The best Christian Faith books: Reddit reviews

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I'd highly recommend Kevin Roose's book <em>The Unlikely Disciple</em> for a fascinating, concise glimpse into Liberty's culture. He was then a Brown University student (ie extremely open-minded "liberal") who did a semester at Liberty out of morbid curiosity. It's a super quick read too!

Edit: I seem to have created a downvote-enemy in this thread. Still cannot recommend the book enough! In the words of LaVar Burton: Don't take my word for it!

>Any books you can recommend covering this?

a history of god

>Old Testament actually referred to other Gods actually being thought to exist. Do they not read it?

i've been apollogetizied on those already, they are either not real gods but metaphors for worldly things or it was taken out of context /s

hey there. someone already did this a couple of years ago. his name is kevin roose and he now works for the new york times. he published a book called The Unlikely Disciple .

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also posting this on reddit and boasting about it is probably not your best idea but have fun!

This is a good book and Frank Turek helped write it

I don’t have enough faith to be an atheist

Listen to Frank Turek, Ravi Zacharias, and I also love John Lennox.

Also I’d recommend reading the Bible. If God is real, do you want to know him? If so, in Matthew 6:6 the Bible says if you pray to God in the secret he’ll see you there and he’ll reward you openly. If you seek him with all your heart, you’ll find him. I did. He changed my life!

It's the title of a book by Norm Geisler and Frank Turek.

You can use the "Look Inside" feature at that Amazon link to see the table of contents, as well as several pages including the foreword, preface and introduction.

You don’t seem very versed in theology.

I recommend starting here. https://www.amazon.ca/History-God-000-Year-Judaism-Christianity/dp/0345384563/ref=nodl_

Either way, he was talking about God/Allah/Jehova being the same to bring people together claiming he was doing it to ignite religious “wars” and divide is false.

Two angles I can think of here:

1) She may believe now that her life would be worse if she lost faith, but after an adjustment she may become one of us who have gotten used to the idea and become/remained content anyway.

2) As has been said by many of the faithful visitors here: you can retain your faith in God without proof, which they'll tell you is why we call it 'faith'. If your girlfriend has/had a non-denominational faith in God, she probably doesn't need to let bible contradictions and such bother her. Believers can struggle with faith and bounce back into it, particularly if losing faith makes them fearful/uncomfortable. Maybe they drop the parts of it they can't reconcile and keep the rest.

I know you're asking for helpful materials for her to read but I'm afraid I'm little help there. My friend's wife has a copy of this annoyingly-titled book, so maybe give that a look? Best of luck to you both.

The book Unlikely Disciple is written by this guy who went to Liberty University as a journalist. He lets the reader see the angst and fear he watches coming forth from the kids there who realize that maybe, just maybe, their faith isn't really sincere or isn't genuine enough and fear dying before they can be baptized a second or third time. Because that's the thing about salvation - if you don't question it, you may be committing the sin of presumption, which is the sin of pride, which means you haven't accepted Christ as your savior for real, not deep in your spirit where it counts. No, I have no envy for the fear that is the other side of the coin of faith. It's constant gaslighting, by others and by your own self.

As far as the fear of not being, you won't be aware of it. How do you feel about the billions of years you didn't exist before you were born?

I would suggest Bart Ehrman's book God's Problem: The Bible Fails to Answer our Most Important Question -- Why We Suffer. I don't like the title of the book. It is really pretty misleading. The book talks at length about the answers the Bible gives. But then Ehrman dissects the reasons and finds them lacking.

I would read it apart from your friend, and don't use it to try to deconvert them. But I think the book is a pretty good book to give an atheist insights into how Christians use the Bible. Also, if your friend does have a loss you might be able to draw on some of the insights from the book.

Here is a link to Amazon. It isn't an affiliate link. The book is only $12.99 right now in paperback.

Perhaps you’d find some congruence in reading A History of God (Karen Armstrong) which is a well-sourced look at the evolution of the Abrahamic tradition from polytheism into Judaism into Christianity & Islam.

Demystifying religion - seeing the evidence that it was created by people just like every other religion - really helped me realize I needed to let it go. Regardless, just keep looking for reliable, well sourced facts.

A History of God: The 4,000-Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity and Islam https://www.amazon.com/dp/0345384563/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glt_fabc_MXHTKJK73M3YZZPHNQWZ

I'd recommend this before Carrier and Ehrman:
https://www.amazon.com/History-God-000-Year-Judaism-Christianity/dp/0345384563

>It's strange how atheists are so religious about wanting to be called agnostics.

It's strange how when theists try to antagonize atheists they often frame their behavior as being religious, as if they think being religious or having faith is a bad thing.

But no, it's not religious or strange for agnostic atheists to want honest representation. It's a risky spot to be speculating about people's motives so I try to avoid doing it, but there seems to be an incredible bias by some against a perfectly reasonable position of not being convinced gods exist. Biased to the point where they don't simply think we are wrong, but that we shouldn't even be acknowledged to exist. Honestly what this communicates to me is fear. Fear that this position is too reasonable to be argued against and so must be hidden from people.

> Ehrman's The New Testament (amazon link) is one of the more widely used. Ehrman is very much on the "critical" end of critical scholarship, to the extent that his studies led to the weakening and eventual loss of his faith.

Ehrman says it was the problem of suffering rather than his scholarship which led him to become an agnostic with strong leanings towards atheism. See God's Problem: How the Bible Fails to Answer Our Most Important Question--Why We Suffer

That's awesome.

Welcome Brother. = D

But seriously do all the reading you can. I was raised in it as well and there is a crap ton of de-programming you have to do. I keep thinking I'm mentally out and then I find more JW bullshit that I've crammed in my brain.

I like to recommend this book to people who come out. http://www.amazon.com/History-God-000-Year-Judaism-Christianity/dp/0345384563

Its a well documented history of the Bible and the 3 monotheistic faiths. Reading this book really helped me sort through all the bullshit.

Good luck man and welcome to the community!

If you'd like to do some more reading I would like to suggest this book: http://www.amazon.com/History-God-000-Year-Judaism-Christianity/dp/0345384563

It's easy to read and well put together. It's fun because it's like a guide to what the WT didn't teach you lol.

This is a great book to start out with: http://www.amazon.com/History-God-000-Year-Judaism-Christianity/dp/0345384563

And if you're more of an an audio/visual learner then this is a great lecture series from Yale that they offer for free. http://oyc.yale.edu/religious-studies

Learning about the bible is actually really fun and interesting once you actually start learning the truth about it.

The gold standard on the evolution of the Christian god comes from Karen Armstrong's book A History of God. I see it get cited all the time by academics I respect. This and other helpful links are posted in our Resources Page.

The gold standard I'm familiar with is Karen Armstrong's book A History of God. I see it get cited all the time by academics I respect.

A History of God by Karen Armstrong.

Perhaps checkout Armstrong's "A History of God: The 4,000-Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity and Islam" https://www.amazon.com/History-God-000-Year-Judaism-Christianity/dp/0345384563

It's also a tacit acknowledgement that they have to come up with some sort of semi-scientific justification for Christianity due to scientific advancement of the past ~100 years or so (the power of prayer seems less potent when you have vaccines, chemotherapy, and antibiotics, for instance). So you have yahoos like these guys arguing that the laws of thermodynamics prove the existence of god (not sure if this book does it specifically, but one of the authors lectures about it).

Is there an updated link for https://www.cbbc.us/contradictions/darwin? (I get a 404) Would like to learn more about it, thanks

Reminds me of this nice read: “In Six Days: Why Fifty Scientists Choose to Believe in Creation” https://www.amazon.com/dp/0890513414/

You should read A History of God, written by a nun turned historian.

The book goes over what we know about the history of the middle east (including what becomes Judea) and how it ties to what we know of the history of the Bible – which, unsurprisingly, is a fairly thoroughly studied book – both by Christians and "non-affiliated" historians.

It might provide some insight for you.

Honestly, go look at the reviews for this book: "I don't have enough faith to be an atheist". This was one of the core pieces that really started to turn me around

https://www.amazon.com/Dont-Have-Enough-Faith-Atheist/dp/1581345615

> I just started reading and am eager to see what he says on the matter.

You're in for a treat, he's a very enigmatic writer. I don't have enough faith to be an atheist is great too, because it's all referenced and science based. That's the one that finally turned me over.

I don't have enough faith to be an atheist - Turek, Geisler

I applaud you on seeking out the truth and I would recommend:

>https://www.amazon.com/Dont-Have-Enough-Faith-Atheist/dp/1581345615

Here the author give logical evidence that is outside the Bible to answer the questions: 1. Does god exist 2. Is Jesus the one true religion.

To support his answers he uses scripture to build his case. He uses common views of science and reason/logic to answer these questions. His ultimate goal is to build a strong case for Jesus being God and show why atheism falls short. It's a good read and may give you the answers you are searching for. Good luck and God bless in finding the answer!

The answers to your questions are best found in Hart's The Experience of God: Being, Consciousness, Bliss

God is not some "being" that we say just happens to be "uncaused" arbitrarily because we need it to be that way, it is what is logically true of the Absolute.

You are either mistaking other claims derived from scripture as theological claims (I.e. literal Adam and Eve) or don’t fully understand what classical theists refer to when they refer to God.

If you’re interested in exploring how non Mormons approach God, I’d suggest, as I did elsewhere in this thread this primer

If you’re confused about biblical literalism, I’d refer you to Origen of Alexandria’s “De Principiis,” where he lays out how to read the scriptures allegorically 1800 years ago

Do you mean I Don’t Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist, by Norman Geisler? Fairly standard apologetics, with the usual shifting of the burden. Nothing worth bothering about.