Books about Religion

If you are a religious person, this is a deeply disturbing book containing different lectures by Carl Sagan. It tackles the question of God directly and addresses some of the commonly used arguments for the existence of God. There is also a discussion on various religious concepts. Many religious people are likely to shun the book because of its subject matter. However, I would say that they should read it so that religion can keep in step with scientific findings.

Tags: science religion

Good analysis of the history of religion and politics in the United States since Independence. However, the recommendation offered by the author is not very well thought out. It may be impractical and even if implemented, could cause different types of problems.

Tags: religion

Shermer discusses evolution and the Intelligent Design theory. He provides a good deal of information about the specifics of evolution and the scientific evidence for the theory. He also discusses creationism and its theories, providing arguments against them. The book illustrates how the scientific method works with some nice historical quotes. The writing should have been a bit simpler avoiding some of the complicated scenarios and paper-filling examples.

Tags: religion science

Shermer explains the way of the skeptic. He provides a guide to the way that "thinking can go wrong" with around 25 logical fallacies. He then goes in depth to tackle some of the weird things that people believe in such as alien abductions and witch crazes. He takes a dig at Ayn Rand's objectivism and explains how it has turned into a cult. He also discusses evolution and creationism (this is discussed in more detail in his book "Why Darwain Matters" which came out after this one) and confronts Holocaust deniers.

Tags: religion science