BOOK GROUP READING FOR 2010-2011

The Book Group for both Deer Park and Calvin folk meets monthly 8 times a year on the second Tuesday at 7:00pm. Everyone is welcome. The only requirement is that you have read the book - or at least enough that you can participate in the discussion by adding to it, by asking questions, o by listening with understanding. These are the books for the 2010-2011 year:

September 14 -- The Origin of Species  by  Nino Ricci

October 12  --  Penelopiad  by  Margaret Atwood

November 9  --  Death in the Age of Steam  by  Mel Bradshaw

January 11  --  The Elegance of the Hedgehog  by  Muriel Barbery

February 8  --  Parallel Lives  by  Phyllis Rose

March 8  --  The Bishop's Man  by  Linden MacIntyre

April 12  --  Small Beneath the Sky  by  Lorna Crozier

May 10  --  Unaccustomed Earth  by  Jhumpa Lahiri

THE NEW ATHEISTS EXAMINED

Do you like to hear new and different ideas?  Have you heard of the New Atheists and wonder what they’re about and what is “new” with them?  Do you have questions such as: what is atheism? when did atheism start? can evolution and God co-exist? why is there so much talk about atheism now? what does all this mean for me?  If any of this is true for you, then come to the program that will look at all of this and more.  We will meet four times in the autumn of 2010 on Thursday evenings at 7:00pm in the Geneva Room—October 14, 21, 28 and November 4.  Everyone is welcome.   

In preparation for this study, you are asked to read at least ONE OF EACH of the following two groups of books (all are in paperback).  Feel free to read them all should you be so inclined.

A.        Sam Harris, The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason, 2004

            Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion, 2006

            Christopher Hitchens, God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything, 2007

B.        Chris Hedges, When Atheism Becomes Religion: America’s New Fundamentalists, 2008

            Terry Eagleton, Reason, Faith and Revolution: Reflections on the God Debate, 2009

            Mark Vernon, After Atheism: Science, Religion and the Meaning of Life, 2007

Other books you might also be interested in looking at should you have lots of time and energy (!) are listed below.  While not being the primary books, these may be referenced in the study and they do provide more background.  They may not all be in paperback.

            Karen Armstrong, The Case for God, 2009

– especially the Introduction and Part II: The Modern God

Robert Wright, The Evolution of God, 2010  

John Cornwell, Darwin’s Angel: An Angelic Riposte to The God Delusion, 2007

Alister McGrath, Dawkins’ God: Genes, Memes, and the Meaning of Life, 2005

Daniel Dennett, Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon, 2006

Sam Harris, Letter to a Christian Nation, 2006

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