<b><i>NEW YORK TIMES</i> BESTSELLER • The bestselling author of <i>Zealot</i> and host of <i>Believer </i>explores humanity’s quest to make sense of the divine in this concise and fascinating history of our understanding of God.</b><br /><b> </b><br /> In <i>Zealot,</i> Reza Aslan replaced the staid, well-worn portrayal of Jesus of Nazareth with a startling new image of the man in all his contradictions. In his new book, Aslan takes on a subject even more immense: God, writ large.<br />  <br />In layered prose and with thoughtful, accessible scholarship, Aslan narrates the history of religion as a remarkably cohesive attempt to understand the divine by giving it human traits and emotions. According to Aslan, this innate desire to humanize God is hardwired in our brains, making it a central feature of nearly every religious tradition. As Aslan writes, “Whether we are aware of it or not, and regardless of whether we’re believers or not, what the vast majority of us think about when we think about God is a divine version of ourselves.”<br />  <br /> But this projection is not without consequences. We bestow upon God not just all that is good in human nature—our compassion, our thirst for justice—but all that is bad in it: our greed, our bigotry, our penchant for violence. All these qualities inform our religions, cultures, and governments.<br />  <br /> More than just a history of our understanding of God, this book is an attempt to get to the root of this humanizing impulse in order to develop a more universal spirituality. Whether you believe in one God, many gods, or no god at all, <i>God: A Human History</i> will challenge the way you think about the divine and its role in our everyday lives.<br /><br /><b>Praise for God</b><br /><br />“Timely, riveting, enlightening and necessary.”<b>—</b><i><b><i>HuffPost</i></b><br /><br /> </i>“Tantalizing . . . Driven by [Reza] Aslan’s grace and curiosity, God . . . helps us pan out from our troubled times, while asking us to consider a more expansive view of the divine in contemporary life.”<b><i><b><i>—The Seattle Times</i></b><br /><br /> </i></b>“A fascinating exploration of the interaction of our humanity and God.”<b><i><b>—<i>Pittsburgh Post-Gazette</i></b><br /><br /> </i></b>“[Aslan’s] slim, yet ambitious book [is] the story of how humans have created God with a capital G, and it’s thoroughly mind-blowing.”<b><i><b><i>—Los Angeles Review of Books</i></b><br /><br /> </i></b>“Aslan is a born storyteller, and there is much to enjoy in this intelligent survey.”<b><i><b>—<i>San Francisco Chronicle</i></b></i></b>

<p>From the new afterword by the author:<br /><br />Humanity has had a long fascination with blood sacrifice. In fact, it has been by no means uncommon for a child to be born into this world only to be patiently and lovingly reared by religious maniacs, who believe that the best way to keep the sun on its course or to ensure a rich harvest is to lead him by tender hand into a field or to a mountaintop and bury, butcher, or burn him alive as offering to an invisible God. The notion that Jesus Christ died for our sins and that his death constitutes a successful propitiation of a “loving” God is a direct and undisguised inheritance of the superstitious bloodletting that has plagued bewildered people throughout history. . .</p>

Goodbye Jesus is the step-by-step account of a former minister’s journey into and out of faith—the story of a long pendulum swing from the deep commitment of a devout believer to the firm conviction that no personal God exists and that all religions are man-made.<br /><br />Tim Sledge was a Southern Baptist preacher and writer for 35 years. His pioneering work in faith-based recovery ministries in the 80s and 90s ultimately guided participants in 20,000 Christian support groups across the U.S. <br /><br />The driving force behind Sledge’s ultimate rejection of Christianity was his long-term, up-close observations of church life. “After living and leading in the church for decades, I saw no consistent evidence of an ongoing supernatural presence—and I wanted to see that evidence with all that was in me.”<br /><br />Part memoir, part exposé, part polemic, Goodbye Jesus is an honest, highly personal, and frequently provocative spiritual autobiography that concludes with an insider’s takedown of religious faith. <br /><br />This is a relatable and thoughtful read for those seeking to better understand the evangelical mindset, for Christians who are questioning their faith, for ministers trying to decide whether to stay or go, and for those who have left their faith and are dealing with its loss.

<b>Christopher Hitchens's personally curated <i>New York Times</i> bestselling anthology of the most influential and important writings on atheism, including original pieces by Salman Rushdie and Ian McEwan</b><div><br /></div><div>From the #1 <i>New York Times</i> best-selling author of <i>God Is Not Great</i>, a provocative and entertaining guided tour of atheist and agnostic thought through the ages--with never-before-published pieces by Salman Rushdie, Ian McEwan, and Ayaan Hirsi Ali.Christopher Hitchens continues to make the case for a splendidly godless universe in this first-ever gathering of the influential voices--past and present--that have shaped his side of the current (and raging) God/no-god debate. With Hitchens as your erudite and witty guide, you'll be led through a wealth of philosophy, literature, and scientific inquiry, including generous portions of the words of Lucretius, Benedict de Spinoza, Charles Darwin, Karl Marx, Mark Twain, George Eliot, Bertrand Russell, Emma Goldman, H. L. Mencken, Albert Einstein, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, and many others well-known and lesser known. And they're all set in context and commented upon as only Christopher Hitchens--"political and literary journalist extraordinaire" (<i>Los Angeles Times</i>)--can. Atheist? Believer? Uncertain? No matter: <i>The Portable Atheist</i> will speak to you and engage you every step of the way.</div>

<h3><strong>Want to learn more about moon spells, phases of the moon, Wiccan spells and other aspects of Wiccan religion?</strong></h3><p><em>Moon Spell Magic</em> is intended to be a practical and inspirational handbook to making magic from spells for each day of the week:</p><ul><li>rituals for romance</li><li>seasonal sacred energy altars</li><li>secrets for money magic</li><li>and, everything in between</li></ul><p><strong>The wisdom of Wiccan religion:</strong> <em>Moon Spells Magic</em> contains an abundance of folk wisdom as well as many modern pagan practices that will help you learn the necessary lore and background information for creating the life of your dreams. Rituals and incantations can lead to great personal growth. Witches are the among the most devoted spiritual seekers. This book can be an important tool for gaining a deep grounding in magical correspondences, astrological associations, and the myths behind the magic. Whether you are looking to conjure up a supernatural Saturday for your coven or rid your home of negative energy and blocks to happiness, this numinous guide can help you turn your home into a personal pagan power center and have fun in the process. The moon has enormous power and celestial energy; by harnessing that, you can improve your life every day with the spells in this book.</p><p><strong>What You’ll Learn Inside This Book:</strong></p><ul><li>Features over 100 recipes for spells ranging from the everyday to special occasions and high holidays</li><li>Something for every reader, from beginner level to advance students of the craft</li><li>Contains many ritual resources with lunar lore, astronomical and color correspondences, plant associations, god and goddess invocations, elemental aspects for creating personal spells</li><li>New takes on the basics such as spells for love, money and luck as well as many pagan practices for a modern lifestyle</li><li>A fun read that is grounded in scholarship for a fresh approach to spellwork as well as invocations and rituals for wealth, health and happiness</li><li>A “personal super moon” section detailing your luckiest days of the year and the best time for working, romance, prosperity and when you can access you “Lunar Super Powers”</li></ul>

The Psychedelic Experience: A Manual Based on The Tibetan Book of the Dead (commonly referred to as The Psychedelic Experience) is an instruction manual intended for use during sessions involving psychedelic drugs. Started as early as 1962 in Zihuatanejo, the book was finally published in August 1964.[1] This version of Tibetan Book of the Dead was authored by Timothy Leary, Ralph Metzner and Richard Alpert, all of whom took part in experiments investigating the therapeutic and religious possibilities of drugs such as mescaline, psilocybin and LSD. The book now in kindle edition is dedicated to Aldous Huxley and includes a short introductory citation from Huxley's book The Doors of Perception. Part of this text was used by the Beatles in the song Tomorrow Never Knows.

A nuanced exploration of the part that religion plays in human life, drawing on the insights of the past in order to build a faith that speaks to the needs of our dangerously polarized age.<br /> <br />Moving from the Paleolithic age to the present, Karen Armstrong details the great lengths to which humankind has gone in order to experience a sacred reality that it called by many names, such as God, Brahman, Nirvana, Allah, or Dao. Focusing especially on Christianity but including Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, and Chinese spiritualities, Armstrong examines the diminished impulse toward religion in our own time, when a significant number of people either want nothing to do with God or question the efficacy of faith. Why has God become unbelievable? Why is it that atheists and theists alike now think and speak about God in a way that veers so profoundly from the thinking of our ancestors?<br /><br />Answering these questions with the same depth of knowledge and profound insight that have marked all her acclaimed books, Armstrong makes clear how the changing face of the world has necessarily changed the importance of religion at both the societal and the individual level.  Yet she cautions us that religion was never supposed to provide answers that lie within the competence of human reason; that, she says, is the role of <i>logos.</i> The task of religion is “to help us live creatively, peacefully, and even joyously with realities for which there are no easy explanations.” She emphasizes, too, that religion will not work automatically. It is, she says, a practical discipline: its insights are derived not from abstract speculation but from “dedicated intellectual endeavor” and a “compassionate lifestyle that enables us to break out of the prism of selfhood.”<br /><br /><br /><i>From the Trade Paperback edition.</i>

<div>The central contention of the “New Atheism” of Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris, and Christopher Hitchens is that there has for several centuries been a war between science and religion, that religion has been steadily losing that war, and that at this point in human history a completely secular scientific account of the world has been worked out in such thorough and convincing detail that there is no longer any reason why a rational and educated person should find the claims of any religion the least bit worthy of attention.<br /><br />     But as Edward Feser argues in <i>The Last Superstition</i>, in fact there is not, and never has been, any war between science and religion at all. There has instead been a conflict between two entirely <i>philosophical conceptions</i> of the natural order: on the one hand, the classical “teleological” vision of Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, and Aquinas, on which purpose or goal-directedness is as inherent a feature of the physical world as mass or electric charge; and the modern “mechanical” vision of Descartes, Hobbes, Locke, and Hume, according to which the physical world is comprised of nothing more than purposeless, meaningless particles in motion. As it happens, on the classical teleological picture, the existence of God, the immortality of the soul, and the natural-law conception of morality are rationally unavoidable. Modern atheism and secularism have thus always crucially depended for their rational credentials on the insinuation that the modern, mechanical picture of the world has somehow been established by science.<br /><br />     Yet this modern “mechanical” picture has never been established by science, and cannot be, for it is not a scientific theory in the first place but merely a philosophical interpretation of science. Moreover, as Feser shows, the philosophical arguments in its favor given by the early modern philosophers were notable only for being surprisingly weak.<br /><br />      However, not only is this modern philosophical picture rationally unfounded, it is demonstrably false. For the “mechanical” conception of the natural world, when worked<br /><br />out consistently, absurdly entails that rationality, and indeed the human mind itself, is illusory. The so-called “scientific worldview” championed by the New Atheists thus inevitably undermines its own rational foundations; and into the bargain (and contrary to the moralistic posturing of the New Atheists) it undermines the foundations of any possible morality as well. By contrast, and as The Last Superstition demonstrates, the classical teleological picture of nature can be seen to find powerful confirmation in developments from contemporary philosophy, biology, and physics; moreover, morality and reason itself cannot possibly be made sense of apart from it.  The teleological vision of the ancients and medievals is thereby rationally vindicated – and with it the religious worldview they based upon it.<br /><br />     Winner of the 2008 Book of the Year in Religion from <i>ForeWord</i> Magazine and the only 2008 Editors’ Choice for Religion from the American Library Association’s <i>Booklist</i>, <i>The Last Superstition</i> remains the most cogent and powerful refutation of the New Atheism extent.</div>

FIRM STREET DATE = NOVEMBER 4, 2008. STORES MUST NOT HAVE THIS TITLE ON DISPLAY BEFORE 11/4/08.A low-cost softcover that is perfect to give to seeking friends and neighbors to explain why an intelligent, college-educated person can believe in Christianity.Is Christianity true? Can educated, thinking people really believe the Bible? Or, do the athiests have it right? Has Christianity been disproved by science and discredited as a guide to morality?Best-selling author Dinesh D'Souza (<i>What's So Great About America</i>) approaches Christianity with a skeptical eye, but treats the skeptics with equal skepticism. The result is a book that will challenge the assumptions of doubters and affirm that there really is, indeed, something great about Christianity.

<h4>As humans, we get to choose what we believe and who we want to be. This book is a ruthlessly pragmatic guide to creating your own answers to life's biggest questions. <br /></h4><p><br /><em>Each of this book's four chapters covers one of the most important questions a person must ask themselves:</em></p><ul><li>What is the purpose of my life?</li><li> How can I best realize the purpose of my life?</li><li> Who do I want to be?</li><li> How do I want other people to think of me?</li></ul><p>Rather than give you answers to these questions, this guide provides a framework that helps you develop your own answers while equipping you with the neuroscientific tools necessary to transform yourself into whomever you choose to be. </p><p>If you are looking for a light read that will make you feel good about yourself, this isn’t the book for you. If you want to take the time to think hard, take full ownership of the person you have allowed yourself to become, and permanently transform yourself into the best iteration of that person then you have found your book.<br /></p><p><br /> <strong>The book was created as the work of a non-profit institution (http://pragmatist.guide/) dedicated to helping people think through the big questions in life without leading them to a specific answer, all proceeds from the sale of the book go to the nonprofit and not the author.</strong></p><p><strong></strong><br /></p><h3><strong></strong><br /></h3>