Good.

 Very Good.

 Excellent.

 Outstanding!

 

Farewell to God: My reasons for rejecting the Christian faith, by Charles Templeton.

Summary: This book by a once famous Christian evangelist is about that man's moral quest to examine the truth about his beliefs and the reasons for those beliefs; in the end the author rejected Christianity and found himself.

 

Ken's Guide to the Bible, by Ken Smith.

Summary: This short book takes a very literal look at the Bible and its textual, moral, and intellectual shortcomings.

 

Nineteen Eight-Four, by George Orwell.

Summary: This book, although fiction, is one of the best descriptions of the psychological makeup behind ideologies gone extreme. Big Brother, The Party, Newspeak, and Double-Think, are in a sense part and parcel of both religious and political ideologies. Understanding this book is to understand the core corruption of both government and organized religion. The most  profound book written in the 20th century.

 

Miracles That Never Were: natural explanations of the Bible's supernatural stories, by Fred Acquistapace.

Summary: This book offers natural explanations to what the writers of the Bible may have taken to be miracles due to their ignorance of things like science and medicine. In short, it demystifies the Bible.

 

The Age of Reason, by Thomas Paine.

Summary: This book is the first truly critical look at the Bible from a textual and moral point of view. Thomas Paine the great American revolutionary who also participated in the French Revolution attacked what he considered the tyranny of the Bible. A must for Deists and those interested in Deism.

 

The AntiChrist, by Friedrich Nietzsche

Summary: This book is a serious attack on the hypocritical nature of Christianity and its absurd assertions. Nietzsche demonstrates that Christianity is itself the AntiChrist.

 

The Bible Unearthed: archaeology's new vision of ancient Israel and the origin of its sacred texts, by Israel Finkelstein & Neil Asher Silberman.

Summary: This book looks at the stories of the Bible in light of the archaeological evidence and demonstrates that the Bible was not written in order to preserve history, but for propaganda purposes.

 

The Encyclopedia of Biblical Errancy, by C. Dennis McKinsey.

Summary: This is an extensive tome which lists in detail hundreds if not thousands of the problems with the Bible at the textual, historical, and moral level. The weakness of this work is that many items raised as contradictions are simply shallow and easily refuted. 

 

The Jesus Mysteries: was the original Jesus a pagan God?, by Timothy Freke & Peter Grady.

Summary: This book works to demonstrate that the original Christianity was Gnosticism, and that Paul was a Gnostic whose image was turned into a literalist by the later Christian church bishops. It is a scholarly work with many footnotes.

 

The Sacred Balance: rediscovering our place in nature, by David Suzuki with Amanda McConnell.

Summary: This book demonstrates the limits of science that the value of the sacred in daily life. Written by one of Canada's leading scientist and very revealing.

 

Why I Am Not A Christian, by Bertrand Russell

Summary: This essay looks at Christianity and Jesus from a moral point of view, and shows both to be

wanting.

 

The Book Your Church Doesn't Want You To Read, by Tim C. Leedom, Editor.

Summary: A collection of essays from a number of religious skeptics.

 

The Christ Conspiracy: the greatest story ever sold, by Acharya S.

Summary: A very interesting book with some very solid points on the forged evidence of a historical Jesus well presented. Unfortunately, the links presented to link the story of Jesus the ancient pagan mystery religions are not sufficiently developed to make a solid case, and the conclusions drawn violate Occam's Razor to the degree that the book is a mix of good research and unfounded assumptions. This book attempts to build its case on the sheer weight of evidence, as illustrated by numerous footnotes, rather than building its case on logical inferences drawn from the available evidence. It is a recommended read, but not worth the purchase price.