Personally, I don’t agree with the “Don’t bless me if I sneeze” item, but I like “Jesus was 96% chimp.”

I just wondered if there is any update on the status of your 2Q book regarding whether you will decided to have it published.

And secondly I noticed on your site that you have some Amazon ads that link to various books. I just wondered if you have any recommendations for good books that examine religion and/or atheism with regards to either science or philosophy. I’ve heard of the big ones from Dawkins, Hitchens, & Harris. Just wondered if you had any other favorites.

Thank you for asking about 2Q! Philosopher Richard Carrier took a brief look at it and, in addition to giving me valuable textual criticism, recommended that I find a university philosophy professor to look it over before it is submitted to a publisher. I am currently working on a second draft, based on his comments and those I have received from this site’s readers, and hope to have it done next month. I’ve been trying to find a university philosopher to give me assistance after the new draft is ready, but am finding the search difficult (university folks tend to be quite busy). If anyone out there knows a professor that might be of assistance, I’d appreciate your pointing him or her in my direction!

The Amazon ads on my site are generated by Amazon’s software, so the books don’t reflect my personal recommendations. I tend to recommend that, once you have a basic grounding in atheist philosophy, you should concentrate on pro-religion material if you want to get a good atheistic education. Frankly, you’re going to find the best pro-religion arguments in pro-religion books, and if you can quantify why you disagree with these arguments, you will be much better off than if you just read anti-religion writings (you’ll also generally get a better understanding of what religious people really believe).

If you’re interested in Christianity, I’d recommend starting with books by Lee Strobel. He collects arguments for Christianity and creationism from a variety of sources and collects them as a reporter would. Read through the books. If you come upon a point you don’t know how to refute, turn to the Internet — refutations of pretty much everything he brings up are readily available. But do try and think through counter arguments on your own first. It’s good exercise.

I would also recommend the Stand to Reason religious apologist podcast. Greg Koukl is an avengelical Christian, but he is a consistent thinker, does his best to be philosophically rigorous, and will admit when he is wrong. Remember, you don’t have to disagree with everything he says, just make sure you can put into words why you agree or disagree. This show is also valuable for intellectually rigorous atheists because atheists frequently call in to challenge Koukl and you can see how well their arguments work. (Unfortunately, the call-in atheists are pretty much always terrible debaters or don’t know how to respond to a challenge to their statements — there’s a lot to learn from them).

Anyway, those are my feelings regarding atheistic reading. Let me know if you’d rather I gave you some more pro-atheist suggestions, but I really think this is the way to go.

Thanks for the swift reply!

It went rather well, actually. Thanks for giving me that different perspective.

Also, I was wondering if you’d be interested in helping me in any way direct some traffic to my blog. It’s an amateur blog, but I am hoping to someday make it a large forum for discussion. It’s at theethicalatheist.blogspot.com

Glad to give you a mention!

Just wanted to thank you for your intelligent website about religion (and lack thereof.) I’m an 18 year old Atheist on my way to college next year trying to broaden my world views before I move away next year (Bay Area to Wisconsin is a big change :P) and I figured that there were bound to be intelligent websites about this kind of thing on the internet somewhere. I’ve had the Atheist/Agnostic section of StumbleUpon checked recently and all of the other pages I’ve seen are full of angry condemnations about how the other side is wasting their lives believing in false information, always accompanied by strings of insults from both sides in the comments. After getting linked to you “You are now an atheist” page I was afraid I’d ended up at another one. After entering your actual website I was pleasantly surprised to find the first intelligent religious website I’d seen. However, I already understand and agree with almost everything you’ve said, although you’re much more patient than I’m usually able to be, something I’m doing my best to work on. I was wondering if there were any websites that you know of with similar content that argue the opposite viewpoint? I find arguments from the other side to be much more interesting and intellectually stimulating. Once again, I appreciate that you keep this website up and represent atheists in a positive light. Good luck with the website and everything else.

I agree that it’s very valuable (and fun!) to read material from a viewpoint other than my own. I would go so far as to say that it’s impossible to investigate your own beliefs with rigor without doing this.

There is a lot of good, neutral, information on a wide variety of religions at www.religioustolerance.org. It’s a good resource for non-blathering religious info.

For pro-Christian arguments, I have found some good material at www.str.org and www.comereason.org. They both have podcasts as well. Obviously I don’t agree with the conclusions of their arguments, but they often emphasize calm discussion and, so far as I’ve noticed, don’t do any name calling.

And don’t forget Wikipedia. It’s a great place to find summaries of classic arguments for the existence of God (for example).

I hope you find these useful!