As The Friendly Atheist announced a few days ago, Dan Riley’s 2012 book Generation Atheist is available free through today only in the Kindle version. You can obtain it here. And here’s the precis from Amazon:
The human journey is an emotional quest to find truth and meaning. Countless books have presented this journey through the eyes of people who concluded their search with devotion to God, salvation by Jesus, or commitment to religion. But there’s a changing zeitgeist in America and the world: a growing number of people are finding truth and meaning from the opposite perspective. Through 25 personal narratives, Generation Atheist tells their stories. The people in this book come from different religious upbringings, races, sexual orientations, and genders. Many have gone through very emotional journeys in coming to a sustained, open atheistic worldview. Most were quite religious at one point in their lives. Through the internet, humanity is engaged in a global conversation unlike any before in history — about who we are, why we are here, and how we should live — and these individuals have an important perspective to share.
Although I haven’t read this one, the customer reviews are pretty good.
Reader Robert, who sent me this link, added:
The cultural backgrounds of the contributors constitute an interesting array. All but several of the contributors cite the facts of evolution as having been important for their development of atheistic worldviews. A majority, but not as many as for evolution, cited Dawkins’ God Delusion as a significant factor.
I downloaded this yesterday, and I’m about halfway through it.
What strikes me the most is the level of emotional terrorism many religions display toward their adherents. Absolutely horrible. So many of the people in these pages express fear of rejection by family and friends, and that fear so often turns out to be justified.
Certainly an eloquent bunch, too.
I recommend the book. L
I’d have put it back onto the bookshelf at this point. Without looking at the price.
I’m inclined to agree.
Yes, it’s absolutely true that that’s the case for some people — and all the more power to ’em.
But some of us are more interested in actually doing things than in spending all our energy trying to figure out what we want to do.
b&
It’s a lot easier to accomplish stuff when you’re grounded in reality and not swimming in your fearful fantasies.
Each of the speakers in this book IS doing something constructive; their stories are about how they were able to get to the point of being able to.
When I was still a shrink, my focus was on how to catalyze that for the people I worked with, and although my personal struggles couldn’t be categorized as religious, I can attest to the fact that ridding oneself of psychological baggage goes a long way toward allowing one to accomplish real goals in the real world. L
Well, if it’s productively therapeutic for some and helps them cast off the shackles of superstition, all the more power to ’em. Maybe I’m just fortunate in that I’ve moved farther past that sort of thing than others — though I certainly don’t feel especially privileged in that fashion.
b&
I’m still in the middle of reading the book, but what some of these people have overcome is mindboggling.
Most people in those situations don’t make it out at all, much less with the ability to function well.
And, in a couple of cases where these people were totally abandoned by their families and friends, I am glad that the atheist community gave them a place to land. In two cases, there were significant scholarships raised for them – a sign that their efforts are appreciated. L
Then methinks the book doth deserve a better blurb!
b&
One more for the virtual bookshelf!
Also recently released, and in a similar vein, is Greta Chritina’s book Coming Out Atheist. It isn’t free today, though.
It’s really hard to say no to free, especially when it takes no space. Though I anticipate it will sit on my Kindle app for a long time unread.
Thank you to professor Ceiling Cat for this; I’ve downloaded the book, and it will be my next Kindle read, after I finish the one I’m on, Massimo Pigliucci’s Thinking about Science. By the way, I’ve already read another Kindle book that was recommended here, Ken Daniels’ Why I Believed,” which was outstanding, especially for ex-evangelicals.
For those who found the opening statement of the publisher’s blurb for Generation Atheist a bit off-putting, here’s a better comment, from Sir Harold Kroto (Nobel Prize winner, Chemistry, 1996):
“This compendium is wonderful proof of the fact that there is a large constituency of courageous young people able to think for themselves and conclude, by themselves, that those who profess authority on the basis of mystical dogma should have no power over others, as decreed by the Founding Fathers. It is to the great credit of these young people that they have been prepared to write so intimately and intelligently about the difficulties they encountered in their personal journeys to “Enlightenment”. Enlightenment is, as Kant has implied, the ability to use one’s own understanding and judgement to make wise decisions without taking orders from others.”
Finally, let me reiterate once more, please don’t miss this cartoon.
For me it was Animal Armaggedon, the TV show….and The God Delusion.
The God Delusion was a bit late for me, but it was definitely useful at the end of my atheist evolution.
And of course it is annoying to the religionists, meaning we all (heh) think it was good.