Freethought Sundays: Cordova Book Club

Please visit the Memphis Freethought Alliance Meetup for updates on "Freethought Fridays: Midtown Book Club!"

Schedule for Freethought Sundays:

We are reading, This Explains Everything by John Brockman

Sunday, 03/31/13 at 2:00 pm: Adam & Eve Revisited: A Free Will Story by I.M. Probulos who is one of our book club members ($0.99 on Kindle) at Panera Bread at 714 Germantown Parkway, Memphis, TN (BETWEEN BOOK ESSAY)

Sunday, 04/07/13 at 4:00 pm: Up to page 24 of This Explains Everything at Panera Bread at 714 Germantown Parkway, Memphis, TN

Sunday, 04/14/13 at 4:00 pm: Pages 24 to 52 of This Explains Everything at Panera Bread at 714 Germantown Parkway, Memphis, TN

Sunday, 04/21/13 at 4:00 pm: Pages 53 to 98 (up to and including "Swarm Intelligence" by Robert Sapolsky) of This Explains Everything at Panera Bread at 714 Germantown Parkway, Memphis, TN

Sunday, 04/28/13 at 4:00 pm: Pages 99 to 148 (up to and including "What Time Is It?" by Dave Winer) of This Explains Everything at Panera Bread at 714 Germantown Parkway, Memphis, TN

Sunday, 05/05/13 at 4:00 pm: Pages 149 to 186 (up to and including "Lemons Are Fast" by Barry C. Smith) of This Explains Everything at Panera Bread at 714 Germantown Parkway, Memphis, TN

Sunday, 05/12/13 at 4:00 pm: Pages 187 to 237 (up to and including "Moore's Law" by Rodney Brooks) of This Explains Everything at Panera Bread at 714 Germantown Parkway, Memphis, TN

Sunday, 05/19/13 at 4:00 pm: Pages 239 to 298 (up to and including "Transitional Objects" by Sherry Turkle) of This Explains Everything at Panera Bread at 714 Germantown Parkway, Memphis, TN

Sunday, 05/26/13 at 4:00 pm: Pages 299 to 353 (up to and including "The Beautiful Law of Unintended Consequences" by Robert Kurzban) of This Explains Everything at Panera Bread at 714 Germantown Parkway, Memphis, TN

Sunday, 06/02/13 at 4:00 pm: Pages 354 to end of book of This Explains Everything at Panera Bread at 714 Germantown Parkway, Memphis, TN

A sacred cow is someone or something that is supposedly immune to or considered inappropriate for criticism. The Memphis Freethought Alliance Book Club meets to discuss freethought books. Freethought books explore sacred cows in an open and critical manner. Many (not all) of the books focus on religion, which is the primary sacred cow for many people. However, we are also open to critically discussing other touchy topics.

The process for selecting reading materials:

BOOK DISCUSSIONS: Book club members will vote on books two weeks before finishing the current one. These votes will be casted at the book club meeting two weeks before beginning the new book to allow time to order it. Also, people can vote with an absentee vote by emailing Jason Grosser at memphisfreethought@yahoo.com. (Please, write in the "subject" of your email "Book Club Vote".)

PDF with general guidelines for books

BETWEEN BOOKS ONE DAY PAPER DISCUSSION: One of the regular members will pick a short paper (essay, chapter, magazine article, etc) that is 50 or fewer pages to read and discuss at one--and only one--meeting. Again, these paper discussions will occur between books. These short papers will (we hope) add variety to the discussion topics without committing people to an entire book.

Books & articles reviewed (in chronological order from earliest to latest):

Civilization and Its Discontents by Sigmund Freud
The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins
American Fascists by Christopher Hedges
The Flying Spaghetti Monster by Bobby Henderson
Don't Think of an Elephant by George Lakoff
Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why by Bart D. Ehrman
God: The Failed Hypothesis by Victor J. Stenger
Fears for Democracy in India (Hindu Fundamentalism) by Martha C. Nussbaum
http://chronicle.com/temp/reprint.php?id=t15b1l92nf46jb6sq8b82dpsct9f9003
http://stopfundinghate.org/sacw/index.html
http://www.friendsofsouthasia.org/textbook/Amicus%20Brief%20by%20South%20Asian%20Groups%20Apr%2017.PDF
Why Darwin Matters by Michael Shermer
Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism by Susan Jacoby
Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon (2006) by Daniel C. Dennett
Animal Farm by George Orwell
Death by Black Hole by Neil DeGrasse Tyson
http://www.online-literature.com/twain/3263/
http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/o/orwell/george/o79e/
http://www.ditext.com/russell/russell.html
http://www.vonnegutweb.com/archives/arc_nice.html God's Problem: How the Bible Fails to
Answer Our Most Important Question--Why We Suffer by Bart Ehrman
Understanding the Intelligent Design Creationist Movement by Barbara Forrest
Does Science Make Belief in God Obsolete? by Templeton Foundation
Power: A New Social Analysis by Bertrand Russell
Top Secret: The Truth Behind Today's Pop Mysticisms by Robert M. Price
Constitution for the United States of America
Federalist Farmer Letter: http://www.constitution.org/afp/fedfar05.htm
James Madison's Introduction to the Bill of Rights:http://www.usconstitution.net/madisonbor.html
House of Cards by Robyn Dawes
www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/daed.2006.135.3.86
www.infidels.org/library/modern/debates/great-debate.html
Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Why Evolution is True by Jerry A. Coyne
Godless: How an Evangelical Preacher Became One of America's Leading Atheists by Dan Barker
"What Have the Infidels Done" and "What Would You Substitute for the Bible as a Moral Guide" by Robert Ingersoll http://www.positiveatheism.org/hist/inginfid.htm#WTHD
"The Limitations of Toleration" by Robert Ingersoll: http://www.positiveatheism.org/hist/inglimtol.htm
god.com: a deity for the new millennium by John A. Henderson
"Ghosts (Lecture)" by Robert Ingersoll
"What Shall We Do To Be Saved?" by Robert Ingersoll
"Individuality" by Robert Ingersoll
Religion Explained by Pascal Boyer
The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals by Michael Pollan
The God Virus by Darrel Ray
How We Decide (2010) by Jonah Lehrer
Nomad (2010) by Aayan Hirsi Ali
Secular City Limits by Matthew Barron
The Grand Design (2010)by Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow
The Christian Delusion: Why Faith Fails (2010) by John W. Loftus
Worked Over: Corporate Sabotage of an American Community (2003) by Dimitra Doukas
Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming (2010) by Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway
The Believing Brain: From Ghosts and Gods to Politics and Conspiracies--How We Construct
Beliefs and Reinforce Them as Truths by Michael Shermer
A Wicked Company: The Forgotten Radicalism of the European Enlightenment by Philipp Blom
The Words We Live By: Your Annotated Guide to the Constitution by Linda R. Monk
Robert Ingersoll, "The Gods" (1872): http://www.infidels.org/library/historical/robert_ingersoll/gods.html
Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman
Free Will by Sam Harris
"From Lost Cause to Third-and-Long: College Football and the Civil Religion of the South" by Eric Bain-Selbo at http://jsr.fsu.edu/Volume11/Selbo.htm
The Big Questions by Steven E. Landsburg
Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty by Daron Acenoglu and James Robinson
The Missionary Position: Mother Terersa in Theory and Practice by Christopher Hitchens
The Storytelling Animal: How Stories Make Us Human (2012) by Jonathan Gottschall
"The Machine Stops" by E.M. Forster
What Money Can't Buy: The Moral Limits of Market (2012) by Michael Sandel
Evangelical Teaching: Mr. Cumming (1855) by George Eliot
The Swerve: How the World Became Modern (2011) by Stephen Greenblatt
Lying by Sam Harris
Homo Mysterious: Evolutionary Puzzles of Human Nature by David P. Barash
The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli
"Why the Future Doesn't Need Us" by Bill Joy
The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence has Declined (2011) by Steven Pinker