"All three Abrahamic religions are nasty, and women have borne the brunt of the nastiness throughout history. It still persists, and it is moving to listen to women of today telling their personal histories of the various ways in which religion has oppressed them, from childhood on. In their interestingly different ways their testimonies seem to add up to the ... Read moresame story, a story as old as the myth of Eve. I closed the book with uplifted admiration for all these women and for their courage in breaking their historic fetters." Richard Dawkins, author, The God Delusion "From these delightful and varied stories we learn how many women are taught to feel inferior, sinful, wicked, and worthless but also how many escaped, some through sudden realisation and others after long suffering. Any woman who is hovering on the verge of giving up her indoctrination should read this book." Susan Blackmore, author, The Meme Machine "When we see the world through other people's eyes, our horizons are expanded and our lives enriched. Karen Garst's compilation promotes just that." Candace R.M. Gorham, LPC, author, The Ebony Exodus Project: Why Some Women Are Walking Out on Religion
and Other Should Too "Sometimes funny, sometimes fierce, often sad and exuberant in turnthese essays invite us along on twenty-two journeys into and out of religionmany from the vantage of a woman who at some point in her life tried to live by a biblical script and then discovered something better." Valerie Tarico, psychologist and author, Trusting Doubt: A Former Evangelical Looks at Old Beliefs in a New Light and Deas and Other Imaginings "This is one of the most important books on women and religion in the last quarter century." Peter Boghossian, author, A Manual for Creating Atheists "Providing rich testimony from a variety of world views and walks of life, Women Beyond Belief is a refreshing snapshot of the cultural and social issues that inform women's transition to secularism and nonbelief." Sikivu Hutchinson, author, Moral Combat: Black Atheists, Gender Politics and the Values Wars and Godless Americana: Race and Religious Rebels "Why would anyone embrace a male-dominated religion in today's world, or any religion for that matter? Specifically, why would women embrace the religion of their male oppressors? Given the stories told in this wonderful tell-all book, they shouldn't . . . . I bid all readers to follow the reasoning and examples of the authors in this book. Their stories are quite revealing and fascinating. Highly recommended!" John W. Loftus, author, Why I Became an Atheist ; editor, Christianity Is Not Great " Women Beyond Belief is a book of revelation, stories of social conditioning and personal self-doubt that have kept women 'in their place' historically and in our modern, supposedly educated world. Besides the sometimes wrenching accounts of eventual awakening, Karen Garst provides a very useful account of the Judeo-Christian tradition's subordination of women that should be read by any woman who still labours under the delusion of a beneficial deity." Meredith Doig, President, Rationalist Society of Australia Inc. Show Less