Sophie's World

Sophie's World

by Garder, Jostien

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Sophie's World (Sofies verden in the original Norwegian) is a novel by Jostein Gaarder, published in 1991. It was originally written in Norwegian, but has since been translated into English (1995) and at least 53 other languages. It sold over 30 million copies and is one of the most successful Norwegian novels outside Norway.
Mostly consisting of dialogues between Sophie Amundsen and a mysterious man named Alberto Knox, interwoven with an increasingly bizarre and mysterious plot, Sophie's World acts as both a novel and a basic guide to philosophy.

Bart D. Ehrman

 God's Problem

by Bart D. Ehrman

 

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Bart D. Ehrman is an American New Testament scholar, currently the James A. Gray Distinguished Professor of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Ehrman writes about the early Christians, using the term "proto-orthodox" to describe the Christian traditions that would later be defined as orthodox. He describes first- and second-century Christians as not yet having a unified, orthodox tradition. He is the author of a number of books in this area, including Misquoting Jesus (2005), God's Problem (2008), and Jesus, Interrupted (2009)

Darwin's Dangerous Idea

Darwin's Dangerous Idea

by Deniel Dennett

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Darwin's Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life (1995) is a book by Daniel Dennett which argues that Darwinian processes are the central organizing force that gives rise to complexity. Dennett asserts that natural selection is a blind and algorithmic process which is sufficiently powerful to account for the evolution of life including the complexities of human minds and societies. These assertions have generated a great deal of debate and discussion in the general public. The book was a finalist for the 1995 National Book Award in non-fiction.

Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon

Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon

by  Daniel Dennett

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Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon is a 2006 book by the American philosopher Daniel Dennett, which argues for a scientific analysis of religion in order to predict the future of this phenomenon. Dennett implies that the spell he hopes to break is not religious belief itself, but the conviction that religion is off-limits to scientific inquiry.

Unweaving the Rainbow

Unweaving the Rainbow

by Richard Dawkins

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Unweaving the Rainbow (subtitled "Science, Delusion and the Appetite for Wonder") is a 1998 book by Richard Dawkins, discussing the relationship between science and the arts from the perspective of a scientist.

Dawkins addresses the misperception that science and art are at odds. Driven by the responses to his books The Selfish Gene and The Blind Watchmaker wherein readers resented his naturalistic world view, seeing it as depriving life of meaning, Dawkins felt the need to explain that, as a scientist, he saw the world as full of wonders and a source of pleasure. This pleasure was not in spite of, but rather because he does not assume as cause the inexplicable actions of a deity but rather the understandable laws of nature.

The Improbability of God

The Improbability of God

by Richard Dawkins

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The Selfish Gene is a book on evolution by Richard Dawkins, published in 1976. It builds upon the principal theory of George C. Williams's first book Adaptation and Natural Selection. Dawkins coined the term "selfish gene" as a way of expressing the gene-centred view of evolution as opposed to the view focused on the organism. From the gene-centred view follows that the more two individuals are genetically related, the more sense (at the level of the genes) it makes for them to behave selflessly. Therefore the concept is especially good at explaining many forms of altruism, regardless of a common misuse of the term along the lines of a selfishness gene.

The God Delusion

The God Delusion

by Richard Dawkins

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The God Delusion is a 2006 bestselling non-fiction book by British biologist Richard Dawkins, professorial fellow of New College, Oxford, and inaugural holder of the Charles Simonyi Chair for the Public Understanding of Science at the University of Oxford.
In The God Delusion, Dawkins contends that a supernatural creator almost certainly does not exist and that belief in a personal god qualifies as a delusion, which he defines as a persistent false belief held in the face of strong contradictory evidence. He is sympathetic to Robert Pirsig's statement in Lila that "when one person suffers from a delusion it is called insanity. When many people suffer from a delusion it is called religion

The Ancestor's Tale

The Ancestor's Tale

by Richard Dawkins

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The Ancestor's Tale (subtitled A Pilgrimage to the Dawn of Life) is a 2004 popular science book by Richard Dawkins, with contributions from Dawkins' research assistant Yan Wong. It follows the path of humans backwards through evolutionary history, meeting humanity's cousins as they converge on common ancestors. The book was nominated for the 2005 Aventis Prize for Science Books.

The Blind Watchmaker

The Blind Watchmaker

by Richard Dawkins

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The Blind Watchmaker is a 1986 book by Richard Dawkins in which he presents an explanation of, and argument for, the theory of evolution by means of natural selection. He also presents arguments to refute certain criticisms made on his previous book, The Selfish Gene. (Both books are intended to popularise the gene-centric view of evolution.)

A Devil's Chaplain

A Devil's Chaplain

by Richard Dawkins

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A Devil's Chaplain, subtitled Reflections on Hope, Lies, Science, and Love is a 2003 book of selected essays and other writings by Richard Dawkins. Published five years after his previous book Unweaving the Rainbow, it contains 32 essays covering subjects including pseudoscience, genetic determinism, memetics, terrorism, religion and creationism. A section of the book is devoted to Dawkins' late adversary Stephen Jay Gould.

The book's title is a reference to a quotation of Charles Darwin, made in reference to Darwin's lack of belief in how "a perfect world" was designed by God: "What a book a devil's chaplain might write on the clumsy, wasteful, blundering low and horridly cruel works of nature!

The Descent of Man

The Descent of Man
by Charles Drawin

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The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex is a book on evolutionary theory by English naturalist Charles Darwin, first published in 1871. It was Darwin's second great book on evolutionary theory, following his 1859 work, On The Origin of Species. In The Descent of Man, Darwin applies evolutionary theory to human evolution, and details his theory of sexual selection. The book discusses many related issues, including evolutionary psychology, evolutionary ethics, differences between human races, differences between sexes, the superiority of men to women, and the relevance of the evolutionary theory to society.

The Origin Of Species 

By Charles Darwin

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This is the book that revolutionized the natural sciences and every literary, philosophical and religious thinker who followed. Darwin's theory of evolution and the descent of man remains as controversial and influential today as when it was published over a century ago.

Science Without Bounds

  

Science Without Bounds

by Art D'Adamo

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As the years went by, a world view coalesced in his mind, a view which embraces science's logic and dedication to truth with religion's quest  for ultimate answers.
   Art D'Adamo compares New York City to truth. Imagine, he says, there are official keepers of the "Truth" about New York City. These people know New York City by the books they've read. They've selected a list of books which are "true" about New York and harmonized disagreement among the books by various means.
   But anyone who actually travels to New York City will see things which do not agree with the books, and the keepers of the "truth" are likely to be intolerant of this disagreement.
   In Science Without Bounds, Art D'Adamo recounts his attempts to find the real New York City—the place where reason and ultimate truth reside in harmony. Readers of Gary Zukav or Lynne McTaggart are likely to appreciate this book, as well as the integrity of Art D'Adamo's search for truth.
   Perhaps his quest will help you. For that reason he has posted his book online.

Atheism As a Positive Social Force

By Raymond W. Converse

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Editorialreviews

We live in a world which still believes, and lives as if, God exists and directs the workings of the unive. This book is an attempt to set forth the major lines of philosophical argument that support the position of atheism. Along the way, it will also set forth the major philosophical arguments of those who rely upon religion as the support of their belief in the existence of God. As the two counter positions are presented, it is hoped that the contrast between them will open the doors to debate. Recent disasters have raised new questions concerning the role of religion in society. The author does not oppose religion per se; he outlines the growth of religion from a modern historical perspective and shows how atheism can be applied as a positive alternative in facing everyday problems.

Dracula

Dracula (Barnes & Noble Classics Series)

By Bram Stoker, Brooke Allen

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From Brooke Allen's Introduction to Dracula
Upon its publication in 1897, Bram Stoker's Dracula was seen as nothing more than a slightly cheesy thriller, if an unusually successful one. Most such "shilling shockers" were forgotten within a year or two. But this one was different: Over the course of the next century Count Dracula, the aristocratic vampire, left his natural habitat between the pages of a book and insinuated himself into the world's consciousness as few other fictional characters haveever done. Now, more than a hundred years after his appearance in print, Dracula has shed the status of "fictional character" altogether and has become an authentic modern myth.
Why has this odd and terrifying figure exerted such a hold on our collective imagination? Why does the image of the vampire both attract and repel, in apparently equal measure? If, as has been argued, Dracula owes its success to its reflection of specific anxieties within the culture, why then has its power continued unabated throughout more than a century of unprecedented social change? Late-Victorian anxieties and concerns were rather different from our own, yet the lure of the vampire and the persistence of his image seem as strong as ever.
Dracula's durability may in part be due to Tod Browning's 1931 film, for when most people think of the character, it is Bela Lugosi's portrayal that springs to mind. But in spite of memorable performances by Lugosi and by Dwight Frye as Renfield, the film is awkward and clunky, even laughable in parts; in terms of shocking, terrible, and gorgeous images, it cannot compare with the novel that inspired it. It is hard to believe that, on its own, it would have created such an indelible impact.
Once Dracula became lodged in the popular imagination, it began to accrue ever-new layers of meaning and topicality. The novel has provided rich material for every fad and fancy of twentieth-century exegesis. It has been deconstructed by critics of the Freudian, feminist, queer theory, and Marxist persuasions, and has had something significant to offer each of these fields. Today, in the age of AIDS, the exchange of blood has taken on a new meaning, and Dracula has taken on a new significance in its turn. For post-Victorian readers, it has been a little too easy to impose a pat "Freudian" reading on the novel, in which the vampire represents deviant, dangerous sexuality, while the vampire-hunters stand for sexual repression in the form of bourgeois marriage and overly spiritualized relationships. This interpretation certainly contains a large element of truth, but the novel's themes are much richer and more complex than such a reading might suggest.
Readers coming to Dracula for the first time should try to peel away the layers of preconception that they can hardly help bringing to the novel. We should try to forget Bela Lugosi; we should try to forget easy (and anachronistic) Freudian cliches; we should put out of our minds all our received twentieth- and twenty-first-century notions of friendship and love, both heterosexual and homosexual. If we let the novel stand on its own, just as it appeared to Bram Stoker's contemporaries in the last years of the Victorian era, what exactly do we find?