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.
As an atheist (being that I don't believe in a living God, but I do believe in a higher power so I guess I'm more of an agnostic) can I write a book that supports Christianity? What I mean is this. There have been attacks on what I consider, objectively, the most moral and ethical religion in human history. Regardless of theology, Christianity's tenats teach peace, tolerance, and compassion in a way that no other religion has nor does.
Looking at the religion objectively, I admire it at it's core. I admire the importance it gives to faith and belief. These are intrinsic values that many humans need to feel a sense of self worth as well as connection with their communities. I don't say this in a negative way as one pundit retorted about how "...Christians are weak minded." I don't believe this at all. The vast majority of Christians that I have met are compassionate, caring, and very intelligent individuals that have a reverance for something that I personnaly cannot understand. Yet, I can understand their firm faith and grasp on their beliefs.
I see in Christianity a cause celebre rather than what I see in other religions, which is tyranny and deceit. Rather than go into that negative subject I would like to focus on the positive aspects of Christianity. In addition, as an objective observer of the religion, and I do believe I am due to my disassociation with it, I see a dichotomy within the group. The tenats set forth by Christ are rarely followed by Leaders who purport to be followers of the faith. If this were the case, and this is only opinion, we would not currently be embroiled in the war in Iraq. Now, understand, I fully support the war in Iraq and am glad the decision was made on a secular basis. But in the strictest sense, War disafirms the beliefs taught by Christ in the New Testament. I know I'm going to catch a lot of slack for that statement, but I will stand by it. The Christian world struggles harder than any other religious civilization in history for the simple fact that the Christian tenats in many ways contradict human nature. It is human nature to want revenge, yet Christianity teaches to turn the other cheek. It is human nature to be jealous, yet Christianity teaches jealousy is a sin comparable to murder. It is human nature to be lustful and greedy; again, Christianity is there to temper these natural desires. In conclusion, Christianity is the rutter that keeps many ships going in the right direction, to use a metaphor.
I will not compare or contrast Christianity with other religions. I know there are other benevolent beliefs that contain proper morals teachings and foster congruitiy and respect among us fellow humans, I just see Christianity as a sort of pinnacle of that type of belief, and am rather glad it exists... as an atheist.
I agree, as an atheist. Please read post #281 and tell me what you think. Honestly.
Yeah, you're one of the good kind of aethiests, LOL.
I guess I can take that as a compliment, thanks pc. By the way, you got another version of the comics in the works? You got great stuff there.
Try giving birth without any anaesthetic and ask that question again.
"cannot" or "need not"?
You have jumped to the conclusions that Jesus necessarily had only human capacity to feel pain, that his suffering was limited to physical torment, and that he availed himself of supernatural strength to diminish the suffering.
All of which you have not yet demonstrated.
Cheers!
So what? Jesus Himself openly said, "No man can serve two masters...you cannot serve both God and Mammon."
So filling the collection plate acts as a brake on envy and greed.
Cheers!
Hmm, you might try reading more carefully.
He was running the show partly in recognition of the sacrifice of the Incarnation.
Cheers!
Not really, your enlightened French atheists share a common love of beheading with the Muslims.
Ever notice the difference between the French Revolution and the American Revolution?
Cheers!
I normally start working on them Monday night, to be done by Wednesday evening. Sometimes I don't even have an idea of what I'm going to do until I'm about to start working on them. Ah, well...that's the way it goes, y'know.
I used to do them twice a week but I just didn't have the time to keep that up.
Projection Placemarker.
How about this for an idea. Christ, and a conservative atheist (such as myself) discussing the issue of hypocritical liberals that call themselves Christians? Or is that not good?
Sure there is!
"Leave me alone!"
Thunderous Applause!
Cheers!
Oversimplification PING!
Hint 1:
How many years do the Levitical prohibitions on pork predate the Quran by?
Hint 2: Why didn't other nations see how well the dietary practices helped the Jews (e.g. Daniel) and emulate them?
Actually, crucifixion was a method of execution developed to extract the most suffering from the victim, given the technology of the time (as much as I loathe Wikipedia, it makes searching about easier, and the method described in this article isn't all that far from the historical method):
Cause of Death
That's gonna leave a mark!
...and not much else!
"Don't...call...me...STUMPY!"
Cheers!
I'd never quite thought of it this way!
Thanks!
1 Thessalonians 4:16
For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first.
But.... compared to What?
300
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