Review: “Freethought Resource Guide”
Life passages: Celebration and Reflection: This unanticipated section includes a calendar of secular milestones honoring famous freethinkers, scientists, social justice initiatives and technological advances. It also supplies a listing of secular holiday music, and secular perspectives and resources to cope with grief and loss.
Arts and Entertainment: Considering the number of people who complain about the scant representation of freethought in entertainment media, this section is unexpectedly thick—comprising over 100 pages of this approximately 500-page volume. The resources include secular film, visual arts, literature and poetry. It also provides listings of magazines, newspapers, journals and even freethought publishers. The second half of this section contains a breakdown of music by genre with secular themes. The bibliographical section on film and documentary is also quite comprehensive. Another subsection I would not have considered is devoted to secular comedy and comic strips.
The book rounds out with a directory of freethought organizations, beginning with international groups, and filtering down by country, and by state in the U.S. section. The back section also contains a directory of Internet resources, including communities, informational sites, blogs, and podcasts, which would be most useful to people who are not in close proximity to areas where regular, live meet-ups occur. The resources represented would prove useful to both secular people and people leaving religion, including recovery and support sites for people leaving specific denominations.
Vandebrake includes a final essay entitled, “Beyond Non-Belief.” It is a collective of visionary perspectives from freethinkers and secularists woven together with the author’s personal commentaries regarding what the future may hold for secularism, and ways we might successfully integrate positive aspects of religion into the secular world moving forward. In essence, it suggests how to proceed into new social constructs by advancing, informing, and expanding what is currently “religion,” into a more secular model.
At the end, there is another extensive “References” section, followed by useful appendices that include Humanist perspectives, a list of common logical fallacies, with examples and explanations of each, and another list of apologetic arguments for the existence of god, with explanations, criticisms and commentary.
The final appendix is nothing short of an appeal to readers, by the author, to learn to appreciate the world as it is. Vandebrake summarizes it nicely, “Why dwell beyond, when we have yet to grasp what is so very near?”
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Nemo Utopian:
February 8th, 2013 at 11:30 am
There is a slight smattering of commentary here, but for the most part this seems less like a review then a description.
I am inclined to infer from your comments a positive review, but your commentary is so sparse it is hard to be sure what your overall assessment is.
Did you like it? Would you recommend it? Things like that would be helpful.
I am not trying to nit-pick. I hope I have provided useful criticism. I very much enjoy your work.
heicart:
February 8th, 2013 at 11:43 am
It’s like asking if I like the dictionary. It’s a Resource Guide. I’m telling people what they can expect to find in it, and if they would use that sort of information, then this book is for them. If this information would not be something they would use or need–then the book is not for them. It’s fairly easy to navigate, and it contains XYZ…? I guess I’m just giving a product description for people who are in the market for these resources, who similarly feel like they end up wading through information, and need someone to help vet that…?