Download Free Superstition And Other Essays Book in PDF and EPUB Free Download. You can read online Superstition And Other Essays and write the review.

Civil War veteran, successful lawyer, persuasive spokesman for the Republican Party, spellbinding orator, and controversial iconoclast, Col. Robert G. Ingersoll (1833-1899) was one of the best-known intellectuals of the 19th century. He rose to national prominence through his gift for oratory, which he publicly displayed on numerous lecture circuit tours. For almost twenty years this dedicated popularizer of progressive thinking and staunch critic of superstition would regularly address huge audiences, opening their minds to ideas that often provoked guarded whispers in private. Ingersoll was a man far ahead of his time, who advocated agnosticism, birth control, voting rights for women, the advancement of science, and civil rights for all races. Though eloquent on a wide variety of topics, he became most famous, and notorious, for his provocative lectures questioning the traditional, Bible-based Christian worldview of the age. In this volume are collected his best-known lectures on religion, the Bible, and related subjects. Included are "Why I Am an Agnostic"; "The Truth"; "What Is Religion?"; "Superstition"; "What Infidels Have Done"; "What Should You Substitute for the Bible as a Moral Guide?"; "Crumbling Creeds"; "The Liberty of Man, Woman, and Child"; and "Love." This outstanding collection is indispensable for freethinkers, humanists, and open-minded people of all persuasions. Note: This volume is available individually or as part of a two-volume set with On the Gods and Other Essays by Robert by Ingersoll: two-volume set (ISBN 1-59102-171-5): $50.
From the curse of the lottery winners to the good feng shui of a local restaurant, this quirky, wacky, weird, and wonderful collection of superstitions uncovers the truth about some of our most familiar beliefs, as well as others that are much stranger. It turns out that everywhere in the world, people still put their trust in luck, magic, and mystery. By the end of this look at the bizarre world of illogic it’s clear: superstition is alive and well...and really spellbinding!
"This sparkling book romps over the range of science and anti-science." --Jared Diamond, author of Guns, Germs, and Steel Revised and Expanded Edition. In this age of supposed scientific enlightenment, many people still believe in mind reading, past-life regression theory, New Age hokum, and alien abduction. A no-holds-barred assault on popular superstitions and prejudices, with more than 80,000 copies in print, Why People Believe Weird Things debunks these nonsensical claims and explores the very human reasons people find otherworldly phenomena, conspiracy theories, and cults so appealing. In an entirely new chapter, "Why Smart People Believe in Weird Things," Michael Shermer takes on science luminaries like physicist Frank Tippler and others, who hide their spiritual beliefs behind the trappings of science. Shermer, science historian and true crusader, also reveals the more dangerous side of such illogical thinking, including Holocaust denial, the recovered-memory movement, the satanic ritual abuse scare, and other modern crazes. Why People Believe Strange Things is an eye-opening resource for the most gullible among us and those who want to protect them.
“[A] scathing assessment . . . Berry shows that Wilson's much–celebrated, controversial pleas in Consilience to unify all branches of knowledge is nothing more than a fatuous subordination of religion, art, and everything else that is good to science . . . Berry is one of the most perceptive critics of American society writing today.” —The Washington Post “I am tempted to say he understands [Consilience] better than Wilson himself . . . A new emancipation proclamation in which he speaks again and again about how to defy the tyranny of scientific materialism.”—The Christian Science Monitor In Life Is a Miracle, the devotion of science to the quantitative and reductionist world is measured against the mysterious, qualitative suggestions of religion and art. Berry sees life as the collision of these separate forces, but without all three in the mix we are left at sea in the world.
In this fully updated edition of Believing in Magic, renowned superstition expert Stuart Vyse investigates our tendency towards these irrational beliefs.
The expanded companion book to the #1 documentary film about 2012! The 2012 meme has evolved beyond any debates about the relevance of the Maya Long Count calendar to the lives of contemporary human beings. 2012 is about us on planet Earth at this time. December 21, 2012: will the world really change forever on this date, the end of a 5,125-year calendar last used over a thousand years ago? Certainly Hollywood would like you to think so. Indeed, a not-so-small industry has arisen around the date, hawking everything from t-shirts to teleseminars. Clearing a path between fantasy and reality, Alexandra Bruce surveys the entire 2012 landscape, asking questions such as: Is the Earth losing its Mojo? How did 2012 come to mean "The End of Time"? Did psychedelics facilitate the Maya "Cosmovision"? Should we worry about Earth Crustal Displacement? What the hell is "Planet X"? Uniquely amongst a vast array of 2012 literature, this book features interviews with the leading experts—including Graham Hancock, John Major Jenkins, Daniel Pinchbeck and many others—and insightful, detailed analysis of the broad spectrum of opinion, debate, research and myth regarding the most compelling "end times" prediction of the 21st century.
John Burnham studies the history of changing patterns in the dissemination, or "popularization," of scientific findings to the general public since 1830. Focusing on three different areas of science -- health, psychology, and the natural sciences -- Burnham explores the ways in which this process of popularization has deteriorated. He draws on evidence ranging from early lyceum lecturers to the new math and argues that today popular science is the functional equivalent of superstition.
Voltaire writes a long essay questioning the Jean Calas case, reflecting on Christianity and remembering the earthquake in Lisbon. Voltaire, novelist, dramatist, poet, and philosopher was one of the most renowned figures of the Age of Enlightenment.