Madalyn O'Hair: Why I Am an Atheist
O'Hair, Madalyn. Why I Am an Atheist, Second Revised Edition (Austin: American Atheist Press, 1991)
The two essays that comprise this slim volume, "Why I Am an Atheist" at fifteen pages and "The History of Materialism" at thirty, reinforce each other in dispelling some of the modern myths that have grown up around atheism and materialism. This quote is one example:
Materialism liberates us by teaching us not to hope for heaven beyond the grave, not to hope for happiness in death, but rather to prize life on earth and strive always to improve it. Materialism restores to man his dignity and his intellectual integrity. (p. 10, "Why I Am an Atheist")
The latter essay is the stronger of the two, drawing more directly on some of the great materialist minds nearly erased from history by religious orthodoxy: Democritus, Protagoras, Epicurus, Lucretius, and--much later--Giordano Bruno. All in all, O'Hair's essays are a nice primer on materialistic thought that should inspire readers to delve into the original source material. (At least that's what they did for me...)