The Portable Atheist: Essential Readings for the NonbelieverChristopher Hitchens 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. |
Contents
LUCRETIUS from De Rerum Natura On the Nature | 1 |
BENEDICT DE SPINOZA TheologicalPolitical Treatise | 21 |
JAMES BOSWELL An Account of My Last Interview | 46 |
KARL MARX Contribution to the Critique of Hegels | 64 |
CHARLES DARWIN Autobiography | 93 |
ANATOLE FRANCE Miracle | 112 |
MARK TWAIN Thoughts of God From Fables of Man | 116 |
Bible Teaching and Religious Practice From Europe and Elsewhere and A Pen Warmed Up In Hell | 119 |
An Old Story | 178 |
BERTRAND RUSSELL An Outline of Intellectual Rubbish | 181 |
PHILIP LARKIN Aubade | 207 |
Church Going | 209 |
MARTIN GARDNER The Wandering Jew and the Second Coming | 211 |
CARL SAGAN The DemonHaunted World | 218 |
The God Hypothesis | 226 |
JOHN UPDIKE From Rogers Version | 239 |
JOSEPH CONRAD Authors Note to The Shadow Line | 123 |
THOMAS HARDY Gods Funeral | 126 |
EMMA GOLDMAN The Philosophy of Atheism | 129 |
H P LOVECRAFT A Letter on Religion | 134 |
CARL VAN DOREN Why I Am An Unbeliever | 138 |
H L MENCKEN Memorial Service | 143 |
SIGMUND FREUD From The Future of an Illusion Translated and edited by James Strachey | 147 |
ALBERT EINSTEIN Selected Writings on Religion | 155 |
GEORGE ORWELL From A Clergymans Daughter | 166 |
JOHN BETJEMAN In Westminster Abbey | 168 |
CHAPMAN COHEN Monism and Religion | 170 |
Arguments for and against the Existence of God | 246 |
A Scientific Creation Story | 267 |
A Personal Word | 282 |
the Failed Hypothesis | 311 |
DANIEL C DENNETT A Working Definition | 328 |
PENN JILLETTE There Is No God | 349 |
STEVEN WEINBERG What About God? | 366 |
SAM HARRIS In the Shadow of God | 454 |
A C GRAYLING Can an Athiest Be a Fundamentalist? | 473 |
Other editions - View all
The Portable Atheist: Essential Readings for the Nonbeliever Christopher Hitchens Limited preview - 2007 |
The Portable Atheist: Essential Readings for the Nonbeliever Christopher Hitchens No preview available - 2007 |
Common terms and phrases
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