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Despite the mistaken use of the label "New Atheists," there is a lot of continuity over the past couple of centuries among atheist authors in their critiques of religion, theism, and superstition. Not every argument is identical, and even when the same basic argument is being offered there can be variety in how it is presented. This evolution of atheist critiques of supernatural religion is one of the virtues of Christopher Hitchens' book The Portable Atheist: Essential Readings for the Nonbeliever. Well known for his own atheist book God Is Not Great, Hitchens treads some very heavily-traveled ground here in editing a compendium of atheist writings. Do we really need yet another book of essays, isolated chapters, and other selections from atheists, agnostics, freethinkers and skeptics of the past? What could we get out of this latest offering that we didn't get from the past half dozen that we bought - or the others that we simply skipped? Those are good questions, and reasons why I was skeptical of Hitchens' book, but in the end I think he succeeds in making his book more than "just one more" collection of atheist essays.… (meer)
A wide ranging collection of essays, poems and selections from larger works arranged chronologically, starting with a selection from Lucretius' De Rerum Natura and ending with part of Ayaan Hirsi Ali's How and why I became an Infidel. Even the seasoned atheist is likely to find something "new" here: there is an excellent introduction by Chris Hitchens, a reminder that there is nothing new under the sun with the writings of Thomas Hobbes, Baruch Spinoza, David Hume and John Stuart Mill, a discussion of the TV evangelist equivalents of her time by Mary Ann Evans, the thoughts of Charles Darwin from his autobiography, the unusually vitriolic comments of Samuel Clemens, an entertaining list of Einstein's attempts to deny his belief in the supernatural (many wanted the "smartest man" to be religious), and more from Emma Goldman, Thomas Hardy, Joseph Conrad, Ian McEwan and Philip Larkin. I found Martin Gardner's history of the idea of the wandering Jew, Sam Harris' discussion of the persecution of witches and antisemitism and Ibn Warraq's discussion of the Koran and Sharia law to be unusually interesting. All the selections can't be equally strong, but my only negative comment would be that I had the opportunity to be reminded how extraordinarily opaque the writing of Karl Marx is. ( )
This book is a collection of writings by influencial writers of the past, selected for their "non-believer" content - not a clear, concise, or consistent approach on the subject. Many of the writers are from the past, and their language and style is of their era. I found it to be a jumble of ideas which often were lost on me. ( )
Informatie afkomstig uit de Engelse Algemene Kennis.Bewerk om naar jouw taal over te brengen.
Dedicated to the memory of Primo Levi (1919-1987) who had the moral fortitude to refuse false consolation even while enduring the "selection" process of Auschwitz.
Eerste woorden
Informatie afkomstig uit de Engelse Algemene Kennis.Bewerk om naar jouw taal over te brengen.
At the close of his imperishable novel La Peste ("The Plague"), Albert Camus gives us a picture of the thoughts of the good Dr. Rieux, as the town of Oran celebrates its recovery from - its survival of - a terrible visitation of disease. (Introduction)
Citaten
Informatie afkomstig uit de Engelse Algemene Kennis.Bewerk om naar jouw taal over te brengen.
It is sometimes argued that disbelief in a fearful and tempting heavenly despotism makes life into something arid and tedious and cynical: a mere existence without any consolation or any awareness of the numinous or the transcendent. What nonsense this is. . . Believing then - as this religious objection implicitly concedes - that human life is actually worth living, one can combat one's natural pessimism by stoicism and the refusal of illusion, while embellishing the scene with any one of the following. There are the beauties of science and the extraordinary marvels of nature. There is the consolation and irony of philosophy. There are the infinite splendors of literature and poetry, not excluding the liturgical and devotional aspects of these, such as those found in John Donne or George Herbert. There is the grand resource of art and music and architecture, again not excluding those elements that aspire to the sublime. In all of these pursuits, any one of them enough to absorb a lifetime, there may be found a sense of awe and magnificence that does not depend at all on any invocation of the supernatural.
Despite the mistaken use of the label "New Atheists," there is a lot of continuity over the past couple of centuries among atheist authors in their critiques of religion, theism, and superstition. Not every argument is identical, and even when the same basic argument is being offered there can be variety in how it is presented. This evolution of atheist critiques of supernatural religion is one of the virtues of Christopher Hitchens' book The Portable Atheist: Essential Readings for the Nonbeliever. Well known for his own atheist book God Is Not Great, Hitchens treads some very heavily-traveled ground here in editing a compendium of atheist writings. Do we really need yet another book of essays, isolated chapters, and other selections from atheists, agnostics, freethinkers and skeptics of the past? What could we get out of this latest offering that we didn't get from the past half dozen that we bought - or the others that we simply skipped? Those are good questions, and reasons why I was skeptical of Hitchens' book, but in the end I think he succeeds in making his book more than "just one more" collection of atheist essays.
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