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The Portable Atheist: Essential Readings for the Non-Believer

Authors:
Christopher Hitchens (editor), Alex Camlin (covers), A. C. Grayling, A. J. Ayer, Albert Einstein, Anatole France, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Benedict Spinoza, Bertrand Russell, Carl Sagan, Carl Van Doren, Chapman Cohen, Charles Darwin, Charles Templeton, Daniel Dennett, David Hume, Elizabeth Anderson, Emma Goldman, George Orwell, H. L. Mencken, H. P. Lovecraft, Ian McEwan, Ibn Warraq, J. L. Mackie, James Boswell, John Betjeman, John Stuart Mill, John Updike, Joseph Conrad, Karl Marx, Leslie Stephen, Lucretius, Mark Twain, Martin Gardner, Mary Ann Evans (Pseudonym: George Eliot), Michael Shermer, Omar Khayyam, Penn Jillette, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Philip Larkin, Richard Dawkins, Salman Rushdie, Sam Harris, Sigmund Freud, Steven Weinberg, Thomas Hardy, Thomas Hobbes and Victor J. Stenger
Language:
English
Original language:
English
Publisher:
Da Capo Press
Categories:
Anthology, philosophy and religion
Publication year:
2007
Pages:
499
Synopsis:

A huge collection of writings by atheists about religion, faith, non-religion, reason, science, and logic, with biographical information on each author. Some of them are pretty dated, but they're interesting nonetheless.

Has read?
Yes
Debut?
No
Images:
Back of The Portable Atheist.Spine of The Portable Atheist.Front of The Portable Atheist.
High-res images:
[Back (5.21 MB)] [Spine (1.03 MB)] [Front (5.72 MB)]
Table of Contents:
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  • Lucretius: De rerum natura (On the Nature of Things) – Books I, II, III, V, translation by W. Hannaford Brown
  • Omar Khayyám: Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám: A Paraphrase from Several Literal Translations by Richard Le Gallienne
  • Thomas Hobbes: "Of Religion", from Leviathan
  • Benedict de Spinoza: Theological-Political Treatise
  • David Hume: "The Natural History of Religion", "Of Miracles"
  • James Boswell: "An Account of My Last Interview with David Hume, Esq."
  • Percy Bysshe Shelley: "A Refutation of Deism"
  • John Stuart Mill: "Moral Influences in My Early Youth", from Autobiography
  • Karl Marx: Contribution to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right
  • George Eliot: "Evangelical Teaching"
  • Charles Darwin: Autobiography
  • Leslie Stephen: "An Agnostic's Apology"
  • Anatole France: "Miracle" from Le Jardin d'Épicure
  • Mark Twain: "Thoughts of God", from Fables of Man; "Bible Teaching and Religious Practice", from Europe and Elsewhere and A Pen Warmed Up in Hell
  • Joseph Conrad: author's note to The Shadow Line
  • Thomas Hardy: poem "God's Funeral"
  • Emma Goldman: "The Philosophy of Atheism"
  • H. P. Lovecraft: "A Letter on Religion"
  • Carl Van Doren: "Why I Am an Unbeliever" from Twelve Modern Apostles and Their Creeds
  • H. L. Mencken: "Memorial Service" from A Mencken Chrestomathy
  • Sigmund Freud: from The Future of an Illusion, translated and edited by James Strachey
  • Albert Einstein: Selected Writings on Religion
  • George Orwell: From A Clergyman's Daughter
  • John Betjeman: poem "In Westminster Abbey"
  • Chapman Cohen: "Monism and Religion" and "An Old Story" from Essays in Freethinking
  • Bertrand Russell: "An Outline of Intellectual Rubbish"
  • Philip Larkin: poems "Aubade" and "Church Going"
  • Martin Gardner: "The Wandering Jew and the Second Coming"
  • Carl Sagan: The Demon-Haunted World, and "The God Hypothesis" from The Varieties of Scientific Experience
  • John Updike: from Roger's Version
  • J. L. Mackie: "Conclusions and Implications", from The Miracle of Theism: Arguments for and against the Existence of God
  • Michael Shermer: "Genesis Revisited: A Scientific Creation Story"
  • A. J. Ayer: "That Undiscovered Country"
  • Daniel C. Dennett: "Thank Goodness!"
  • Charles Templeton: "A Personal Word" from A Farewell to God, and "Questions to Ask Yourself"
  • Richard Dawkins: "Why There Almost Certainly Is No God" from The God Delusion, "Gerin oil", and "Atheists for Jesus"
  • Victor Stenger: "Cosmic Evidence" from God: The Failed Hypothesis
  • Daniel C. Dennett: "A Working Definition of Religion" from Breaking Which Spell?
  • Elizabeth Anderson: "If God is Dead, Is Everything Permitted?"
  • Penn Jillette: "There Is No God"
  • Ian McEwan: "End of the World Blues" (original contribution)
  • Steven Weinberg: "What About God?" from Dreams of a Final Theory
  • Salman Rushdie: " 'Imagine There's no Heaven': A Letter to the Six Billionth World Citizen" (updated and expanded)
  • Ibn Warraq: "The Koran" and "The Totalitarian Nature of Islam" from Why I Am Not a Muslim
  • Sam Harris: "In the Shadow of God", from The End of Faith
  • A. C. Grayling: "Can an Atheist Be a Fundamentalist?" from Against All Gods
  • Ayaan Hirsi Ali: How (and Why) I Became an Infidel (original contribution)

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