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Recommended reading for an Atheist?

MrJoeSoap · 2006-04-05 23:21:45

Hey folks, just wondering if anyone could recommend me a book? Something along the lines of The Hitchhikers Guide... not too serious or depressing, but something to get me thinking again! Cheers for any ideas, Mark.

05-04-2006 11:21pm

#1

MrJoeSoap

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Hey folks, just wondering if anyone could recommend me a book? Something along the lines of The Hitchhikers Guide... not too serious or depressing, but something to get me thinking again!

Cheers for any ideas,
Mark.

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#2 06-04-2006 1:03am

legspin

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MrJoeSoap wrote:

Hey folks, just wondering if anyone could recommend me a book? Something along the lines of The Hitchhikers Guide... not too serious or depressing, but something to get me thinking again!

Cheers for any ideas,
Mark.

As said in another thread here somewhere 'Small Gods' by Terry Pratchett

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#3 06-04-2006 6:19am

Zombrex

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MrJoeSoap wrote:

Hey folks, just wondering if anyone could recommend me a book? Something along the lines of The Hitchhikers Guide... not too serious or depressing, but something to get me thinking again!

Cheers for any ideas,
Mark.

The Bible! If you ain't an atheist after that u never will be

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#4 06-04-2006 7:20am

pH

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Well if it's SF you're after ,Philip K. Dick's Eye in the Sky starts with one of the most thought provoking scenes I've ever read, when a character wakes up to find himself in a world where things described by the Old Testament are literally happening.

Really would make anyone think long and hard about the morality described in the Old Testament.

Philip Pullman's 'Dark Materials' trilogy also has attracted attention for atheist themes (To say nothing about the Godless Harry Potter!)

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#5 06-04-2006 8:10am

Beruthiel

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how about A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson, a great read.
also
Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett, very funny

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#6 06-04-2006 8:34am

Dades

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Read Carl Sagan's "Cosmos", if you haven't already.
If you want a book to amaze and get you thinking again - this is the one.

I'll second "His Dark Materials" too - my favorite books ever.
They're not funny though, just brilliant.

Lastly, Arthur C Clarke's Childhood's End, is also a classic read.

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#7 06-04-2006 9:13am

robindch

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There's one reading list at:

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=50560797&postcount=64

to which I'd add:

Walter Miller's Canticle for Leibowitz (witty, clever scifi set in a post-apocalyptic world where a shopping list is understood to be the revealed word of god)
Edward Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (witty, very long, abstruse history).

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#8 06-04-2006 9:52am

Yossie

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I'd suggest Scepticism Inc by Bo Fowler

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/1582340722/qid=1144316550/sr=1-4/ref=sr_1_2_4/026-3661231-2236415

Read it nearly ten years ago and really enjoyed it. It's essentially about a shopping trolley with consciousness that sets out to find "meaning/God", along the way he gets involved with "metaphysical betting shops"; two warring Dali lamas; popes with nucs and a love/hate affair between an atheist(love) and a christian zealot(hate).

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