Book picks similar to
On the Gods and Other Essays by Robert G. Ingersoll
religion
philosophy
non-fiction
agnosticism
The Philosophy of the Teachings of Islam
Mirza Ghulam Ahmad - 1993
The scholars of Muslims, Christians, Arya Samaj and other religions were invited to represent their religions at the conference of Great Religion. They were required to write on the following five topics on the basis of their Holy Books.1. The physical, moral and spiritual states of man2. What is the state of man after death?3. The object of man's life and the means of its attainment,4. The operation of the practical ordinances of the Law in this life and the next 5. Sources of Divine knowledge.Allah revealed to the Promised Messiah(as) that his essay will be declared supreme over all other essays. And so it was. For instance the Civil and Military Gazette, Lahore, wrote that Hadrat Ahmad's essay was the only one worth mentioning and the only one paper which was commended highly. The essay has been published in several languages in different countries.It is the best and most comprehensive introduction to Islam within the scope of the above five questions. The book was translated into English by Sir Muhammad Zafrulla Khan Sahib.
The Great Derangement: A Terrifying True Story of War, Politics, and Religion at the Twilight of the American Empire
Matt Taibbi - 2008
A large and growing chunk of the American population was so turned off--or radicalized--by electoral chicanery, a spineless news media, and the increasingly blatant lies from our leaders ("they hate us for our freedom") that they abandoned the political mainstream altogether. They joined what he calls The Great Derangement.Taibbi tells the story of this new American madness by inserting himself into four defining American subcultures: • The Military, where he finds himself mired in the grotesque black comedy of the American occupation of Iraq;• The System, where he follows the money-slicked path of legislation in Congress;• The Resistance, where he doubles as chief public antagonist and undercover member of the passionately bonkers 9/11 Truth Movement; and• The Church, where he infiltrates a politically influential apocalyptic mega-ministry in Texas and enters the lives of its desperate congregants. Together these four interwoven adventures paint a portrait of a nation dangerously out of touch with reality and desperately searching for answers in all the wrong places. Funny, smart, and a little bit heartbreaking, The Great Derangement is an audaciously reported, sobering, and illuminating portrait of America at the end of the Bush era."The funniest angry writer and the angriest funny writer since Hunter S. Thompson roared into town." -- James Wolcott"…[A] scabrous, hilarious vivisection of our disintegrating nation. …Taibbi shines a light on the corruption, absurdities, and idiot pieties of modern American politics. Beneath his cynical fury, though, are flashes of surprising compassion for the adrift credulous souls who are taken in by it all." -- Michelle Goldberg
Tolerance
Hendrik Willem van Loon - 1925
The history of Tolerance (or the lack thereof) in the history of man as described by one of the best popular historians of all time
How To Be Right… in a World Gone Wrong
James O'Brien - 2018
But what makes James’s daily LBC show such essential listening – and has made James a standout social media star – is the careful way he punctures their assumptions and dismantles their arguments live on air, every single morning.In How To Be Right, James provides a hilarious and invigorating guide to talking to people with faulty opinions. With chapters on every lightning-rod issue, James shows how people have been fooled into thinking the way they do, and in each case outlines the key questions to ask to reveal fallacies, inconsistencies and double standards.If you ever get cornered by ardent Brexiteers, Daily Mail disciples or little England patriots, this book is your conversation survival guide.‘I have had a ringside seat as a significant swathe of the British population was persuaded that their failures were the fault of foreigners, that unisex lavatories threatened their peace of mind and that ‘all Muslims’ must somehow apologise for terror attacks by extremists. I have tried to dissuade them and sometimes succeeded… The challenge is to distinguish sharply between the people who told lies and the people whose only offence was to believe them.’James O’Brien
Nihilism: The Root of the Revolution of the Modern Age
Seraphim Rose - 1994
Seraphim) undertook to write a monumental chronicle of the abandonment of Truth in the modern age. Of the hundreds of pages of material he compiled for this work, only the present essay has come down to us in completed form. Here Fr. Seraphim reveals the core of all modern thought and life—the belief that all truth is relative—and shows how this belief has been translated into action in our century. Today, four decades after he wrote it, this essay is more timely than ever. It clearly explains why contemporary ideas, values, and attitudes—the “spirit of the age”—are shifting so rapidly in the direction of moral anarchy, as the philosophy of Nihilism enters more deeply into the fiber of society. Nietszche was right when he predicted that the 20th century would usher in “the triumph of Nihilism.”“Atheism, true ‘existential’ atheism burning with hatred of a seemingly unjust or unmerciful God, is a spiritual state; it is a real attempt to grapple with the true God.… Nietzsche, in calling himself Antichrist, proved thereby his intense hunger for Christ.”This new second edition contains a superb essay entitled “The Philosophy of the Absurd,” written by Fr. Seraphim at the same time that he was working on “Nihilism.”
The Origin of Satan: How Christians Demonized Jews, Pagans and Heretics
Elaine Pagels - 1995
With magisterial learning and the elan of a born storyteller, Pagels turns Satan's story into an audacious exploration of Christianity's shadow side, in which the gospel of love gives way to irrational hatreds that continue to haunt Christians and non-Christians alike.
Fly Fishing with Darth Vader: And Other Adventures with Evangelical Wrestlers, Political Hitmen, and Jewish Cowboys
Matt Labash - 2010
Considered one of American’s most brilliant writers by the journalism community, this long-awaited book debut presents Labash at his very best. A latter day Leibling, Labash’s collection will take its place alongside books by writers such as Calvin Trillin and P.J. O’Rourke..• A unique voice that’s well-connected: Labash’s well-informed insights, self-deprecating wit, and provocative candor feature regularly in The Weekly Standard and have also appeared in Washingtonian Magazine , American Spectator , and on Slate.com. Extremely well-liked and respected, his media contacts are many and varied. He has declined invitations to appear on everything from HBO Sports to Meet the Press —but is finally willing to make the rounds. As LA Weekly wrote after his Detroit piece, “it’s not new to give props to Matt Labash.”.• Remarkable collection: Full of wit, insight, and a trenchant grasp of the American scoundrel, Labash’s masterful profiles of men on the nation’s fringe—Pirate Kingfish Gov. Edwin Johnson, The Right Reverend Dr. Al Sharpton, Dirty Trickster Roger Stone—are published alongside devastating pieces on such dead or dying cities as Detroit and New Orleans; work celebrating such joyous, but overlooked pockets of American culture as Revival music and Rebirth Brass Band; and scathing, hilarious briefs on the nation’s great phonies—Michael Moore, Louis Farrakhan, Donald Trump to name a few..
On Liberty and Other Essays
John Stuart Mill - 1989
In his Introduction John Gray describes these essays as applications of Mill's doctrine of the Art of Life, as set out in A System of Logic. Using the resources of recent scholarship, he shows Mill's work to be far richer and subtler than traditional interpretations allow.
Montaigne in Barn Boots: An Amateur Ambles Through Philosophy
Michael Perry - 2017
Reading the philosopher in a manner he equates to chickens pecking at scraps—including those eye-blinking moments when the bird gobbles something too big to swallow—Perry attempts to learn what he can (good and bad) about himself as compared to a long-dead French nobleman who began speaking Latin at the age of two, went to college instead of kindergarten, worked for kings, and once had an audience with the Pope. Perry "matriculated as a barn-booted bumpkin who still marks a second-place finish in the sixth-grade spelling bee as an intellectual pinnacle . . . and once said hello to Merle Haggard on a golf cart."Written in a spirit of exploration rather than declaration, Montaigne in Barn Boots is a down-to-earth (how do you pronounce that last name?) look into the ideas of a philosopher "ensconced in a castle tower overlooking his vineyard," channeled by a midwestern American writing "in a room above the garage overlooking a disused pig pen." Whether grabbing an electrified fence, fighting fires, failing to fix a truck, or feeding chickens, Perry draws on each experience to explore subjects as diverse as faith, race, sex, aromatherapy, and Prince. But he also champions academics and aesthetics, in a book that ultimately emerges as a sincere, unflinching look at the vital need to be a better person and citizen.
Anti-Semite and Jew: An Exploration of the Etiology of Hate
Jean-Paul Sartre - 1944
Nothing of the anti-Semite either in his subtle form as a snob, or in his crude form as a gangster, escapes Sartre's sharp eye, and the whole problem of the Jew's relationship to the Gentile is examined in a concrete and living way, rather than in terms of sociological abstractions.
Modern Fascism: The Threat to the Judeo-Christian View
Gene Edward Veith Jr. - 1993
Through a skillful combination of historical narrative, cultural criticism and theological analysis, the author demonstrates how fascism, perhaps unknowingly, affects our thinking. The author also offers guidance and hope for those shaken by ideological crosscurrents as he convincingly demonstrates that Christian theology does not stifle the truth.
Biblical Nonsense: A Review of the Bible for Doubting Christians
Jason Long - 2005
Biblical Nonsense is a broad look at the tremendous problem of associating divinity with the world's most popular book. This part-philosophical, part-scientific overview explores the Bible's divine treachery, scientific mistakes, historical errors, false prophecies, and comical absurdities. Biblical Nonsense also expands beyond these standard reasons for skepticism by tackling the rationale behind the emergence and perpetuation of Christianity, psychological and sociocultural reasons that drive Christians to cling to their beliefs, and illogical methods of argumentation invoked in the defense of the Bible. Author Dr. Jason Long is a former Christian who condenses the most significant biblical problems into this single volume. Unlike other books in the field that delve into only one topic, this manuscript, comprehensible even to those who have never opened a Bible, is a full-fledged attempt to demonstrate that God's supposed word is a product of human minds, not divine inspiration. Dr. Long's fresh experiences in the church and advanced levels of educational enlightenment make him the perfect individual to present this vehemently unpopular, yet undeniably appealing topic.
The Common Good
Noam Chomsky - 1996
In his latest report on the state of the world, Chomsky discusses a breathtaking variety of topics, ranging from Japan's trade policies to the "war" on drugs, corporate welfare, and much more.
Phenomenology of Spirit
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel - 1807
It begins with a Preface, created after the rest of the manuscript was completed, that explains the core of his method and what sets it apart from any preceding philosophy. The Introduction, written before the rest of the work, summarizes and completes Kant's ideas on skepticism by rendering it moot and encouraging idealism and self-realization. The body of the work is divided into six sections of varying length, entitled "Consciousness," "Self-Consciousness," "Reason," "Spirit," "Religion," and "Absolute Knowledge." A myriad of topics are discussed, and explained in such a harmoniously complex way that the method has been termed Hegelian dialectic. Ultimately, the work as a whole is a remarkable study of the mind's growth from its direct awareness to scientific philosophy, proving to be a difficult yet highly influential and enduring work.
Stanley Kubrick's a Clockwork Orange
Stuart Y. McDougal - 1999
The volume also includes two contemporary and conflicting reviews by Roger Hughes and Pauline Kael, a detailed glossary of nadsat and reproductions of stills from the film.