Your God is Too Small by the citizens of Atheist Republic

Your God is Too Small: 50 Essays on Life, Love, and Liberty Without Religion, Atheist Republic. self-published: Armin Navabi, 2014, e-book, 300 pages.

http://www.atheistrepublic.com/

https://twitter.com/atheistrepublic


Armin Navabi is the founder of Atheist Republic.


     Atheist Republic has blogs, forums, a coming soon podcast, a news section and more on the site http://www.atheistrepublic.com. I didn't know about it until I happened upon the free e-book containing fifty essays by bloggers under the atheist republic umbrella. 

     Published via Smashwords, the common criticism lodged against many of the other self-published authors there does not hold true for Your God is Too Small. I found zero mistakes in grammar and spelling. To anyone who hesitates at the Smashwords label, go ahead and download this free e-book. My only criticism is that the urls to the videos were omitted in the individual essays. I don't know whether that is a stipulation from Smashwords or an oversight by the citizens of Atheist Republic.

     There is a lot to love about Your God is Too Small. I relished the section on Islam. Although some percentage of the populace makes it a practice to not criticize the doings of any religious organizations, the essays included about Islam make it clear that Atheist Republic citizens don't hesitate to take on any topic of necessity. Several essays address the human rights violations and atrocities evident within modern-day Islam as well as the idea that it was not that long ago that mainstream Christian churches also shared in implicit guilt as related to genocide [Rwanda, Hitler, and the Crusades all spring to my mind]. Circumcision of both males [common in Judaism] and females [in some predominantly Muslim countries] is treated as the mutilation that it is. Even slaughtering beef using kosher methods is not given a pass.

     Some of us within the atheist communities who have been experimenting with a "Live and Let Live" laissez-faire approach to more fundamentalist believers have discovered that those believers do not feel bound by the same principle in dealing with us. I don't know of any studies done to support my own anecdotal observations about the clashes on Twitter (tm, no copyright infringement intended) which occur between atheists and believers. Making a statement like "I am an atheist. I don't believe in any gods" or even "Jesus Christ is my personal savior" or "There is no god but Allah" is quite different from "Atheists are scumbags" sort of statements that flow from some Christian and Muslim accounts. Fundamentalism of any variety is dangerous. One only has to research "Charlie Hedbo" to find illustrations of why that is so. Your God is Too Small also reminded me that atheism is punishable by death in some countries today. We atheists cannot afford to sit back and congratulate ourselves on our blossoming presence on social media.

sapphoq reviews says: I have been looking for a new country. I think I will join up at Atheist Republic and observe where the citizenship there takes me. I highly recommend Your God is Too Small to atheists and other freethinkers and to those non-atheists who are interested in an intellectual exploration of what life might be like on our side of logic.

Answering Aunt Bertha by J.A. Steiner

Answering Aunt Bertha...Regarding Her God and Faith, J.A. Steiner. self-published, 2010. ebook, 441 pps.


     J.A. Steiner had an elderly aunt named Bertha [she passed away before he finished the book] who was a sincere Christian woman. He wrote Answering Aunt Bertha in response to her beliefs without any intention of sharing his writing with her. Although my own relatives-- including the elderly ones-- know about my own atheism, I strive to respect my older relatives in particular by not arguing with them. I suspect that perhaps J.A. Steiner is of similar mind.

     The most valuable point that J.A. Steiner made in the e-book is one about control or self-control. From page 219: "Religion imposes rules that may enable you to overcome personal weaknesses and encourage self-control."  I have certainly witnessed evidence of this with people in the throes of active addiction who find peace and a new way of being via a set of ideas related to spiritual practices [including but not limited to the twelve steps as originally written for Alcoholics Anonymous and subsequently altered for other X.A. programs] as well as those who never come to meeting rooms but who seek through their churches or other religious bodies to quit doing what they've been doing. This is the primary reason why I do not seek to argue people out of their belief systems. [There are other reasons also which involve how belief operates as well as basic human respect for others].

     J.A. Steiner goes on to almost condemn this sort of thing by calling those who utilize this tool as weak or lacking willpower or intellectually lazy or suffering from not enough self-determination. That is what I find to be the greatest weakness in Answering Aunt Bertha. Religion has provided many people an impetus to change. While some of those changes may be lethal, other changes are not. To decide that all of the folks who know that they need social supports and find it in religion are somehow lacking is an error in cognitive thinking. Because not all of them are. I suspect that most of them are not lacking.

     While it is true that many horrid acts have been perpetrated in the name of religion, it is also true that religion also motivates people to compassionate and altruistic acts. It is unfortunate that Muslims tend to rely on the "no true Muslim" fallacy when noting that extremists perpetrate acts of terror and also unfortunate that Christians do not recognize folks in the Westboro Baptist Church as being part of what religion can also birth. Although we know today the Vatican's part in covering for the religious who were actively involved in the genocide in Rwanda, the Vatican is reluctant to admit to any wrong-doings on the part of Mother Church [in my opinion] in general until almost forced to.

     No true Scotman or Muslim or Christian or any other word designating a person belonging to a religious sect fails in terms of recognizing the part that religion has played in some of the worst disasters the world has seen. And yet, religion has also done much good. Nothing is all good or all bad. People too. Not one of us is all good or all bad. Even Hitler loved his dog.

sapphoq reviews says: I do applaud the efforts of J.A. Steiner to put forth his thoughts on atheism versus Christianity. Answering Aunt Bertha is not scholarly, thus it is accessible to the average reader. Even so, I hesitate to fully endorse this book. Christians may find it rambling. Atheists will be familiar with much of what it contains. Yet, we need more books for and by the common atheist. Recommended for atheists who are not wanting to be persuaded by the standard attempts to "debunk" Christianity.

The Worldview of Atheism by Jensen DG. Manebog

The Worldview of Atheism, Jensen DG. Manebog. self-published, 2013. e-book, 47 pps.

     Jensen De Guzman Manebog, from Repúblika ng Pilipinas, has written a booklet which pretty much accuses atheism in what he views as its many forms of failing at morality. He makes a case against relativism as a working morality and he charges atheism with this relativism. Being good without any gods does not seem to hold threats of eternal damnation or rejection above the heads of the human puppets. Ergo, atheists lack morals because any morality that atheists do have depend upon human law-making rather than divine law-giving.

     It is indeed troubling in this day and age that atheist and atheist organizations should be continually called upon to refute such charges. Morality can and does arise in social groups without the use of or reinforcement by [christian] religious influence. Although The Worldview of Atheism employs logical fallacies extensively in its pages, the central message that non-theists are not getting through to believers that we too, as social animals, certainly do have principles is one that atheists ought to take to heart. A dialogue between believers of all ilk and freethinkers ought to take place with its central aim as clearing up such misunderstandings. I personally do not hold out much hope for such an event, since we are often subject to debates with each side winning points instead of to honest and open communication.

sapphoq reviews says: This book is full of poor arguments favoring Christianity. Doggerel which merely repeats that atheism is not logical fills up the pages of The Worldview of Atheism. Christian apologist C.S. Lewis is quoted extensively here. Both he and Humes make for much better reading for christians and others who are seeking out more intelligent thought. Skip this one.