Atheist reading for a Christian

Can anyone recommend some atheist reading for my Christian friend? I've given her The God Delusion but she's finding it a bit too antagonistic. :)

Does she want some atheist reading matter, or is it something you want her to see? That might make a difference in recommendations, just as I (as an atheist) might look differently upon something that explains what Christians believe, versus something that attacks atheism.

She wants some atheist reading matter. Something explanatory would probably be more useful, at least initially, but preferably entertaining at same time.

God is not Great by Christopher Hitchens?

I wonder why she needs to be convinced that non-religious people have a reason for their non-belief. Perhaps a book on logic would fill the bill.

How about The Little Book of Atheist Spirituality?

Presenting arguments with logical precision and philosophical sophistication rather than the intentional polemics of Dawkins and Hitchens, maybe The Miracle of Theism or Logic and Theism. But consequently not light reading.

I was thinking of something that explains why intelligent people believe illogical things (there are several books around on that topic), or maybe one that talks about the emotional component of belief and why logic doesn't impress people who rely on their feelings for that sense of knowing what's true.

Probably not anything from the fairly militant new atheists: Dawkins, Hitchens, etc.

I think MMcM's suggestions are good onnes. A.C. Grayling's The Good Book may be worthwhile for your requirements.

An even more oblique approach would be a good book on introductory philosophy (one of the more popular ones, not academic); these tend to explore the concepts of being, meaning, morality, etc; all of which are the questions religion is supposed to answer. Of course I appreciate that approach is probably too indirect, and while I mean it seriously, it bears some resemblance and motivation to pinkozcat's tongue-in-cheek (I presume) suggestion of a book on logic. The point of my suggestion is that many atheists or agnostics developed their views through thinking through these issues and being exposed to the rational attempts of others doing the same through the centuries, and not from reading atheist tracts.

Maybe a book of this type could supplement or complement a book more directly related to atheism.

Good luck!

That's a very good suggestion from Meredy too.

6> In that vein, I thought the YA novel Godless was interesting, though it seemed to come down on the side of "who cares if religion is made up if it makes people feel good" (it's about some kids who make up a fake religion of their own and end up getting really into it, even with one of them seemingly forgetting that it was invented weeks earlier).

And it's not purely atheistic, but I thought When They Severed Earth from Sky: How the Human Mind Shapes Myth was wonderful and did a lot for making me re-evaluate the religion I grew up with.
Of course, I was already on that path (thanks to my Catholic school education doing its best to point out that none of the stuff it's based on is actually real, just metaphors and allegories all the way down), so the Barbers just gave me more examples of religion and myth that started out as stories to convey information what got garbled over the centuries.

Try Bertrand Russell's essay Why I Am Not a Christian. Maybe even The Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster to round out the spectrum.

I was about to suggest Why I Am Not a Christian and Other Essays on Religion and Related Subjects by Bertrand Russell, but was beaten to it. It's a long time since I read it, but as far as I recall it is not antagonistic in nature, but calm and rational.

I would also recommend The Humanist Anthology edited by Margaret Knight, now reprinted with some new material. At a quick glance there appear to be extracts from about eighty authors, ranging, as the sub-title indicates, from Confucius to David Attenborough. Here you will find Epicurus, Montaigne, Spinoza, Voltaire, Thomas Paine, Charles Darwin, Mark Twain, Sigmund Freud, Bertrand Russell, Albert Einstein and many others. It is an excellent collection to dip into, not just for arguments against religion but also as a guide to living without religion, such as the entry by Margaret Knight on "Morals Without Religion".

And there's A. C. Grayling's recent book, The God Argument, the case against religion and for humanism. As the dust jacket notes state, Examining all the arguments for and against religion and religious belief - across the range of reason and motives that people have for being religious and how they stand up to scrutiny - this is a landmark book in the ongoing debate about the place of religion and secularism in our world. ... Thoughtfully provocative, intellectually expansive, "The God Argument" makes a powerful case that secular belief, free of religious dogma, allows for a much more compassionate and caring world view.

Bertrand Russell's essay, "Why I Am Not a Christian", can be read here: http://www.users.drew.edu/~jlenz/whynot.html

It's a while since I read it, but IIRC, Julian Baggini's What's it All About? presents as a discussion of philosophical issues, but along the way tends to indicate that/how you don't need a god for each position...

Maybe instead something like Cosmos by Carl Sagan. That for me is the definitive book on my view of the universe, life and everything.

dtw42's suggestion re Baggini's book 'What's it all about' is exactly what I had in mind.

keristar's suggestion re the Barber myth book, and majkia's suggestion re Call Sagan's Cosmos would be very good supplemental material in the same vein.

I also like the Bertrand essay a lot but it may not work for someone's first read into the topic, unless they are already familiar with his style.I say that only because it was given as a speech at a time when people spoke a little differently than they do now.

Good suggestions all round, however! I'm sure you'll be able to find several things for your friend.

Thank you everyone for this nice range of suggestions. I'll certainly try some of them.

Even if your friend doesn't take to Dawkins, she might be quite interested in his The Magic of Reality, which expains the wonders of nature without reference to a 'creator'. The book is supposedly intended for a juvenile readership but Dawkins doesn't patronise and it is very readable for adults too. Another one on my bookshelf (though not yet read) which looks as if it might fit the bill is The Science of Miracles. While this doesn't attempt to address the whole god-problem, it does investigate one good portion of it and sometimes it's easier to take these things one chunk at a time.

17: Your second link goes to the wrong book.

I would suggest The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark by Carl Sagan. It's not about religion or atheism per se, but about the critical thinking skills that go hand-in-hand with atheism.

Yes, that's a good one.

Excellent suggestion, weener.

19: Most of Carl Sagan's nonfiction would probably be a good choice, excepting only books like Comet.

Anything by Thomas Paine, IMO.

I've just started Descarte's Bones. Maybe that?

Personally, I think Hitch, Dawkins and The Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster are brilliant choices.

Any true Christian will take suggestions of this nature as mere tests of their faith, and will use them to illustrate their prejudices.

That's almost a definition of any faith.

So save your breath!

I'm a huge fan of Chris Stedman's, and his Faitheist might be an excellent place to turn--it's a memoir in which Stedman recounts his years as an evangelical Christian, his turn to atheism, and his work in interfaith initiatives as a nonbeliever.

Breaking Up with God by Sarah Sentilles might also be an interesting book to hand to a Christian.

I just finished Descarte's Bones and thought it was outstanding. I would highly recommend that, and/or The Seashell on the Mountaintop. Both are excellent histories of science and reason: the former, of the the Enlightenment; the latter, the Renaissance.

I'm afraid Mr. Dorset's comments (#25) are correct. But I have faith (LOL!) that some can be reached.

Only available as an "audiobook," as it's a performance (and never materialized as a book), but is very good, is Julia Sweeney's Letting Go of God. Good starting point, I think, as she walks through her entire process of losing her faith. Plus, very very funny.

I can sympathize with your friend's reaction to Dawkins -- I'm an atheist and I find his manner offensive. He doesn't seem to have come to grips with the idea that he can be smart, and he can even be right, without that making the people who disagree with him idiots. Not necessarily anyway.

I would recommend Why God Won't Go Away, by Andrew Newberg and Eugene D'Aquill. It isn't a book on either atheism or religion, but on brain science and how our brains work that leads many to find the supernatural plausible.

Since the authors don't come down either for or against the existance of a god, it's unlikely to make a believer defensive unless she's anti-science (as an unfortunate number are). My thinking is that the more knowledge we have of how the real world actually works, as opposed to accepting supernatural beliefs because of tradition, the better.

#17 Sorry I didn't notice this before - haven't been here for a while. I don't know how to correct it but it turned out The Science of Miracles wasn't that great after all. Maybe I'll substitute Why Are You Atheists So Angry? by Greta Christina, which said many of the things I would want to say to a religious friend but much more eloquently than I can say them.

Hmm, another mellow, serene, non-confrontational choice: Me of Little Faith. She should get the audio version.