🧲 Books like this
Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon
Daniel C. Dennett · back to the book
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24 books with the same feel
Include books by the same authorThe Meaning of Human Existence
Edward O. Wilson · 207 pages
How did humanity originate and why does a species like ours exist on this planet? Do we have a special place, even a destiny in the universe? Where are we going, and perhaps, the most difficult question of all, "Why?" In The Meaning of Human Existence, his most philosophical work to date, Pulitzer Prize–winning biologist Edward O. Wilson grapples with these and other existential questions, examini
A Devil's Chaplain
Richard Dawkins · 272 pages
'Moet u zich eens voorstellen wat voor boek een kapelaan van de duivel zou kunnen schrijven over de onhandige, verspillende, blunderende en gruwelijk gemene werken van de natuur.' Dit schreef Darwin in 1856 aan een vriend. Maar, hoe gruwelijk en onhandig ook, willekeurig zijn de evolutionaire processen allerminst, zo laat Richard Dawkins zien in zijn even nuchtere als helder onderbouwde werk. Ka
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
Yuval Noah Harari · 456 pages
From a renowned historian comes a groundbreaking narrative of humanity’s creation and evolution—a #1 international bestseller—that explores the ways in which biology and history have defined us and enhanced our understanding of what it means to be “human.” One hundred thousand years ago, at least six different species of humans inhabited Earth. Yet today there is only one—homo sapiens. What hap
The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature
Steven Pinker · 528 pages
In The Blank Slate, Steven Pinker, one of the world's leading experts on language and the mind, explores the idea of human nature and its moral, emotional, and political colorings. With characteristic wit, lucidity, and insight, Pinker argues that the dogma that the mind has no innate traits-a doctrine held by many intellectuals during the past century-denies our common humanity and our individual
The Evolution of God
Robert Wright · 567 pages
In this sweeping narrative that takes us from the Stone Age to the Information Age, Robert Wright unveils a hidden pattern that the great monotheistic faiths have followed as they have evolved. Through the prisms of archaeology, theology, and evolutionary psychology, Wright's findings overturn basic assumptions about Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, and are sure to cause controversy. He explains
The Beginning of Infinity: Explanations That Transform the World
David Deutsch · 487 pages
"A bold and all-embracing exploration of the nature and progress of knowledge from one of today's great thinkers. Throughout history, mankind has struggled to understand life's mysteries, from the mundane to the seemingly miraculous. In this important new book, David Deutsch, an award-winning pioneer in the field of quantum computation, argues that explanations have a fundamental place in the uni
Religion Explained: The Evolutionary Origins of Religious Thought
Pascal Boyer · 430 pages
Formerly at Princeton, King's College, Cambridge and the University of Lyon, Pascal Boyer is Professor of Anthropology at Washington University in St Louis, MissouriWhile human religious practice and belief are extraordinarily varied, they are nevertheless not infinitely so. The varieties of belief have provided generations of anthropologists and religious scholars with material for research; ther
The Origin of Species
Charles Darwin · 488 pages
The Meme Machine
Susan Blackmore · 264 pages
After Richard Dawkins' *The Selfish Gene*, Susan Blackmore drive us deeply into the theory of the meme, social and cultural "replicators", trying to explain the human unique ability to imitate. Altruism, ideas, human behaviours, sex, poetry, music... seems to be simply the result of such as memetic selection... > Even our inner conscious self and our sense of free will are illlusion created by
The Bonobo and the Atheist: In Search of Humanism Among the Primates
Frans de Waal · 304 pages
A renowned primatologist argues that ethical behavior witnessed in animals is the evolutionary and biological origin of human fairness and explains that morality has more to do with natural instincts than with religion.
The Tao of Physics: An Exploration of the Parallels between Modern Physics and Eastern Mysticism
Fritjof Capra · 352 pages
The Tao of Physics is a book about the relationship between physics and spirituality. The book explores the parallels between Eastern mysticism and modern physics. It discusses the similarities between the two fields, and how they can be used to help understand each other. The book also discusses the concept of the Tao, or the way, and how it relates to physics. The Tao of Physics is consid
The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom
Jonathan Haidt · 297 pages
Applies the latest findings in psychology and brain research to the wisdom of the ancients to define what makes people happy and how you can find more happiness in your life. Confirms and builds on the happiness formula defined by other psychologists: H=S+C+V or Happiness = your biological Setpoint + the Conditions of your life + the Voluntary activities you do
An Introduction to Zen Buddhism
D.T. Suzuki · 136 pages
One of the world’s leading authorities on Zen Buddhism, D. T. Suzuki was the author of more than a hundred works on the subject in both Japanese and English, and was most instrumental in bringing the teachings of Zen Buddhism to the attention of the Western world. Written in a lively, accessible, and straightforward manner, An Introduction to Zen Buddhism is illuminating for the serious student
The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values
Sam Harris · 307 pages
What is the best “moral” decision that you can make in any given situation? Many aspects of your physical being work in unison to be able to use your cognitive processes to even come to a conscious decision. There have been many instances, especially recently, where scientific research is being conducted wherein people think about not just morality and what it means to them but also what is occu
Doubt: A History: The Great Doubters and Their Legacy of Innovation from Socrates and Jesus to Thomas Jefferson and Emily Dickinson
Jennifer Michael Hecht · 551 pages
Why Darwin Matters: The Case Against Intelligent Design
Michael Shermer · 211 pages
Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History
Stephen Jay Gould · 350 pages
Sex, Ecology, Spirituality: The Spirit of Evolution
Ken Wilber · 851 pages
In a tour de force of scholarship and vision, Ken Wilber traces the course of evolution from matter to life to mind, and describes the common patterns that evolution takes in all three of these domains. In each case, evolution has a "direction," a tendency to produce more highly organized patterns. The "spirit of evolution" lies in its directionality: order out of chaos. After arriving at the eme
Other Minds: The Octopus, the Sea, and the Deep Origins of Consciousness
Peter Godfrey-Smith · 272 pages
"Peter Godfrey-Smith is a leading philosopher of science. He is also a scuba diver whose underwater videos of warring octopuses have attracted wide notice. In this book, he brings his parallel careers together to tell a bold new story of how nature became aware of itself. Mammals and birds are widely seen as the smartest creatures on earth. But one other branch of the tree of life has also sproute
The Art Instinct: Beauty, Pleasure, and Human Evolution
Denis Dutton · 256 pages
Finding Darwin's God: A Scientist's Search for Common Ground Between God and Evolution
Kenneth R. Miller · 338 pages
"Miller offers a thoughtful, cutting-edge analysis of the key issues that seem to divide science and religion. As his narrative shows, the difficulties that evolution presents for Western religions are more apparent than real. Properly understood, evolution adds depth and meaning not only to a strictly scientific view of the world, but also to a spiritual one. Miller's resolution of the issues tha