not mentioned often enough in these circles

The Non-Existence of god, By Nicholas Everitt

It's an entry level philosophy book, a little dense at times but a really thorough exsposition of how logically inconsistent the idea of gods are.

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