আমার অবিশ্বাস- হুমায়ুন আজাদ

আমার অবিশ্বাস সম্পর্কে নতুন করে কিছু বলার আছে বলে মনে হয় না। হুমায়ুন আজাদকে যে চেনে সে 'আমার অবিশ্বাস' জানে। আমার অবিশ্বাস, বিশ্বাসের আধাঁর থেকে বেড়িয়ে আলোতে আসার সিঁড়ি। আমার অবিশ্বাস, অজ্ঞতাকে পেছনে ফেলে সামনে এগিয়ে যাবার সাহস। আমার অবিশ্বাস, সত্যের আঘাতে মিথ্যেকে চূর্ণ করার প্রত্যয়।

Living Without God:New Directions for Atheis Agnostics, Secularists, and Undecided - BY Ronald Aronson

Books which explicitly and directly critique religion from a secular atheist perspective have been incredibly popular in recent years, but while critique of religion may be a necessary starting point it isn't the ending point — or even very much of the journey. Critique of religion tells us about what isn't reasonable to believe or do, but more is needed to understand what is reasonable to believe or do.

Thus the books critiquing religion have created space that needs to be filled by different sorts books and Ronald Aronson make his contribution with Living Without God: New Directions for Atheists, Agnostics, Secularists, and the Undecided. There is hardly anything here that would qualify as a criticism of religion; instead of describing where religions get things wrong Aronson offers ideas about where secular atheists should go instead to get things right.

There are a lot of positives and negatives in Aronson's effort, depending on how you look at it. Basically, the details are all generally good but they are framed and presented in a way that isn't so good and which takes away from the overall effort. The central problem as I see it is that Aronson seems to want to offer an overall philosophy or set of principles for nonbelievers. His motive is good and he's justifiably concerned with the lack of confidence nonbelievers have, at least relative to believers.

The Elegant Universe - Brian Greene

"The basic oneness of the universe is not only the central characteristic of the mystical experience, but is also one of the most important revelations of modern physics. .... As we study the various models of subatomic physics we shall see that they express again and again, in different ways, the same insight--that the constituents of matter and the basic phenomena involving them are all interconnected, interrelated and interdependent; that they cannot be understood as isolated entities, but only as integrated parts of the whole."

In his 1967 book "The Three Pillars of Zen," Philip Kapleau Roshi wrote these words before presenting a short section from Zen Master Dogen’s Shobogenzo on “Being-Time”:

"Dogen’s Insights as to time and being, realized by him introspectively in the 13th century through zazen, and the views of certain contemporary micro- and macro-physicists on time and space, arrived at by them through the principles and methods of science, parallel each other to a remarkable degree. The difference, however, and a deeply significant one, is in the effect these insights had upon these men. Dogen’s realization, being a Self-discovery, liberated him from the basic anxieties of human existence, bringing him inner freedom and peace and deep moral certainty. But, as far as can be seen at this time, no such inner evolution has followed in the wake of these scientific discoveries."

Atheism and Philosophy - Kai Nielsen

The indeterminacy of the modern concept of God has made the distinction between belief and unbelief increasingly problematic. Both the complexity of the religious response and the variety of skeptical philosophies preclude simplistic definitions of what constitutes belief in God. Making the discussion even more difficult are assertions by fundamentalists who dismiss the philosophical perplexities of religious claims as unreal pseudo-problems. Atheism & Philosophy is a detailed study of these and other issues vital to our understanding of atheism, agnosticism, and religious belief. Philosopher Kai Nielsen develops a coherent and integrated approach to the discussion of what it means to be an atheist. In chapters such as "How is Atheism to be Characterized?", "Does God Exist?: Reflections on Disbelief," "Agnosticism," "Religion and Commitment," and "The Primacy of Philosophical Theology," Nielsen defends atheism in a way that answers to contemporary concerns.

Why is sex fun- Jared Diamond

Why is Sex Fun? reads like a lecture series rather than a book. Apparently intended to provide the reader with an overview of the latest thinking on the evolutionary aspects of the subject, this short work includes sections on different sexual (and mate) selection strategies employed by males and females (presumably based on unequal "investments" in the methods of getting one's genes into the next generation); lactation (why milk is produced by females, but not, as a rule, males); how and why humans, almost uniquely, came to engage in engage in recreational sex; the unequal domestic roles played by males and females, particularly in child rearing; female menopause (which is, again, nearly unique to humans); and sexual signaling (Diamond considers penis length in human males to be a prime example, but not necessarily a signal directed at females).