A Manual for Creating Atheists by Peter Boghossian

A Manual for Creating Atheists, Peter Boghossian. Durham N.C.: Pitchstone Publishing, 2013. e-book, 224 pps.


A Manual for Creating Atheists in its basic form utilizes the Socratic Method in order to talk people into basing their lives on reason rather than upon faith. This idea of converting people to atheism is a foreign one to me at best and not something that I have attempted to do in any way, shape, or form. Nevertheless, I did read through the entire book.

What I found was more than a bit of repetition which I could have done without, some antidotes which didn't peak my interests, and some clear definitions of terminology. While I appreciated the latter and the amount of research which went into A Manual for Creating Atheists, the premise wasn't my cup of tea. My preference is for each individual adult to believe and put into practice what makes sense to them without the rest of us always having to have an opinion about it. The same objections that I have to street evangelism hold true regardless of the topic being pushed.

sapphoq reviews says: The most valuable point in A Manual for Creating Atheists was the differentiating between faith and reason. Faith works backwards from the conclusion. Reason [and science] works forward from the evidence. I like scholarly attempts but this one by Peter Boghossian falls way short. The most strident atheists among us will appreciate this book and maybe even enact some of the conversation suggestions. The rest of us will shrug our shoulders. And the religious among us will not find anything valuable here. Not recommended.

How I Unfriended God by Joel Douglas

Average Joe(l): How I Unfriended God, Volume 1, Joel Douglas. self-published, 2014. e-book 15 pps.


     "Why do people believe in god?"

     That was the question asked of a religious instructor who was teaching in Average Joe's classroom of captive children. That got him thinking. He began asking himself why he harbored that belief. As a teacher, he knew he had never researched this question or even read the bible totally through.

sapphoq reviews says: I hope to read more by Joel Douglas. Although short, How I Unfriended God makes several good points about why people believe [it's easier, for sure] and what happens when an adult turns a critical eye towards religion [nothing is guaranteed, anything can happen]. Highly recommended for those who want to read about atheism for everyday people.

"Properly read, the Bible is the most potent force for atheism ever conceived." Issac Asimov said it. I took the picture of the garden spider and altered it using my copy of legally obtained software. You may download the picture and save it to your "My Computer," rename the picture for your files, upload it to the internet at will. No credit or link-back is necessary to use this picture. Copyright trolls and copyright monopolists, you are not welcome here. Go away. Far far away. 

     

The Faith Healers by James Randi

The Faith-Healers, James Randi.   Buffalo N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 1987 and Falls Church Va.: James Randi Educational Foundation, 2011.  e-book, 687 pps.

http://www.randi.org/site/

http://www.youtube.com/user/JamesRandiFoundation

https://twitter.com/jref 


At one time, it was my endeavor to become a professional "healer" for Christ like Kathryn Kuhlman.  I thought I had the healing touch.  But nothing much ever happened there.  I even wanted to attend a local Christian Bible College.  Thankfully, Dad had more sense than I did.  This did not happen.

I wanted to be an evangelist/healer and give altar calls to crowded auditoriums and canvas tents of the faithful and wannabe faithful.  I also wanted to be a Christian Educator.  I even briefly flirted with the idea of becoming a missionary, although by that time I had adopted a dim view of what invading white people with crosses did to indigenous cultures.  My flirtation with fundamentalism was pretty near done by time I hear a preacher instruct us to "Place your hands on the radio and feel the Holy Ghost through the airwaves!"  Fortunately, I was not a person of means and I never gave any bisexual bucks to the bandits on religious television.

My aunt did though.  Aunt had multiple sclerosis and was expecting a miracle today a la Morris Cerullo but she received only the ultimate healing that death brings.  The price of false hope is expensive.


While reading The Faith-Healers, I was reminded of my youthful follies.  James Randi did his utmost to get the faith-healers in his book to produce evidence that their God heals.  None of it was forthcoming.  The evangelists were evasive, refused to correspond, accused Randi of being a Satan-worshipper, claimed that anecdotes of the so-called healed were sufficient, and so forth.  His conclusion was that the faith-healers were [and are] living a rich life off of the backs of the desperate.  Some of the desperate died.  Those who threw away their insulin needles and body braces and heart medications at the rallies and revivals and healing services died of the same conditions that they'd been told were removed.  Two or three dropped dead during the services themselves.  Awkward at best. 

The faith-healers claim to have the Gift of Knowledge.  That supposed gift enables them to "call out" people who need healing.  Before the event begins, wives and staffers and sometimes the evangelist himself walks through the audience and talks to them.  Information is then transmitted via radio frequencies and crib notes and healing cards.  There is nothing extraordinary about how a shill calls out people.  It's on the cards or the cheat sheet or being transmitted via a specially fitted receiver in the ear of the preacher.  There is no glory in that.  None at all.

sapphoq reviews says:  I watched a television program once on Peter Popoff and his techniques that he was using to deceive the people.  It was a horrifying bit of investigative journalism.  The Faith-Healers is broader in scope and even more horrifying.  Highly recommended.