I think we need a page entitled, "Yea for Atheism!"Just a thought.

I personally find the Hitchens books to be rather appealing for a variety of reasons. First, I don't tire much of the topic. Second, it is rated highly, fits our mission, and would probably result in lengthy and heated discussions.

This book sounds more appealing the previous suggestions.The Great Transformation: The Beginning of Our Religious Traditionsby Karen Armstrong www.amazon.com/Great-Tran...016&sr=1-1Quote:From Publishers WeeklyStarred Review. Having already recounted "a history of God," the redoubtable Armstrong here narrates the evolution of the religious traditions of the world from their births to their maturity. In her typical magisterial fashion, she chronicles these tales in dazzling prose with remarkable depth and judicious breadth. Taking the Axial Age, which spans roughly 900 B.C.E. to 200 B.C.E., as her focal point, Armstrong examines the ways that specific religious traditions from Buddhism and Confucianism to Taoism and Judaism responded to the various cultural forces they faced during this period. Overall, Armstrong observes, violence, political disruption and religious intolerance dominated Axial Age societies, so Axial religions responded by exalting compassion, love and justice over selfishness and hatred. Thus, the central Buddhist and Jain practice of ahimsa, doing no harm, developed in India in reaction to the self-centeredness of Hindu ritual, and Hebrew prophets such as Amos proclaimed that justice and mercy toward neighbors offered the only correct way of walking with God. Accounts of the world's religions often present them as discrete entities developing apart from each other in a vacuum. Armstrong's magnificent accomplishment offers us an account of a violent time much like ours, when religious impulses in various locations developed practices of justice and love.

Quote:Now, I could overlook all those factors if I believed that he wrote the best book, by far, about a subject I was eager to learn more about. However, that isn't the case here.That is certainly a very good reason for not wanting to read a book. As mentioned before, you can get the book used or borrow a copy so as to not contribute financially to Hitchens if that is a problem. Concern about poor writing style and incoherence certainly warrants concern, but from what I keep reading, most people love Hitchens writing style even when they completely disagree with what he is writing about.

Is it too late for a suggestion? And is this suggestion in the right thread? With "God Is Not Great" on the nominations, does it even matter?The De-moralization Of Society: From Victorian Virtues to Modern Values by Gertrude HimmelfarbFrom Library JournalHimmelfarb, professor emeritus of history at CUNY and the author of several works on Victorian England, including most recently Poverty and Compassion: The Moral Imagination of the Late Victorians (LJ 7/91), here contrasts the Victorian "virtues" of respectability, self-help, orderliness, cleanliness, and obedience with today's vague concept of "values." The author debunks the popular perception of Victorians as repressed and materialistic. Instead, according to Himmelfarb, their "manners and morals" created a society that emphasized a strong family life for all classes and gave rise to a prosperous economy and the early feminist and social service movements. Furthermore, the influence of these virtues caused the incidence of illegitimate births and violent crimes to drop significantly and remain low until the 1960s.I found the book intriguing in part because the opening chapter traces the origin of the modern moralitic interpretation of values to a 1983 PM election in England. It suggests a historical component to the distinction between "virtues" and "values", and presumably the book will include some discussion on how each concept effects the way in which we put moral discourse into practice.

Which 3 books would you all like to see on this poll?

Christianity: The belief that a cosmic Jewish Zombie who was his own father can make you live forever if you symbolically eat his flesh and telepathically tell him you accept him as your master, so he can remove an evil force from your soul that is present in humanity because a rib-woman was convinced by a talking snake to eat from a magical tree.

Yeah, christianity makes sense.

1st Choice: After the Death of God (Insurrections: Critical Studies in Religion, Politics, and Culture) by Gianni Vattimo and John Caputo. Two top-notch philosophers from both sides of the Atlantic discussing religion, politics and culture within a postmodern context, arriving at something akin to a post-secular religionless religion...among other things. I think it wil be a welcome departure from the usual either/or bifurcated debate...a challenge for all sides. 2nd Choice: God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything by Christopher HitchensA premiere example of the current either/or bifurcated debate...will undoubtedly be preaching to the choir at Booktalk; but will be preaching better than most we've read to date.3rd Choice: On Bullshit and On Truth by HG FrankfurtThese two are currently part of our Non-Fiction selections, but I think they would be more appropriately lined up as Freethinker texts. Both texts are attempts at clarifying what it means to think clearly, speak truthfully and how to sharpen our BS detectors...they get to the heart of Freethinking. Edited by: Dissident Heart at: 6/12/07 3:20 pm

Thanks to those that added additional comments about the book suggestions. I'm going to put the poll up tonight or tomorrow. Please comment on the current book suggestions if you would like to influence the choices for the upcoming poll. Thank you.

Christianity: The belief that a cosmic Jewish Zombie who was his own father can make you live forever if you symbolically eat his flesh and telepathically tell him you accept him as your master, so he can remove an evil force from your soul that is present in humanity because a rib-woman was convinced by a talking snake to eat from a magical tree.

Yeah, christianity makes sense.

I've now read and considered every suggestion and comment in this thread and will add some words before I create the new poll. First of all I want to thank those of you that gave quality feedback on other peoples suggestions. This seems to be the most valuable means of narrowing down the pool of suggestions to a reasonable number for the polls.

I am ignoring my own book suggestions and preferences as this seems fair right now. With everything going on in my personal life I am simply not as active as many of you guys. So my opinions on book choices are going to hold less weight.I do, however, reserve the right to veto certain book suggestions. When a book doesn't seem to qualify as either a freethinker selection or, more generally, a booktalk selection I will have to eliminate it as an option for our polls. And when a suggestion is made by one member, but not a single other member offers either positive or negative feedback on it I am left to assume that suggestion doesn't have much of a chance at being a successful choice for our polls or official readings. This is why feedback is such an essential part of this book selection process.