Books about Apostates from Amazon.com

For about two decades, John W Loftus was a devout evangelical Christian, an ordained minister of the Church of Christ, and an ardent apologist for Christianity With three degrees - in philosophy, theology, and philosophy of religion - he was adept at using rational argumentation to defend the faith. But over the years, as he ministered to various congregations and taught at Christian colleges, doubts about the credibility of key Christian tenets began to creep into his thinking. By the late 1990s, he experienced a full-blown crisis of faith, brought on by emotional upheavals in his personal life as well as the gathering weight of the doubts he had long entertained.In this honest appraisal of his journey from believer to atheist, Loftus carefully explains the experiences and the reasoning process that led him to reject religious belief. The bulk of the book is his 'cumulative case' against Christianity. Here, he lays out the philosophical, scientific, and historical reasons that can be raised against Christian belief. From the implications of religious diversity, the authority of faith vs reason, and the problem of evil, to the contradictions between the Bible and the scientific worldview, the conflicts between traditional dogma and historical evidence, and much more, Loftus covers a great deal of intellectual terrain. For every issue, he succinctly summarises the various points of view and provides references for further reading.In conclusion, he describes the implications of life without belief in God, some liberating, some sobering. This frank critique of Christian belief from a former insider will interest freethinkers as well as anyone with doubts about the claims of religion..
Price: $12.36 [Notify me when price goes down.]

As the nuns of St. Frideswide's priory prepare for the welcome end of Lent, their peaceful expectations are overset by the sudden return of long- vanished Sister Cecely. Nine years ago she fled from the nunnery with a man. Now her lover is dead and she has come back, bringing her illegitimate son with her.

She claims she is penitent, that she wants only to redeem her sin and find safe haven for the child. Neither she nor her son can be turned away, but their presence begins to stir doubts and questions in the hearts of some of the nuns about their own faithfulness to this enclosed life they've chosen to live.

Sister Cecely may be penitent-however much Frevisse may doubt it-but fully truthful she is not, and as the apostate nun's lies begin to overtake her, dangers of more than one kind-and maybe murder-become an unwanted part of life in the priory..
Price: $3.89 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Given that I am rather skeptical of the very possibility of a scientific survey of apostates, it is rather difficult for me to make any psychological, sociological, or anthropological generalizations based on fewer than fifty personal testimonies that would be valid outside this particular group. No quick portrait of the typical apostate is likely to appear--some are young (students in their teens), some are middle-aged with children; some are scientists, while others are economists, businesspeople, or journalists; some are from Bangladesh, others are from Pakistan, India, Morocco, Egypt, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, or Iran. Our witnesses, nonetheless, do have certain moral and intellectual qualities in common: for instance, they are all comparatively well educated, computer literate with access to the Internet, and rational, with the ability to think for themselves. However, what is most striking is their fearlessness, their moral courage, and their moral commitment to telling the truth. They all face social ostracism, the loss of friends and family, a deep inner spiritual anguish and loneliness--and occasionally the death penalty if discovered. Their decisions are not frivolously taken, but the ineluctable result of rational thinking.

There are very useful analogies to be drawn between communism and Islam. . . .As Arthur Koestler said, "You hate our Cassandra cries and resent us as allies, but when all is said, we ex-Communists are the only people on your side who know what it's all about."

Communism has been defeated, at least for the moment; Islamism has not, and unless a reformed, tolerant, liberal kind of Islam emerges soon, perhaps the final battle will be between Islam and Western democracy. And these former Muslims, to echo Koestler's words, on the side of Western democracy are the only ones who know what it's all about, and we would do well to listen to their Cassandra cries. -- Ibn Warraq, from the Introduction.
Price: $15.12 [Notify me when price goes down.]

A history of Julian, the grandson of Constantine, and his failed attempt to reverse the Christian tide that swept the Roman Empire

• Portrays the “Apostate” as a poet-philosopher, arguing that had he survived, Christianity would have been checked in its rise

• Details reforms enacted by Julian during his two-year reign that marginalized Christians, effectively limiting their role in the social and political life of the Empire

• Shows how after Julian’s death the Church used paganism to represent evil and opposition to God, a tactic whose traces still linger

The violent death of the emperor Julian (Flavius Claudius Julianus, AD 332-363) on a Persian battlefield has become synonymous with the death of paganism. Vilified throughout history as the “Apostate,” the young philosopher-warrior was the last and arguably the most potent threat to Christianity.

The Last Pagan examines Julian’s journey from an aristocratic Christian childhood to his initiation into pagan cults and his mission to establish paganism as the dominant faith of the Roman world. Julian’s death, only two years into his reign, initiated a culture-wide suppression by the Church of all things it chose to identify as pagan. Only in recent decades, with the weakening of the Church’s influence and the resurgence of paganism, have the effects of that suppression begun to wane. Drawing upon more than 700 pages of Julian’s original writings, Adrian Murdoch shows that had Julian lived longer our history and our present-day culture would likely be very different..
Price: $9.26 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Blacklisting Myself details Academy Award-nominated screenwriter Roger L. Simon's odyssey from financier of the Black Panther Breakfast Program to darling of the political right. In this tale of Hollywood radical chic run amuck, Simon relates his adventures with Richard Pryor, Warren Beatty, Woody Allen and real-life Hollywood KGB officers. Among the topics covered along the way: the new blacklist for conservatives in tinseltown and how new media will destroy Hollywood as we know it..
Price: $17.13 [Notify me when price goes down.]

How have I gone from being a defender of Christianity to an atheist? That is the question of this book. I was a Christian apologist set for the express purpose of defending Christianity from intellectual attacks. I was not afraid of any idea, because I was convinced that Christianity was true and could withstand all attacks. Now I turn that same intellectual muscle into questioning the things I formerly defended.

There are three major experiences that happened in my life that changed my thinking. They all happened in the space of about five years, from 1991-1996. They are: 1) A major crisis, 2) plus information, 3) minus a sense of a loving, caring, Christian community. For me it was an assault of major proportions that if I still believed in the devil would say it was orchestrated by the legions of hell.

Afterward I began to doubt the very things I had previously argued for. You see, I knew most of the arguments against Christianity, and as a philosophy instructor in a secular college I could debate both sides of most any argument. Anyway, I have told people time and time again that I could teach philosophy until I was blue in the face so long as I knew I had a loving, caring, and faithful Christian community to fall back on after my class is over. When that fell through the floor, the doubts crept in my life.

As the doubts crept in, my life changed, and so did my thinking. This book shares both the experiences that changed my life, and focuses on the ideas that I now reject. It is a look at Christianity from an insider's perspective from start to finish..
Price: $100.92 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Focuses on the mentality of `the last pagan emperor' by examining a wide variety of his writings The surviving speeches and treatises, satires and letters, offer a rare insight into the personal attitudes and motivations of Julian..
Price: $115.86 [Notify me when price goes down.]