Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed - Jared Diamond (Audiobook)

Jared Diamond's Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed is the glass-half-empty follow-up to his Pulitzer Prize-winning Guns, Germs, and Steel. While Guns, Germs, and Steelexplained the geographic and environmental reasons why some human populations have flourished, Collapse uses the same factors to examine why ancient societies, including the Anasazi of the American Southwest and the Viking colonies of Greenland, as well as modern ones such as Rwanda, have fallen apart. Not every collapse has an environmental origin, but an eco-meltdown is often the main catalyst, he argues, particularly when combined with society's response to (or disregard for) the coming disaster. Still, right from the outset of Collapse, the author makes clear that this is not a mere environmentalist's diatribe. He begins by setting the book's main question in the small communities of present-day Montana as they face a decline in living standards and a depletion of natural resources. Once-vital mines now leak toxins into the soil, while prion diseases infect some deer and elk and older hydroelectric dams have become decrepit. On all these issues, and particularly with the hot-button topic of logging and wildfires, Diamond writes with equanimity. Because he's addressing such significant issues within a vast span of time, Diamond can occasionally speak too briefly and assume too much, and at times his shorthand remarks may cause careful readers to raise an eyebrow. But in general, Diamond provides fine and well-reasoned historical examples, making the case that many times, economic and environmental concerns are one and the same. With Collapse, Diamond hopes to jog our collective memory to keep us from falling for false analogies or forgetting prior experiences, and thereby save us from potential devastations to come. While it might seem a stretch to use medieval Greenland and the Maya to convince a skeptic about the seriousness of global warming, it's exactly this type of cross-referencing that makes Collapse so compelling. Amazon

Related to: Jared Diamond Lectures - Collapse


File Size: 130 MB

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Richard Dawkins - The God Delusion (Audiobook with Text) UPDATED!

New York Times Best Seller

The antireligion wars started by Daniel Dennett and Sam Harris will heat up even more with this salvo from celebrated Oxford biologist Dawkins. For a scientist who criticizes religion for its intolerance, Dawkins has written a surprisingly intolerant book, full of scorn for religion and those who believe. But Dawkins, who gave us the selfish gene, anticipates this criticism. He says it's the scientist and humanist in him that makes him hostile to religions—fundamentalist Christianity and Islam come in for the most opprobrium—that close people's minds to scientific truth, oppress women and abuse children psychologically with the notion of eternal damnation. While Dawkins can be witty, even confirmed atheists who agree with his advocacy of science and vigorous rationalism may have trouble stomaching some of the rhetoric: the biblical Yahweh is "psychotic," Aquinas's proofs of God's existence are "fatuous" and religion generally is "nonsense." The most effective chapters are those in which Dawkins calms down, for instance, drawing on evolution to disprove the ideas behind intelligent design. In other chapters, he attempts to construct a scientific scaffolding for atheism, such as using evolution again to rebut the notion that without God there can be no morality. He insists that religion is a divisive and oppressive force, but he is less convincing in arguing that the world would be better and more peaceful without it.

Info: http://www.richarddawkins.net/


The God Delusion - Audio Book (100 MB) :
http://rapidshare.com/files/25260477/Audio_Book_-_Richard_Dawkins_-_The_God_Delusion__32K_.rar

The God Delusion - Text (1.8 MB) :
http://rapidshare.com/files/53646870/Richard_Dawkins_-_The_God_Delusion.pdf


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Letter to a Christian Nation - Sam Harris

New York Times Best Seller

In response to The End of Faith, Sam Harris received thousands of letters from Christians excoriating him for not believing in God. Letter to A Christian Nation is his reply. Using rational argument, Harris offers a measured refutation of the beliefs that form the core of fundamentalist Christianity. In the course of his argument, he addresses current topics ranging from intelligent design and stem-cell research to the connections between religion and violence. In Letter to a Christian Nation, Sam Harris boldly challenges the influence that faith has on public life in the United States.

“I dare you to read this book…it will not leave you unchanged. Read it if it is the last thing you do.”
— Richard Dawkins, author of The Selfish Gene and The God Delusion, from his Foreward to the UK Edition.

Audiobook version: Letter to a Christian Nation


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http://rapidshare.com/files/44780208/Sam_Harris_-_Letter_to_a_christian_nation.pdf

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Carl Sagan - The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark

Eminent Cornell astronomer and bestselling author Sagan debunks the paranormal and the unexplained in a study that will reassure hardcore skeptics but may leave others unsatisfied. To him, purported UFO encounters and alien abductions are products of gullibility, hallucination, misidentification, hoax and therapists' pressure; some alleged encounters, he suggests, may screen memories of sexual abuse. He labels as hoaxes the crop circles, complex pictograms that appear in southern England's wheat and barley fields, and he dismisses as a natural formation the Sphinx-like humanoid face incised on a mesa on Mars, first photographed by a Viking orbiter spacecraft in 1976 and considered by some scientists to be the engineered artifact of an alien civilization. In a passionate plea for scientific literacy, Sagan deftly debunks the myth of Atlantis, Filipino psychic surgeons and mediums such as J.Z. Knight, who claims to be in touch with a 35,000-year-old entity called Ramtha. He also brands as superstition ghosts, angels, fairies, demons, astrology, Bigfoot, the Loch Ness monster and religious apparitions. Amazon

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Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies - Jared Diamond

Explaining what William McNeill called The Rise of the West has become the central problem in the study of global history. InGuns, Germs, and Steel Jared Diamond presents the biologist's answer: geography, demography, and ecological happenstance. Diamond evenhandedly reviews human history on every continent since the Ice Age at a rate that emphasizes only the broadest movements of peoples and ideas. Yet his survey is binocular: one eye has the rather distant vision of the evolutionary biologist, while the other eye--and his heart--belongs to the people of New Guinea, where he has done field work for more than 30 years.Amazon

File Size: 3.47 MB

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GOD: The Failed Hypothesis - How Science Shows That God Does Not Exist - Victor J. Stenger

"Darwin chased God out of his old haunts in biology, and he scurried for safety down the rabbit hole of physics. The laws and constants of the universe, we were told, are too good to be true: a setup, carefully tuned to allow the eventual evolution of life. It needed a good physicist to show us the fallacy, and Victor Stenger lucidly does so. The faithful won't change their minds, of course (that is what faith means), but Victor Stenger drives a pack of energetic ferrets down the last major bolt hole and God is running out of refuges in which to hide. I learned an enormous amount from this splendid book."
Richard Dawkins
Author of the New York Times bestseller The God Delusion


"Marshalling converging arguments from physics, astronomy, biology, and philosophy, Stenger has delivered a masterful blow in defense of reason. God: The Failed Hypothesis is a potent, readable, and well-timed assault upon religious delusion. It should be widely read."
Sam Harris
Author of the New York Times bestsellers The End of Faith and Letter to a Christian Nation


"Extremely tough and impressive...a great book...a huge addition to the arsenal of argument."
Christopher Hitchens
Author of the New York Times best seller God Is Not Great

Many people claims that modern science supports the proposition that God exists, but very few authors have directly challenged this assertion. Physicist Victor J. Stenger points out that if scientific arguments for the existence of God are included in intellectual, not to mention political discourse, then arguments against his existence should also be considered.

In God: The Failed Hypothesis, Stenger discusses that science has advanced sufficiently to make a definitive statement on the existence or nonexistence of the traditional Judeo-Christian-Islamic God.

He puts your minds in a test of scientific method to prove this claim.

File Size: 1.91 MB

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Carl Sagan - Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space (Audio and e-Book)

Pale Blue Dot, the same name that inspired by the famous photograph of the Earth, is a journey of popular science writer and astronomer Carl Sagan (Cosmos, Contact...) through time and deep space. Sagan as an enthusiastic explorer continues describing our future in the universe. He takes you a tour around the solar system also explaining the planets, asteroids, and moons and asks questions about our past, present and future in space. Of course Sagan states that the universe never requires a creator.

P.S: Thank you to the provider of that file.


File Size: 217 MB

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http://rapidshare.com/files/128713246/Carl.Sagan-Pale.Blue.Dot-Audio.Book.part1.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/128727597/Carl.Sagan-Pale.Blue.Dot-Audio.Book.part2.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/128692949/Carl.Sagan-Pale.Blue.Dot-Audio.Book.part3.rar

Download the e-Books separately (in two format):
http://rapidshare.com/files/128739599/Carl.Sagan-Pale.Blue.Dot-ebooks.rar


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Atheist Manifesto: The Case Against Christianity, Judaism, and Islam - Michel Onfray

INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER

"In this era of warring religions, with Almighty God being invoked as the key ally by all sides, it was with gratitude and relief that I read Michel Onfray's In Defense of Atheism. It is both a passionate and coolly reasoned advocacy of atheism, setting the positive values of secularity squarely against the three great monotheisms and their multitudes of hate... A wonderful, invigorating blast of sanity delivered against the fog of high-toned mumbo-jumbo we have to endure everywhere today."William Boyd

"His book has a sweep, an energy and intensity, that seems all but forgotten on either side of the Atlantic; for this reason alone it deserves to be translated." Bookforum

Religion: history of destruction. Torture and pain in the name of God since the beginning of the civilization. It is ironic that this power of hate still influences the whole world isn't it?

Atheist Manifesto or In Defense of Atheism is a controversial work against three dominant monotheistic religions Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. It demonstrates how these religions prevented reaching the knowledge, destroyed the reason for their purposes and controlled the mass like a flock.

Atheist Manifesto is bold, not for faint-hearted! But if you want to witness the dark and bloody past of religions, dare to read it!

File Size: 1.12 MB

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Richard Dawkins - The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution (Unabridged + Abridged Audiobook & E-book)

Charles Darwin's masterpiece, "On the Origin of Species", shook society to its core on publication in 1859. Darwin was only too aware of the storm his theory of evolution would provoke but he would surely have raised an incredulous eyebrow at the controversy still raging a century and a half later. Evolution is accepted as scientific fact by all reputable scientists and indeed theologians, yet millions of people continue to question its veracity. In "The Greatest Show on Earth", Richard Dawkins takes on creationists, including followers of 'Intelligent Design' and all those who question the fact of evolution through natural selection. Like a detective arriving on the scene of a crime, he sifts through fascinating layers of scientific facts and disciplines to build a cast-iron case: from the living examples of natural selection in birds and insects; the 'time clocks' of trees and radioactive dating that calibrate a timescale for evolution; the fossil record and the traces of our earliest ancestors; to confirmation from molecular biology and genetics. All of this, and much more, bears witness to the truth of evolution. "The Greatest Show on Earth" comes at a critical time: systematic opposition to the fact of evolution is now flourishing as never before, especially in America. In Britain and elsewhere in the world, teachers witness insidious attempts to undermine the status of science in their classrooms. Richard Dawkins provides unequivocal evidence that boldly and comprehensively rebuts such nonsense. At the same time he shares with us his palpable love of the natural world and the essential role that science plays in its interpretation. Written with elegance, wit and passion, it is hard-hitting, absorbing and totally convincing. richarddawkins.net

http://rapidshare.com/files/309470371/Richard.Dawkins-The.Greatest.Show.on.Earth.rtf.pdf.rar
If you download this, don't forget to buy the original product afterwards, or support the Richard Dawkins Foundation.

UPDATES!
Unabridged version added.
Ebook added.


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Download [Abridged Audiobook - 428 MB]:
http://rapidshare.com/files/280038697/Richard.Dawkins-The.Greatest.Show.on.Earth.Audiobook.part1.rar
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Living Without God: New Directions for Atheists, Agnostics, Secularists, and the Undecided - Ronald Aronson

"Ronald Aronson demonstrates that atheism represents much more than what one does not believe: that it is the precondition for a generous humanism. The two closing chapters are models of stoicism at its best." Christopher Hitchens

Ronald Aronson has a mission: to demonstrate that a life without religion can be coherent, moral, and committed. Optimistic and stirring, Living Without God is less interested in attacking religion than in developing a positive philosophy for atheists, agnostics, secular humanists, skeptics, and freethinkers. Aronson proposes contemporary answers to Immanuel Kant’s three great questions: What can I know? What ought I to do? What can I hope? Grounded in the sense that we are deeply dependent and interconnected beings who are rooted in the universe, nature, history, society, and the global economy, Living Without God explores the experience and issues of 21st-century secularists, especially in America. Reflecting on such perplexing questions as why we are grateful for life’s gifts, who or what is responsible for inequalities, and how to live in the face of aging and dying, Living Without God is also refreshingly topical, touching on such subjects as contemporary terrorism, the war in Iraq, affirmative action, and the remarkable rise of Barack Obama. Amazon


File Size: 6 MB

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