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Your Own Sacred Texts

What books do you Atheists worship? (I need suggestions here. Selfish person coming through!)

Name favorite titles, even if they aren't really Atheist books. Read a great book on Evolution? A book that explains the science of homosexuality? A picture book of undersea creatures? A biography of Penn? A cookbook that includes flying spaghetti monster supreme? Or a beautiful fiction about Princess Sprinkles in the enchanted forest?

Okay, so I went overboard with the suggestions, but lets go for variety and the reasons you love them. Personally, I'd especially be interested in religious/psychology stuff. ...And maybe a picture book.

To start off, I really love The Scarlet Letter. ...Everyone else in my class hated it. Interestingly, even though it's fiction, it still offers a lot of information and combats Puritan ideals... a great perspective and beautiful story to boot.

Tags: atheist, books, moocow

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Permalink Reply by Roy on January 3, 2012 at 9:54pm

I like these two books because they poke hundreds of holes in the Christian dogma.

"Misquoting Jesus" by Bart Ehrman, The story behind who changed the bible and why.

"God's Problem" also by Bart Ehrman, How the Bible fails to answer our most important question - Why we suffer.

Mr Ehrman has a very impressive background. It wasn't easy for him to give up his religious upbringing.

Also would like to recommend the movie "Religulous" by Bill Maher

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Permalink Reply by Minda Slade on January 26, 2012 at 3:53am

Atheists don't worship ne kinda books

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Permalink Reply by Idaho Spud on January 1, 2013 at 3:21pm

Hoot mon, ye are correct.

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Permalink Reply by heretic zero on February 22, 2012 at 4:51pm

I actually like reading the Bible to drive a wedge in the teachings of Christianity. One needs to know as much or more than a Christian funny-mental if one is to debate and argue effectively. study the book of Jeremiah. The Prophet of the Old Testament did not believe the law was given to Moses. He said so in several places and his writings prove the Christian assumption of Jesus as a perfect sacrifice is a false belief. Jeremiah wrote that god did not give the Jew the law of sacrifice for the atonement of sins, which is what the Christians claim made Jesus a perfect sacrifice for the atonement of our sins. Even the prophet Hosea claimed god 'desired mercy and not sacrifice.'

The other book I like to read is Farewell to God by Charles Templeton, the other half of the Billy Graham Crusades, who left the ministry as an agnostic until his death.

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Permalink Reply by Greg LeGore on February 22, 2012 at 6:25pm

I too like to use their bible, esp. the older verses, because so few xians know them and also because they twist themselves into pretzels trying to come up with a response which makes sense of the crazy words quoted right from their sacred texts. A bit of humor helps when noting that we shouldn't be alive because their bible directs parents to kill children who are mouthy towards their parents, and so much other stuff that we couldn't make up if we tried.

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Permalink Reply by ChrisC on March 20, 2012 at 7:57pm

The Silmarillion. More plausible and coherent than the xtian bible.

:-D :-P

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Permalink Reply by DarkBlack on July 4, 2012 at 10:19pm

I've read the bible, cover to cover, it does help me argue but the only reason I got through it was because I was christian back then.

Moving on to good books (excuse the pun), anything by Adams, Pratchett or Dawkins.

There is a book you can say I worship called Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand, it's a novel which explains the philosify of objectivism (which is turn is a non-religious (i.e. based on logic and reason) moral system), to give you an idea of what objectivism is about, Ayn Rand also wrote "the virtue of selfishness".

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Permalink Reply by Xoandre Moats on December 9, 2012 at 11:48pm

Zecharia Sitchin's "Genesis Revisited" is a very interesting analysis of the Sumerian History of the origins of what became the Torah, a.k.a. The Old Testament...

Douglas Adams' "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" is an amazing overall look at the redundant impropriety of the Universe.

Roger Zelazny's "Amber Chronicles" (Which starts with "9 Princes in Amber") takes a look at how the world we know is a "Shadow" imitation and reflection of the TRUE world called Amber.