Atheism Audiobooks | Religion & Spirituality

From Bacteria to Bach and Back: The Evolution of Minds

What is human consciousness and how is it possible? This question fascinates thinking people from poets and painters to physicists, psychologists, and philosophers. From Bacteria to Bach and Back is Daniel C. Dennett's brilliant answer, extending perspectives from his earlier work in surprising directions, exploring the deep interactions of evolution, brains, and human culture. Part philosophical whodunit, part bold scientific conjecture, this landmark work enlarges themes that have sustained Dennett's legendary career at the forefront of philosophical thought. In his inimitable style?laced with wit and arresting thought experiments?Dennett shows how culture enables reflection by installing a bounty of thinking tools, or memes, in our brains. Language, itself composed of memes, turbocharged this interplay. The result, a mind that can comprehend the questions it poses, emerges from a process of cultural evolution. An agenda-setting book for a new generation of philosophers and other researchers, From Bacteria to Bach and Back will delight and entertain anyone who hopes to understand human creativity in all its wondrous applications.

Daniel C. Dennett (Author), Tom Perkins (Narrator)

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The Atheist Muslim: A Journey from Religion to Reason

In much of the Muslim world, religion is the central foundation upon which family, community, morality, and identity are built. The inextricable embedment of religion in Muslim culture has forced a new generation of non-believing Muslims to face the heavy costs of abandoning their parents' religion: disowned by their families, marginalized from their communities, imprisoned, or even sentenced to death by their governments. Struggling to reconcile the Muslim society he was living in as a scientist and physician and the religion he was being raised in, Ali A. Rizvi eventually loses his faith. Discovering that he is not alone, he moves to North America and promises to use his new freedom of speech to represent the voices that are usually quashed before reaching the mainstream media-the Atheist Muslim. The Atheist Muslim recounts the journey that allows Rizvi to criticize Islam-as one should be able to criticize any set of ideas-without demonizing his entire people. Emotionally and intellectually compelling, his personal story outlines the challenges of modern Islam and the factors that could help lead it toward a substantive, progressive reformation.

Ali A. Rizvi (Author), Neil Shah (Narrator)

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A Brief Candle in the Dark: My Life in Science

In this hugely entertaining sequel to the New York Times bestselling memoir An Appetite for Wonder, Richard Dawkins delves deeply into his intellectual life spent kick-starting new conversations about science, culture, and religion and writing yet another of the most audacious and widely read books of the twentieth century—The God Delusion. Called “one of the best nonfiction writers alive today” (Stephen Pinker) and a “prize-fighter” (Nature), Richard Dawkins cheerfully, mischievously, looks back on a lifetime of tireless intellectual adventure and engagement. Exploring the halls of intellectual inquiry and stardom he encountered after the publication of his seminal work, The Selfish Gene; affectionately lampooning the world of academia, publishing, and television; and studding the pages with funny stories about the great men and women he’s known, Dawkins offers a candid look at the events and ideas that encouraged him to shift his attention to the intersection of culture, religion, and science. He also invites the reader to look more closely at the brilliant succession of ten influential books that grew naturally out of his busy life, highlighting the ideas that connect them and excavating their origins. On the publication of his tenth book, the smash hit, The God Delusion, a “resounding trumpet blast for truth” (Matt Ridley), Richard Dawkins was catapulted from mere intellectual stardom into a circle of celebrity thinkers dubbed, “The New Atheists”—including Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris, and Daniel Dennett. Throughout A Brief Candle in the Dark, Dawkins shares with us his infectious sense of wonder at the natural world, his enjoyment of the absurdities of human interaction, and his bracing awareness of life’s brevity: all of which have made a deep imprint on our culture. ***Please contact member services for additional documents***

Richard Dawkins (Author), Richard Dawkins (Narrator)

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Positive Humanism: A Primer

Positive humanism is an applied secular humanistic philosophy based on the scientific findings of positive psychology that focuses on personal, professional, and societal flourishing. As an applied philosophy its focus is on ideas that lead to increased well-being. As a secular humanistic philosophy, there are no appeals to the supernatural, the magical, or the mystical. The philosophy is founded on reason and critical thinking. The philosophy is science-based, meaning it is void of the unsupported and/or exaggerated claims and the constant confusing of correlation with causality often found in the self-help genre. The philosophy is grounded in the theories of positive psychology, which is the study of the positive side of the mental health spectrum--human flourishing.

Bo Bennett Phd, Bo Bennett, Ph.D., Bo Bennett, Phd (Author), Bo Bennett Phd, Bo Bennett, Ph.D., Bo Bennett, Phd (Narrator)

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Life Beyond Belief: A Preacher's Deconversion

What would lead the minister of Canada’s largest mainline Protestant congregation, a syndicated religion columnist, broadcaster and author of Christian devotional material, to change his mind and become an atheist? In Life Beyond Belief this ontime Christian apologist offers not only a testimony of what led him to leave the pulpit but a thoughtful and analytical compendium of the inconsistences and delusions of religion. Far from being a gloomy tale, however, this is a story of how deconversion from faith can transform a life in ways that are no less radical and joyful as conversion to faith. Life Beyon Belief is an erudite manifesto of reason that will challenge believers and non-believers alike.

Bob Ripley (Author), Bob Ripley (Narrator)

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A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To Heaven

Corey Taylor has seen a lot of unbelievable things. The Grammy Award-winning singer of Slipknot and Stone Sour's curiosity has drawn him into situations that would've sent most people screaming scared and running for the hills. Corey's ballsy enough to go into the darkness and deal with the consequences though. As a result, he's seen ghosts up close and personal, whether it be while combing through an abandoned house in his native Iowa as a child or recording an album in the fabled Houdini Hollywood Hills mansion. He's also got the memories (and scars) to prove it. For some reason, he can't seem to shake these spectral stories, and that brings us to this little tome right here... At the same time, being an erudite, tattooed, modern Renaissance Man, he never bought into the whole God thing. Simply put, he's seen ghosts, but he hasn't seen Jesus. Corey especially can't find a reason why people do the insane things they do in HIS name. That's where everything really gets interesting. His second book, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Heaven, compiles Corey's most intimate, incredible, and insane moments with the supernatural. His memories are as vivid as they are vicious. As he recounts these stories, he questions the validity of religious belief systems and two-thousand-year-old dogma. As always his rapid-fire writing, razor sharp sense of humour, unbridled honesty, and cosy anecdotes make quite the case for his point. You might end up believing him or not. That's up to you, of course. Either way, you're in for a hell of ride. The outrageous sequel to Corey Taylor's Seven Deadly Sins is now available as an audiobook.

Corey Taylor (Author), Corey Taylor (Narrator)

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An Atheist's History of Belief: Understanding Our Most Extraordinary Invention

What first prompted prehistoric man, sheltering in the shadows of deep caves, to call upon the realm of the spirits? And why has belief thrived ever since, leading us to invent heaven and hell, sin and redemption, and above all, gods? Religion reflects our deepest hopes and fears; whether you are a believer or, like Matthew Kneale, a non-believer who admires mankind's capacity to create and to imagine, it has shaped our world. And as our dreams and nightmares have changed over the millennia, so have our beliefs - from shamans to Aztec priests, from Buddhists to Christians: the gods we created have evolved with us. Belief is humanity's most epic invention. It has always been our closest companion and greatest consolation. To understand it is to better understand ourselves.

Matthew Kneale (Author), Daniel Weyman (Narrator)

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An Appetite for Wonder: The Making of a Scientist

In his first memoir, Richard Dawkins shares a rare view into his early life, his intellectual awakening at Oxford, and his path to writing The Selfish Gene. He paints a vivid picture of his idyllic childhood in colonial Africa, and later at boarding school,where he began his career as a skeptic. Arriving at Oxford in 1959, Dawkins began to study zoology and was introduced to some of the university's legendary mentors as well as its tutorial system. It's to this unique educational system that Dawkins credits his awakening.In 1973, provoked by the dominance of group selection theory and inspired by the work of William Hamilton, Robert Trivers, and John Maynard Smith, he began to write a book he called, jokingly, "my bestseller." It was, of course, The Selfish Gene. This is an intimate memoir of the childhood and intellectual development of the evolutionary biologist and world-famous atheist and how he came to write what is widely held to be one of the most important books of the twentieth century. Richard Dawkins, voted Prospect magazine's #1 World Thinker, has previously published 11 books, all still in print, including The Selfish Gene, the blockbuster bestseller The God Delusion, and his magnum opus The Ancestor's Tale. Dawkins is a fellow of both the Royal Society and the Royal Society of Literature. He was the inaugural holder of the Simonyi Chair for the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford University and is the recipient of numerous honorary degrees and awards, including the International Cosmos Prize of Japan.

Richard Dawkins (Author), Lalla Ward, Richard Dawkins (Narrator)

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An Appetite For Wonder: The Making of a Scientist

Born to parents who were enthusiastic naturalists, and linked through his wider family to a clutch of accomplished scientists, Richard Dawkins was bound to have biology in his genes. But what were the influences that shaped his life and intellectual development? And who inspired him to become the pioneering scientist and public thinker now famous (and infamous to some) around the world? In An Appetite for Wonder we join him on a personal journey back to an enchanting childhood in colonial Africa. There the exotic natural world was his constant companion. Boarding school in England at the age of eight, and, later, public school at Oundle introduce Dawkins, and the reader, to strange rules and eccentric schoolmasters, vividly described with both humorous affection and some reservation. An initial fervent attachment to Church of England religion soon gives way to disaffection and, later, teenage rebellion. Early signs of a preference for music, poetry and reading over practical matters become apparent as he recalls the opportunities that entered his small world. Oxford, however, is the catalyst to his life. Vigorous debate in the dynamic Zoology Department unleashes his innate intellectual curiosity, and inspirational mentors together with his own creative thinking ignite the spark that results in his radical new vision of Darwinism, The Selfish Gene. From innocent child to charismatic world-famous scientist, Richard Dawkins paints a colourful, richly textured canvas of his early life. Honest self-reflection and witty anecdotes are interspersed with touching reminiscences of his family and friends, literature, poetry and songs. We are finally able to understand the private influences that shaped the public man who, more than anyone else in his generation, explained our own origins.

Richard Dawkins (Author), Lalla Ward, Richard Dawkins (Narrator)

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Divinity of Doubt

Vincent Bugliosi turns his critical eye on both religious believers and the atheists who reflexively oppose them. Here he indicts both camps, and argues why agnosticism is the most responsible position to take with regard to such eternal questions as the existence of God. Bugliosi examines such developments as the decline of belief in evolution and the disturbing vengefulness of God as depicted in the Old Testament. He also questions that an all-powerful and all-knowing creator would have so badly miscalculated free will, leaving human beings to persecute and murder their fellow human beings. Vincent Bugliosi sets a new course - a middle path that urges us to recognize the limits of what we know, and what we cannot know about the ineffable mysteries of existence.

Vincent Bugliosi (Author), Mel Foster (Narrator)

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Patience with God: Faith for People Who Don't Like Religion (or Atheism)

Frank Schaeffer has a problem with Dawkins, Hitchens, Harris, Dennett, and the rest of the New Atheists-the self-anointed "Brights." He also has a problem with the Rick Warrens and Tim LaHayes of the world. The problem is that he doesn't see much of a difference between the two camps. As Schaeffer puts it, they "often share the same fallacy: truth claims that reek of false certainties. I believe that there is an alternative that actually matches the way life is lived rather than how we usually talk about belief." Sparing no one and nothing, including himself and his fiery evangelical past, and invoking subtleties too easily ignored by the pontificators, Schaeffer adds much-needed nuance to the conversation. "My writing has smoked out so many individuals who seem to be thinking about the same questions. I hope that this book will provide a meeting place for us, the scattered refugees of what I'll call The Church of Hopeful Uncertainty."

Frank Schaeffer (Author), Frank Schaeffer (Narrator)

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The Atheist's Guide to Christmas

Read by Simon Le Bon, Derren Brown, Charlie Brooker, Richard Dawkins, Ben Goldacre, Mitch Benn and more!In this download there are 38 atheist celebrities, comedians, scientists and writers give their funny and serious tips for enjoying the Christmas season.When the Atheist Bus Campaign was first launched, over £150,000, was raised in four days - enough to place the advert 'There's probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life' on 800 UK buses in January 2009. Now dozens of atheist writers, comedians and scientists are joining together to raise money for a very different cause.The Atheist's Guide to Christmas is a funny, thoughtful handbook all about enjoying Christmas, from 42 of the world's most entertaining atheists. It features everything from an atheist Christmas miracle to a guide to the best Christmas pop hits, and contributors include Richard Dawkins, Charlie Brooker, Derren Brown, Ben Goldacre, Jenny Colgan, David Baddiel, Simon Singh, AC Grayling, Brian Cox and Richard Herring.

Ariane Sherine, Richard Dawkins, Simon Le Bon (Author), , Derren Brown, Herbguister Finklebottom, Richard Dawkins, Simon Le Bon (Narrator)

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Atheism Audiobooks in Religion & Spirituality