This is an old thread but the number of views it got tells me people really liked it. It's been shunted around a lot. This particular post is a list that was compiled a year ago for another purpose. It was posted on these forums last spring before the troubles began, then it was moved to the so-called New Forums that are about to be deleted, and I am now reposting it here now. I had been unable to find it earlier and went on a special mission today to see if I can't dig it up. I am not sure which day the account on the New forums runs out and it would be too bad to lose this list forever, given how much people seemed to like it.

Acharya S's Truth Be Known at
1. http://tbknews.blogspot.com
2. http://www.truthbeknown.com

Books on Origins of Christianity from nonChristian Scholarly Perspective

Ex.Christian.net (encouraging exChristians; dialogue forums and articles)

Debunking Christianity (individual scholars offer books on topics such as deconversion and truth; online discussions)

Evangelical Atheist (contains many helpful links in sidebar; online discussions)

Seekers Open Forum (blog; help individual seekers find best-fit spiritual path, religion, or no religion; provide information of what is out there)

The Humanist Truth (discussion group regarding alternative views of life to orthodox Christianity)

On Leaving Fundamentalist Christianity (Lorena's personal stories)

Iron Chariots Wiki

Julia Sweeney's Letting Go of God Forum

I'm looking for sources on biblical errancy. Here's one that looks really good:

Biblical Errancy by Dennis McKinsey. His introduction says:

Listed below are the contents of the all 192 issues of Dennis McKinsey's Biblical Errancy. Click on what interests you. At the bottom of each link there will be a place to click to return to this menu, or press the back button of your browser. The issues raised in Biblical Errancy represent a challenge to Bible inerrantists, and religion in general. Dennis McKinsey can be reached at: [contact info]

What The Christian Fundamentalist Doesn't Want You To Know by Scott Bidstrup looks like a systematic study on the topic.

CHRISTIAN BIBLICAL ERRANCY DEBATE is an msn debate forum.

The Institute for Humanist Studies



Its e-zine is Humanist Network News (HNN). HNN also has podcasts.
All this and much more on IHS.

From Humanist.net



It goes on to list National and International Organizations in many different countries around the world.

Here the Humanist Association of Canada lists many links to other humanist associations, publications, and products. This includes the Skeptics Annotated Bible and American Humanist Association, plus dozens of others.

I Googled for "fundamentalism" and a few other terms. Some of the results follow. These links might be helpful for those of us who don't have a firm concept of what fundamentalist Christianity is.

Relgious Movements: Fundamentalism. Has links to Fundamentalism Sites.


Catholic.com Library: Fundamentalism. Some history on Catholic view of Protestant fundamentalism.


Christian Fundamentalism Exposed. Sullivan County, Tennessee. Vivid description of impact of fundamentalist religion on community-wide basis. Links to other sources. http://www.sullivan-county.com/news/

Vexen.co.uk. May contain UK perspective on fundamentalism. http://www.vexen.co.uk/religion/fundamentalism.html

Lecture on Fundamentalism: Wake Forest University, NC.
http://www.wfu.edu/~matthetl/perspective...tyone.html

American Atheists on Fundamentalism: Links and excellent articles.
http://www.atheists.org/christianity/fun...alism.html

Scott Bidstrup: Why The "Fundamentalist" Approach To Religion Must Be Wrong
http://www.bidstrup.com/religion.htm

People Against Fundamentalism: Tolerance Ends Where Injustice Begins (a blog; might be good one to partner with).
http://www.endfundamentalism.org/

Activists� Corner on Infident.org. Major list of resources.
http://www.infidels.org/activist/

Internet Infidels/Secular Web. Major source or resources. http://www.infidels.org/
Here is their library: http://www.infidels.org/library/
Here is their discussion forum: http://www.iidb.org/vbb/index.php

Taken from ad here.

The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology's New Vision of Ancient Israel and The Origin of Its Sacred Texts by Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman. Traces the fascinating origins of the Christian, Judaic and Islamic god back to its Canaanite and Mesopotamian roots. Published in 2001.

A History of God: The 4,000 Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity and Islam by Karen Armstrong, published 1994.

Ralph Dumain's Autodidact Project

Links available from there: Atheism / Freethought / Humanism /Rationalism / Skepticism / Unbelief /Secularism / Church-State Separation/ Web Links

Also on this page are dozens of links to organizations, books, blogs, websites, etc.

Here's a new twist on old sayings:

"There are no foxes in atheistholes."
- Ralph Dumain, ca. 1971

"A man without a god is like a fish without a bicycle."
- Anonymous

If by this you mean the University of Virginia library site, it is no longer up. They seem to have revamped the entire website, and I could not find the resources formerly found on the Religious Movements pages. If I use the old web address, it leads to this.

Resources for Former Members of Restrictive Religious Groups

Psychological Issues of Former Members of Restrictive Religious Groups

The Fundamentalist Agenda

That list looks interesting.

If you're looking for books to counter Christianity, Prometheus Books is the place to find them! They have books for everyone from children to adults on all topics from the professional to the popular. The catalogue (with its list of categories) is here and books can be ordered online.

The also have categories for Islamic Studies and Jewish Interest. With more than 1,500 books in print, Prometheus Books covers many scholarly disciplines and sciences, as well as art, atheism, Biblical criticism, and business.

John W. Loftus's book Why I Became an Atheist: A Former Preacher Rejects Christianity "is specifically written to devout Christians by a former Christian minister and apologist for their faith who is now an atheist. It's also written for Christians who are questioning their faith, as well as for skeptics who want to learn how to effectively argue against Christianity" (Introduction, p. 11). Further down on the same page, Loftus tells us that the Christian apologist Norman L. Geisler said of an earlier version of this book that he would recommend it to his students.

I have now had the opportunity to acquire a copy of the most recent version, linked above. Somewhere I read that it is supposed to be better than any of the books written by the New Atheists. So far I've read the Introduction and first three chapters. I think this book is exactly what I need at this point of my journey. I've been on William Lane Craig's forums Reasonable Faith.org since July as a way to address some lingering issues with religion, and also to learn about contemporary evangelicalism.

Loftus starts with the Christian arguments, and shows how they fail the test of reality, exactly like I did in my own life. All I had were the Christian arguments and literature. All of them failed the test of reality. Thus, this book helps me put some of the loose threads of this so-called reasonable faith into context like no book I have yet come across--atheist or otherwise.

Originally posted here. I post it here because of it's numerous resources that may be of interest to readers.

Posted by par4dcourse:



That clip is part of the series History of Disbelief. Brother Jeff of these forums posted them along with this comment:



I am reading Pascal Boyer's Religion Explained: The Evolutionary Origins of Religious Thought. I'm not very far into the book at this point but first heard about it from an atheist psychologist who spoke at the Winter Solstice Event for the local Humanist group last year.

Today I came across two other titles by reputable authors that I want to read for a better understanding of why or how people can believe religion, and how all of this works. I found them in John W. Loftus's new book Why I Became an Atheist: A Former Preacher Rejects Christianity; they are as follows:

• Michael Shermer. Why People Believe Weird Things: Pseudoscience, Superstition, and Other Confusions of Our Time. New York, Henry Holt, 2002.
• Valerie Tarico, psychiatrist. The Dark Side: How Evangelical Teachings Corrupt Love and Truth. Seattle, Dea, 2006.

Quotes from The Dark Side (taken from the website):

• To these voices in the wilderness, I add my own, not as an ex-minister or scholar, but as an ordinary ex-Evangelical who thought too much about questions that wouldn’t go away.
  
• In childhood and adolescence, each of us spends years building a world view, a mental house that we can live in comfortably for the rest of our lives....The deep structure of this house includes our basic ethnic identity, political orientation, religious beliefs, occupational goals, and moral framework. As adults, most of us do at least some cosmetic remodeling— shifting our priorities and fine tuning our values—but it’s rather unusual for an adult to go back and re-excavate the foundation....Constantly remodeling our foundational assumptions is simply too costly from the standpoint of emotional energy and life disruption. The earlier a foundation block was set in place, the more expensive it is to dig it out. (42)
  
• Jesus tell his followers: “Ask and it will be given; seek and you will find” (Matt. 7:7–8, Luke 11:9–10). Yet many ex- Christians tell of years spent praying to have their doubts removed before they finally abandoned the faith. (61)

For much more see the website.