Atheist handbook

His insights and suggestions were often adopted into the book. A shout out to Skylar for the time he spent listening to me bounce around a variety of ideas. Thank you for being my sounding board on all those occasions. As always, I would like to thank my brilliant and supportive wife Megan Lewis for all the work that she has put into this book. All of the illustrations and overall polish that you see in these pages are directly attributable to her.

You are my everything. Finally, to all of our supporters — particularly in the online atheist and skeptic community — I want to extend sincere thanks. I hope that this series will help make our interactions with Christian apologists more productive and meaningful.

Atheists are accused of a lot of things, not the least of which is playing fast-and-loose with the Bible. To be fair, these charges can sometimes be valid; there is no shortage of hot-headed atheist trolls who seem to live only to humiliate their competition. And there is no question that there are many well-meaning atheists who have not yet been equipped with the tools necessary to fully understand some of the nuances of the Old Testament.

Two things need to be said about these all-too-common occurrences. No knowledge of the book of Enoch and the heavenly watchers is necessary to have a problem with God drowning the entire world with a flood.

You can lack a detailed comprehension of slave adoption practices at Nuzi, yet still condemn the owning of another human being as property. A firm grasp on the extent of child sacrifice in ancient Palestine is not required to identify the call for mass genocide or forced relocation in the book of Joshua as a bad thing. While you might not need this contextual understanding, it can certainly help. In fact, that is the point of this publication.

The Atheist Handbook to the Old Testament is specifically designed to fill the gap, as it were, between the appropriate criticisms that are made by atheists and skeptics and the contextual details that would bring the Old Testament into greater focus. Now, back to our conversation about context! He is the ground and basis for morality? Then how do you explain 1 Samuel ? What they did to Israel? Why God commanded that they be punished? Honest, emotional and beautifully written Alom lets us in to his world and shows us how you can live a good life without god.

From the death of his mother, the abuse of his father, the troubles associated with going to a predominantly white school and the beauty of falling in love, Alom holds back nothing in slowly explaining how god is not essential in all aspects of life. Where other writers polemics are about their anger and annoyance at people with faith, Alom focuses on the pure humanity that is within us all and how belief is not required to be a good person.

No matter what your personal belief system there are lessons within this book about tolerance and understanding which can be applied. As someone who grew up in a very religious family and slowly lost his faith; I was initially an 'angry atheist'.

The Young Athiest's Handbook has helped me develop a much better philosophy in life. This book makes me strive to be the best person I can be and a much better way at looking at life as a non believer.

I recommend this book highly. Thank you for your bravery and honesty in writing it Alom. I love this book. It feels like a conversation. There are moments of wry humour that made me grin, some utterly heartbreaking bits that had me in tears and as a whole it is never less than warm, compassionate and intelligent in the discussion of why someone might choose to identify themselves as an atheist and the strange feeling of freedom that comes from accepting sole responsibility for one's own happiness and fulfillment.

You do not need to be an atheist to enjoy this book, and it would be a real shame if people of faith were put off reading this because the word "Atheist" appears in the title.

You also don't need to be young, but the title makes sense in that anyone who is questioning their belief in the god they have been raised with will find understanding and reassurance in it's pages. Reassurance that it is not necessary to have faith in order to live a good life, that atheism does not make you a bad person and that following any religion should be an informed choice, made willingly and not imposed.

Reading this book felt like someone taking the words right out of my mind and writing them down more articulately than I could have.

It feels like having a conversation with a good friend. I placed a sticky note on every idea I agreed with, and every idea I hadn't thought of before, and I now have a book exploding with little pink papers. The writing is unpretentious and genuine.

The ideal would be for everyone to read it, but I think "The Young Atheist's Handbook" would be most useful for agnostics. I'd like to thank Shaha for being given the chance to read his book through the Goodreads giveaways!

I was surprised how easy to read this book was, even though it features science, philosophy and morality. Alom Shaha wrote this book for anyone curious to hear the overwhelming amount of knowledge that shows that we as humans are influenced more by biology and society than by the threat of an imaginary sky deity. Interesting stuff. I say give it a go! I really enjoyed this autobiographical apologetic for atheism. There is a gentleness and sensitivity in the author's approach that permits a relaxed engagement with the ideas that contrasts with the more strident writings of some other atheists.

It's a very personal narrative that wraps within it some of the traditional arguments against theism which provides the book with a seductive pull that enables one to listen to the author rather than react adversarially - at least, that's how I experienced it.

A narrow-minded fundamentalist of any persuasion will probably not even read the book given its title. That would be a shame. Even committed theists would do well to start listening to the journeys of non-theists if only to have a genuine understanding of the "other's" point of view. It is also refreshing to hear about atheism from an ex-Muslim perspective.

The majority of atheist writings I think deal with the specifically Christian versions of theism. Of course, there are many other forms of theism within which believers struggle and emerge into some form atheism.

This story enriches atheist writings with nuances that would be beneficial for atheists also to read. One of the most compelling aspects of this book is the way in which it illustrates the power of experience in shaping our beliefs.

Very few people are convinced to change their beliefs by argument - even ones that are logically compelling. Our culture, family history, life events, where we're born - all of these and more are more influential than argument in shaping us. Pleasing My Professor. The Complete Convention Feminization. Ten Sexy Tales by Lora Lane. In Bed with Susie Bright Day with Essemoh: Early Afternoon. Day with Essemoh: Mid-Morning. Take Me in Public. Please explain the problem in a few words Close.