Category: Reviews

Helix, by Eric Brown (Nottingham, U.K.: Solaris Books, 2007, ISBN 978-1-84416-472-1) 526 pp. Paper $7.99. Helix, by Eric Brown, is a sprawling science-fiction novel combining a solid adventure story, world-building on an epic scale, and sharp-elbowed satire of religion. Five hundred years into its journey away from a nearly uninhabitable near-future Earth, its passengers in …

The Other Preacher in Lynchburg: My Life Across Town from Jerry Falwell, by John Killinger (New York: St. Martin’s Press/Thomas Dunne Books, 2009, ISBN: 0-312-53858-8) 208 pp., Cloth $24.95. John Killinger, Harvard and Princeton educated theologian and author of more than sixty books, served as minister of First Presbyterian Church in Jerry Falwell’s hometown from …

Living Without God: New Directions for Atheists, Agnostics, Secularists and the Undecided, by Ronald Aronson (Berkeley: Counterpoint, 2008, ISBN 1593761600) 288 pp. Cloth $25.00. In Declining World Order, Richard Falk claims that “only inclusivist religion, with a sense of the sacredness of every human being, can provide the political foundation in this global setting for …

Quantum Gods, by Victor J. Stenger (Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 2009, ISBN 978-1-59-02-713-3) 264 pp. Cloth $26.98. One of the enduring debates between atheists and theologians concerns the presence or absence of scientific evidence for the existence of a deity. While the vast majority of the scientific community would probably assert there is no reliable …

Losing My Religion: How I Lost My Faith Reporting on Religion in America—and Found Unexpected Peace, by William Lobdell (New York: HarperCollins, 2009, ISBN 978-0-060-162681-4) 304 pp. Cloth $26.95. William Lobdell, a former religion reporter for the Los Angeles Times, has written an intensely personal spiritual memoir of his journey from God-seeker to born-again evangelical …

Forbidden Fruit: The Ethics of Secularism, by Paul Kurtz (Amherst: N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 2008, ISBN 978-1-59102-666-2) 280 pp. Cloth $17.98. Paul Kurtz is professor emeritus of philosophy at the State University of New York at Buffalo and a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He is the author or editor of …

Quiverfull: Inside the Christian Patriarchy Movement, by Kathryn Joyce (Boston: Beacon Press, 2009, ISBN-13/EAN: 978-0-8070-1070-9) 272 pp. Cloth $25.95. Remember Ira Levin’s 1972 novel The Stepford Wives? Or the two films based on it from 1975 and 2004? If not, they are science-fiction horror stories about a town in which the guys in a local …

Karma, Dharma, Pudding & Pie, by Philip Appleman, illustrated by Arnold Roth (New York: Quantuck Lane Press, 2009, ISBN 978-1-593720360) 96 pp. Cloth $24.95. Like any good secular humanist, I enjoy reading the latest jeremiads by Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris, and others. Tomes about the ongoing depredations of the Religious Right are also welcome, and …

The Book of Atheist Spirituality, by André Comte-Sponville (London: Bantam, 2008, ISBN 978-0-593-06139-8) 212 pp. Cloth $19.95. Alister McGrath must be so embarrassed. Within months of the appearance in 2004 of his book The Twilight of Atheism, where he exulted over the demise of atheism in the modern world, a major new wave of atheist …

Tomorrow’s Table, Organic Farming, Genetics, and the Future of Food, by Pamela C. Ronald and Raoul W. Adamchack (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008, ISBN 978-0-19-530175-5) 199 pp. Cloth $29.95 The authors of Tomorrow’s Table, Pamela C. Ronald and Raoul W. Adamchack, are a plant geneticist and the manager of an experimental organic farm at …

Defending the West: A Critique of Edward Said’s Orientalism, by Ibn Warraq (Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 2008, ISBN 9778-1-59102-484-2) 556 pp. Cloth $29.95. Ibn Warraq’s Defending the West: A Critique of Edward Said’s Orientalism offers not only a devastating critique of Edward Said’s flawed scholarship and illogical arguments found in his highly influential Orientalism (Vintage …

Society without God: What the Least Religious Nations Can Tell Us About Contentment, by Phil Zuckerman (New York: New York University, 2008, ISBN 978-0-8147-3) 227 pp. Cloth $35. In the December 2008/January 2009 issue of Free Inquiry, Gregory Paul (“The Big Religion Questions Finally Solved”) exhaustively compared the high degree of religiosity in the United …

Hot, Flat, and Crowded, by Thomas L. Friedman (New York: Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 2008, ISBN 13: 978-0-374-16685-4) 438 pp. Cloth $27.95. Standing on Al Gore’s shoulders, New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman in Hot, Flat, and Crowded sounds a loud, clear tocsin regarding our nation’s and our planet’s pressing energy, resource, biodiversity, environmental, and …

Godless: How an Evangelical Preacher Became One of America’s Leading Atheists, by Dan Barker (Berkeley, California: Ulysses Press, 2008, ISBN 978-1-5675-667-5) 392 pp. Paper $14.95. If anyone in cont emporary nonbelief has a more spectacular life story than Dan Barker, I’d like to meet that person. A teen evangelist, minister, and Christian songwriter whose youth …

Nauvoo Polygamy: “. . . but we called it celestial marriage,” by George D. Smith (Salt Lake City, Utah: Signature Books, 2008, ISBN 1-56085-201-10) 728 pp. Cloth $39.95. Many men are womanizers, addicted to ladies young and old, and some have pursued them with consummate skill. To propose to women in “the name of God” …

Bondage and the Bible, written and directed by D. Eric Harmon. DVD distributed by Raitan Multi-Media at www.bondageandthebible.com. 2008. 55 minutes. $19.95 for individuals; $250.00 for institutions. D. Eric Harmon is an African-American freethinker from Los Angeles, California. In Bondage and the Bible, he poses the question: does the Bible justify slavery? Just a cursory …

On Religious Liberty: Selections from the Works of Roger Williams, edited by James Calvin Davis (Cambridge, Mass.: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2008, ISBN 13-978-0674-02622) 288 pp. Cloth $49.95. The clear and informed “Introduction: Roger Williams and the Birth of an American Ideal” is worth the price of On Religious Liberty. Drawing from …

The Devil’s Delusion: Atheism and Its Scientific Pretensions, by David Berlinski (New York: Random House/Crown Forum, 2008, ISBN 978-0-307-39626) 256 pp. Cloth $23.95. Faith is that quality which enables us to believe what we know to be untrue. —From Boners: Seriously Misguided Facts—According to Schoolkids, by Alexander Abingdon Reviews of putatively serious nonfiction books are …

50 Reasons People Give for Believing in a God, by Guy P. Harrison (Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 2008, ISBN 978-1-59102-567-2) 354 pp. Paper $16.95. Guy Harrison’s 50 Reasons People Give for Believing in a God is not an acerbic critique of religion, and it is not a mean-spirited attack on believers. It does not rely …

Religulous, written by Bill Maher, directed by Larry Charles, produced by Thousand Words, distributed by Lionsgate. 101 minutes. Anyone familiar with Bill Maher’s television work should suspect that his documentary about religion would have a certain . . . point of view. His show Politically Incorrect, which began airing on Comedy Central in 1994 (and …

The Portable Atheist: Essential Readings for the Nonbeliever, selected and introduced by Christopher Hitchens (Cambridge, Mass.: Da Capo Press, 2007, ISBN 978-0-306-81608-6) xxvi + 499 pp. Paper $17.50. Voltaire, who does not appear in The Portable Atheist, remarked that revolutions are made of pocketbooks. This reasonably hefty volume will fit into few pockets and will …

Science And Nonbelief, by Taner Edis, with a new preface by the author (Buffalo, New York: Prometheus, 2008, ISBN 978-1-59102-561-0) 304 pp. Paper $18.95. In this generally excellent book, Science and Nonbelief, physics professor Taner Edis offers a comprehensive review of modern science and gives cogent reasons why so many people still embrace views that …

The Age of American Unreason, by Susan Jacoby (New York: Pantheon Books, 2008, ISBN 978-0-375-42374-1) 356 pp. Cloth $26.00. In this crucial election year with so much at stake, Susan Jacoby’s new book The Age of American Reason should be on everyone’s must-read list. Jacoby, author of the important 2004 book Freethinkers and program director …

Irreligion: A Mathematician Explains Why the Arguments for God Just Don’t Add Up, by John Allen Paulos (New York: Hill and Wang, 2008, ISBN 978-0-8090-5919-5) 158 pp. Cloth $20.00. I have certainly never learned how to fruitfully discuss religion with people who have beatific grins on their faces, strangely gleaming eyes, and an air of …

Only a Theory: Evolution and the Battle for America’s Soul, by Kenneth R. Miller (New York: Viking, 2008, ISBN 9870670018833) 244 pp. Cloth $29.95. The debate between evolution and intelligent design (ID) is again joined in Only a Theory: Evolution and the Battle for America’s Soul by Kenneth R. Miller. The author is, admittedly, a …

So Help Me God: The Founding Fathers and the First Great Battle Over Church and State, by Forrest Church (Orlando: Harcourt, 2007, ISBN 978-0-15-1011 85-8) 530 pp. Cloth $28.00. So Help Me God, by Larry D. Thompson (New York: Tom Doherty Associates, 2008, ISBN13:978-0-7653-5733-3) 465 pp. Paper $7.99. Two books with the same title? Yes, …

A Secular Age, by Charles Taylor (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2007, ISBN 978-0674026766) 896 pp. Cloth $39.95. It is Easter Sunday, I am sitting a café in New York City, an d the air is full of the sound of people not heralding the risen Christ. Around me, a room full of patrons joins …

The Secular Conscience: Why Belief Belongs in Public Life, by Austin Dacey (Amherst, N.Y. Prometheus Books, 2008, ISBN 978-1-59102-604-4) 240 pp. Cloth $24.95. Books by past and present Center for Inquiry staff members threaten to form a literary subgenre. Chris Mooney’s 2005 The Republican War on Science and Susan Jacoby’s recent bestseller The Age of …

Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, directed by Nathan Frankowski, starring Ben Stein, Distributed by Premise Media Corporation. 2008. 105 minutes. It was precisely one o’clock on Sunday, April 27, when I slid into my seat in the darkened AMC Rio Cinema multiplex in Gaithersburg, Maryland, to watch what is unquestionably one of the worst films to …

The New Encyclopedia of Unbelief, edited by Tom Flynn (Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 2007, ISBN 978-1-59102-391-3) 897 pp. Cloth $199.00. Richard Dawkins, in his cogent and engaging foreword to The New Encyclopedia of Unbelief, reflects on the peculiarity of having a huge volume devoted to the absence of something. In fact, I was reminded immediately …

Stephen Hawking: A Biography, by Kristine Larsen (Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 2007, ISBN 978-159102-9574-0) 215 pp. Paper $16.95. The famous cosmologist Stephen Hawking had an extraordinary career ahead of him, or so it seemed in his twenty-first year. Acknowledged as brilliant by his fellow physics students at Oxford, he was troubled only by occasional lapses …

Head and Heart: American Christianities, by Garry Wills (New York: The Penguin Press, 2007, ISBN 978-1-59420-146-2) 626 pp. Cloth $29.95. “The Federal Constitution was, in short, the eighteenth-century equivalent of a secular humanist text. The delegates [to the Constitutional Convention] were not a very orthodox group of men in any doctrinal sense. The only born-again …

The Jesus Family Tomb, by Simcha Jacobovici and Charles Pellegrino (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2007, ISBN 978-0-06-119202-9) 218 pp. Cloth $27.95. This book does not stray beyond its evidence, but the implications of its findings are what has brought down a heap of abuse on it—often from people who demonstrate, through a telltale factual mistake they …

Science, Evolution and Creationism, National Academy of Sciences and the Institute of Medicine (Washington, D.C.: The National Academies Press, 2008, ISBN 978-0-309-10586-6) 70 pp. Paper $12.95. This handy book is intended as a resource for people caught up in controversies over evolution and creationism, particularly in public schools. It defines evolution as “a core concept …

The Stillborn God: Religion, Politics and the Modern West, by Mark Lilla (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2007, ISBN 978-1-4000-4367-5) 321 pp. Cloth $26.00. The “Stillborn God” of this fascinating and scholarly work is the God of the Enlightenment, God as conceived by liberal theology. The book places modern-day church-state issues in historical context and …

Darwin Day in America: How Our Politics and Culture Have Been Dehumanized in the Name of Science, by John G. West (Wilmington, Del.: ISI Books, 2007, ISBN 978-933859323) 495 pp. Cloth $28.00. It must be a strange world John West lives in. His book Darwin Day in America is much more ambitious than the title …

Masters of Illusion: The Supreme Court and the Religion Clauses, by Frank S. Ravitch (New York: New York University Press 2007, ISBN 978-0-8147-7585-1) 241 pp. Cloth $45.00. Even those who have read dozens of books on the meaning of the religion clauses of the First Amendment have probably never encountered a sentence such as this: …

Godly Republic: A Centrist Blueprint for America’s Faith-Based Future, by John J. DiIulio Jr. (California: University of California Press, 2007, ISBN 978-0-520-25414-5) 309 pp. Cloth $24.95. There were times while reading John J. DiIulio’s Godly Republic: A Centrist Blueprint for America’s Faith-Based Future that I would nod my head and think, “That sounds reasonable.” But …

With God on Our Side: One Man’s War Against an Evangelical Coup in America’s Military, by Michael L. Weinstein and Davin Seay (New York: Thomas Dunne Books, 2007, ISBN 0-312-38143-2) 258 pp. Cloth $25.95. The places of hell are reserved for those who remain silent, particularly in times of moral crisis. I will not be …

Philosophers without Gods: Meditations on Atheism and the Secular Life, edited by Louise Antony (Cambridge, UK: Oxford University Press, 2007, ISBN 978-01951713079) 336 pp. Cloth $28.00. It used to be so easy not believing in God. Now there are books atheists have to read, and books and more books. I thought I’d never read another …