The Problem with Buying Atheist Books

Interesting. I had the opposite experience at a Borders Express in King of Prussia, PA. I bought a copy of The God Delusion, and the cashier girl was quite chatty and gave it a very favorable review.

I, too, have had very positive experiences in bookstores. I’ve worked in two bookstores, both in very red states, and bookstore employees tend to be very liberal about both religious and sexual matters. Lots of gays and/or atheists, in my experience. I’ve never felt self-conscious buying any book or magazine. After all, THEY’RE the ones selling it!

Totally off topic, but I remember browsing through the woefully inadequate philosophy section at a local B&N and eavesdropping on some irate customer complaining to a poor employee that putting a display of books on Buddhism at the end of the Christian section was highly offensive and bigoted against Christians. I did my good deed for the day by interrupting her rant, excusing myself, and grabbing a copy the Diamond Sutra off the shelf in front of her. She stormed off in a huff, but the employee gave my a very nice look of gratitude.

The Shack isn’t a Christian book…. It’s retarded.

I just want to say this:

“Shut Up About Your God: How to Live Around Pushy Fundamentalists and Not Kill Them (If You’re Really Against Murder)”?

Is anyone else bitterly disappointed that this book doesn’t exist?

I don’t know about the rest of you, but I WANT THAT BOOK!

I work part time at Barnes & Noble and I have two experiences that are personally funny to me. Here they are:

1. A guy asked me to help him find a religious book. As we were walking to the section, he was telling me that it was a book about an atheist who found God. I said nothing and just smiled.

He then asked me what kind of books I read. I told him the same kind of books, only going in the opposite direction (I was reading Losing My Religion at the time).

2. I was helping a lady find a book when, for whatever reason, she felt compelled to tell me an atheist joke.

“What do you get when you cross an atheist and a dyslexic?”

“What?”, I asked.

“A person who doesn’t believe in Dog!”

We laughed together and I told her that, even though I was an atheist, I thought it was a pretty funny joke. She stopped laughing and didn’t ask for any further assistance.

I don’t think its strange, James.

Is it that strange to buy books on atheism and religion at the same time?

Isn’t buying a book on atheism the exact same thing as buying a book on religion? It is simply a different stance on religion.

At home I’ve got a bookshelf for non-fiction that includes a shelf for philosophy and religious discussion. Included on this shelf is The God Delusion, Letter to a Christian Nation, I Sold My Soul on eBay (of course) and several others but also a couple of books by the Dalai Lama. I put the mythology on a different shelf which includes an awful lot of bibles for some reason, two Bhagavad Gitas, two collections of Nostradamus “predictions” (my unwife and I combined book collections), several books on animism and early religion, a book on the geographical spread of faith, quite a lot on Norse and Greek mythology.

Fiction has it’s own bookshelves. I don’t put religion with fiction because it wasn’t written as fiction. It was written as cultural mythology, not as entertainment.

I don’t know why bookshops can’t just change their display systems to match my own. It would be so much more convenient for me.

hoverFrog:

It is the worst sort of nonsense imaginable and a waste of ink and paper.

The only thing worse than reading The Shack for me was reading a Neale Donald Walsch book, that a friend gave me (we swapped books; I gave her “The End of Faith”). Well, part of it, I couldn’t make it more than 100 pages into Tomorrow’s God without wanting to rip it to shreds and set it on fire. Here’s just a sample:

“Pre-serving” is what you choose to be and what you choose to do before consciously choosing anything. You serve this choice first, before anything that you consciously choose in life. This is pre-serving.

That which you pre-serve, you preserve.

You save it.

He then goes on to talk about the four levels of consciousness/creation/total BS. The comments on Amazon are even more vapid and idiotic.

The Shack is exactly the same; 200 pages of the author using God as a mouthpiece for his own spiritual musings, which no longer need an reasoning or evidence behind them, since, come on, it’s God saying them (You wouldn’t question GOD, would you?!). Then throw in completely vacuous statements that sound deep and spiritual, and Christians fall all over themselves reading this tripe.

I have a suspicion that my local indie book store has put me on their black list. I’ve purchased two atheist books there, both of which had to be ordered because they don’t carry them, and now I’ve sent two emails to them inquiring about a third but haven’t had a response which is very unusual for them. Maybe I’m just paranoid, but it’s a little weird when they’ve never given me any problems in the past with any other non-controversial books I’ve purchased from them. Now looks like I’m forced to go back to Borders and stop supporting a local business I had “faith” in 🙁

I’m glad you enjoyed the strip! I’ve had a lot of emails asking (hoping?) that book is real.

Brooks, try Bertrand Russell’s, “Why I am not a Christian”.