An Atheist In The Foxhole

Experience gripping wartime stories and honest prayers by this Camp David chaplain now serving in Iraq. When words mean less and less, but money talks more and more; when blasphemy is a best seller, and eternal war has replaced hopeful diplomacy; in times like these is prayer even possible? Patrick J. McLaughlin thinks so. McLaughlin is an active duty Navy Chaplain who has ministered to heads of state and to soldiers living and dying in the heat of Iraq. No Atheists in Foxholes assembles Chaplain McLaughlin's experiences and prayers from e-mails, private notes, and personal conversations that take us real-time into realms of duty and spirit: from the quiet darkness of his infant son's New England bedroom on September 11, 2001, to the bomshelled medical tents and blistered Army Humvees of Anbar Province. Chaplain McLaughlin believes that prayer is not only possible, but critical. "We must all learn to pray for peace," he says, "and then become an answer to that prayer."

From veteran military writer Charles Sasser comes a collection of inspiring personal accounts of American soldiers whose faith has guided them through the hardships of war. From the battlefields of the American Civil War through World Wars I and II, from Korea and Vietnam to the front lines in Iraq and Afghanistan, soldiers of all faiths have struggled for understanding and called on a higher power when faced with the realities of combat. God in the Foxhole is a stunning collection of true personal accounts from generations of American soldiers whose faith, in the words of author Charles W. Sasser, "has been born, reborn, tested, sustained, verified, or transformed under fire." A renowned master of combat journalism and a former Green Beret, Sasser has gathered an immensely moving collection of war stories like no other—stories of spirituality, conversion, and miracles from the battlefield. Be they Christian, Jewish, Muslim, or atheist, churched since childhood or touched by the divine for the first time, here are the riveting experiences of army privates, bomber pilots, navy lieutenants, marines, prisoners of war, medics, nurses, chaplains, and others who, under desperate circumstances and with every reason to fear for their lives, found unknown strength, courage, and heroism through their remarkable faith. These inspiring accounts transcend the explainable to become stunning portraits of survival and belief: the angelic vision that brought inner peace to an exhausted helicopter door gunner in Vietnam; the makeshift full-immersion baptisms of eleven soldiers on Palm Sunday in Iraq, 2004; two enemies—a Nazi priest and an American G.I.—who served Communion Mass in a Belgian sanctuary in 1944; the prescient letter from a Civil War army major to his beloved wife, one week before his death at Bull Run; the 21st-century toddler with a jaw-dropping spiritual connection to a war hero of Iwo Jima, and dozens more. A war chronicle like no other, God in the Foxhole affirms, for military buffs and readers from all walks of life, the power of faith in the face of adversity.

A profoundly funny romp through religion, spirituality, and the contemporary clash of cultures of belief, with special attention to the human obsession with knowing what can't be known. Nosirrah provokes just about everyone as he describes a world where God is on the run from Islamic extremists, the Pope announces he shares a bed with Richard Dawkins, and Buddha's son disappoints by getting enlightened instead of becoming a doctor. To say this novella is strange might give the reader a way to relate to it, but in fact, nothing will shift the burden away from the reader. In its pages, the world is bent around the reader's mind until either the mind itself begins to bend, or indeed, breaks. A book without plot, characters, structure, or obvious purpose, this is an endless descent into the netherworlds of a dystopian mind. If a thousand monkeys typing endlessly would eventually produce all great works of literature, then God Is an Atheist is their first draft.

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There is an old saying that invention is the mother of necessity and this book is a result of that idea. There would never be a need for such a book if the religions and religious authority would practice their traditions like Native Americans or the Australian aborigines. We know they have their gods, costumes, and traditions and just about everyone (bar a few religious fanatics) respects cultural heritage and wants them to revel in their anthropological significance. In the same token, the likelihood that a Native American or aborigine is going to show up at your door preaching that Bahloo, the sun god, is the reason man hates snakes and if you do not accept Bahloo as your savior, you will be walking the desert forever, is essentially non-existent. Your author, Lance Gregorchuk, designed this book to give the free thinker, agnostic, atheist, fence sitter and even believer the facts for the arguments that there can be no god or gods.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy provides an excellent way of looking at some intriguing issues in philosophy, from vegetarianism and Artificial Intelligence to God, space and time. This is an entertaining yet thought provoking volume for students, philosophers and fans of The Hitchhiker's series.

In Catching Hell, longtime seafood mogul Allen Ricca and author Joe Muto take readers behind the scenes of the high-end restaurant world and the international market for seafood, and how that industry has been impacted perhaps like no other due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This book exposes the fact that the American diner is being lied to on a regular basis. The culprit varies – sometimes it’s a chef or restaurant owner trying to cut corners to save money; other times it’s an unscrupulous supplier looking to pass off poor product to an unwitting receiver. And the cost of that scam eventually gets passed on to the consumer, whether it be in the form of higher prices at restaurants and markets, lower quality (or even counterfeit) product getting delivered onto your plate, or – God forbid – food poisoning. Furthermore, Ricca argues, the pandemic has only increased corruption in this industry. This book serves as both an exposé and a call to arms, empowering consumers with the knowledge to make more informed choices when dining out. Some of the things this explosive book reveals: The one fish you should never order, one that’s always a rip-off. (And the one fish that’s always a delicious, virtually-unknown bargain.) Why restaurants that advertise “fresh” fish are almost always lying. How to get your favorite restaurant to treat you like royalty – without dropping thousands of dollars. How the covid-19 pandemic has impacted our food supply chain and what it has meant for the everyday worker.