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Reflections on Atheism and Faith 
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Post Reflections on Atheism and Faith
The debate on atheism tends to occur at a very crude level. For modern thinking, it is clear that major elements of traditional Christianity are obsolete, even dangerous. In this category I would put ideas of heaven and hell, supernaturalism, miracles, and the myths of Eden, virgin birth and the flood etc. These are all objectively false, and continued belief in them is a pathology, resulting in delusion and suffering. Hence the debate about creationism and intelligent design is tedious and pointless because it involves trying to talk sense with an ignorant throwback group who are opposed to the advance of knowledge. The debate should be about sociology and politics, not theory, ie why do creationists, this big group of otherwise modern rational people, believe things which are demonstrably false? And what are the dangers to our planet resulting from this widespread false consciousness? My view, discussed also at http://www.bautforum.com/questions-answ ... ost1079126, is that Creationism is not really central to their supposed worldview, but essentially runs interference for the idea of Christ as Saviour. It is a smokescreen designed to protect fundamentalist beliefs regarding Christ, notably that he was a sacrificial substitute who was murdered by God as a ransom to forestall the divine wrath deserved by fallen sinful people. The problem with this whole fundamentalist 'system' is that creationists have turned Christ into a laughing stock.

The key task in my view is to set the creationist rubbish to one side in order to engage on theology, applying a modern set of scientific values to the stories of the Gospel. When this is done it can become possible to separate the wheat from the tares, in the terms of the parable at Matt 13:25, and extract the kernel of truth from the lies of the church. The Old Testament prophet Malachi put it well when he said (Mal 3:2) that God is like a refiner's fire. This idea is highly Darwinian, indicating that life forms which adapt to reality will survive, while reality/God will weed out the maladaptive forms which in the long term will fail to procreate. Creationists just have it wrong about which ideas are adaptive



Tue Nov 20, 2007 6:34 am
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RT2,

I hope to find the time to respond more fully to your post, in that I find a good deal we share common gound with; and some areas of real difference too.

Would you be interested in reading and discussing one of the following books? Considering what you've written above, I think you'd find them worth the effort. I've not read the first, but found Lash's "Easter In/Ordinary" to be a great challenge and a serious theological education. I have read the latter, and find Professor Caputo to be a brilliant delight to read...I think you might find his "religionless religion" very interesting.

Holiness, Speech and Silence: Reflections on the Question of God by Nicholas Lash http://www.amazon.com/Holiness-Speech-Silence-Reflections-Question/dp/0754650391/ref=pd_ybh_1?pf_rd_p=280800601&pf_rd_s=center-2&pf_rd_t=1501&pf_rd_i=ybh&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=1E59DD4107HNE29GTM2E

The Weakness of God: A Theology of the Event by John D. Caputo http://www.amazon.com/Weakness-God-Theology-Philosophy-Religion/dp/0253218284/ref=pd_ybh_5?pf_rd_p=280800601&pf_rd_s=center-2&pf_rd_t=1501&pf_rd_i=ybh&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=1E59DD4107HNE29GTM2E



Tue Nov 20, 2007 4:50 pm
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RT2: Creationism is not really central to their supposed worldview, but essentially runs interference for the idea of Christ as Saviour. It is a smokescreen designed to protect fundamentalist beliefs regarding Christ, notably that he was a sacrificial substitute who was murdered by God as a ransom to forestall the divine wrath deserved by fallen sinful people. The problem with this whole fundamentalist 'system' is that creationists have turned Christ into a laughing stock.


I agree that Creationism is not the primary ingredient in their ideology, and that it is utilized for something more than protecting Biblical inerrancy; but I don't think it is protecting Christ as Savior, as much as protecting a patriarchial, martial, authoritarian, imperial way of life which is justified by way of Christ as patron, as godfather, as boss. More specifically, Christ is the projected amalgem of forces that keep a particular way of life in place: a way of life that follows the dictates of power and domination. Christ as Savior is the spectral hallucinogen that keeps a system of imperial dominance in order. Christ is not a laughing stock, but the biggest God on the block to whom all must pay homage, respect, and protection fees. Creationism is part of the ideological framework that explains how Christ attained Boss Status and why we are obliged to seek his protection and patronage.

Instead of turning the cheek, going the extra mile, giving one's cloak as well as coat, praying for and loving one's enemies, embracing an economy of grace and hospitality, focusing primarily upon feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, protecting the sojourn, healing the sick, eating with the outcast, and embarking upon what it means to pick up and carry one's cross....the Gospel becomes justification for everything Imperial and Martial.



Wed Nov 21, 2007 12:59 pm
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Hi DH. This degenerate confusion, which you have highlighted by depicting how creationists treat the god of love like a gangster, is so absurd that it shows why Christ has become a laughing stock for anyone with a modicum of reason. It is not Christ the creationists worship but a false invented idol. They are directly breaking commandments one and two from Exodus 20: You shall have no other gods before me; and You shall not make for yourselves an idol. Your comments show the selectivity and inconsistency of the so-called inerrancy doctrine



Wed Nov 21, 2007 9:09 pm
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I don't think we can let ourselves off the hook so easily. Selectivity is not simply a fundamentalist phenomenom: all of us perform an exegesis of the text that highlights some elements and leaves out others...as well as reads into and projects onto it our favorite meanings, hopes, and fears. I don't think this has to result in sheer subjectivism: but none of us escape eisegesis when practicing exegesis. Atheist, agnostic, baptist, congregationalist, methodist, roman catholic...all of us engage the text from where we are: there is no unadulterated objective place to read from. As Paul, and you remind us, we see through a glass darkly.

Still, there are some, I believe, who simply choose not to see at all. For these, there is no conflict in the text: no contradiction and confusion, all is seamless and sure...total certainty and complete explanation regarding every dotted i and crossed t. And some who go the opposite direction: nothing but deception and stupidity, everything worthless and wasted...a similar certainty, but instead of adoration- disgust.

Rabbi Michael Lerner describes a Jewish tradition of reading the Bible with two notions of God in mind: the right hand and left hand of God. The right hand reflects the wrath, vengeance, punishing, martial, and destructive side of God in the text; and the left is the forgiving, compassionate, generous, loving and healing side of God in the text.

If we approach the text in hope we highlight the left hand of God; if we approach the text in fear, the right. Lerner explains that the production of the Bible was by men and women living in hope and in fear, and their experiences with God are captured in the text within the context that hope and fear. The right hand of God reflects the angers and frustrations of traumatized people seeking protection and justice: wanting some sort of advocate and defender in a terribly violent world. The left hand represents traumatized folk as well, but these people are wanting to stop the cycle of violence and the compulsion to repeat the trauma they receieved onto others. Thus, the passion for vengeance and forgiveness in the same text.

Lerner argues that the right hand of God is the distortion of God's true nature: the healing, generous, transformative, loving force of the universe that is constantly making possible a new future and fueling the hope of people to repair and mend the wounds of the world. This is Tikkun.

It makes sense that the Gospel would be transformed from a narrative of liberatory grace to imperial force. Surviving on this planet is a bloody affair, full of violence and treachery and dissimulation. A question I have is: why would Science require we go either direction: i.e., what about science would have us choose (using Lerner's model) the Right Hand or the Left Hand of God within the text?



Thu Nov 22, 2007 12:12 pm
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As an atheist and someone who has read the bible without any prior indoctrination from any religion I will say this about the text. There is truth in the bible but no more than in any other epic human story.

What I find confusing is that so many people ignore (or don't know about) the ghastly portions (incest, the condoning of slavery, genocide and the subjection of women to mention but a few) and focus solely on the good which is far less common throughout the book; and then to claim that this book is the source of morality... pure bunk.

Many people are currently trying to make religion seem more tolerable to secular minds by changing its meaning. In another thread that DH started some author is calling it love. This does not change anything, I can be in love and have passions and not be religious or believe in gods. Just because one silly man says that all love is a love of god does not make it so.

I personally think that any book as flawed as the bible can never be reconciled with atheism except as fable, and trying to alter the meaning to make it seem more tolerable to the more secular minded people is not only a waste of effort but insulting to believers as well.

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Thu Nov 22, 2007 3:03 pm
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Frank: As an atheist and someone who has read the bible without any prior indoctrination from any religion I will say this about the text. There is truth in the bible but no more than in any other epic human story.


How is it possible to live in the US and not receive multiple types of indoctrination regarding the Bible: popular culture, public education, electoral campaigns, legal issues, friends, family, neighbors, co-workers in and out of the church...all of this involves lots of teaching about the Bible, both implicit and explicit, even if mostly contraditory. I suggest you are (all of us) bombarded with doctrine regarding the Bible all the time, and have been since the womb (those of us born and raised in the US, at least.)

This neither validates nor invalidates your/our conclusions: but it clears the discussion of any perspectives that claim an absence of indoctrination.

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Frank: What I find confusing is that so many people ignore (or don't know about) the ghastly portions (incest, the condoning of slavery, genocide and the subjection of women to mention but a few) and focus solely on the good which is far less common throughout the book; and then to claim that this book is the source of morality... pure bunk.


Pure bunk, but understandable. Whatever our source of morality, it seems we can't escape the stain of ghastly portions that discolor and uglify our human, all-too human endeavors. Perhaps bunk is our common denominator.

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Frank: In another thread that DH started some author is calling it love. This does not change anything, I can be in love and have passions and not be religious or believe in gods. Just because one silly man says that all love is a love of god does not make it so.


Professor Caputo (who I refer to above) takes an unorthodox approach to discussing religion: in that he accepts that a discussion is not the best way to understand the subject...simply exchanging facts, arguments, debating contrary evidence and conclusions...because the primary subject of religion is love, something else is at work in the exchange. Love unhinges people, knocks them off-center, keeps them guessing, and in many cases, makes us crazy...it often demands what isn't possible, making Religion an engagement with the impossible. Love of God is, well, what the hell is it? Caputo makes the case (as a suitor seeking the hand of a lover, not a professor arguing for the existence of x) that God is the name of an event that will not be contained, controlled, or easily conversed about...the event has something to do with a kingdom where outcasts, rejects and the unsuccessful enjoy ridiculously generous feasts, in the midst of a kind of hospitality that risks everything, is willing to lose it all, give it all away for one lost lamb, or a damned ugly, even ghastly, maniac wandering noisily amongst the tombs...it has something to do with an economy that forgets tomorrow's obligations and forgives the unforgivable: using lillies in the field as a model for exhuberant feduciary responsibility.



Fri Nov 23, 2007 12:46 pm
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DH
This neither validates nor invalidates your/our conclusions: but it clears the discussion of any perspectives that claim an absence of indoctrination.


When I say indoctrinated I mean...

Quote:
To teach somebody a belief, doctrine, or ideology thoroughly and systematically, especially with the goal of discouraging independent thought or the acceptance of other opinions.

Encarta Dictionary


I had none of that... and what little I was exposed to went in one ear and out the other; I honestly had no idea that Christmas had anything to do with Jesus until I was in my early teens. Its not that I did not hear some of the stories it was just that In my case my care factor was zero.

At any rate when I did read the bible I had no one to "guide" my interpretation of the text and was forced to take it at face value. The vast majority of the text and stories I had never heard before.

And most of what I read was ghastly.

When I asked some of my Christian friends about those stories I was shocked to find that none of them even knew that that material was in the bible.

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DH
Pure bunk, but understandable. Whatever our source of morality, it seems we can't escape the stain of ghastly portions that discolor and uglify our human, all-too human endeavors.


Its that understanding that causes much of an atheists grief. it is a belief born of ignorance but a powerful belief all the same.

It seems that most believers do not know about the dark side of the bible and yet have come to the conclusion of a higher morality through the teachings of the bible. This is clearly not true but it does not keep them from pointing fingers at us atheists as immoral godless scum.

If they only knew that the book that they point to for their moral code was rife with condoned incest, ordered genocide, rules for beating a slave, ordered bashing/gnashing of babies, accepted rape, human sacrifice, murder and torture, maybe they would go easier on us people who do not subscribe to such a morality.

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Professor Caputo (who I refer to above) takes an unorthodox approach to discussing religion: in that he accepts that a discussion is not the best way to understand the subject...simply exchanging facts, arguments, debating contrary evidence and conclusions...


Probably because he recognizes that religion holds no ammunition in a rational playing field. So he is making an attempt to move the argument to a more obscure field in the hopes that some people will not recognize the sleight of hand.

Later



Fri Nov 23, 2007 2:38 pm
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RT2: I would rather interpret salvation in planetary terms, as the necessary transformation of our political systems into a framework of global peace which will establish a framework for human flourishing. I maintain that this interpretation is completely Biblical.


Heaven is not pie in the sky in the sweet by and by, but- well, what is it then? It has something to do with transforming this world from the brutal cesspool it often is, into something else- something to do with global peace and human flourishing. But, why is this Darwinian and how does science get us to desire something more than the cesspool we often find ourselves in? Science, it seems, doesn't tell us which direction to go: global peace or imperial cesspool. Frankly, it seems the Darwinian direction would be a matter of eliminating those who can't leave the cesspool...i.e., destroy all those who don't want global peace or believe that human flourishing is possible. Find the most effective way to eliminate the threat: identify, isolate, quarantine, and annihilate those who just don't get it.

Sacrificing one's wealth, status and power for the benefit of one's enemy, or one who is sick and bungled and sure to die...is, in terms of Natural Selection, de-selective. I guess I don't understand how taking up one's cross is adaptative.



Fri Nov 23, 2007 6:44 pm
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Dissident Heart wrote:
none of us escape eisegesis when practicing exegesis.
Eisegesis is reading in to the text what we want to see. I am actually all in favour of this, as long as it produces a contestable debate about what the text means for us. Personally, I find exegesis boring when it has degenerated into a timid scholasticism where basic concepts such as God and salvation are off limits for debate as to their real meaning. The challenge should be to accept the world view of modern atheist science and ask what Biblical resources can add to that. This is more eis than ex.
Dissident Heart wrote:
Jewish tradition of reading the Bible with two notions of God in mind: the right hand and left hand of God. The right hand reflects the wrath, vengeance, punishing, martial, and destructive side of God in the text; and the left is the forgiving, compassionate, generous, loving and healing side of God in the text. If we approach the text in hope we highlight the left hand of God; if we approach the text in fear, the right. ... Lerner argues that the right hand of God is the distortion of God's true nature: the healing, generous, transformative, loving force of the universe ...
This is an example of eisegesis which should be contested! Yes, the universe is loving, but no, wrath is not simply a distortion. Per my earlier claim that Jesus represents the cosmos as Gaia, the challenge is for us too to represent Gaia in order to understand the path of cumulative adaptation for humanity. If we can represent Gaia, we are living in love, and on a path to increased complexity. If not, we are like a ship heading for the rocks



Sun Nov 25, 2007 6:54 am
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RT2:The challenge should be to accept the world view of modern atheist science and ask what Biblical resources can add to that. This is more eis than ex.


Why should we accept the worldview of the modern atheist scientist...or any for that matter? I don't deny the value of science and its methods, but I certainly don't think their extension into entire worldviews should go without challenge. I think the Bible should challenge all of our worldviews: unsettle, disturb, confront, expose and ultimately...well, perhaps I should slow down a bit here. I am not exactly sure what the Bible is ultimately about: I think it has something to do with getting things right with God and each other. I don't think the Bible is entirely clear or consistent about what it means by God, or how to treat each other. Although I do think it's clear that we, meaning the human race, usually get it wrong: terribly wrong. This is a complicated issue, no doubt.

Quote:
RT2: Yes, the universe is loving, but no, wrath is not simply a distortion.


Rabbi Lerner's point is to challenge those who utilize the Right Hand of God in the Bible to justify their own personal and political wrath: a vengeful and punishing God establishes my obligatory vengeance and martial attitude towards those I deem fallen, outsider, sinful, etc.. The wrath of God is left to God and God alone, not to those who claim to represent divine demands on earth. The only exception that Rabbi Lerner makes is when oppressed peoples imagine a vindicator and protector in God, and they utilize the punishing hand of God as fuel for justice: God is not on the side of the terrorists and tyrants, but with those who suffer their abuse. God chooses sides, and it is with the victims of injustice. Still, their is danger in anybody utilizing God as their violent protector, even if they are deserving of it. Thus, the necessity to approach eisegesis in a spirit of hope and not fear: fearful eisegesis will find plenty of reasons to annihilate one's enemies in the text; hopeful eisegesis will see a more demanding alternative...something that doesn't destroy your enemy, but loves them instead.

Quote:
RT2: Jesus represents the cosmos as Gaia, the challenge is for us too to represent Gaia in order to understand the path of cumulative adaptation for humanity. If we can represent Gaia, we are living in love, and on a path to increased complexity.


So, Abba for Jesus is best understood as Gaia for the contemporary scientific mind? More Biblically, the Kingdom of God is the Gaia we must understand, and in this understanding, humanity will attain a cumulative adaptative niche of loving complexity? For Jesus, the Kingdom of God was largely presented in parables: extravagant dinner parties where the guest list includes anyone off the street, lots of children, healed minds recently exorcised of demons, healed bodies with new mobility, like a mustard plant that once planted is never esily removed, blind folk seeing, prisoners released...and ultimately, even crucifixions lose their power, tombs release their dead and a new kind of life is introduced to existence: a resurrected life- something radically and profoundly outside of the parameters of creation to that point. Something no one imagined possible, completely impossible, becomes the only real thing. Maybe I've lost my point....what was the point?

Quote:
RT2: So wrath can be a purely Darwinian concept: at the scale of human civilization, failure to adapt to our ecological niche inevitably means humanity will incur the wrath of a God who is loving but who must work through the laws of nature rather than against them.


If we don't observe the laws of ecological necessity, we will be punished by rising coastlines, burining forests, drought ravaged farmland, polluted air, poisoned water and contaminated soil...and all of the accompanying social and political chaos that will follow. It will be hell. In many places, it is hell already.

But, why not work to eliminate the risk in natural selective terms? I mean, why not work to get rid of the major portion of human population that cannot be sustained and will not adopt sustainable lifestyles? Seriously, why not sterilize the mass of women and men, eliminate the worst off, force the surviving few into highly restricted areas where any behavior that deviates from sustainability will result in death? If survival is the issue, then those who don't want to survive can be helped off the stage: those who get in the way can be eliminated. This is wrath in a way that perhaps you aren't willing to engage: nor is it survival of the fittest as most scientific naturalists are willing to pursue.

Why not? If the goal is some sort of cumulative human adaptative point in evolutionary terms: what keeps you/me/us from eliminating threats to its success?



Mon Nov 26, 2007 11:06 am
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Dissident Heart wrote:
Why should we accept the worldview of the modern atheist scientist...or any for that matter? ...I don't think the Bible is entirely clear or consistent about what it means by God, or how to treat each other.

Hi again. May I say, I appreciate being able to have this conversation, which is a rare pleasure. My outlook is 'atheism plus'. Science is necessary not sufficient. We should start from modern empiricism as the foundation of thought, while recognizing that (i) there is immensely more to the human spirit than can be seen in a laboratory; (ii) modern rationality has basic errors in confusing human knowledge with ultimate truth; and (iii) any spiritual speculation should be compatible with the self-consistent logic of science. Spirituality gets a bad name by promoting claims which science has proved impossible. The Bible is not consistent, but it is a human document. My claim is that a consistent salvific theology can be extracted from the dross of Biblical error.
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DH: Rabbi Lerner's point is to challenge those who utilize the Right Hand of God in the Bible to justify their own personal and political wrath: a vengeful and punishing God establishes my obligatory vengeance and martial attitude towards those I deem fallen, outsider, sinful, etc.. The wrath of God is left to God and God alone, not to those who claim to represent divine demands on earth.

Yes, this is a very good point which again illustrates why fundamentalism is anti-Christian. American fundamentalist idolatry imagines it knows the mind of God when it is simply wrong, and headed on a path to destruction. I just read this http://www.nybooks.com/articles/20813 great article in the New York Review of Books about Paul Krugman and how Ronald Wilson Reagan appealed to the most base and racist instincts of the American people. Fundamentalism is very dangerous.
Quote:
DH: fearful eisegesis will find plenty of reasons to annihilate one's enemies in the text; hopeful eisegesis will see a more demanding alternative...something that doesn't destroy your enemy, but loves them instead.

Well said. This illustrates how real security derives from love and trust rather than fear and hate. The trouble, as I noted in my previous comment about the new covenant, is that fearful eisegesis is anti-Christian, relying on ideas which Jesus specifically rejected.
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DH: So, Abba for Jesus is best understood as Gaia for the contemporary scientific mind? More Biblically, the Kingdom of God is the Gaia we must understand, and in this understanding, humanity will attain a cumulative adaptative niche of loving complexity?

Yes, this is a great summary of a possible Kingdom of God. I have a rather Johannine take on the Gospels in terms of a scientific integration of theology and gaian cosmology. The real metaphysics of Christ which supports this Darwinian theology is in the Gospel of John and the Apocalypse. So for example John's 'I am' statements: when Jesus says 'I am the true vine' he is indicating that a connection to the divine source is the basis of salvation, that we need real cosmic understanding as a basis for strategic vision and progress. I interpret this in Gaian terms, with the wholistic reality of our planet as the local instantiation of the divine source, and the sense that when humanity becomes too cancerous, people will arise who will speak powerfully on behalf of the planet.
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why not work to eliminate the risk in natural selective terms? I mean, why not work to get rid of the major portion of human population that cannot be sustained and will not adopt sustainable lifestyles?

Such a bleak option would produce a negative spiral to extinction, whereas a loving path is affordable, adaptive, necessary and immensely fruitful. Our planet can support ten billion people and increased biodiversity. I wrote a short story explaining a small part of my vision of a positive generous future, in which security derives from science and the spirit rather than the gun, at www.ascm.org.au/jgOnline/jg2007Autumn.pdf



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Posted: 5 days ago
by drewdamato

The 12th Disciple and Poor Richard's Downtown Colorado Springs

The 12th Disciple is now being stocked at Poor Richard's Bookstore in Colorado Springs. We're happy to have the title at such a historic location in Colorado Springs. If… more

Posted: 5 days ago
by 12th disciple

...

For most of us, a very big part of our lives will be a dark place, we wont realize it. We live, we eat, we have some fun, we go to school, we sleep. But it will come the time, when… more

Posted: 6 days ago
by aracelip7

Hello world!

Welcome to BookTalk.org Blogs. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!

See those links at the very top of the page? To get into your control panel for… more

Posted: 7 days ago
by drewdamato

The Road to Bloodlines

It's finally out. My vampire masterpiece Bloodlines. I came up with the idea of this book one night when I was wasted in college watching Bram Stoker's Dracula and the … more

Posted: 7 days ago
by drewdamato

Bloodlines

This is probably one of my favorite books. I wrote this as a lifelong vampire fan writing for the sake of vampire fans. I tried to stay true to the myths of vampires and not chan… more

Posted: 7 days ago
by drewdamato

There's an election this year?

The 12th Disciple's endorsement for a Presidential Candidate...we'll pass. If many haven't learned over the past several decades, centuries, and millennia, the gover… more

Posted: 13 days ago
by 12th disciple

New Books

So I've been looking for new books to read, but I haven't found any that have caught my attention lately. I want to try and venture out into a different genre, but I'… more

Posted: 19 days ago
by spazzymagee

Unethical Apple

For those who constantly gripe about jobs being sent overseas, focus your anger on this. Read about how one of the most profitable companies prided by American citizens offshores t… more

Posted: 20 days ago
by vetwriter

Role of the Individual Augmentee in the Military

An article of mine regarding the role of the Individual Augmentee in the military has been published on Blogging Authors. Read the article at:

http://bloggingauthors.com/bl… more

Posted: 22 days ago
by vetwriter

Hello world!

Welcome to BookTalk.org Blogs. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!

See those links at the very top of the page? To get into your control panel for… more

Posted: 23 days ago
by mryan2930

A Second In Time

Its January 1945 and British, Commonwealth, US and POWs from various other nationalities are finally awaiting liberation from the various camps in Eastern Europe, where some of the… more

Posted: 23 days ago
by carolemct

Hiding The Details In The Fine Print Still Works

A good friend of mine recently received a pre-paid credit card. She went to pay for a $20.00 gas purchase only to later find out that over a $70.00 hold was placed on her card for… more

Posted: 24 days ago
by life is a business

There’s No Such Thing As A Blank Canvas In Life

While watching the bube tube (TV) this morning I stumbled on a motivational speaker saying “today marks a new year, you now have a blank canvas to work from.”

After hearing th… more

Posted: 32 days ago
by life is a business

Happy New Year!

The 12th Disciple wishes you and yours a Happy New Year. Many of us hope and pray that 2012 will bring better leadership in the government of the United States, better leadership i… more

Posted: 33 days ago
by 12th disciple

Does fiction have a role to play in educating people about real events?

The Cat & The Nightingale Saga, the docu drama version of The Weekend Trippers, also tells Rifleman Ted TaylorÂ’s story but in a slightly different way. It too tells of the… more

Posted: 33 days ago
by carolemct

Out With The Woe Is Me And in With The “Look At Me”

In 2011 I published my book; in the book I outlined 9 Key Principles to Prosperity (happiness).  Like many of you, I walked through 2011 with the Woe is me attitude. When… more

Posted: 33 days ago
by life is a business

Original Thoughts, Do They Exist Anymore?

More and more these days I see people using social media to quote what someone else has said. I see people posting their favorite rappers lyrics, lines from movies and what seems t… more

Posted: 35 days ago
by life is a business

14th December. Wednesday

IÂ’m down the school for the first time today. My friend visited two weeks ago and said it was chaos. They must have heard I was back because everything is tidy and orderly today… more

Posted: 42 days ago
by heledd

...

I'm quite positive that everyone who enters this site has the same thing in mind: fear of seeing a world without books, without literature. We see it everyday, more people qui… more

Posted: 43 days ago
by aracelip7





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Lost Memory of Skin: A Novel by Russell BanksThe Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas S. KuhnHobbes: Leviathan by Thomas HobbesThe House of the Spirits - by Isabel AllendeArguably: Essays by Christopher HitchensThe Falls: A Novel (P.S.) by Joyce Carol OatesChrist in Egypt by D.M. MurdockThe Glass Bead Game: A Novel by Hermann HesseA Devil's Chaplain by Richard DawkinsThe Hero with a Thousand Faces by Joseph CampbellThe Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor DostoyevskyThe Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark TwainThe Moral Landscape by Sam HarrisThe Decameron by Giovanni BoccaccioThe Road by Cormac McCarthyThe Grand Design by Stephen HawkingThe Evolution of God by Robert WrightThe Tin Drum by Gunter GrassGood Omens by Neil GaimanPredictably Irrational by Dan ArielyThe Wind-Up Bird Chronicle: A Novel by Haruki MurakamiALONE: Orphaned on the Ocean by Richard Logan & Tere Duperrault FassbenderDon Quixote by Miguel De CervantesMusicophilia by Oliver SacksDiary of a Madman and Other Stories by Nikolai GogolThe Passion of the Western Mind by Richard TarnasThe Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le GuinThe Genius of the Beast by Howard BloomAlice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll Empire of Illusion by Chris HedgesThe Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner The Extended Phenotype by Richard DawkinsSmoke and Mirrors by Neil GaimanThe Selfish Gene by Richard DawkinsWhen Good Thinking Goes Bad by Todd C. RinioloHouse of Leaves by Mark Z. DanielewskiAmerican Gods: A Novel by Neil GaimanPrimates and Philosophers by Frans de WaalThe Enormous Room by E.E. CummingsThe Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar WildeGod Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything by Christopher HitchensThe Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco Dreams From My Father by Barack Obama Paradise Lost by John Milton Bad Money by Kevin PhillipsThe Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson BurnettGodless: How an Evangelical Preacher Became One of America's Leading Atheists by Dan BarkerThe Things They Carried by Tim O'BrienThe Limits of Power by Andrew BacevichLolita by Vladimir NabokovOrlando by Virginia Woolf On Being Certain by Robert A. Burton50 reasons people give for believing in a god by Guy P. HarrisonWalden: Or, Life in the Woods by Henry David ThoreauExile and the Kingdom by Albert CamusOur Inner Ape by Frans de WaalYour Inner Fish by Neil ShubinNo Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthyThe Age of American Unreason by Susan JacobyTen Theories of Human Nature by Leslie Stevenson & David HabermanHeart of Darkness by Joseph ConradThe Stuff of Thought by Stephen PinkerA Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled HosseiniThe Lucifer Effect by Philip ZimbardoResponsibility and Judgment by Hannah ArendtInterventions by Noam ChomskyGodless in America by George A. RickerReligious Expression and the American Constitution by Franklyn S. HaimanDeep Economy by Phil McKibbenThe God Delusion by Richard DawkinsThe Third Chimpanzee by Jared DiamondThe Woman in the Dunes by Abe KoboEvolution vs. Creationism by Eugenie C. ScottThe Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael PollanI, Claudius by Robert GravesBreaking The Spell by Daniel C. DennettA Peace to End All Peace by David FromkinThe Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey NiffeneggerThe End of Faith by Sam HarrisEnder's Game by Orson Scott CardThe Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark HaddonValue and Virtue in a Godless Universe by Erik J. WielenbergThe March by E. L DoctorowThe Ethical Brain by Michael GazzanigaFreethinkers: A History of American Secularism by Susan JacobyCollapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed by Jared DiamondThe Battle for God by Karen ArmstrongThe Future of Life by Edward O. WilsonWhat is Good? by A. C. GraylingCivilization and Its Enemies by Lee HarrisPale Blue Dot by Carl SaganHow We Believe: Science, Skepticism, and the Search for God by Michael ShermerLooking for Spinoza by Antonio DamasioLies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them by Al FrankenThe Red Queen by Matt RidleyThe Blank Slate by Stephen PinkerUnweaving the Rainbow by Richard DawkinsAtheism: A Reader edited by S.T. JoshiGlobal Brain by Howard BloomThe Lucifer Principle by Howard BloomGuns, Germs and Steel by Jared DiamondThe Demon-Haunted World by Carl SaganBury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee BrownFuture Shock by Alvin Toffler

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