Posted on 10/18/2006 5:25:05 PM PDT by wagglebee
CHICAGO (Reuters) - A fresh wave of atheistic books has hit the market this autumn, some climbing onto best-seller lists in what proponents see as a backlash against the way religion is entwined in politics.
"Religion is fragmenting the human community," said Sam Harris, author of "Letter to a Christian Nation," No. 11 on the New York Times nonfiction list on October 15.
There is a "huge visibility and political empowerment of religion. President George W. Bush uses his first veto to deny funding for stem cell research and scientists everywhere are horrified," he said in an interview.
Religious polarization is part of many world conflicts, he said, including those involving Israel and Iran, "but it's never discussed. I consider it the story of our time, what religion is doing to us. But there are very few people calling a spade a spade."
His "Letter," a blunt 96-page pocket-sized book condensing arguments against belief in quick-fire volleys, appeared on the Times list just ahead of "The God Delusion," by Richard Dawkins, a scientist at Oxford University and long-time atheist.
In addition, Harris' "The End of Faith," a 2004 work which prompted his "Letter" as a response to critics, is holding the No. 13 Times spot among nonfiction paperbacks.
Publishers Weekly said the business has seen "a striking number of impassioned critiques of religion -- any religion, but Christianity in particular," a probably inevitable development given "the super-soaking of American politics and culture with religion in recent years."
Paul Kurtz, founder of the Council for Secular Humanism and publisher of Free Inquiry magazine, said, "The American public is really disturbed about the role of religion in U.S. government policy, particularly with the Bush administration and the breakdown of church-state separation, and secondly with the conflict in the Mideast."
They are turning to free thought and secular humanism and publishers have recognized a taste for that, he added.
"I've published 45 books, many critical of religion," Kurtz said. "I think in America we have this notion of tolerance ... it was considered bad taste to criticize religion. But I think now there are profound questions about age-old hatreds."
The Rev. James Halstead, chairman of the Department of Religious Studies at Chicago's DePaul University, says the phenomenon is really "a ripple caused by the book publishing industry."
"These books cause no new thought or moral commitment. The arguments are centuries old," he told Reuters. Some believers, he added, "are no better. Their conception of God, the Divine-Human-World relationship are much too simplistic and materialistic."
Too often, he said, the concept "God" is misused "to legitimate the self and to beat up other people ... to rehash that same old theistic and atheistic arguments is a waste of time, energy and paper."
Dr. Timothy Larsen, professor of theology at Wheaton College in Illinois, says any growth in interest in atheism is a reflection of the strength of religion -- the former being a parasite that feeds off the latter.
That happened late in the 19th century America when an era of intense religious conviction gave rise to voices like famed agnostic Robert Ingersoll, he said.
For Christianity, he said, "It's very important for people of faith to realize how unsettling and threatening their posture and rhetoric and practice can feel to others. So it's an opportunity for the church to look at itself and say 'we have done things ... that make other people uncomfortable.' It is an opportunity for dialogue."
Larsen, author of the soon-to-be-published "Crisis of Doubt," added that in some sense atheism is "a disappointment with God and with the church. Some of these are people we wounded that we should be handling pastorally rather than with aggressive knockdown debate."
These are also probably some of the same people Harris says he's hearing from after his two books.
"Many, many readers feel utterly isolated in their communities," he said. "They are surrounded by cult members, from their point of view, and are unable to disclose their feelings."
"I get a lot of e-mail just expressing incredible relief that they are not alone ... relieved that I'm writing something that couldn't be said," Harris added.
Oh, my BS meter went off well before that. He couldn't even get to the second sentence without lying:
"President George W. Bush uses his first veto to deny funding for stem cell research..." he said in an interview.
There is plenty of stem cell research going on. By the way, Bush is the first President to provide ANY money for stem cell research. The federal government is supporting research with adult stem cells, cord blood stem cells and existing fetal lines of cells. The adult cells have resulted in dozens of successful therapeutic applications. The fetal cells have caused tumors.
Wrong. Collection plate is not a "trapping" but an unchangeable essence. You are purposefully confusing an ideology and a religion. And although these always have reciprocal claims on each other's turfs, they are different: one exists to be behaved, but not necessarily to be believed in, while another exists to be believed in, but not necessarily behaved. Indeed, sincere adherents to the "wrong" side - an ideological believer, or a religious behaver, [aka "saint"] are royal pains and embarrassments in the real life, and this further confuses.
Genesis 3:1Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, "Did God really say, `You must not eat from any tree in the garden'?"
NIV Matthew 27:50
And when Jesus had cried out again in a loud voice, he gave up his spirit.
NIV Mark 15:37
With a loud cry, Jesus breathed his last.NIV Luke 23:46
Jesus called out with a loud voice, "Father, into your hands I commit my spirit." When he had said this, he breathed his last.NIV John 19:30-37
30. When he had received the drink, Jesus said, "It is finished." With that, he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.
31. Now it was the day of Preparation, and the next day was to be a special Sabbath. Because the Jews did not want the bodies left on the crosses during the Sabbath, they asked Pilate to have the legs broken and the bodies taken down.
32. The soldiers therefore came and broke the legs of the first man who had been crucified with Jesus, and then those of the other.
33. But when they came to Jesus and found that he was already dead, they did not break his legs.
34. Instead, one of the soldiers pierced Jesus' side with a spear, bringing a sudden flow of blood and water.
35. The man who saw it has given testimony, and his testimony is true. He knows that he tells the truth, and he testifies so that you also may believe.
36. These things happened so that the scripture would be fulfilled: "Not one of his bones will be broken,"
37. and, as another scripture says, "They will look on the one they have pierced."
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Is it 1960 again?
Another argument in favor of broader exposure to language arts.
The left hopes it is.
No kidding.
What a load of manure. I actually couldn't read the whole article.
I'm not sure anybody did.
Ah... but they DO!
Their's is in their pocket, so the money never goes very far from their control.
(Reminds me of a punch line....
"There's TWO of them!"
Well, thanks for the ping, I guess. I don't really see the point of books on atheism, so I don't bother with them.
Sure there is!
"Leave me alone!"
(You got teenagers yet?? ;^)
A major component of modern atheism is the unwillingness to admit that certain things are sinful, and not just sinful "for some" (as they love to opine), but sinful for everyone.
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