| atheism.davidrand.ca: Living Without Religion | |
|---|---|
| > Table of Contents | |
| > > Repertory | en français |
| Previous page | Next page |
| |
|
|
Books:
See also:
Western Atheism
A Short History
THROWER, James
Keywords: atheism
Prometheus Books, Amherst, NY, USA
2000
ISBN: 1-57392-756-2
What Evolution Is
MAYR, Ernst
Keywords: evolution science
Basic Books, Perseus Books Group
2001
Foreword by Jared Diamond
A Few Quotes
"It is sometimes claimed that evolution, by producing order, is in conflict with the 'law of entropy' of physics, according to which evolutionary change should produce an increase of disorder. Actually there is no conflict, because the law of entropy is valid only for closed systems, whereas the evolution of a species of organisms takes place in an open system in which organisms can reduce entropy at the expense of the environment and the sun supplies a continuing input of energy."
p. 8
"...the publication of Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species on the 24th of November in 1859 ... represents perhaps the greatest intellectual revolution experienced by mankind. It challenged not only the belief in the constancy (and recency) of the world, but also the cause of the remarkable adaptation of organisms and, most shockingly, the uniqueness of man in the living world. But Darwin did far more than postulate evolution (and present overwhelming evidence for its occurrence); he also proposed an explanation for evolution that did not rely on an supernatural powers or forces. He explained evolution naturally, that is, by using phenomena and processes that everybody could daily observe in nature. ... No wonder the Origin caused such turmoil. It almost single-handedly effected the secularization of science."
p. 9
"It is very questionable whether the term 'evolutionary theory' should be used any longer. That evolution has occurred and takes place all the time is a fact so overwhelmingly established that is has become irrational to call it a theory."
p. 264
"Evolutionary thought ... is indispensable for most human activities. ... The principal reason why scientists study evolution is to further our understanding of this phenomenon that affects every aspect of the living world. But evolutionary studies have also made many important contributions to human welfare. Evolutionary thinking has enormously enriched almost all other branches of biology."
p. 267
Book:
A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom
Who Wrote the New Testament?
The Making of the Christian Myth
MACK, Burton L.
Keywords: Christianity history
HarperCollins
1995
Exposes how the Gospels are fictional mythologies created by different communities for various purposes and are only distantly related to the actual historical Jesus.
Why I Am Not a Muslim
WARRAQ, Ibn
Keywords: history Islam
Prometheus Books, Amherst, NY, USA
1995
Islam is Fundamentalist by Nature
This book is an accusation. Warraq accuses Islam of being a most intransigeant enemy of free thought and human freedom. He denounces islamic doctrines as entirely incompatible with human rights, and especially incompatible with the rights of women. In Warraq's opinion, there is no real distinction between mainstream Islam and fundamentalist Islam.
He also accuses western intellectuals of extreme naïveté, or worse, cowardice: by limiting their analysis of religion to criticism of Christianity (anti-clericalism in the 19th century), or for fear of being accused of ethocentrism (in the 20th), they have turned a blind eye to the essentially totalitarian nature of Islam, a monotheism which shares the faults of the Judeo-Christian tradition from which it grew, while exacerbating the intolerance of that tradition.
Warraq dedicates his book to the memory of Professor Hitoshi Igarashi, Japanese translator of Salman Rushdie's Satanic Verses, stabbed to death on July 11, 1991 at the University of Tsukuba.
Book:
Book:
Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast
| XHTML CSS |