BBC - God Under The Microscope

In this BBC program, Richard Dawkins and some other important names discuss ideas of science and religion. The videos are in .flv format and converted from Youtube.

Shot in Brno, the program explores the relationship between science, religion and the pursuit of knowledge. In the first part, scientist and author Richard Dawkins challenges the role of religion and explains his views on the value of scientific research. He also talks to Dr James Watson, one of the scientists involved in the discovery of the structure of DNA. In the second, filmed in the library of Gregor Mendel's monastery, Joan Bakewell hosts a discussion between Dawkins, Roman Catholic priest and scientist Michael Heller, philosopher Baroness Mary Warnock, theologian Wentzel van Huyssteen and historian Dr David Starkey.


File Size: 91,68 MB

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Letting Go of God - Julia Sweeney (Audiobook)

Julia Sweeney says she was a "happy Catholic girl" when, one day, she walked into church and signed up for a Bible-study course. "What an eye opener that was!" she says. "Next thing you know, I was on a quest for something I could really believe in. I traveled to places like Bhutan, Ecuador, and my local Starbucks looking for answers. Would I embrace Buddhism? New Age pseudo-science? Was I a freak for feeling the way I did, or were there other people out there just like me? I was grappling with serious questions. But, somehow, a lot of the things that were happening to me seemed, well, funny." Equally comedic and insightful, Letting Go of God is Sweeney's brilliant one-woman show about her struggle with her faith. Grappling with the seeming contradictions in Adam and Eve, Noah, the Ten Commandments, and even the teachings of Jesus - and trying to understand the Bible's messages about morality, family values, and human suffering while faced with door-knocking Mormons and wise-cracking priests - Sweeney takes listeners on her very personal journey from God to "not-God". This performance was recorded on November 19, 2005, at the Ars Nova Theatre in New York City. Amazon


P.S. Thanks to TJS


File Size: 56 MB

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http://rapidshare.com/files/174195752/Letting.Go.of.God-Julia.Sweeney.rar


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Sam Harris - The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason (Audiobook)

In this sometimes simplistic and misguided book, Harris calls for the end of religious faith in the modern world. Not only does such faith lack a rational base, he argues, but even the urge for religious toleration allows a too-easy acceptance of the motives of religious fundamentalists. Religious faith, according to Harris, requires its adherents to cling irrationally to mythic stories of ideal paradisiacal worlds (heaven and hell) that provide alternatives to their own everyday worlds. Moreover, innumerable acts of violence, he argues, can be attributed to a religious faith that clings uncritically to one set of dogmas or another. Very simply, religion is a form of terrorism for Harris. Predictably, he argues that a rational and scientific view—one that relies on the power of empirical evidence to support knowledge and understanding—should replace religious faith. We no longer need gods to make laws for us when we can sensibly make them for ourselves. Publishers Weekly

E-book Version: Sam Harris - The End of Faith


File Size: 159 MB

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http://rapidshare.com/files/212794939/The.End.of.Faith-Sam.Harris-Audiobook.rar


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Three Essays by Bertrand Russell

Three essays by Bertrand Russell in audio format.

The essays are:
- A Free Man's Worship
- What I Believe
- Why I am not a Christian

Related to: Bertrand Russell - Collected Works and Essays


File Size: 33,4 MB

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http://rapidshare.com/files/215109099/Three.Essays.by.Bertrand.Russell.rar

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No Gods, No Guilt - Stephen Frederick (Audiobook)

Stephen Frederick Uhl, Ph.D, yesterday's Catholic priest today's atheist psychologist, describes his journey through agnosticismto atheism. He guides you to come out with the tencommandments for the 21st century and suggests how to get free your prejudices and myths.


MP3 Version (382 MB):
http://rapidshare.com/files/245266057/No.Gods.No.Guilt-Stephen.Frederick.part1.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/245262253/No.Gods.No.Guilt-Stephen.Frederick.part2.rar

M4B Version (for iPods - 189 MB):
http://rapidshare.com/files/245309569/No.Gods.No.Guilt-Audiobook.m4b

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God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything - Christopher Hitchens

New York Times Best Seller

Hitchens, one of our great political pugilists, delivers the best of the recent rash of atheist manifestos. The same contrarian spirit that makes him delightful reading as a political commentator, even (or especially) when he's completely wrong, makes him an entertaining huckster prosecutor once he has God placed in the dock. And can he turn a phrase!: "monotheistic religion is a plagiarism of a plagiarism of a hearsay of a hearsay, of an illusion of an illusion, extending all the way back to a fabrication of a few nonevents." Hitchens's one-liners bear the marks of considerable sparring practice with believers. Yet few believers will recognize themselves as Hitchens associates all of them for all time with the worst of history's theocratic and inquisitional moments. All the same, this is salutary reading as a means of culling believers' weaker arguments: that faith offers comfort (false comfort is none at all), or has provided a historical hedge against fascism (it mostly hasn't), or that "Eastern" religions are better (nope). The book's real strength is Hitchens's on-the-ground glimpses of religion's worst face in various war zones and isolated despotic regimes. But its weakness is its almost fanatical insistence that religion poisons "everything," which tips over into barely disguised misanthropy.

Audiobook version: God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything - Christopher Hitchens (Audiobook)


File Size: 1 MB

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http://rapidshare.com/files/44677987/Christopher_Hitchens_-_God_is_not_Great.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


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

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Sam Harris - The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason

"The End of Faith is a genuinely frightening book... Read Sam Harris and wake up." - Richard Dawkins

Sam Harris cranks out blunt, hard-hitting chapters to make his case for why faith itself is the most dangerous element of modern life. And if the devil's in the details, then you'll find Satan waiting at the back of the book in the very substantial notes section where Harris saves his more esoteric discussions to avoid sidetracking the urgency of his message.

Interestingly, Harris is not just focused on debunking religious faith, though he makes his compelling arguments with verve and intellectual clarity. The End of Faith is also a bit of a philosophical Swiss Army knife. Once he has presented his arguments on why, in an age of Weapons of Mass Destruction, belief is now a hazard of great proportions, he focuses on proposing alternate approaches to the mysteries of life. Harris recognizes the truth of the human condition, that we fear death, and we often crave "something more" we cannot easily define, and which is not met by accumulating more material possessions. But by attempting to provide the cure for the ills it defines, the book bites off a bit more than it can comfortably chew in its modest page count (however the rich Bibliography provides more than enough background for an intrigued reader to follow up for months on any particular strand of the author' musings.)

Harris' heart is not as much in the latter chapters, though, but in presenting his main premise. Simply stated, any belief system that speaks with assurance about the hereafter has the potential to place far less value on the here and now. And thus the corollary -- when death is simply a door translating us from one existence to another, it loses its sting and finality. Harris pointedly asks us to consider that those who do not fear death for themselves, and who also revere ancient scriptures instructing them to mete it out generously to others, may soon have these weapons in their own hands. If thoughts along the same line haunt you, this is your book.

Related to: Sam Harris - The View from the End of the World

Audibook Version: Sam Harris - The End of Faith


File Size: 1.69 MB

Download:
http://rapidshare.com/files/74699023/Sam.Harris.-.The.End.of.Faith.pdf


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The Bible Unmasked - Joseph Lewis

From the author of The Tyranny of God

"This book is dedicated in all seriousness to rabbis, priests and ministers, in the hope that it may bring them to realize the fraud they are perpetrating by preaching the Bible as the Word of God, and as a moral and intellectual guide for the human race." Joseph Lewis.

Joseph Lewis, founder of the Freethought Press Association, criticizes and reveals the truth behind the Bible according to the verses and passages in this enlightening work.

Related to: Atheist Universe: The Thinking Person's Answer to Christian Fundamentalism


File Size: 562 KB

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http://rapidshare.com/files/174196120/Joseph.Lewis-The.Bible.Unmasked.pdf

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God's Problem: How the Bible Fails to Answer Our Most Important Question--Why We Suffer - Bart D. Ehrman (Audiobook + E-book)

In God's Problem, Bart D. Ehrman describes why an omnipotent god needs suffering of humanity. Why are there too many pains, disasters, diseases and disabled people? Ehrman puts out those paradoxes inside the Biblical passages.

UPDATE! Audiobook added.


Download [E-book - 9.7 KB]:
http://rapidshare.com/files/181783392/Bart.D.Ehrman-Gods.Problem.pdf

Download [Audiobook - 247 MB]:
http://rapidshare.com/files/270210160/Gods.Problem-Bart.Ehrman.Audiobook.part1.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/270223303/Gods.Problem-Bart.Ehrman.Audiobook.part2.rar


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The Path of Reason: A Philosophy of Nonbelief - Bruce A. Smith

Smith, a business analyst at a computer software firm who was once a conservative Christian, seeks to eliminate misconceptions about atheism and skepticism by examining faith and reason, the two means by which we evaluate our world. Writing for those who are confused by media representations and culture wars about philosophy and religion, Smith explains his personal path to atheism and skepticism as he describes the collision of faith and reason, the application of reason to such ideas as the soul, God, and meaning, critical thinking, including its fallacies, and specific precepts of skepticism. He then explains Christianity as he perceives it, analyzing such ideas as heaven and hell, the ten commandments, sex and violence, Jesus in the books of Matthew and John, the end times, prophecy and religious history, and the facts of life of a committed atheist. Reference & Research Book News


File Size: 1,14 MB

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http://rapidshare.com/files/218970575/The.Path.of.Reason-Bruce.Smith.pdf


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The Age of American Unreason - Susan Jacoby

Identifying herself as a "cultural conservationist" (but by no means a cultural conservative), Jacoby laments the decline of middlebrow American culture and presents a cogent defense of intellectualism. America, she believes, faces a "crisis of memory and knowledge," in which anti-intellectualism is not only tolerated but celebrated by those in politics and the media to whom we are all "just folks." The Internet, for all its promise, is too often "a highway to the far-flung regions of junk thought." Meanwhile, twenty-five per cent of high-school biology teachers believe that human beings and dinosaurs shared the earth, and more than a third of Americans can’t name a single First Amendment right. In such an environment, Jacoby argues, the secular left and the religious right can have no fruitful dialogue on issues like the separation of church and state. She offers little hope that the situation will improve, opining that, despite increasing levels of education, "Americans seem to know less and less." The New Yorker


File Size: 5,44 MB

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http://www.mediafire.com/?3jjmo1o5wlm

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Superstition: Belief in the Age of Science - Robert L. Park

"If a tree falls on a a scientist in a forest with no one else around does it mean he won't make a sound? Not if that scientist is the indomitable Bob Park, the skeptic's skeptic, the Ralph Nader of nonsense, the man who rose from the (nearly) dead to pen this uncompromising critique of superstition and the beliefs that follow once you abandon science and reason. Read this book. Now." Michael Shermer

Science is the only way of knowing—everything else is just superstition, says physicist Park (Voodoo Science) in this thinly argued rehash of the debate between science and religion. Among other questions, Park revisits experiments regarding the healing power of intercessory prayer (prayer for the healing of others), citing several studies that he claims are meaningless because it is impossible to measure prayer. Further, he says, only science, not prayer, con protect us from so-called acts of God, like a tsunami. Park argues against the existence of the soul by debunking a tale of reincarnation and even interprets the Bible to his own purposes. But this chapter also shows how disjointed his arguments can be, as he jumps from the Plan B contraceptive to genes and memes to stem cells and ghosts. Such issues have been covered more eloquently and in greater depth by thinkers like Daniel Dennett in Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon. Publishers Weekly


File Size: 1.36 MB

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http://www.mediafire.com/?yc2gwumodwy

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Infidel - Ayaan Hirsi Ali (Audiobook + E-book)

Ayaan Hirsi Ali was born in Somalia, raised Muslim and came to the Netherlands as a refugee due to an unwanted marriage. After earning her collage degree in political science, she worked for a labour party. Reading The Atheist Manifesto (Atheistisch Manifest) by philosopher Herman Philipse and the Quran pushed her to renounce Islam and become atheist. Now she is a controversial political figure who is against Islamic culture.

This is her astonishing story.

UPDATE! E-book added.


Download [E-book - 2.16 MB]:
http://rapidshare.com/files/269416933/Infidel-Ayaan.Hirsi.Ali.htm

Download [Audiobook - 398 MB]:
http://rapidshare.com/files/269105769/Infidel-Ayaan.Hirsi.Ali.2007.Audiobook.part1.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/269147498/Infidel-Ayaan.Hirsi.Ali.2007.Audiobook.part2.rar


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