for a while now i've been thinking about putting together a reading list
that would cover subjects relevant to skepticism of religion. a couple
of weeks ago i set out to do that. the list will enable the reader to
mount a full-fledged intellectual defense of skepticism of religion as i
believe we all should be capable of. credit to Greg
Gorey, TA member, for his help with suggestions- particularly in
the Philosophy section- and as a sounding board for my own ideas on what
shape the list should take (please assume, however, that any failings
that you perceive the list to have are my own doing).

by no means do I think that this list is utterly complete, merely comprehensive (exhaustive?). as such, i hope the list will also exist as a conversation starter on which titles you think are important when it comes to the ability comprehensively defend skepticism of religion. may it also be helpful to the questioning theist who is generally interested in knowing whether her beliefs are in accord with objective reality.
the titles are listed alphabetically within each category and so a title's position in the list shouldn't indicate the emphasis with which they are suggested to the reader. the titles vary in the author's assumption of the familiarity the reader has with the subject matter. therefore, the reader should, before selecting a title to read, check out descriptions and reviews of the titles in order to see that they do not select a title that is beyond their current depth.
I hope you find this list useful to you. please also find it attached below in PDF form for convenience and to enable you to easily share it.

ANE History/The Historian's Endeavor/Biblical Criticism and Historical Jesus Scholarship and The Resurrection/Syro-Palestinian Archaeology
-Syro-Palestinian Archaeology
William Dever- Who Were the Early Israelites and Where Did They Come From?
Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman- The Bible Unearthed
Lester L. Grabbe- Ancient Israel: What Do We Know and How Do We Know It?
Jonathan M. Golden- Ancient Canaan and Israel: An Introduction
Ziony Zevit- Religions of Ancient Israel: A Synthesis of Parallactic Approaches

-The Historian's Endeavor
Averil Cameron (editor)- History As Text: The Writing of Ancient Historiography
David Hackett Fischer- Historian’s Fallacies: Toward a Logic of Historical Thought
Charles Fornara- The Nature of History in Ancient Greece and Rome
Bruno Gentili & Giovanni Cerri- History and Biography in Ancient Thought
Michael Grant- Greek and Roman Historians: Information and Misinformation
Martha C. Howell- From Reliable Sources: An Introduction to Historical Methods
Margaret Macmillian- The Uses and Abuses of History
John Marincola- Authority and Tradition in Ancient Historiography
Christopher McCullagh- Justifying Historical Descriptions

-Biblical Criticism/Historical Jesus Scholarship/The Resurrection
Dale Allison- Resurrecting Jesus: The Earliest Christian Tradition and Its Interpreters
Hector Avalos- The End of Biblical Studies
Ferdinand Christian Baur- Paul, The Apostle of Jesus Christ: His Life and Works
Rudolf Bultmann- History of the Synoptic Tradition
Richard Carrier- On The Historicity of Jesus Christ (forthcoming)
John Dominic Crossan- The Historical Jesus: The Life of a Mediterranean Jewish Peasant
Earl Doherty- The Jesus Puzzle
James D.G. Dunn- Did The First Christians Worship Jesus? The New Testament Evidence
James D.G. Dunn- Jesus Remembered (Christianity In The Making Vol. 1)[Vol. 2 is below under “ANE
History”]
Bart Ehrman- Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of The New Millennium
Bart Ehrman- The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture: The Effect of Early Christological Controversies
on the Text of the New Testament (alternately, though with less detail and technical explanation, read
the “Cliff’s Notes” version Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why)
Paula Fredriksen- Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews: A Jewish Life and the Emergence of
Christianity
Richard Elliot Friedman- Who Wrote the Bible?
Richard Elliot Friedman- The Bible With Sources Revealed
Reginald Fuller- The Foundations of New Testament Christology
Robert Funk- Honest to Jesus: Jesus For a New Millennium
Chris Hallquist- UFO’s, Ghosts, and a Rising God: Debunking the Resurrection of Jesus
John Kloppenborg- Q, The Earliest Gospel: An Introduction to the Original Sayings and Stories of Jesus
Kris Komarnitsky- Doubting Jesus’ Resurrection: What Happened in the Black Box?
Amy-Jill Levine, Dale Allison, and John Dominic Crossan (editors)- The Historical Jesus in Context
Burton Mack- Who Wrote the New Testament? The Making of the Christian Myth
Burton Mack- The Lost Gospel: The Book of Q and Christian Origins
Stanley E. Porter- Criteria For Authenticity in Historical-Jesus Research
Robert M. Price- The Case Against The Case For Christ (book length refutation of popular Christian
apologist Lee Strobel’s The Case For Christ)
Robert M. Price- Deconstructing Jesus
Robert M. Price and Jeffrey Jay Lowder (editors)- The Empty Tomb: Jesus Beyond the Grave
William Sanday (editor)- Studies in the Synoptic Problem
E.P. Sanders- The Historical Figure of Jesus
Chris Sandoval- Can Christians Prove the Resurrection?
Albert Schweitzer- The Quest of the Historical Jesus
David Friedrich Strauss- The Life of Jesus, Critically Examined
Geza Vermes- Jesus the Jew: An Historian’s Reading of the Gospels
Julius Wellhausen- Prolegomena zur Geschichte Israels (Prolegomena to the History of Ancient Israel)
G.A. Wells- The Jesus of the Early Christians: A Study in Christian Origins

-ANE History
Rainer Albertz- A History of the Israelite Religion in the Old Testament Period: Vol. 1, From The
Beginnings to the End of the Monarchy
Rainer Albertz- A History of the Israelite Religion in the Old Testament Period: Vol. 2, From Exile to
the Maccabees
Walter Bauer- Orthodoxy and Heresy in Earliest Christianity
Richard Carrier- Not The Impossible Faith (a book length refutation of J.P. Holding’s The Impossible
Faith)
Henry Chadwick- The Early Church
Shaye Cohen- From the Maccabees to the Mishnah
John Dominic Crossan- The Birth of Christianity: Discovering What Happened In The Years
Immediately After the Execution of Jesus
James D.G. Dunn- Did the First Christians Worship Jesus?
James D.G. Dunn- Beginning From Jerusalem (Christianity In The Making Vol. 2) [Vol. 1 is above
under “Biblical Criticism/ Historical Jesus Scholarship/The Resurrection”]
Bart Ehrman- Lost Christianities: The Battle For Scripture and the Faiths We Never Knew
Cyrus H. Gordon and Gary A. Rendsburg- The Bible and the Ancient Near East, 4th Edition
Sarah Iles Johnston- Ancient Religions
E.P. Sanders- Judaism: Practice and Belief
Emil Schurer- A History of the Jewish People in the Time of Jesus
Martin Werner- The Formation of Christian Dogma: An Historical Study of its Problem

Evolution (and the Evolution/Creation “debate”)
John Avise- Inside the Human Genome
Sean B. Carroll- The Making of the Fittest: DNA and the Ultimate Forensic Record of Evolution
Jerry Coyne- Why Evolution is True
Charles Darwin- On The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection or The Preservation of
Favoured Races in the Struggle
for Life
Charles Darwin- The Descent of Man
Richard Dawkins- Climbing Mount Improbable
Richard Dawkins- The Greatest Show on Earth
Richard Dawkins- The Selfish Gene
Daniel Dennett- Darwin’s Dangerous Idea
Rob DeSalle and Ian Tattersall- Human Origins: What Bones and Genomes Tell Us About Ourselves
Ronald De Sousa- Why Think? Evolution of the Rational Mind
Jared Diamond- The Third Chimpanzee
John Endler- Natural Selection In The Wild
Douglas Futuyma- Evolution
Stephen Kitcher- Living With Darwin
Paul F. Lurkin and Linda Stone- Evolution and Religious Creation Myths: How Scientists Respond
Ernst Mayr- What Evolution Is
Robert Pennock- The Tower of Babel: The Evidence Against the New Creationism
Ian Pilmer- Telling Lies for God
Donald Prothero- Evolution: What the Fossils Tell Us and Why It Matters
Stanley Rice- Encyclopedia of Evolution
Matt Ridley- Genome: The Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chapters
Michael Ruse and Joseph Travis (editors)- Evolution: The First Four Billion Years
Robin Sayfarth- Baboon Metaphysics
Nial Shanks and Richard Dawkins- God, the Devil, and Darwin: A Critique of Intelligent Design
Theory
Neil Shubin- Your Inner Fish
Jonathan Weiner- The Beak of the Finch
Carl Zimmer- The Tangled Bank

Arguments
John Beversluis- C.S. Louis and the Search for Rational Religion
Gregory W. Dawes- Theism and Explanation
Taner Edis- Science and Nonbelief
Richard M. Gale- On The Nature and Existence of God
Guy Harrison- 50 Reasons People Give For Believing in God
John Loftus- Why I Became An Atheist
John Loftus (editor)- The Christian Delusion
J.L. Mackie- The Miracle of Theism: Arguments For And Against The Existence of God
Michael Martin- Atheism: A Philosophical Justification
Michael Martin- The Case Against Christianity
Michael Martin and Ricki Monnier (editors)- The Impossibility of God
Graham Oppy- Arguing About Gods
Graham Oppy- Ontological Arguments and Belief in God
Robin le Poidevin- Arguing For Atheism
J.L. Schellenberg- The Wisdom To Doubt: A Justification of Religious Skepticism
George H. Smith- Atheism: The Case Against God
Jordan Howard Sobel- Logic and Theism: Arguments for and Against Beliefs in God
Victor Stenger- God: The Failed Hypothesis (How Science Shows That God Does Not Exist)
Victor Stenger- Has Science Found God? The Latest Results in the Search for Purpose in the Universe
Nick Trakakis- The God Beyond Belief: In Defense of William Rowe’s Evidential Argument From Evil
Andrea M. Weisberger- Suffering Belief: Evil and the Anglo-American Defense of Theism

Naturalism, a Worldview
Simon Altmann- Is Nature Supernatural? A Philosophical Exploration of Science and Nature
Richard Carrier- Sense and Goodness Without God
Daniel Dennett- Freedom Evolves
Gary Drescher- Good and Real
Taner Edis- The Ghost in the Universe: God in the Light of Modern Science
Andrew Melnyk- A Physicalist Manifesto: Thoroughly Modern Materialism
Kai Nielson- Naturalism and Religion
Robert Nozick- Invariances: The Structure of the Objective World
Greg Reinking- Cosmic Legacy: Space, Time, and the Human Mind
Joseph Rouse- How Scientific Practices Matter: Reclaiming Philosophical Naturalism
John Shook- Pragmatic Naturalism and Realism
Matt Young- No Sense of Obligation: Science and Religion in an Impersonal Universe

Natural Morality
Mark Bekoff and Jessica Pierce- Wild Justice: The Moral Lives of Animals
Frans de Waal- Good Natured: The Origin of Right and Wrong in Primates
Marc Hauser- Moral Minds
Leonard Katz- Evolutionary Origins of Morality
Shaun Nichols- Sentimental Rules: On The Natural Foundations of Moral Judgment
James Q. Wilson- The Moral Sense
Matt Ridley- The Origin of Virtue
Michael Shermer- The Science of Good and Evil: Why People Cheat, Gossip, Care, Share, and Follow
the Golden Rule
Walter Sinott-Armstrong- Moral Psychology, Vol. 1: The Evolution of Morality: Adaptations and Innateness
Walter Sinott- Armstrong- Moral Psychology, Vol. 2: The Cognitive Science of Morality: Intuition and Diversity
Walter Sinott-Armstrong- Moral Psychology, Vol. 3: The Neuroscience of Morality: Emotion, Brain Disorders, and
Development
Walter Sinott-Armstrong- Morality Without God

Psychology and the Neurocognitive Underpinnings of Religion/Anthropology of
Religion/Consciousness
Scott Atran- In Gods We Trust
Robert Aunger- The Electric Meme: A New Theory of How We Think
Justin L. Barrett- Why Would Anyone Believe in God?
Susan Blackmore- Consciousness: An Introduction
Pascal Boyer- Religion Explained
Walter Burkert- Creation of the Sacred
Patricia Smith Churchland- Brain-Wise: Studies In Neurophilosophy
Daniel Dennett- Consciousness Explained
Daniel Dennett- Kinds of Minds: Towards an Understanding of Consciousness
Michael Shermer- Why People Believe Weird Things
Michael Shermer- Why We Believe
Gerald Edelman- Wider Than The Sky: The Phenomenal Gift of Consciousness
David Eller- Atheism Advanced
Jack Eller- Introducing Anthropology of Religion
Steven Pinker- How the Mind Works
Michael S. Gazzaniga- The Mind’s Past
Nicholas Humphrey- Leaps of Faith
Steven Johnson- Mind Wide Open: Your Brain and the Neuroscience of Everyday Life
Julian Paul Keenan, Gordon G. Gallup, and Dean Falk- The Face in the Mirror: The Search For the
Origins of Consciousness
Christof Koch- The Quest for Consciousness: A Neurobiological Approach
E. Thomas Lawson and Robert McCauley- Rethinking Religion
Joseph Ledoux- Synaptic Self: How Our Brains Become Who We Are
Rudolfo Llinas- I of the Vortex: From Neurons to Self
Jason Slone- Theological Incorrectness: Why Religious People Believe What They Shouldn't
Todd Tremlin- Minds and Gods: The Cognitive Foundations of Religion
Eckart Voland and Wulf Schiefenovel- The Biological Evolution of Religious Mind and Behavior
Harvey Whitehouse- Mind and Religion: Psychological and Cognitive Foundations of Religion
David Sloan Wilson- Darwin’s Cathedral: Evolution, Religion, and the Nature of Society

The Apologists
Paul Copan- True For You, But Not For Me: Overcoming Objections to Christian Faith
Paul Copan and William Lane Craig- Contending With Christianity’s Critics: Answering New Atheists
and Other Objectors
William Lane Craig- Reasonable Faith: Christian Truth and Apologetics
Norman L. Geisler- Christian Apologetics
Gary Habermas and Michael R. Licona- The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus
J.P. Moreland- Consciousness and the Existence of God: A Theistic Argument
Alvin Plantinga- Warranted Christian Belief
Richard Swinburne- The Existence of God, 2nd edition

Philosophy
Simon Blackburn- Being Good: A Short Introduction to Ethics
Nicholas Capaldi and Miles Smit- The Art of Deception: An Introduction to Critical Thinking
Irving Copi and Carl Cohen- Introduction to Logic, 13th Edition
John Cottingham (editor)- Western Philosophy: An Anthology, 2nd Edition
Alec Fisher and Nicholas Everitt- Modern Epistemology: A New Introduction
Alonzo Fyfe- A Better Place
Jaegwon Kim and Ernest Sosa (editors)- Metaphysics: An Anthology
Bertrand Russell- The History of Western Philosophy
Bertrand Russell- The Problems of Philosophy
Peter Singer- Practical Ethics
Erik Weilenberg- Value and Virtue in a Godless Universe
Antony Weston- A Rulebook For Arguments

Cosmology/Physics
Sean M. Carroll- From Eternity to Here: The Quest For The Ultimate Theory of Time
Paul Davies- About Time: Einstein’s Unfinished Revolution
Richard Feynman- Six Easy Pieces: Essentials of Physics By Its Most Brilliant Teacher
Richard Feynman- Six Not-So-Easy Pieces: Einstein’s Relativity, Symmetry, and Space-Time
Brian Greene- The Fabric of the Cosmos
Alan Guth- The Inflationary Universe: The Quest for a New Theory of Cosmic Origins
Stephen Hawking- The Universe in a Nutshell
Lawrence Krauss- Atom: A Single Oxygen Molecule’s Journey From The Big Bang to Life on Earth…
And Beyond
Heinz R. Pagels- Perfect Symmetry: The Search For The Beginning of Time
Barry Parker- The Vindication of the Big Bang: Breakthroughs and Barriers
Huw Price- Time’s Arrow and Archimedes’ Point: New Directions for the Physics of Time
Martin Rees- Before the Beginning: Our Universe and Others
Joseph Silk- The Big Bang, 3rd edition
Simon Singh- Big Bang: The Origin of the Universe
Lee Smolin- The Life of the Cosmos
Eric Steinhart- More Precisely
Victor Stenger- Timeless Reality: Symmetry, Simplicity, and Multiple Universes
Steven Weinberg- The First Three Minutes: A Modern View of the Origin of the Universe