Annotated Atheist Reading List

Richard Dawkins
Daniel Dennett
Sam Harris
Christopher Hitchens

Jan 2010 - On the front porch were a couple of men in suits, one of them carrying a book with a black cover.  I invited them in and they said more people were in the car so I ask that they also come in.  The four men and myself talked for over an hour.  They were Jehovah's Witnesses (Wiki).  It turns out that they do NOT believe in evolution, but instead intelligent design.  They also:

• Do not vote
• Do not accept blood transfusions
• Do not celebrate holidays
• Do not have anything to do with war
• Believe in Armageddon. ( incorrectly forecast Armageddon for the years: 1914, 1925 and 1975)

They gave me a free copy of Awake! which I've read.  It has a number of misrepresented "facts".  One of them relates to William Paley (Wiki) who was the author of the Watchmaker Analogy (Wiki) in 1802.  Darwin published his theory of evolution in 1838.  After reading the Paley article in Awake! I see why Dawkins titled one of his books The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe without Design and so now have it on order along with The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution.

I asked that they come back in a month so I could do my homework on evolution.

About Jehovah's Witnesses (WTS) -

Another Knock on the Door -Seventh Day Adventist

March 2011 - A young woman (Seventh Day Adventist (Wiki)) knocked on the door.  She was by herself (usually religious proselytizers come as pairs or more. She had a number of soft cover publications.  We talked for some time and she left me with "The Great Controversy" (see below) and a small pamphlet "Signs of the Times"

About Seventh-day Adventist

Third Knock on the Door - Jehovah's Witnesses

Two young women with Jehovah's Witnesses (Wiki). 
Both women knew about Constantine's Sword and neither of them was wearing a cross, they got it that it would be like wearing a miniature sniper rifle for Jackie Kennedy.
They did not want to discuss my ideas, and left shortly after leaving (These are both 32 page booklets):
"The Watchtower" (Wiki)Apr 1, 2011 - ... the good news that God's Kingdom, which is a real government in heaven, will soon bring an end to all wickedness and transform the earth into a paradise.
 "Awake!" (Wiki) April 2011.  -  End times are near.

Interfaith Gathering for Peace

This was a meetingon 15 Jan 2011 in a local church that was a part of a larger movement sponsered by the Winter Feast for the Soul.  I listened on the radio and then went to the meeting, but was no allowed to speak, although another man who showed up was allowed to.  The reason is that I wanted to talk about religion as being the problem.
The subtitle of the meeting, as shown on the founding web page is "Is Faith a vehicle for Eternal Peace or the cause of endless war?".

Skepticism101 - Welcome (with  Google custom search box)- syllabi - each pdf document is filled with great information including links, books, etc.
Note:  The table of contents is on the left of all the pages.

That reminds me of the idea of overlapping disciplines.  It's not uncommon that when studying one thing something I've learned somewhere else shows up. That was the case when I was watching the TED Talk:  Richard Wilkinson: How economic inequality harms societies http://www.ted.com/talks/richard_wilkinson.html I noticed that on some of his slides there was a group of countries that included Denmark.  This was the "good" end.  He makes the claim that the "bad" end corresponds to countries with high income inequality, but because I'd read the book Society without God: What the Least Religious Nations Can Tell Us About Contentment by Phil Zuckerman, I knew that the "good" end corresponded to countries that were non religious.  Combine that with "The Authoritarians" and there's a new metric.  To test that I checked some on line data and found this: Authoritarian Inequality R*R R*R Life Expectancy 0.52 0.26 Obesity 0.49 0.01 Infant Mortality 0.40 0.27 Hi School Grad 0.40 0.30 Teen Birth Rate 0.37 0.21 Murder 0.25 0.32 Abortion 0.07 0.31 Suicide 0.00 0.28 Prisoners 0.25 0.12 Unemployment 0.22 0.20 Army Recruiting 0.03 0.15 Economic Growth 0.07 0.00 Rape 0.03 0.04 As a proxy for Authoritarian I use the percentage of a state that is Evangelical Christian, income inequality by state is available.  Notice that Life Expectancy, Obesity, Infant Mortality, High School Graduation rate, Teen Birth Rate have a higher correlation with authoritarianism than with income inequality.  The rest of the items do not seem to correlate with either variable.  I've emailed Richard Wilkinson who claims that income equality is more fundamental, but he can't explain why Evangelical Christian (authoritarianism) has a higher correlation. The procedure was for each dependent variable (Life Expectancy for example) two plots were made, one vs. percent Evangelical Christian and the other vs. an income inequality metric.  Then a straight line was fitted to the data and the value of R squared was compared for the two lines. Rather than using just Evangelical Christian as a proxy for authoritarianism, it would be better to come up with a combination of factors using something like multiple regression that was based on the authoritarian test.  This is an exercise for someone with a much better knowledge of statistics than I have.

Hardcover: Random House; Later Printing edition January 1, 1995
Paperback: Ballantine Books, February 25, 1997 ISBN-13: 978-0345409461
Carl Sagan (Wiki Carl) "(November 9, 1934 – December 20, 1996) was an American astronomer, astrochemist, author, and highly successful popularizer of astronomy, astrophysics and other natural sciences. He pioneered exobiology and promoted the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI).

This is the first book that's easy to read and makes a logical case for atheism that I found.

Wiki: "He is world-famous for writing popular science books and for co-writing and presenting the award-winning 1980 television series Cosmos: A Personal Voyage, which has been seen by more than 500 million people in over 60 countries.^[2] A book to accompany the program was also published. He also wrote the novel Contact, the basis for the 1997 film of the same name. One of the last books he wrote was Pale Blue Dot. During his lifetime, Sagan published more than 600 scientific papers and popular articles and was author, co-author, or editor of more than 20 books. In his works, he frequently advocated skeptical inquiry, secular humanism, and the scientific method."

May 27, 1996 on Charlie Rose Show -

Hardcover:
Paperback: Mariner Books; Reprint edition (January 16, 2008) ISBN-13: 978-0618918249
Richard sets out to make a case for atheism in this book but does not include the arguments for Evolution here.  By using evolution Richard explains the development of complex life forms. 
This book was very well received, prompting two books written to try and refute Richard's arguments, they are:

Six Numbered Points:  (pg 157, 158)

1. One of the greatest challenges to the human intellect, over the centuries, has been to explain how the complex, improbable appearance of the design in the universe arises.
2. The natural temptation is to attribute the appearance of design to actual design itself.  In the case of a man-made artifact such as a watch, the designer really was an intelligent engineer.  It is tempting to apply the same logic to the eye or wing, a spider or a person.
3. The temptation is a false one, because the designer hypothesis immediately raises the larger problem is who designed the designer.  The whole problem we started out with was the problem of explaining statistical improbability.  It is obviously no solution to postulate something even more improbable.  We need a "crane", not a "skyhook", for only a crane can do the business of working up gradually and plausibly from simplicity to otherwise improbably complexity.
4. The most ingenious and powerful crane so far discovered is Darwinian evolution by natural selection.  Darwin and his successors have shown how living creatures, with their spectacular statistical improbability and appearance of design, have evolved by slow, gradual degrees from simple beginnings.  We can now safely say that the illusion of design in living creatures is just that - an illusion.
5. We don't yet have an equivalent crane for physics.  Some kind of multiverse theory could in principle do for physics the same explanatory work as Darwinism does for biology.  This kind of explanation is superficially less satisfying that the biological version of Darwinism, because ti makes heavier demands on luck.  But the anthropic principle entitles us to postulate for more luck than our limited human intuition is comfortable with.
6. We should not give up hope of a better crane arising in the physics, something as powerful as Darwinism is for biology.  But even in the absence of a strongly satisfying crane to match the biological one, the relatively weak cranes we have at present are, when abetted by the anthropic principle, self-evidently better than the self-defeating skyhook hypothesis of an intelligent designer.

"Religion has actually convinced people that there's an invisible man - living in the sky - who watches everything you do, every minute of every day.  And the invisible man has a special list of ten things, he has not want you to do.  And if you do any of these ten things, he has a special place, full of fire and smoke and burning and torture and anguish, where he will send you to live and suffer and burn and choke and scream and cry  forever and ever 'til the end of time . . . But He lover you!" ... George Carlin  (pg 279)

"Fundamentalist religion is hell-bent on ruining the scientific education of countless thousands of innocent, well-meaning, eager young minds.  Non-fundamentalist, 'sensible' religion may not be doing that.  But it is making the world safe for fundamentalism by teaching children, from their earliest years, that unquestioning faith is a virtue." (pg 286)

"Our Western politicians avoid mentioning the R word (religion), and instead characterize their battle as a war against 'terror', as though terror were a kind of spirit or force, with a will and a mind of it's own.   Or they characterize terrorists as motivated by pure 'evil'.  But they are not motivated by evil.  However misguided we may think them, they are motivated, like the Christian murders of abortion doctors, by what they perceive to be righteousness, faithfully pursuing what their religion tells them.  They are not psychotic, they are religious idealists who, by their own lights, are rational.  They perceive their acts to be good, not because of some warped personal idiosyncrasy, and not because they have been possessed by Satan, but because they have been brought up, from the cradle, to have total and unquestioning faith."  (pg 304)

Appendix

USA
American Atheists - "...the premier organization laboring for the civil liberties of Atheists, and the total, absolute separation of government and religion."
American Humanist Association - "Humanism is a progressive philosophy of life that, without theism and other supernatural beliefs, affirms our ability and responsibility to lead ethical lives of personal fulfillment that aspire to the greater good of humanity."
The Brights' Net - "Persons who have a naturalistic worldview should be accepted as fellow citizens and full participants in the cultural and political landscape, and not be culturally stifled or civically marginalized due to society’s extensive supernaturalism."
Council for Secular Humanism - "...advocate and defend a nonreligious lifestance rooted in science, naturalistic philosophy, and humanist ethics and to serve and support adherents of that lifestance."
Freedom From Religion Foundation - "...an educational group working for the separation of state and church."
Institute for Humanist Studies - "...we view humanism as having the moral imperative to extend the circle of justice, caring and concern to all. "
James Randi Educational Foundation - "...to promote critical thinking by reaching out to the public and media with reliable information about paranormal and supernatural ideas so widespread in our society today. "
Secular Coalition for America - "...purpose is to amplify the diverse and growing voice of the non-theistic community in the United States."
Secular Student Alliance - "...purpose is to educate high school and college students around the country about the value of scientific reason and the intellectual basis of secularism in its atheistic and humanistic manifestations."
Skeptic - "...is a scientific and educational organization of scholars, scientists, historians, magicians, professors and teachers, and anyone curious about controversial ideas, extraordinary claims, revolutionary ideas, and the promotion of science."
Society for Humanistic Judaism "Humanistic Judaism offers a nontheistic alternative in contemporary Jewish life."
UK
British Humanist Association - "...exists to promote Humanism and support and represent people who seek to live good lives without religious or superstitious beliefs.
International Humanist and Ethical Union - "...the sole world umbrella organization embracing Humanist, atheist, rationalist, secularist, skeptic, laique, ethical cultural, freethought and similar organizations world-wide."
National Secular Society - "...the leading campaigning organisation defending the rights of non-believers from the demands of religious power-seekers."
New Humanist - "...magazine of the Rationalist Association, promoting reason, debate and free thought since 1885."
South Place Ethical Society - "...the study and dissemination of ethical principles based on humanism and freethought, the cultivation of a rational and humane way of life, and the advancement of research and education in all relevant fields."
Canada
Humanist Canada - "To promote the separation of religion from public policy and foster the development of reason, compassion and critical thinking for all Canadians through secular education and community support."
Australia
Australian Skeptics - umbrella organization for the Humanist societies of Australia
Council of Australian Humanist Societies
New Zealand
New Zealand Skeptics - "...are all interested in examining what objective scientific support there is for claims of such things as psychic abilities, alternative health practices, creationism and other areas where science, pseudo-science and shonky science interact." India
Rationalist International - "It aims at representing the rationalist view where public opinion is formed and making the voice of reason heard and considered, where decisions are taken which will shape our future."
Islamic
Apostates of Islam - "We denounce Islam as a false doctrine of hate and terror."
The Dr. Homa Darabi Foundation - to promote the Rights of women and children as defined by the Universal Declaration of the United Nations 
Faithfreedom International "No other cause is responsible for more deaths than Islam."
Center for Inquiry - "The mission of the Center for Inquiry is to foster a secular society based on science, reason, freedom of inquiry, and humanist values."


'I Am Offended!' - Richard Dawkins @ UC Berkeley

The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution by Richard Dawkins ( @Amazon )

hardcover 2009 ISBN 978-1-4165-9478-9
This book was written to present the evidence for evolution but is a great book for learning about evolution.  It's truly an amazing thing.
On pg 24 is the Hairpin Thought Experiment.  The connection between any living thing can be traced by going back (de-evolution) in time to some ancestor, then making a hairpin turn, and then going forward in time (evolution).  Note that there is not a horizontal connection between current animals. 

Tree of Life

On pg 329 is a small image of the David M. Hillis, Derrick Zwickl, and Robin Gutell, University of Texas Tree Of Life showing the evolutionary family connections of animals, plants, Fungi, Protists, Bacteria & Archaea (3,000 species less than 1% of all species shown).  Based on RNA genetic coding.  The Just under ANIMALS is a "You are here" for humans.  Note if in Acrobat Page Scaling you select "Tile All Pages" then 35 sheets will be printed which when assembled will make a single sheet about 5 feet on a side allowing you to read the names on the outside edge. 
Discover Life - has a linear version of the Tree of Life
Introduction to Phylogeny - Tree of Life alphabetical with common names
 PBS - What Darwin Never Knew (Video) - Dec 2009 Transcript is on line, DVD for sale.  Has info on Chimp jaw muscle size vs. human jaw muscle size and it's effect on brain cavity size. (that may be the difference between chimps and humans)
Map of Life - a world map based on Google Maps that shows where different animals are

This book was written to present definitive refutations of the arguments of creationists.  But it also has a chapter about bats and has a lot about evolution.
Note the title is based on the work of William Paley (see above).  Paley, Dawkins and myself  have a great appreaction of the spendor of life on earth.  It's just that scientific knowledge was primitive in Paley's time and he got it all wrong.

Hardcover: NYU Press (October 1, 2008) ISBN-13: 978-0814797143

Associate Professor of Sociology at Pitzer College
Phil spent a year living in Denmark and interviewing people there.  It is the country that has the least theism (most atheist).  It's also a country that is in the top ten countries for lowest homicide, lowest infant mortality, lowest rape, highest longevity, most contented population, i.e. a very good place to live.  The point Phil was setting out to make was that lacking God a society will get along just fine.  But I think he has made the point that when the leaders of a country believe in God they will make much poorer decisions than a more rational person so "God Fearing" countries are much worse off.

His idea is that morality is related to maximizing happiness and minimizing suffering of conscious creatures which includes humans and a few of the great apes.

Paperback:  Vintage Books, Jan 2008, ISBN-13: 978-0307278777
Sam has written the book as a letter to a Christian.  He uses the technique of giving an example in another religion and then pointing out that the same argument applies to Christianity.  

"The same Gallup poll revealed that 53 percent of Americans are actually creationists." (pg x)
Among developed nations, America stands alone in these convictions.  Our country now appears, as at no other time in her history, like a lumbering, bellicose, dim-witted giant.  Anyone who cares about the fate of civilization would do well to recognize that the combination of great power and great stupidity is simply terrifying, even to one's friends."  (pg xi) (BC: added larger font and bold)

Countries where religion is almost non existent are: Norway, Iceland, Australia, Canada, Sweden, Switzerland, Belgium, Japan, the Netherlands, Denmark and the United Kingdom (pg 43).
"In 2005,  a survey was conducted in thirty-four countries (BC: there are 206 in the world) measuring the percentage of adults who accept evolution.  The United States ranked thirty-third, just above Turkey." (pg 70).

Religion is the basis of most conflict in the world (pg 81).
Palestine: Jews vs. Muslims
Balkans: Orthodox Serbs vs. Catholic Croatians; Orthodox Serbs vs. Bosnian & Albanian Muslims
Northern Ireland: Protestants vs. Catholics
Kashmir: Muslims vs. Hindus
Sudan: Muslims vs. Christians & animists
Nigeria: Muslims vs. Christians
Ethiopia and Eritrea: Muslims vs. Christians
Ivory Coast: Muslims vs. Christians
Sri Lanka: Sinhalese Buddhists vs. Tamil Hindus
Philippines: Muslims vs. Christians
Iran and Iraq: Shiite vs. Sunni Muslims
the Caucasus: Orthodox Russians vs. Chechen Muslims; Muslim Azerbaijanis vs. Catholic and Orthodox Armenians

"The idea that Islam is a "peaceful religion hijacked by extremists" is a fantasy, and it is now a particularly dangerous fantasy for Muslims to indulge." (pg 85)

Sam Harris, The View from the End of the World, SALT talk at Google (1:22:32) Longnow.org - explains the problems of religious moderation
"We have a choice between conversation or violence.  Faith is a conversation stopper."  To make religious war unthinkable, like slavery and cannibalism, we have to undermine the dogma of faith.
A Conversation with Sam Harris (1:29:52)- The goal is to spread secular thinking and scientific knowledge in society. (after "End of Faith" was published)

Hardcover: Hachette Book Group (2008) ASIN: B002C4ZU6Q

Wiki:  book, author - "Hitchens contends that organized religion is "violent, irrational, intolerant, allied to racism, tribalism, and bigotry, invested in ignorance and hostile to free inquiry, contemptuous of women and coercive toward children", and that accordingly it "ought to have a great deal on its conscience." Hitchens supports his position with a mixture of personal stories, documented historical anecdotes and critical analysis of religious texts. His commentary focuses mainly on the Abrahamic religions, although he also touches on other religions such as Hinduism and Buddhism.

Hitchens points out the dangers of religion ("ethic cleansing") and shows many flaws in the various versions of the bible.  He makes the case that the bible was written by humans in the middle east and nowhere in it is there a mention of other parts of the world like Australia.  Hitchens is harder to read than some of the other writers because he uses a vocabulary larger than mine.

Chapter 15 "Religion as an Original Sin" (pg 205) starts :
"There are, indeed, several ways in which religion is not just amoral, but positively immoral.  And these faults and crimes are not in the behavior of its adherents (which can sometimes be exemplary) but in its original precepts.  These include:

• Presenting a false picture of the world to the innocent and the credulous
• The doctrine of blood sacrifice
• The doctrine of atonement
• The doctrine of eternal reward and/or punishment
• The impossible of impossible tasks and rules."

The rest of chapter 15 develops the last four points, the first being already covered in prior chapters.

page 239:  "Four days after his election (Feb 1939) by the College of Cardinals, His Holiness (Pope Pius XII) composed the following letter to Berlin:

page 251: "The connection between religion, racism, and totalitarianism is also to be found in the other most hateful dictatorship of the twentieth century: the vile system of apartheid in South Africa."

Christopher Hitchens Challenge

"First, name me an ethical statement made or an action performed by a believer that could not have been made or performed by a non-believer.... Second, think of a wicked statement made, or an evil action performed, precisely because of religious faith?"

  The first is very difficult and the second it very easy.

On Poverty

“The cure for poverty has a name, in fact. It’s called the empowerment of women.  If you give women some control over the rate at which they reproduce, if you give them some say, take them off the animal cycle of reproduction to which nature and some religious doctrine condemns them, and then if you throw in a handful of seeds, the floor of everything in that village, not just poverty, but health and education, will increase. Try it in Bangladesh and Bolivia, it works all the time. Name me one religion that stands for that, or ever has.”

Hitchens Dictum

What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence.

Poison or Cure? Religious Belief in the Modern World - Video
Authors@Google: Christopher Hitchens
Christopher Hitchens / Bill Maher

Chapter 9 "The Believing Brain" has some ideas on why people believe in religion.

The 2009 paperback has a new preface that talks about the Obama administration.  Fareed has what appears to be a good overview of what it takes for a country to be The old paradime was capital and labor, the new one is ideas and energy.
The problem with America is a dysfunctional political system, i.e. it can not accomplish much in a reasonable time, China can accomplish a lot in a short time, but is very poor (in terms of GDP/person).

Nobel winner in Physics, bongo player, safe cracker, very intelligent, atheist, etc.
The Quest for Tannu Tuva - Part 1 , Part 2 , Part 3 , Part 4, Part 5

This was my first Feynman book and the one I like the best.  It covers safe cracking, picking up women at bars and other interesting stories.

By the time he was 12 Richard knew he was an atheist. 

Chapter 13 "The Relation of Science and Religion"

Has a lot of info on his investigation of the Space Shuttle Challenger problems (not just the O-rings).

also wrote "Stiff" about cadavers.  She's a very interesting woman!

This is a very interesting book in that it has a lot of information about Donnely, the author of Atlantis which may be the first pseudo-science idea made from whole cloth.

Although the first book could be read by itself, these are really a single story that is open ended allowing for a number of follow on books.  It's too bad that Stieg died after the third book came out.  There's a relationship to the book Society Without God apparent in the behavior of the key characters.

Rifkin seems to be a doomsayer.  He spends 80% of the book talking about energy and it's equivalents.  When mentioning methods of electric generation he overlooks hydroelectric.  In the section about "hydrogen energy" he never does any math to show where the hydrogen is coming from and in some cases seems to be saying first use electrolysis to split water into hydrogen and oxygen, then later burn that hydrogen in a fuel cell to make electricity.  In the fuel cell discussion he says hydrocarbon fuels are not practical for fuel cells, yet the Army competition for a replacement for the BA-5590 battery was won by a menthol fuel cell.

In the chapter "The Islamist Wild Card" he has an interesting description of the differences between Christian and Islamic religions.  Making the case that Islamic religions are tied into the political system and if they are elected in a democratic political system they will dismantle the democracy in put into force Sherira law and what amounts to a totalitarian system, like in Saudi Arabia ("My father rode a camel, I drive a car, my son rides a jet airplane - his son will ride a camel").  "In the Islamic world, however, it is not the people who give government its legitimacy, but God." (p119)  In 1991 Algeria came close to electing the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) into power which would have resulted restructuring Algeria along Islamic lines, religious courts replaced by civil courts, Islamic dress codes, cultural expression restricted to Islamic practices.  Rifkin says that Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Libya, Sudan and Somalia are in the bottom 8 regimes on the list of countries in terms of economic freedom (p116). 

• "People in Survival societies emphasize economic and physical security.  Life is organized in a strict authoritarian chain of command stretching from unconditional male authority over spouse and children, to unconditional state authority over all its subjects, to unswerving devotion to God's commands on high.
• Traditional societies imperiled by economic hardship and insecurities, tend to be intolerant of foreigners, ethnic minorities, and gays and staunch supporters of male superiority.  Populations are highly religious and nationalistic, believe in the firm hand of state authority, emphasize conformity, and exhibit a low level of individual self-expression. . . .More children means more hands for work and assures greater group survival.  Fostering the interests of the family is essential to assure the survival of each individual family member.  Personal self-expression that might be at odds with family survival is dealt with harshly.  In these societies with their emphasis on family survival, it's not surprising that abortion, homosexuality, and divorce are unacceptable. (See Blackwater)
  
• In secular-rationalist societies engaged in the takeoff stage of industrial life, hierarchies are reconfigured away from God's created order to giant corporate and government bureaucracies.  The great Chain of Being is replaced with the corporate chain of command.  Individual accumulation of wealth frees people from the vicissitudes of nature, providing some degree of economic security.  In the process, the individual as a distinct self-possessed being, begins to emerge from the communal haze but is still beholden to hierarchical institutional arrangements.  Nonetheless, more developed self-expression fosters some advance in empathic consciousness.
• Knowledge-based societies, with high levels of individual and self-expression, exhibit the highest levels of empathic extension.  Self-hood is conductive to more trust and openness to others and greater tolerance of those who are different.  If one feels secure in hos own being and more free to control his own fate, the chances are he will be less fearful of others and less likely to associate anyone outside of his immediate network of relatives as a threat.  In fact, the emancipation from tight communal bonds and the development of weaker but more extended associational ties exposes the individual to a much wider network of diverse people, which in turn, both strengthens one's sense of trust and openness and provides the context for a more extended empathic consciousness."
  

Blackwater: The rise of the world's most powerful mercenary army by Jeremy Scahill ( @Amazon )
I expected this to be a book about mercenaries, but it turns out to be about religion, politics and war.  Eric Prince, CEO of Blackwater (Wiki) and his immediate family are both fundamentalist Christians as are many of the politicians involved in hiring the Blackwater mercenaries.  This is the military industrial complex that Eisenhower warned about, but it includes religion in a big way.  Chapter 10: "The parents of one Blackwater contractor killed in Iraq said it was their son's deep sense of patriotism and his abiding Christian faith that led him to work in Iraq." (note 1: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel April 24, 2005).  After thinking about what this book has to say I came to this conclusion:

The United States of America Has Gone Mad by John le Carré  Published on Wednesday, January 15, 2003 by the Times/UK
Has to do with the religious beliefs of heads of state.
"The religious cant that will send American troops into battle is perhaps the most sickening aspect of this surreal war-to-be. Bush has an arm-lock on God. And God has very particular political opinions. God appointed America to save the world in any way that suits America."
God and his Demons, Michael Parenti
What the Dog Saw: And Other Adventures - Malcolm Gladwell
Outliers: The Story of Success - Malcolm Gladwell
Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything (P.S.) - Steven D. Levitt & S.J. Dubner

Super Freakonomics Illustrated - a continuation of the above book but now with a lot of illustrations.

The Men Who Stare at Goats, Jon Ronson
Them: Adventures with Extremists, Jon Ronson
Why People Believe Weird Things, Michael Shermer
Love & Survival: The scientific basis for the healing power of intimiacy, Dean Ornish -
Kitchen Table Wisdom: Stories That Heal by Rachel Naomi Remen with the forward by Dean Ornish. (on order)
The Great Controversy by E.G. White ISBN 978-0-8163-1612-0
Sex at Dawn: The Prehistoric Origins of Modern Sexuality by Christopher Ryan & Cacilda Jethá (2010)

The Mating Mind by Geoffrey F. Miller (2000)
 Spent: Sex, Evolution, and Consumer Behavior by Geoffrey F. Miller 2009

The Grand Design by Stephen Hawking
The Great Derangment by Matt Taibbi

Jonathan Miller (Wiki) discussing religion with: Colin McGinn (Wiki, Amazon), Steven Weinberg (Wiki, Amazon), Arthur Miller (Wiki, Amazon), Richard Dawkins (see below), Denys Turner (Wiki) and Danial Dennett (see below).

Building an evangelical army of tomorrow.  My guess is that this is very similar to what the Islamic religious training looks like, it's scarry.

Explore the lives of evangelical Christians who believe that Armageddon is imminent and that Israel will be the site of Christ's second coming.

TED Talks:   Julia Sweeney has "The Talk" 
                    Julia Sweeney on letting go of God - firsrt 15 minutes of DVD
                    The Jill and Julia Show - pans "The Secret"

The movie debunks the Jesus myth.  But for me the really interesting part are the interviews (Wiki) in the special features section.

put on the shelf, boring.

Religious violence -
Christianity and violence -
Just War (aka: Holy War) -
Religious war Includes chapters for Christianity, Islam & Judaism, i.e. the Abrahamic religions (Wiki), but not Hinduism (Wiki) or Buddhism (wiki).

TED Talks:
Michael Shermer: The pattern behind self-deception - Type I & Type II errors:  Is the noise in the grass the wind or a tiger?
Michael Shermer on strange beliefs
Authors@Google: Michael Shermer -
Skeptic magazine
Michael Shermer Tests Acupuncture
How to Bend a Spoon with Your Mind
Shermer on Larry King Live with the UFOlogists

The Empathic Civilisation - 52 minute lecture - 11 minute animated version
Mentiones the formation of religion.

TED Talk - Tan Le: A headset that reads your brainwaves
emotiv - sells the headset

"Mirror Neurons" were mentioned by Jeremy Rifken in the Empathic Civilisation talk.

VS Ramachandran on your mind - 23 min video 2007
VS Ramachandran: The neurons that shaped civilization - 8 minute video about motor control and touch neurons: "Gandhi neurons or empathy neurons"
Chralie Rose interview - July 14, 2009 29 min video "Mirror Neurons" starting at 12 min
5 BBC Audio Lectures -
the Temporal Lobes and God - Part 1 -
the Temporal Lobes and God - Part 2 -
Religious Faith Morality & Epistemological Absurdities - Sam Harris, Ramachandran, Dawkins - Right hemisphere believes in God, BUT left hemisphere does not.

TED Talk: Looks inside the brain in real time
patent application 10/628,875 Methods for measurement and analysis of brain activity, 600/410 

Arbejdsglæde Live! 2009 - be radiantly alive many times each day

George progressed from just a comic, to a combined jester and philosopher and finally jester, philosopher and poet. 
Each year George refined and expanded his routine, so in my opinion the newer ones are more interesting.
2008 George Carlin: It's Bad For Ya
2007 George Carlin - Life Is Worth Losing
2006 George Carlin - Jammin' in New York
2005 George Carlin - Doin' It Again
2004 George Carlin - Complaints and Grievances
2003 George Carlin - You Are All Diseased
2003 George Carlin - Back in Town

Penn & Teller: Bullshit! - longest running show on Showtime where they debunk Bullshit ideas in a way that they will not get sued (like happened to James Randy when he debunked Uri Geller (Wiki))
Penn Says video blog on Crackle

James Randi Educational Foundation - win $1,000,000 if you can do anything paranormal.
TED Talks - James Randi's fiery takedown of psychic fraud Apr 2010 - takes a full bottle of sleeping pills at the start of his talk
Authors@Google: James Randi

Google Video - 4 Horsemen Dawkins web page - I've been watching many hours of YouTube on my home theather system.

Richard Dawkins - 

Daniel Dennett -

Sam Harris -

Christopher Hitchens - Wiki: author

 TED Talk: A.J. Jacobs' year of living biblically

Her TED reading list:

"1/9: Denialism, by Michael Specter @specterm. How fear of science is preventing progress. Powerful. Loved.

2/9: The Art Instinct, by Denis Dutton (of @aldaily) Beautiful prose arguing that art is a human universal.

3/9: Connected, by Nicholas Christakis @connected_book The shocking proof of how deeply we're affected by our friends' friends.

4/9: The Wisdom of Whores, by @ElizabethPisani How POORLY we spend billions of $ trying to prevent AIDS

5/9: I Am an Emotional Creature, by Eve Ensler. Embrace your inner girl!

6/9: Whole Earth Discipline, by Stewart Brand. Environmentalism reconsidered, for the realities of a new era. Or: Why nuclear power, GM foods & squatter cities are green.

7/9: No Small Matter: Science on the Nanoscale, by George Whitesides. Tiny, lovely things in image & prose

8/9: This Will Change Everything, edited by John Brockman @edge. Short, sharp essays by who's who of TED world. I think one could safely call this "brain candy."

9/9: Fair Game, by Valerie Plame Wilson, the 'outed' CIA agent, who'll talk at TED about the need for nuclear disarmament. I'm fascinated by this woman!"

http://www.patcondell.net/
YouTube -

Authors@Google: Steven Pinker a lesson for George Carlin on dirty words and how/why they are used.

Eva Vertes looks to the future of medicine 2005 - cancer might be a curing process, mentiones antiangiogenic foods

William Li: Can we eat to starve cancer? 2010 - list of antiangiogenic foods

Green Tea	Red Grapes	Lavender
Strawberries	Red Whine	Pumpkin
Blackberries	Bok choy	Sea Cucumber
Raspberries	Kale	Tuna
Blueberries	Soy beans	Parsley
Oranges	Ginseng	Garlic
Grapefruit	Maitake mushroom	Tomato
Lomons	Licorice	Olive oil
Apples	Turmeric	Grape seed oil
Pineapple	Nutmeg	Dark chocloate
Cherries	Artichokes	Others

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angiogenesis
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angiogenesis_inhibitor
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judah_Folkman

Kary Mullis won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for developing a way to copy a strand of DNA.
TED Talk: Kary Mullis celebrates the experiment - filmed 2002 posted 2009
the science behind global warming may be flawed (based on the 2002 technical papers)
Science magazine:

Evidence for Strengthening of the Tropical General Circulation in the 1990s 1 February 2002

Year	Workers/retiree
1930	41
1950	16
1960	5
2005	3
2010	2

This makes clear the Ponzi scheme (Wiki) aspect of theU.S. Social Security system.

Books:
Longitudes and Attitudes - a collection of NY Times articles he wrote just prior to 9/11 and just after.

video with Bill Maher & Richard Dawkins - "...these young men are raised with the view . . . Islam sees itself as the most perfect expression of God's monotheistic message.  Putting it into computer terms, it sees itself as God 3.0.  It sees Christianity as God 2.0.  It sees Judaism as God 1.0 and Hinduism as God 1.0.  And I think part of the dissonance Bill, when they come here or in Europe, is that in their identity they have the most perfect system but in real life their countries are economically behind, in terms of education behind and there's a real dissonance "If I've got the most perfect operating system why am I behind?".  I think that produces a lot of rage too. 

Early work on making organic chemicals was based on the idea that it happened at the surface of the Earth where various gases were mixed and zapped by lightening.  I think NASA generated some organics that way in the 1970s.  But Bob's idea is that it happened deep in the ocean where their are extreamly hot (over a thousand degrees) water jets that interact with the surrounding stuff in the ocean and does not boil because of the deepth. 

The Origins of Life -
From the Big Bang to Broadway: How Things Evolve

The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements

Book: The Looming Tower: Al-Queda and the Road to 9/11
Movie: The Siege (IMDB)

The Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions, and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory