Fundie Christians on the whole are not voracious readers. I chalk it up to three reasons: First, they lack a degree of intellectual curiosity, having already settled in on their “eternal Truth.” Second, the most religious states not only have the worst literacy rates, they are often among the most lacking in disposable income. Books aren’t big sellers in Mississippi and Alabama proportionate to the rest of the country. Third, reading takes a degree of concentration, something that likely challenges many of the most devout.
When the literate among them do buy books the hardcore Christians will often buy whatever their minister recommends, something “uplifting” from the Christian book shop, or one written by their favorite TV evangelist. Pat Robertson’s unending supply of published buffoonery often makes the best seller lists. You can pretty much assume they aren’t being purchased by brain surgeons or rocket scientists. [Interestingly, even with the many thousands of copies his books sell, there are a very small number of reader reviews posted to amazon, even when compared to books that sell less than 5% of his book’s volume. I can only speculate as to why that might be].
Last week two of the top three bestsellers on amazon.com’s Religion and Spirituality list were Heaven Is for Real: A Little Boy’s Astounding Story of His Trip to Heaven and Back, an account of a 4-year-old’s near-death experience as retold by his minister father. The other was Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived, by Rev. Rob Bell, a minister who recently came under fire for proffering that hell doesn’t exist. Heaven is for Real also made the NY Times best seller “non-fiction” list. Non-fiction?! So much for the vaunted NY Time’s credibility.
Why are these books so popular? In the case of the first book what more could one want than to read about an innocent child’s real live (dead?) trip to the great beyond and back, and all the wondrous things he saw there. It’s a reaffirmation from the mouths of babes that what they believed all along is now “proven.” After all, how could anyone doubt a child’s words, especially when his Dad is a holy roller? This must give an enormous surge of confidence to the heaven bent set.
The second book feeds a similar hopeful feeling for some ... that heaven is real, but hell may not be. Whew! Now there’s some good news for the back sliding among them. Good news unless you are a fundie who delights in the thought of Barack Obama, Bill Gates and every Jew on the planet burning for an eternity in a lake of fire. Without assurance of eternal punishment for the heathens half the benefit of being a “true” Christian is lost. But I suspect some of those people will buy it as well, just so they can rail against the undermining of their carved in stone doctrine of hell.
If only they had a little curiosity about their beliefs and the secular world. If only they had the courage to pull back the curtain - just a tad - and peak in to see if there are any genuine insights worthy of consideration. If only they’d spend some mental energy reading a genuine science book or two to see for themselves the beautiful logic and evidence of evolutionary theory.
If only they’d try reading a work by biblical scholars like Robert M. Price, Bart Ehrman, Richard E. Friedman, or Jonathan Kirsch; experts whose understanding of comparative religion, the motives of the writers of the Tanakh and the New Testament, non-biblical historical documents, archeology, etc., would open a world of new information and understanding about the foundation of their religion and its doctrines. What could be the harm?
Never mind, I think I just answered my own question.
When the literate among them do buy books the hardcore Christians will often buy whatever their minister recommends, something “uplifting” from the Christian book shop, or one written by their favorite TV evangelist. Pat Robertson’s unending supply of published buffoonery often makes the best seller lists. You can pretty much assume they aren’t being purchased by brain surgeons or rocket scientists. [Interestingly, even with the many thousands of copies his books sell, there are a very small number of reader reviews posted to amazon, even when compared to books that sell less than 5% of his book’s volume. I can only speculate as to why that might be].
Last week two of the top three bestsellers on amazon.com’s Religion and Spirituality list were Heaven Is for Real: A Little Boy’s Astounding Story of His Trip to Heaven and Back, an account of a 4-year-old’s near-death experience as retold by his minister father. The other was Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived, by Rev. Rob Bell, a minister who recently came under fire for proffering that hell doesn’t exist. Heaven is for Real also made the NY Times best seller “non-fiction” list. Non-fiction?! So much for the vaunted NY Time’s credibility.
Why are these books so popular? In the case of the first book what more could one want than to read about an innocent child’s real live (dead?) trip to the great beyond and back, and all the wondrous things he saw there. It’s a reaffirmation from the mouths of babes that what they believed all along is now “proven.” After all, how could anyone doubt a child’s words, especially when his Dad is a holy roller? This must give an enormous surge of confidence to the heaven bent set.
The second book feeds a similar hopeful feeling for some ... that heaven is real, but hell may not be. Whew! Now there’s some good news for the back sliding among them. Good news unless you are a fundie who delights in the thought of Barack Obama, Bill Gates and every Jew on the planet burning for an eternity in a lake of fire. Without assurance of eternal punishment for the heathens half the benefit of being a “true” Christian is lost. But I suspect some of those people will buy it as well, just so they can rail against the undermining of their carved in stone doctrine of hell.
If only they had a little curiosity about their beliefs and the secular world. If only they had the courage to pull back the curtain - just a tad - and peak in to see if there are any genuine insights worthy of consideration. If only they’d spend some mental energy reading a genuine science book or two to see for themselves the beautiful logic and evidence of evolutionary theory.
If only they’d try reading a work by biblical scholars like Robert M. Price, Bart Ehrman, Richard E. Friedman, or Jonathan Kirsch; experts whose understanding of comparative religion, the motives of the writers of the Tanakh and the New Testament, non-biblical historical documents, archeology, etc., would open a world of new information and understanding about the foundation of their religion and its doctrines. What could be the harm?
Never mind, I think I just answered my own question.
Regarding the book "Heaven is for Real", what do you think is going on there. The child had a dream that was than exaggerated and imbellished by the father?
ReplyDeleteThe parents have clearly drilled the god stuff into this boys head quite effectively. In my opinion, indoctrinating and brainwashing your kids to unquestionably believe what you believe in (especially that fairy tales are reality) is a form of abuse. The people that do this to their kids are religious extremists, no different than the Taliban who force people to wear beards and burkas.
ReplyDeleteThis little boy's brain experienced what it's like to briefly die. His parents filled in the details of his experience for him - long BEFORE this incident.
Show me a boy from another country who goes through the same thing and tells the SAME story who has never been told or exposed to the christianity fable - or any religious story, for that matter. It'll never happen.
I saw an interview with that kid. I was waiting for the interviewer to ask him if he believed in Santa. Didn’t happen, but that would have been really cool.
ReplyDeleteTheists can't handle the truth. They need a daddy figure to live their life. They would rather be zombies, following made up rules by Bronze age, ignorant, unsophisticated, barely civilized people than to actually learn about the life and the world around them. So sad, in their denial
ReplyDeleteNo mystery. the kid saw exactly what his upbringing/indoctrination made him see. If he had been raised a Hindu he'd have seen Swarga Loka. If he had been raised American Indian, it would have been their version -the "happy hunting grounds" or whatever.
ReplyDeleteI imagine there is some comfort in all that, since the reality and finality of death is much too threatening to them.
But what's amazing is that people actually BUY this piece of crap book. How desperate and pathetic they are that they need it to bolster their faith and reasure them.
Hump, speaking of books, I have seen the ad for the new book of yours on the sidebar for a while now. Very much looking forward to getting it the day it comes out.
ReplyDeleteAs for these other books, not so much :)
Thanks Joe! 6 more weeks roughly.
ReplyDelete{{{ the following comment was emailed to me by "Gene" and is reposted here w/ his permission }}}}
ReplyDeleteAdd to the list of books the sheeple would find enlightening... The End Of Biblical Studies: ISBN 978-1-59102-536-8s; Hector Avalos.
The author is associate professor of religious studies at Iowa State University. The book is a scholary work, maybe a bit too deep for the great unwashed.
A dangerous undertaking on Avalos' part because the citizens of Iowa are known to be steadfast christians who might well choose to burn him at stake. Curiously, Ross Douthat, a New York Times op-ed writer, did a piece about the same subject for this mornings newspaper.
Yeah, right. You have a book coming out in June after the world ends on May 21, 2011. Explain that away with your "science" Mr. Smarty Pants Atheist Person!
ReplyDeleteROFLMAO @griloco .
ReplyDeleteThe other recent book in this genre of spending some time in heaven was "90 Minutes in Heaven." If I recall, here's the story in short form: The author leaves work, takes a right turn instead of his normal left turn, travels a ways when he does a head-on with a semi, and Mr. Piper becomes severely damaged goods, possibly pronounced dead, but folks started calling around and got up a quick prayer squad. He spends 90 minutes in heaven and god manages to pull him through, so he's really thankful to God for that. After they revive him he goes to the hospital and has 34 operations to get back to a modicum of health. How's that for God working in mysterious ways?
ReplyDeleteSo he and everyone who read this book is overjoyed with God for his loving thoughtfulness. Being all-powerful he could have nudged Mr. Piper and had him take a left-hand turn, he could have had the semi driver slow down and pass later when he had good vision, he could have snapped his fingers and revived Mr. Piper. And he could have acted on his own without the need for myriads of people to pray (beg) him to do that. God isn't apparently motivated by the ethics of the situation, but by the number of people begging him for help. Then, in Piper's near death condition, he hallucinated and envisioned a heavenly state. Needing to pay for the 34 operations, I assume he decided the easiest way was to bilk a few thousand gullible Christians. He was right, it worked. Isn't God wonderful?
Atemis, God is soo good ;-)
ReplyDelete"Sheep" defined as those who do not share your exact religious faith. You are as bad as any Ayatollah: any religion is bad except for your own.
ReplyDeleteAnon...
ReplyDeleteYou may be a little confused. I have zero, no, nadda, religious faith, thus at face your comment / logic is faulty.
Sheep as applied to theists implies a group mentality; blindly following the shepard having no ability to think or act independently. It is little wonder why Jesus was called: "the Good Shepard"
As for being as bad as any ayatolla... I haven't declared any fatwa's or jihad against the mindless of your ilk. If I do I'll let you know.
Anonymous is one of those people who write sentences without thought and just spews words and hope some make sense
ReplyDeleteBob... AKA Theist.
ReplyDeleteYour line about religious books not being purchased by rocket scientists made me shake my head in wonder at the absurdity of that comment. I happen to live on the "Space Coast" of Florida and MANY of the congregation in my church are, quite literally, rocket scientists employed by NASA and it's contractors. My Sunday school class is taught by some of the most brilliant people I've ever met. These people hold doctorate degrees in physics, engineering, chemistry, etc. They are CONSTANTLTY studying and researching Biblical facts. While certainly not all highly educated people are religious, I must tell you that there are also many, many of them who have done their research and are devoted Christians.
ReplyDeleteFlorida... the term "rocket scientist" is a colloquilaism (sp) meaning that people with high IQs are not typically religionists. The evidence of this is that 93% of the scientist fellows of the National Academy of Science are non-believers.
ReplyDeleteYour rocket technicians (scientists if you like) are not the ones on the cutting edge of civilization's advance. Those that are are unencumbered, largely, from religious myth and nonsense.
Pew survey on this might be a good read for you. Google "Pew non-belief National Academy of Science"