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Advice on Atheist Texts

wittgenst3in

Critical Thinker
W
Joined
Jun 14, 2004
Messages
379
I have a friend who will shortly be undertaking the 'confirmation' cereomony of the Christian Church. I myself undertook this a few years ago before I became an Atheist. I suspect that having been raised in a Christian household, and not seriously exposed to any other beliefs, that in later years she may come to regret her decision.

I am wanting to give her something thought provoking to read, but without being too militant. I remember reading Bertrand Russells "Why I am not a Christian" was a significant event in my life, and also another document called "Questioning Theistic Beliefs" by a guy called Allann Glenn. Unfortunately the latter is not now on the web, as it is being re-written.

Are there any other (hopefully short) texts out there that anyone else has found useful or though provoking?
 
Nietzsche's "Twilight of the Gods". Or really, anything by Nietzsche. That might be throwing a Christian to the lions, though.
 
don't you think giving someone a book on atheism just before their confirmation will come off looking pretty bad?

of course it depends on the person youre giving it to, but just a thought. may cause some serious resentment.
 
Geni thanks for the link. I'm well aquainted with SAB, and carry a copy on my palm-pilot. It's a bit millitant though, so I want to give her something soft to start with.

Diogenes I've been thinking about ordering Asimov's guide for a while. It looks very interesting (and of course it goes without saying that I'm a fan of his other works).

Diogenes said:
Just reading the Christian Bible very carefully and trying to take it seriously ought to do it...
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I doubt it. I mean, come on people have been reading it for thousands of years, and never batted an eyelid at stuff like genocide.

If you had no belief in it, reading it carefully would definitely turn you off it. If on the other hand, you already belive in it you would probably change your morality to match the bible, rather than change your religion to match your morality. IMHO.

I had a discussion with a friend a couple of years ago in which I said that it was funny how Jesus never cleared up about that pesky genesis story. He actually agreed with me that Jesus obviously thought it was true, otherwise omitting a correction was like lying. Result, he is now a creationist. (We are still good friends though) If I had not used that attack however, it is entirely probable that he would have accepted the 'genesis as metaphor' position of most other Christians.

In the same fashion I'm wary about using the slaughters of the old testament as an example of unjust behaviours by God. A Christian might just backflip and say that genocide can be just. (Although I'm sure that if presented with other religions scriptures with a similar tale they would discount it as barbaric. Hmm... this raises the possibility of double blind tests.) In fact I had this discussion with someone else, and they said that they consider whatever God does to be just by definition. That scared the everloving p*ss out of me.

HarryKeogh, thanks. I've thought about that, and I'll approach the situation very delicatly.

Edit:

Sorry Tragicmonkey, I didn't see your comment.

Agreed, Nietzsche is definitely not for the timid. Also not a good philosopher to start with.
 
TragicMonkey said:
Nietzsche's "Twilight of the Gods". Or really, anything by Nietzsche. That might be throwing a Christian to the lions, though.
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Thus Spake Zarathustra is the best of his work, and maybe the most accessible. It's very passionate.
 
c4ts said:
Thus Spake Zarathustra is the best of his work, and maybe the most accessible. It's very passionate.
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I would have said it's too passionate, too mystical, and thus not easily understandable compared to the dryer, more ordinary prose of the rest of his works. After all, even the Nazis were able to read their own sentiments into it, despite how much Nietzsche deplored nationalism in general and German nationalism in particular.

It is an exciting book, though.
 
TragicMonkey said:
I would have said it's too passionate, too mystical, and thus not easily understandable compared to the dryer, more ordinary prose of the rest of his works. After all, even the Nazis were able to read their own sentiments into it, despite how much Nietzsche deplored nationalism in general and German nationalism in particular.

It is an exciting book, though.
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The Germans actually read into his critique of democracy. Nietzche said democracy was directionless, therefore stifiling progress. The Nazis just assumed that their direction was some sort of improvement. They must have skipped his criticism of German nationalism in the process.
 
c4ts said:
The Germans actually read into his critique of democracy. Nietzche said democracy was directionless, therefore stifiling progress. The Nazis just assumed that their direction was some sort of improvement. They must have skipped his criticism of German nationalism in the process.
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They didn't read all of Nietzsche. His sister was a big pro-Nazi, and selectively edited his works once he became too sick to stop her.
 
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