An advocate of reason and common sense, the author debunks traditional believer apologetics and challenges theist platitudes, while providing food for thought and debate fodder for the neophyte to intermediate atheist. With more than one hundred no-holds-barred, plain-speaking rants and essays on a variety of religious subjects, The Atheist Camel Chronicles is the go-to book to find a burr to place under the saddle of the holier than thou, or to glean retorts to the banal "Truths" that religionists use to bolster their faith in the face of the Scientific Age and 21st century reality. Sometimes funny, always hard hitting and thought provoking, this book belongs in the library of every atheist, agnostic and skeptic who engages in debate and discourse with the religiously afflicted.

    Ordained at twelve, he would eventually become the first Buddhist chaplain at an American university, the founder of a retreat center and monastery, and a bestselling author. Here, Bhante G. lays bare the often-surprising ups and downs of his seventy-five years, from his boyhood in Sri Lanka to his decades of sharing the insights of the Buddha, telling his story with the "plain-English" approach for which he is so renowned.

    James Allen's best-selling classic, As a Man Thinketh, combined with four other James Allen titles: The Path to Prosperity, The Mastery of Destiny, The Way of Peace, and Entering the Kingdom.

    This outrageous and inventive short story is not just focused solely on crap itself, but the spirituality of crap. This parody of the Tao Te Ching begs the question: Is everything crap? McFergus translates Li Chang's master work from an ancient roll of toilet paper, a minor Chinese national treasure purchased on eBay, to uncover the lost legend of Li Chang.DISCLAIMER: There is no Winnie the Pooh bear in this story. There is no piglet. The only honey pot in this story has crap in it. THIS IS NOT THE TAO OF POOH.

    This iconic journey changed the world forever, and the truths revealed continue to influence every corner of the globe today.A young man in line for the throne is trapped in his father's kingdom and yearns for the outside world. Betrayed by those closest to him, Siddhartha abandons his palace and princely title. Alone and face-to-face with his demons, he becomes a wandering monk and embarks on a spiritual fast that carries him to the brink of death. Ultimately recognizing his inability to conquer his body and mind by sheer will, Siddhartha transcends his physical pain and achieves enlightenment.Although we recognize Buddha today as an icon of peace and serenity, his life story was a tumultuous and spellbinding affair filled with love and sex, murder and loss, struggle and surrender. From the rocky terrain of the material world to the summit of the spiritual one, Buddha captivates and inspires—ultimately leading us closer to understanding the true nature of life and our selves.

    All of a sudden, he found himself falling back into the old religious devotions of an earlier time. The meaning he had found through years of engagement with therapy began to dissolve. Here, in On Tuesdays I'm a Buddhist, Harding examines the search for meaning in life which keeps him fastened to the idea of god. After many therapy sessions focused on an effort to uncover personal truth, and long solitary months on the road with a one man show, Harding is finally led to an artists' retreat in the shadow of Skellig Michael.Mixing stories from the road with dispatches from his Irish Times columns, On Tuesdays I'm a Buddhist is a spell-binding and powerful book about the human condition, the narratives we weave around the self, and the ultimate bliss of living in the present moment. 'What happens between one story and the next? That's the really interesting part. That's the space where we find bliss; where we float sometimes, suspended, and only for a brief moment. Perhaps only for a few scarce moments in an entire life.'

    About to turn 30, like many her age, Ellen had left the Church a long time ago, but she had never stopped believing in and talking to God. Now, she suddenly realized she wasn't quite ready for this statement to be true, however much of a contradiction it seemed to present with some of her most strongly held views.Abandoning the Church had been an act of protest, a form of punishment. However, she began to wonder: who had really lost the most? Why should those who did the damage to the Church get to keep it and all its good bits, like going to Mass for the ritual and the community, having a clear guide for living a better life, and the comfort of believing it's not the end when somebody dies?But how could she ally herself to an institution she doesn't entirely agree with? In her first book, Ellen tries to figure out how much she really wants to go back to the Church, and if it is even the right thing to do. A stunningly intelligent and thoughtful debut work of non-fiction.

    Religion for Atheists suggests that rather than mocking religions, agnostics and atheists should instead steal from them – because they're packed with good ideas on how we might live and arrange our societies. Blending deep respect with total impiety, Alain (a non-believer himself) proposes that we should look to religions for insights into, among other concerns, how to:- build a sense of community- make our relationships last- overcome feelings of envy and inadequacy- escape the twenty-four hour media- go travelling- get more out of art, architecture and music- and create new businesses designed to address our emotional needs.For too long non-believers have faced a stark choice between either swallowing lots of peculiar doctrines or doing away with a range of consoling and beautiful rituals and ideas. At last, in Religion for Atheists, Alain has fashioned a far more interesting and truly helpful alternative.

    And he makes everyone else around him feel like smiling. He's the Dalai Lama, the spiritual and temporal leader of Tibet, a Nobel Prize winner, and an increasingly popular speaker and statesman. What's more, he'll tell you that happiness is the purpose of life, and that "the very motion of our life is towards happiness." How to get there has always been the question. He's tried to answer it before, but he's never had the help of a psychiatrist to get the message across in a context we can easily understand. Through conversations, stories, and meditations, the Dalai Lama shows us how to defeat day-to-day anxiety, insecurity, anger, and discouragement. Together with Dr. Cutler, he explores many facets of everyday life, including relationships, loss, and the pursuit of wealth, to illustrate how to ride through life's obstacles on a deep and abiding source of inner peace.

    The NFL's Most Valuable Player for the 2005 season, Seattle Seahawks running back Shaun Alexander has gained a reputation that's one for the record books.? And now in his inspiring autobiography, Shaun shares his amazing journey to success both on and off the field.Written with award-winning author Cecil Murphey, Shaun recounts how God first gave him the dream for the achievements that have made him a household name among football fans everywhere.? He also shares his passion for helping other young men through his Shaun Alexander Foundation, focusing on improving the lives of fatherless young men through education, athletics, character programs, and leadership training, inspiring them to reach their God-given potential.

    To reintroduce Christianity into a world that has largely forgotten what the word means. To show the limitation of reason and modern philosophy.Here, Peter Vardy makes Kierkegaard's often complex and difficult thinking accessible to a wide audience. He sketches a few of the central themes of Kierkegaard's thought and gives the reader a feeling for the way he approaches problems and some sense of the breadth of his work. This revised and expanded edition is an ideal introduction to Kierkegaard for both students and the general reader.

    His letters to various churches scattered throughout the Roman Empire articulated, for the first time, the beliefs that make up the heart of Christian practice and faith. In this extraordinary biography, Bruce Chilton explains the changing images of Paul, from the early Church period when he was regarded as the premiere apostle who separated Christianity from Judaism to more recent liberal evaluations, which paint him as an antifeminist, homophobic figure more dedicated to doctrine than to spiritual freedom. By illuminating Paul’s thoughts and contributions within the context of his time, Chilton restores him to his place as the founding architect of the Church and one of the most important figures in Western history. Rabbi Paul is at once a compelling, highly readable biography and a window on how Jesus’ message was transformed into a religion embraced by millions around the world. Drawing on Paul’s own writings as well as historical and scholarly documents about his life and times, Chilton portrays an all-too-human saint who helped to create both the most beautiful and the most troublesome aspects of the Church. He shows that Paul sought to specify the correct approach to such central concerns as sexuality, obedience, faith, conscience, and spirit, to define religion as an institution, and to clarify the nature of the religious personality—issues that Christians still struggle with today.

    The man all editors turned to when they needed a book, film, or tv program savaged was tired of being so mean. He wanted to be more like Susan Sarandon. Or Sting. Determined to mend his ways, Queenan embarked on the most difficult task of his career: he decided to become a nice person. Now available in paperback, My Goodness is the side-splitting result of Queenans attempted transformation: from his use of animal-friendly Body Shop goods to his letter of apology to Jackie Collins after a scathing review of her latest book; from his quest to save the whales to his quest to save Linda Tripages.

    House, 2002.

    Why wouldn't she be? She made good money as a programmer at a hot tech start-up, had just married a guy with a stack of Ivy League degrees, and lived in a twenty-first-floor condo where she could sip sauvignon blanc while watching the sun set behind the hills of Austin. Raised in a happy, atheist home, Jennifer had the freedom to think for herself and play by her own rules. Yet a creeping darkness followed her all of her life. Finally, one winter night, it drove her to the edge of her balcony, making her ask once and for all why anything mattered. At that moment everything she knew and believed was shattered. Asking the unflinching questions about life and death, good and evil, led Jennifer to Christianity, the religion she had reviled since she was an awkward, sceptical child growing up in the Bible Belt. Mortified by this turn of events, she hid her quest from everyone except her husband, concealing religious books in opaque bags as if they were porn and locking herself in public bathroom stalls to read the Bible. Just when Jennifer had a profound epiphany that gave her the courage to convert, she was diagnosed with a life-threatening medical condition--and the only treatment was directly at odds with the doctrines of her new-found faith. Something Other Than God is a poignant, profound and often funny tale of one woman who set out to find the meaning of life and discovered that true happiness sometimes requires losing it all.