Five star rating for this priest from this atheist? ...Yes

It was ... what's out the front that got my attention. Those signs.
I want to start out the new year with my first blog post as a positive one - and yet I worry that this might come across as blasphemous to both some Christians and in a sense to some atheists.

In the ocean, nobody can hear you scream ( apologies, pic link not embed) Bold red ( and black)  letters,  perhaps written in blood as per Nietzsche. Topical, relevant, important, clever, helpful perhaps. I could agree with this sign indeed almost all of them. I followed the signs - and then decided I wanted to meet the man.

Post by Peter Veitch.

Me with my proudly evolved atheist T shirt holding Rod's book "Plan B attitude" wearing the gosford anglican parish "Team Humanity" wristband. 


Earlier in the year I had attended a couple of "Sunday Assembly" meetings, a so called (wrongly) - atheist church. I noticed their "radical inclusivity" approach, believers and non believers are welcome, doesn't matter, just be good people etc.  I followed links from Rod Bower's signs to his website and noticed ... the same thing - radical inclusivity. Again, believers and non believers welcome. I wanted a chat with this man, something going on here, something ...special.

The day was very hot, I had done a lot of traveling. I had a bad migraine. This was my one chance to meet him that year before I had to travel a long way back home. My head - killing me, dont go, but ... I must. I did. I walked into the parish grounds wearing my mildly provocative though perhaps vague "A" for atheist T shirt. Is Rod here now? ( I had pre arranged to meet, we exchanged messages, Rod even gave me his personal mobile number !). Into his office, yay cooler than the scorching sun. We chatted, I was not sure what to expect, I had already surmised he is a great guy and does good work - but what does he think theologically speaking?

We chatted for ages about the state of the world, how to make life better for others, what was important in life etc. The solid emphasis on being a force for good on planet earth, helping humanity - just wonderful. Our theological differences just seemed not to matter anymore. The honesty, the depth of caring for people, just awesome, a highlight of my visit to New south wales, a highlight... of my year. I had nearly fell off my chair a few times in his office in shock / surprise at his thoughts. I thought I had taken up enough of his time so I wound up the chat. He asked if I wanted a coffee. They have cafe facilities there, yep, yes please. Just make my cappuccino strong and large please. How much? on the house. I said thanks heaps and sat down quietly in the grounds to ponder.  I was on the verge of tears ( even as now writing this ) - then he wandered down from his office and we chatted again, not me barraging him with questions, I was questioned out. Just a chat, again, wonderful. I told him about the radical inclusivity thing, i asked if he would honour me with a pic in front of his sign, together - with me. He offered and then did change the sign letters for me. His lovely wife Kerry took the pic. I still had a headache, somewhat eased post caffeine and codeine.  I had planned a big smile for the pic but was worried that the heat and headache would need me to force a smile. No, no forced smile, no fake grin - natural, real, genuine.

In my life I have gone through theism with evangelical zeal , then a year of ( awful) de conversion then some evangelical atheism. Now, after five years an atheist I have moved away from that. I see myself as  post atheist. Maybe we really can meet on the grounds of making life better? Maybe post atheism & post theism is the same place?


Rod Bower ***** - Anglican priest - Gosford Anglican Parish
5 star rating from many theists. 5 star rating from this an atheist. Beat that!


See abc news clip

"Deeper issues in life" ? I loved how he went direct to "what kind of society do we want " etc wonderful emphasis on people, I can relate to this.

See also  http://www.anggos.com.au/

How Education Affects Adventist Ecclesiology (and reaction).

How Education Affects Adventist Ecclesiology

http://lasierra.edu/fileadmin/documents/religion/asrs/11_Richard_Winn.pdf

by Richard Winn  from the  Senior College and University Commission. 

Please read the pdf as linked above direct from source. (8 pages, brimming with insight).The article is by Richard Winn referring to "tectonic shifts" in the context of seventh day adventist educational institutions in north america.

A personification as it were of tectonic shifts is perhaps embodied by Ryan Bell, he was an academic at an SDA educational institution and - has shifted from current SDA views, from pastor to now "weak atheist".  Consider reading his blog yearwithoutgod.

Adventism is being put under the spotlight especially now that Ryan Bell's  "Year without God" concludes.  Ryan was a seventh day adventist pastor who left the church, he has been getting international attention and perhaps by proxy the SDA church is being spotlighted? Can the church hold onto outdated ways of thinking? Has it already moved on, at least in part in sda academia? What follows is a guest post another ex sda pastor, my friend, clever guy and all round good human being. please enjoy.


Guest post follows, with thanks by Glenn Weare.


This is a very interesting article. He is basically saying that many thinking Adventists no longer believe in the flood story as told in Genesis. They no longer believe in creationism, and hence, presumably, the importance of the 7th day Sabbath. They no longer see the Bible as some kind of guide book. But because SDAism is their comfortable social context they remain in the church and downplay the need for these old SDA doctrines. I am very happy for SDA's to do this. These are the 'liberals'.

The problems arise when traditional SDA's don't like what they are seeing in SDA institutions of higher learning and in the products of these institutions who are teaching their children or preaching in their pulpits. These traditionalists rightly perceive a threat to their God given church and launch attacks on the people and institutions they see as creating this threat. Thing is, these people, though in my view dead wrong, are consistent in saying that the liberals are 'of the devil' and should be opposed, sacked or whatever. They see themselves fighting on the side of God against Satan. Perfectly understandable from their frame of reference!!

But when these traditionalists take up their cudgels against the liberals, the latter complain and denigrate the former. There has been and will continue to be much blood letting and pain and hurt for people on both sides of this battle. Liberals say they are staying in the church to reform it from within. That sounds very noble. Good luck with that. I know some who have become very pessimistic about that prospect after some very painful experiences.

A further problem is that liberals have to go around being very careful as to what they say and to whom they say it, because they do not know who they can trust not to ‘dob them in’. I have tried to get a straight answer on some of the contentious issues from SDA academics - resulting in lots of fancy footwork and dissembling. There is a real problem with integrity here, when people cannot be open and honest about what they really believe.

And then, what is the point of trying to make the SDA church just like other liberal churches, which would appear to be the object of the exercise. Other churches already exist with their extensive real estate and extensive administrative structures. Why duplicate these things when the world is in so much need of resources to help the poor and needy.

My answer is to let the traditionalists have the SDA church. After all they would seem to have the most legitimate claim to it. If you don’t like it, get out and join forces with an existing group to achieve the ends you believe in. Why can’t people, or why don’t people just leave when they find they don’t accept traditional SDA beliefs? I have my thoughts on that and you may have some too!!

Just expect a lot of pain and hurt to continue!!

 

Ryan Bell's Year without God - negative comments from Christians.

/Husband who told his wide, "For a year I'll act like I'm not married to you," decides not to get back together with her.  Duh. What a douche./

Today I received this comment (above) from a Christian Facebook friend - it was his response to the Ryan Bell story. The gentleman who posted this I had always seen as a moderate christian, generally one of the nicer ones who I interact with. He has always come across as honest, caring, open minded etc.

In regards to an article  I am trying to understand how christians really do see the Ryan journey? For example as above -the marriage analogy - is it a betrayal, a separation, leaving an actual being? My response  would be :  a marriage in most countries requires evidence that a potential spouse actually exists in order for a real marriage to be conducted . Or : Perhaps a closer analogy would be a person who claims to live with an imaginary spouse? Maybe in order to claim welfare benefits ? I really thought that a tiny minority would respond to Ryan's journey in a harshly negative way. I wonder how many would have been happy for him to go through this and then conclude that there was a God and then cheer loudly? Thinking, questioning etc is just fine as long as you reach our conclusion that there is a god and it is our version etc? arghh

Another FB friend said - / your marriage is with a real human being not a mythological being of which there has never been a scerrick   of evidence. The two things do not equate and to make that accretion demonstrates lack of logical abilities. Then to call someone a douche based on your own faulty reasoning is a bad reflection on you and not on someone with the courage to journey into reason./ 
What do you think?

Mobius Dick - Eric Hovind froths his coffee.

Call me, Starbuck. Some days ago- never mind how long precisely- having little money in my purse - I ordered a cappuccino, while my name is Eric I asked them to call me "Jesus is lord", that way I can force my religious agenda on the innocent Taco Bell worker.

Mad creationist Eric Hovind is at it again. This time frothing at the mouth even before he gets his lips coated in  delicious chocolate sprinkled milk froth. This revolts me to my core, I'm still digesting this. Something about making others say and think what Hovind wants them to think . Obnoxious, making others do his proselytizing for him. Preach in a church all you want, go ahead, you have my atheistic blessing. Do not preach in somebody else's food and coffee shop. Never, ever cajole, force other people to speak for you.  Bad enough forcing others to listen to you, Eric, but making them preach for you? Distasteful in the extreme.

Is this temporary  metaphorical cloning ? Taking apparent control of another's mind even if for a little while , reeks of what Kant emphatically disapproved of. Making another person a means to your end . In a word ... Dehumanizing.



"Now small fowls flew screaming over the yet yawning gulf; a sullen white surf beat against its steep sides; then all collapsed, and the great shroud of the sea rolled on as it rolled five thousand years ago". ( from Moby Dick last sentence) . Ironically Melville , or at least Ishmael in the book were also creationists yet not of the obnoxious variety. This mobius dick loops back on itself, keeps coming back with new iterations of stupid.

Thanks to Hemant Mehta aka "Bob" at the coffee shop.

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2014/12/29/creationist-finds-a-new-way-to-proselytize-at-taco-bell-by-getting-the-workers-to-do-it-for-him/

Personal Pathways To Atheism

Personal Pathways To Atheism

Every Sunday we are posting a story from our facebook page that we -  Tina Farnworth and Peter Veitch (me)  began three years ago, called Personal Pathways to Atheism. It is a page purely dedicated to those atheists who wished to share their own personal journey towards atheism, and each and every of the 60 or so stories are well worth a read! We are over  10,000 likes so if you haven't liked the page as yet, please do!!

Tina is posting them in the order in which she received them (she proof reads every single one and so knows them very well). Basically the page is setup on facebook as photo with a story. ie click on a pic to get a story.

Here is a recent one by DONNA MAREE NILLSON 
Followed by the latest one by IAN TAYLOR

Post by Personal Pathways to Atheism.


 

Post by Personal Pathways to Atheism.

Ex Seventh Day Adventists Facebook group.

 
X SDA's: I use to think and act like an Adventist, but now  I ... 


This is a group for people who are no longer members of the Seventh-day Adventist church. That's the one commonality. There are a few members who are still Seventh-day Adventists, but who respect the purpose of the group and don't try to convert us.

Having left the SDA denomination - in a variety of directions including atheism, paganism and a variety of Christian and other religions - means almost no-one here has much time for the teachings of Ellen G White. Some have more time for the Bible, or parts of it, or for challenging it.

Some enjoy alcohol, caffeine, heavy metal, robust fucken language and all manner of things frowned on by SDAs - and some don't. Our communicative ideal is 'live and let live': by all means challenge someone's ideas, but be civil to them as fellow human beings. Everyone's ideas are up for challenge - bring evidence and argument, not assertions.

Everyone (except spammers and active SDA proselytisers) is welcome, but the group is not to everyone's taste: we'll bear you no ill will if you decide it's not for you and decide to move on. Probably better to resist posting a 'Screw you guys, I'm going home!' signoff message, though.
  
^ This is the current "about"  group description publicly readable. Kindly written by David Geelan - one of the current admins. The group is closed, mostly so people can feel more comfortable to share ideas and experiences.  We have, at time of writing, almost 1,000 members. Last survey had about 50:50 in regard to consisting of theists & non theists. Almost all in the group were sda in the past, a few are current sda, a few are from other religious backgrounds.






X SDA's: I use to think and act like an Adventist, but now  I ...

Chalk and cheese.

A religious "teacher" stands at blackboard writing about Adam & Eve, says universe was created 6,000 years ago .

Stands: this bipedal stance itself has a signature of our quadruped heritage - instead of belly etc suspended from a four footed frame we have the sequelae of anatomical reorientation . Varicose veins, haemorrhoids , back pain , hernias etc. Our sinuses aimed in the new " up" point the wrong way. Clever animals trying to get above themselves. Then sits at a desk , on a coccyx , a vestigial reminder of our past as swingers in trees.

Chalk: depending on source , may contain actual fossils. Calcium made in long dead stars. The blackboard made from slate that is millions of years old.

Cheese: a reminder that many of us are infantile digestives , never having  been weaned. The lactose tolerance gene mutations arisen in groups with cattle herds but not others . Evolution in action .

Chromosome two fusion : in 10^13+ cells in your body there is the signature , written with digital precision rè this.  See " telos" as your starting point . ( telomere ).

Light: that illuminates the lecture - from the sun that itself has spectroscopic data announcing the sun is a recycled star. Elements made from earlier super novae type  events .

The night sky: with stars , visible to the naked eye , millions of light yeas away , announce their exceeding old age.

The rocks cry out : radio isotope data point to of heaves age of the rocks .

Tectonic movement : the land you are on, still it moves. Evidence of previous and current movement and immense age . " have faith to nice mountains "? No they move themselves , no faith required.

And yet - clever animals announce the universe was made yesterday.

Addit 1: atoms build from earlier forms - hydrogen , helium etc into larger more complex forms. Heat , gravity , destructive and constructive differences ensue. The elements swirl and churn , cone together and separate. The dance of atoms that form the eye , the brain , the universe in part seeing itself . We can see into the distant past and yet ... The Seventh day adventist admin ( and other Young earth creationist groups)  can't see past their noses , in fact they can't even " see" their noses. The very DNA behind olfactory ability itself bespeaks of evolution . None so anosmic as those that don't want to smell. I smell a rat , and its name is Young earth creationism. The stench of stupid ascends to the stratosphere , descends into the abyss of arrogant willful ignorance .

Trying Atheism as a journey? - what to pack.

"What difference does God make?
...[an] atheist friend asked her this question ... I decided I would find out, by living for a year without God."

Above from Ryan Bell's blog  Year without god



Away from religious habits  - an unexpected journey.
I was a Seventh-Day Adventist like Ryan. My path diverged in the early 80's. I left the sda denomination over various SDA specific dogmas but I remained a generic Christian for decades after that.  It was only after looking into atheism (in 2008) that my journey out of religious belief altogether really got underway. Books mostly, that's what did it. Only after that year did I see some videos, hear some podcasts, read some blogs, join some facebook groups, attend an atheist convention, go to some meetup groups etc. 

My journey begins. The train pulls out of the station from outer suburban Melbourne. I am on it, I begin reading my "book one". The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins. I felt awkward, embarrassed even and read it behind a magazine to disguise the fact. I had picked it up on a whim, seemed many others were reading it. My motivation was curiosity, my expectation was that it was all rubbish and I knew better as a Christian , my hope was to be able to refute everything with an apologetic stance etc. Questions were raised.

Consider reading "both sides", some apologetic books and rebuttals etc.
If one is still immersed in young earth creation (YEC) as a fundamentalist then consider some YEC Christian friendly evolution books- By Fairbanks, Alexander , Collins - otherwise go direct to Dawkins, Coyne etc. Read some age of the earth books, geology etc. If one is still stuck in Noah's flood as real , see the rocks don't lie. Some philosophy books, logic, critical thinking etc.

The (~ 190) books below have largely (re)shaped my world view.

100 Billion Suns: The Birth, Life, and Death of the Stars	Rudolf Kippenhahn
36 Arguments for the Existence of God	Rebecca Newberger Goldstein
50 Great Myths about Atheism	Russell Blackford
50 Popular Beliefs That People Think Are True	Guy P. Harrison
50 Reasons People Give for Believing in a God	Guy P. Harrison
50 Simple Questions for Every Christian	Guy P. Harrison
50 Voices of Disbelief: Why We Are Atheists	Russell Blackford
A God of One's Own: Religion's Capacity for Peace and Potential for Violence	Ulrich Beck
A Manual for Creating Atheists	Peter Boghossian
A Universe from Nothing: Why There Is Something Rather Than Nothing	Lawrence M. Krauss
A World Without Islam	Graham E. Fuller
Adam's Tongue: How Humans Made Language, How Language Made Humans	Derek Bickerton
Adams Vs. God: The Rematch	Phillip Adams
Against All Gods: Six Polemics on Religion and an Essay on Kindness	A.C. Grayling
All Things Shining: Reading the Western Classics to Find Meaning in a Secular Age	Hubert L. Dreyfus
Atheism	Julian Baggini
Atheism Advanced: Further Thoughts of a Freethinker	David Eller
Atheism and the Case Against Christ	Matthew S. McCormick
Atheism Explained: From Folly to Philosophy	David Ramsay Steele
Atheism: The Case Against God	George H. Smith
Atheist Manifesto: The Case Against Christianity, Judaism, and Islam	Michel Onfray
Atheist Universe: The Thinking Person's Answer to Christian Fundamentalism	David Mills
Believing Bullshit: How Not to Get Sucked into an Intellectual Black Hole	Stephen Law
Beyond Belief: The Secret Lives of Women in Extreme Religions	Cami Ostman
Beyond Good and Evil	Friedrich Nietzsche
Blindness	Josea Saramago
Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon	Daniel C. Dennett
Cat's Cradle	Kurt Vonnegut
Caught in The Pulpit:  Leaving Belief Behind	Daniel C. Dennett
Climbing Mount Improbable	Richard Dawkins
Cosmos	Carl Sagan
Create Your Own Religion: A How-To Book Without Instructions	Daniele Bolelli
Creation or Evolution?: Do We Have to Choose?	Denis Alexander
Darwin's Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life	Daniel C. Dennett
Decoding the Language of God: Can a Scientist Really Be a Believer?	George C. Cunningham
Deconverted: a Journey from Religion to Reason	Seth Andrews
Dot, Dot, Dot: Infinity Plus God Equals Folly	James A. Lindsay
Doubt: A History: The Great Doubters and Their Legacy of Innovation from Socrates and Jesus to Thomas Jefferson and Emily Dickinson	Jennifer Michael Hecht
Endless Forms Most Beautiful: The New Science of Evo Devo and the Making of the Animal Kingdom	Sean B. Carroll
Evolution vs. Creationism: An Introduction	Eugenie C. Scott
Evolving out of Eden: Christian Responses to Evolution	Robert M. Price
Faitheist: How An Atheist Found Common Ground With The Religious	Chris Stedman
Fear and Trembling	Søren Kierkegaard
For God's Sake	Jane Caro
Forged: Writing in the Name of God	Bart D. Ehrman
Freaks of Nature: What Anomalies Tell Us about Development and Evolution	Mark S. Blumberg
Free Will	Sam Harris
Friendship	A.C. Grayling
From Eve to Dawn: A History of Women in the World, Vol. 1	Marilyn French
Generation Atheist	Dan    Riley
God -- the Failed Hypothesis	Victor J. Stenger
God and Sex: What the Bible Really Says	Michael D. Coogan
God and the Folly of Faith: The Incompatibility of Science and Religion	Victor J. Stenger
God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything	Christopher Hitchens
God Is Not One: The Eight Rival Religions That Run the World--and Why Their Differences Matter	Stephen R. Prothero
God or Godless?: One Atheist. One Christian. Twenty Controversial Questions.	John W. Loftus
God: The Failed Hypothesis: How Science Shows That God Does Not Exist	Victor J. Stenger
Godless Americana: Race and Religious Rebels	Sikivu Hutchinson
Godless: How an Evangelical Preacher Became One of America's Leading Atheists	Dan Barker
Good and Evil (Great Minds Series)	Richard  Taylor
Good Without God: What a Billion Nonreligious People Do Believe	Greg M. Epstein
Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies	Jared Diamond
Hope after Faith: An Ex-Pastor's Journey from Belief to Atheism	Jerry DeWitt
How Proust Can Change Your Life	Alain de Botton
How to Live: A Life of Montaigne in One Question and Twenty Attempts at An Answer	Sarah Bakewell
Ideas That Matter: A Personal Guide For The 21st Century	A.C. Grayling
Ideas That Matter: The Concepts That Shape the 21st Century	A.C. Grayling
Infidel	Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Intuition Pumps and Other Tools for Thinking	Daniel C. Dennett
Jesus, Interrupted: Revealing the Hidden Contradictions in the Bible (and Why We Don't Know About Them)	Bart D. Ehrman
Leaving the Fold	Marlene Winell
Letter to a Christian Nation	Sam Harris
Letters to a Young Poet	Rainer Maria Rilke
Life Ascending: The Ten Great Inventions of Evolution	Nick Lane
Lying	Sam Harris
Man Made God: A Collection of Essays	Barbara Walker
Man's Search for Meaning	Viktor E. Frankl
Marriage, a History: How Love Conquered Marriage	Stephanie Coontz
Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why	Bart D. Ehrman
Mister God, This Is Anna	Fynn
More Than Human	Theodore Sturgeon
Mortality	Christopher Hitchens
Natural Atheism	David Eller
Nature's Clocks: How Scientists Measure the Age of Almost Everything	Doug Macdougall
Neuromancer (Sprawl, #1)	William Gibson
Nomad: From Islam to America: A Personal Journey Through the Clash of Civilizations	Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Objecting to God	Colin Howson
On the Origin of Stories: Evolution, Cognition, and Fiction	Brian Boyd
Origins: Fourteen Billion Years of Cosmic Evolution	Neil deGrasse Tyson
Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space	Carl Sagan
Paranormality: Why We See What Isn't There	Richard Wiseman
People in Glass Houses	Tanya Levin
Philosophers Without Gods: Meditations on Atheism and the Secular Life	Louise M. Antony
Physics for Future Presidents: The Science Behind the Headlines	Richard A. Muller
Predictably Irrational. The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions	Dan Ariely
Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain	Maryanne Wolf
Proust Was a Neuroscientist	Jonah Lehrer
Proving History: Bayes's Theorem and the Quest for the Historical Jesus	Richard Carrier
Relics of Eden: The Powerful Evidence of Evolution in Human DNA	Daniel J. Fairbanks
Religion for Atheists: A Non-Believer's Guide to the Uses of Religion	Alain de Botton
Rethinking Life and Death: The Collapse of Our Traditional Ethics	Peter Singer
Road Out Of Eden From Adventist To Atheist	LouAnne White
Sex & God: How Religion Distorts Sexuality	Darrel Ray
Sex at Dawn: The Prehistoric Origins of Modern Sexuality	Christopher  Ryan
Slaughterhouse-Five	Kurt Vonnegut
South Park and Philosophy: Bigger, Longer, and More Penetrating	Richard Hanley
Stranger in a Strange Land	Robert A. Heinlein
Supercontinent: Ten Billion Years in the Life of Our Planet	Ted Nield
Supernatural Selection: How Religion Evolved	Matthew Rossano
Swann's Way (In Search of Lost Time, #1)	Marcel Proust
Talking Difference: On Gender and Language	Mary Crawford
The 10,000 Year Explosion: How Civilization Accelerated Human Evolution	Gregory Cochran
The Age of Everything: How Science Explores the Past	Matthew Hedman
The Ancestor's Tale: A Pilgrimage to the Dawn of Evolution	Richard Dawkins
The Atheist's Guide to Reality: Enjoying Life without Illusions	Alex Rosenberg
The Australian Book of Atheism	Warren Bonett
The Believing Brain: From Ghosts and Gods to Politics and Conspiracies How We Construct Beliefs and Reinforce Them as Truths	Michael Shermer
The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology's New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of Its Sacred Texts	Israel Finkelstein
The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe Without Design	Richard Dawkins
The Caged Virgin: An Emancipation Proclamation for Women and Islam	Ayaan Hirsi Ali
The Case Against The Case for Christ	Robert M. Price
The Christian Delusion: Why Faith Fails	John W. Loftus
The Complete Heretic's Guide to Western Religion Book One: The Mormons	David Fitzgerald
The Dark Side of Christian History	Helen Ellerbe
The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark	Carl Sagan
The End of Biblical Studies	Hector Avalos
The End of Christianity	John W. Loftus
The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason	Sam Harris
The Epigenetics Revolution	Nessa Carey
The Evolution of God	Robert Wright
The Examined Life: How We Lose and Find Ourselves	Stephen Grosz
The Fallacy of Fine-Tuning: Why the Universe Is Not Designed for Us	Victor J. Stenger
The Future of Blasphemy: Speaking of the Sacred in an Age of Human Rights	Austin Dacey
The God Argument: The Case against Religion and for Humanism	A.C. Grayling
The God Confusion: Why Nobody Knows the Answer to the Ultimate Question	Gary Cox
The God Debates: A 21st Century Guide for Atheists and Believers (and Everyone in Between)	John R. Shook
The God Delusion	Richard Dawkins
The God Instinct: The Psychology of Souls, Destiny, and the Meaning of Life	Jesse Bering
The Good Atheist: Living a Purpose-Filled Life Without God	Dan Barker
The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution	Richard Dawkins
The Heart of Things: Applying Philosophy to the 21st Century	A.C. Grayling
The Hero with a Thousand Faces	Joseph Campbell
The High Price Of Heaven - A Book About The Enemies Of Pleasure and Freedom	David Marr
The Hinge Factor: How Chance and Stupidity Have Changed History	Erik Durschmied
The Holy Machine	Chris Beckett
The Human Faces of God: What Scripture Reveals When It Gets God Wrong (and Why Inerrancy Tries To Hide It)	Thom Stark
The Last of the Just	André Schwarz-Bart
The Life You Can Save: Acting Now to End World Poverty	Peter Singer
The Little Prince	Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
The Making of the Fittest: DNA and the Ultimate Forensic Record of Evolution	Sean B. Carroll
The Meaning of Life	Terry Eagleton
The Meaning of Things: Applying Philosophy to Life	A.C. Grayling
The Metamorphosis	Franz Kafka
The New Atheism: Taking a Stand for Science and Reason	Victor J. Stenger
The Outsider Test for Faith: How to Know Which Religion Is True	John W. Loftus
The Philosophy Gym	Stephen Law
The Portable Atheist: Essential Readings for the Nonbeliever	Christopher Hitchens
The Problem with God: Why Atheists, True Believers, and Even Agnostics Must All Be Wrong	Peter Steinberger
The Reason Driven Life: What Am I Here on Earth For?	Robert M. Price
The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion	Jonathan Haidt
The Rocks Don't Lie: A Geologist Investigates Noah's Flood	David R. Montgomery
The Shrink and the Sage: A Guide to Modern Dilemmas	Julian Baggini
The Speed Reading Book	Tony Buzan
The Stranger	Albert Camus
The Tree Of Man	Patrick White
The Way We Eat: Why Our Food Choices Matter	Peter Singer
The World Until Yesterday: What Can We Learn from Traditional Societies?	Jared Diamond
The Young Atheist's Handbook: Lessons for Living a Good Life Without God	Alom Shaha
The Young Atheist's Survival Guide: Helping Secular Students Thrive	Hemant Mehta
Think: Why You Should Question Everything	Guy P. Harrison
Thinking of Answers: Questions in the Philosophy of Everyday Life	A.C. Grayling
To Set Prometheus Free	A.C. Grayling
Tragedy: A Very Short Introduction	Adrian Poole
Truth: A Guide	Simon Blackburn
Unweaving the Rainbow: Science, Delusion and the Appetite for Wonder	Richard Dawkins
Western Values Versus the Gospels - What Jesus Really Values and Why We Shouldn't Agree with Him	Peter Woolcock
Wetware: A Computer in Every Living Cell	Dennis Bray
What Are You Without God?: How to Discredit Religious Thought and Rebuild Your Identity	Christopher Krzeminski
What Evolution Is	Ernst Mayr
What On Earth Evolved? ... In Brief	Christopher   Lloyd
What Should I Believe?: Why Our Beliefs about the Nature of Death and the Purpose of Life Dominate Our Lives	Dorothy Rowe
What's It All About?: Philosophy and the Meaning of Life	Julian Baggini
When Life Nearly Died: The Greatest Mass Extinction of All Time	Michael J. Benton
When Species Meet	Donna J. Haraway
White as the Waves: A Novel of Moby Dick	Alison Baird
White Washed: Uncovering the Myths of Ellen G. White	Sydney Cleveland
Why Are You Atheists So Angry? 99 Things That Piss Off the Godless	Greta Christina
Why Beliefs Matter: Reflections on the Nature of Science	E. Brian Davies
Why Darwin Matters: The Case Against Intelligent Design	Michael Shermer
Why Evolution Is True	Jerry A. Coyne
Why I Became an Atheist: A Former Preacher Rejects Christianity	John W. Loftus
Why Tolerate Religion?	Brian Leiter
Why Truth Matters	Jeremy Stangroom
Yes, But How Do You Know?	Stephen Hetherington

Out of these, my top 80 would be:

50 Great Myths about Atheism	Russell Blackford
50 Reasons People Give for Believing in a God	Guy P. Harrison
50 Simple Questions for Every Christian	Guy P. Harrison
50 Voices of Disbelief: Why We Are Atheists	Russell Blackford
A God of One's Own: Religion's Capacity for Peace and Potential for Violence	Ulrich Beck
A Manual for Creating Atheists	Peter Boghossian
Against All Gods: Six Polemics on Religion and an Essay on Kindness	A.C. Grayling
Atheism	Julian Baggini
Atheism Advanced: Further Thoughts of a Freethinker	David Eller
Atheism and the Case Against Christ	Matthew S. McCormick
Atheism Explained: From Folly to Philosophy	David Ramsay Steele
Atheism: The Case Against God	George H. Smith
Atheist Manifesto: The Case Against Christianity, Judaism, and Islam	Michel Onfray
Atheist Universe: The Thinking Person's Answer to Christian Fundamentalism	David Mills
Beyond Belief: The Secret Lives of Women in Extreme Religions	Cami Ostman
Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon	Daniel C. Dennett
Caught in The Pulpit:  Leaving Belief Behind	Daniel C. Dennett
Create Your Own Religion: A How-To Book Without Instructions	Daniele Bolelli
Deconverted: a Journey from Religion to Reason	Seth Andrews
Doubt: A History: The Great Doubters and Their Legacy of Innovation from Socrates and Jesus to Thomas Jefferson and Emily Dickinson	Jennifer Michael Hecht
Faitheist: How An Atheist Found Common Ground With The Religious	Chris Stedman
Fear and Trembling	Søren Kierkegaard
For God's Sake	Jane Caro
Forged: Writing in the Name of God	Bart D. Ehrman
Generation Atheist	Dan    Riley
God -- the Failed Hypothesis	Victor J. Stenger
God and Sex: What the Bible Really Says	Michael D. Coogan
God and the Folly of Faith: The Incompatibility of Science and Religion	Victor J. Stenger
God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything	Christopher Hitchens
God Is Not One: The Eight Rival Religions That Run the World--and Why Their Differences Matter	Stephen R. Prothero
God or Godless?: One Atheist. One Christian. Twenty Controversial Questions.	John W. Loftus
God: The Failed Hypothesis: How Science Shows That God Does Not Exist	Victor J. Stenger
Godless Americana: Race and Religious Rebels	Sikivu Hutchinson
Good Without God: What a Billion Nonreligious People Do Believe	Greg M. Epstein
Hope after Faith: An Ex-Pastor's Journey from Belief to Atheism	Jerry DeWitt
Jesus, Interrupted: Revealing the Hidden Contradictions in the Bible (and Why We Don't Know About Them)	Bart D. Ehrman
Leaving the Fold	Marlene Winell
Letter to a Christian Nation	Sam Harris
Man Made God: A Collection of Essays	Barbara Walker
Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why	Bart D. Ehrman
Natural Atheism	David Eller
Objecting to God	Colin Howson
Philosophers Without Gods: Meditations on Atheism and the Secular Life	Louise M. Antony
Proving History: Bayes's Theorem and the Quest for the Historical Jesus	Richard Carrier
Religion for Atheists: A Non-Believer's Guide to the Uses of Religion	Alain de Botton
Sex & God: How Religion Distorts Sexuality	Darrel Ray
The Atheist's Guide to Reality: Enjoying Life without Illusions	Alex Rosenberg
The Australian Book of Atheism	Warren Bonett
The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology's New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of Its Sacred Texts	Israel Finkelstein
The Case Against The Case for Christ	Robert M. Price
The Christian Delusion: Why Faith Fails	John W. Loftus
The Complete Heretic's Guide to Western Religion Book One: The Mormons	David Fitzgerald
The Dark Side of Christian History	Helen Ellerbe
The End of Biblical Studies	Hector Avalos
The End of Christianity	John W. Loftus
The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason	Sam Harris
The Evolution of God	Robert Wright
The Fallacy of Fine-Tuning: Why the Universe Is Not Designed for Us	Victor J. Stenger
The God Argument: The Case against Religion and for Humanism	A.C. Grayling
The God Confusion: Why Nobody Knows the Answer to the Ultimate Question	Gary Cox
The God Debates: A 21st Century Guide for Atheists and Believers (and Everyone in Between)	John R. Shook
The God Delusion	Richard Dawkins
The God Instinct: The Psychology of Souls, Destiny, and the Meaning of Life	Jesse Bering
The Good Atheist: Living a Purpose-Filled Life Without God	Dan Barker
The High Price Of Heaven - A Book About The Enemies Of Pleasure and Freedom	David Marr
The Human Faces of God: What Scripture Reveals When It Gets God Wrong (and Why Inerrancy Tries To Hide It)	Thom Stark
The New Atheism: Taking a Stand for Science and Reason	Victor J. Stenger
The Outsider Test for Faith: How to Know Which Religion Is True	John W. Loftus
The Portable Atheist: Essential Readings for the Nonbeliever	Christopher Hitchens
The Problem with God: Why Atheists, True Believers, and Even Agnostics Must All Be Wrong	Peter Steinberger
The Reason Driven Life: What Am I Here on Earth For?	Robert M. Price
The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion	Jonathan Haidt
The Young Atheist's Handbook: Lessons for Living a Good Life Without God	Alom Shaha
The Young Atheist's Survival Guide: Helping Secular Students Thrive	Hemant Mehta
Western Values Versus the Gospels - What Jesus Really Values and Why We Shouldn't Agree with Him	Peter Woolcock
What Are You Without God?: How to Discredit Religious Thought and Rebuild Your Identity	Christopher Krzeminski
What Should I Believe?: Why Our Beliefs about the Nature of Death and the Purpose of Life Dominate Our Lives	Dorothy Rowe
Why Are You Atheists So Angry? 99 Things That Piss Off the Godless	Greta Christina
Why I Became an Atheist: A Former Preacher Rejects Christianity	John W. Loftus
Why Tolerate Religion?	Brian Leiter

My goodreads.com read list