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.
A relationship (hope that word doesn't turn you off) with the One who made you and knows you inside and out is not religion. I left for awhile too. Studied everything I could find, Eastern religions, whatever. He's the one who thumped me on the head. I wasn't interested in "giving up" my miserable out of control life. But, I was desperate. My exact words to Him were "Okay, I'll try this, but don't do anything drastic!" No sooner did the words leave my mouth, he opened my eyes to Him and His presence. I've never been the same and it's all because God grabbed me. It was something no man or religion could ever do. Totally supernatural. But like the Morpheous (sp?) said,"I can only show you the door, you must choose to walk through it".
Elsie, Jeremiah is told that before he was born he was ordained, appointed, now that is predestination no matter how you cut it.
Do you think there is a 'soul' factory in heaven?
Pretty far away. I was not in a "fire and brimstone" environment, as it was filled with pretty good, pleasant Christians. It was a personal thing, achieved with introspection and study, including reading the whole Bible (they are somewhat right, it can be a factor in changing your life).
As far as organized religion, don't get me started. I have absolutely no problem with people having personal belief in a deity. If it makes them better and happier people, all the better -- and it can have that effect. I do have problems with organized religion, as it invariably gets dogmatic and corrupted, and all too often likes to exercise its accumulated power.
No, I did not experience that in my Christian days either.
I left for awhile too. Studied everything I could find, Eastern religions, whatever
I've been gone for a very long time now, and there is no sign of me going back. By the time I was studying Eastern religions, and Islam too, it was only for academic interest (I still have a pretty large library of religious books, including Christian apologetics). I never searched for another religion.
I am happy and fulfilled where I am. If the direction you found makes you as happy and fulfilled as you sound, I am honestly glad for you.
Indoctrination is not always permanently successful. How else did we get all of those Soviet dissidents?
Alan Sokal redux.
I am Gnostic. I have no "faith." I KNOW.
I KNOW God exists.
I KNOW I have an immortal soul.
Who dat?
It is actually my own copywritten material. They are ideas I got from reading things like Kierkegaard, Hobbes, Locke, Plato, Aristotle, Voltaire, etc... Are you literate enough to even guess as to who they were? I doubt it...
They are ideas I got from reading things like Kierkegaard, Hobbes, Locke, Plato, Aristotle, Voltaire, etc... Are you literate enough to even guess as to who they were? I doubt it...
We are all very impressed. However, what you have read is irrelevant. Didn't what you read tell you this?
The title of this thread is 'Is God dead? Atheism finds a market in U.S,' I am trying to show that for life/order to exist, there has to be an intelligence behind it, i.e. God is not dead.
Please reference the calculations that you used to derive a probability greater than the probability of receiving heads on 50 coin flips.
50 heads in a row equals odds of 1 to 5.63 times 10 to the 14th power. (I hope I figured that correctly.) Your body by itself contains 100 trillion cells (100 million million or 100,000,000,000,000) or 10 to the 14th power, much less the high complexity within each cell, much less the complexity of the entire ecosystem.
I have a list in front of me describing 47 separate physical processes, all of which have have to be set just right, or life would not exist, from physical constants, to solar system position, to earth position, to earth composition, etc.
The previous paragraphs have over 150 words. They weren't random. (Intelligent??) The 1000 monkeys banging on a typewriter theory can't account for your questions or my words.
I believe in Christ. You can gamble your eternal destiny on the claim He is a liar.
If that's what you want to do.
I just read the book. Three days after his "death" Jesus is up and walking around. Forty days after that, he's running the show.
What are you talking about?
There's nothing in the Bible about "Forty days" after Jesus died, "running the show".
Nice for a day's worth of torture and a relatively quick "death." You might try reading the Bible one of these days and actually thinking about what you are reading, rather than just accepting what you've always been taught. God likes thinkers.
Are you trying to make me laugh on purpose or WHAT?
You post nonsense that doesn't even appear in the Bible and think people are stupid enough to accept it? And think YOU are an authority on the Bible?
You are either an idiot or a liar.
What is this incoherent mess supposed to mean?
The Gospel of Christ dying for mankind's sins, is something you call "knee jerk" fundamentalism?
What are you talking about?
No, but Nietzche is.
Beyond the question of the Golden Rule's source, then its all just a matter of self-preservation for atheists? I won't hurt you if you won't hurt me? What if the other fellow just doesn't Believe the same as you?
In a godless (dare I say Darwinian) world, murder or more specifically genocide would be tolerated, accepted, promoted. Read Ann Coulter's "Godless", chapter 11. If you are godless, and you believe someone/some group is bad, it isn't that far a reach to do something about it to benefit society. Boy we haven't learned much in 70 years!
There is some quote by (one of the Adams?) stating that our form of government is only meant for a Christian, moral people. (I probably mangled this, but its close).
We are living on a reservoir of Christian faith that founded this great nation. Sadly, that reservoir is declining, hopefully it can be turned around.
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