CHICAGO — Scores of atheistic books which are hitting American book stores and climbing onto best-seller charts are seen as part of a counter-effort to the religion-colored policies of the Bush administration.
"I've published 45 books, many critical of religion," Paul Kurtz, founder of the Council for Secular Humanism and publisher of Free Inquiry magazine, told Reuters on Wednesday, October 18.
"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."
Publishers Weekly said the business has seen "a striking number of impassioned critiques of religion -- any religion, but Christianity in particular."
It described this as an inevitable development given "the super-soaking of American politics and culture with religion in recent years."
"Letter to a Christian Nation," a blunt 96-page pocket-sized book condensing arguments against belief in quick-fire volleys by Sam Harris, figures on the 11th place on the New York Times nonfiction list.
It comes one place ahead of "The God Delusion" by Richard Dawkins, a scientist at Oxford University and long-time atheist.
"The End of Faith," a 2004 work by Harris, is also holding the No. 13 Times spot among nonfiction paperbacks.
Disturbed
Harris's 96-page pocket-sized book "Letter to a Christian Nation," figures on the 11th place on the New York Times nonfiction list.
Many see the new phenomenon see as a backlash against the way religion is entwined in politics.
"The American public is really disturbed about the role of religion in US government policy, particularly with the Bush administration and the breakdown of church-state separation, and secondly with the conflict in the Mideast," said Kurtz.
They are turning to free thought and secular humanism and publishers have recognized a taste for that, he added.
"Religion is fragmenting the human community," said Harris.
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 told Reuters.
Harris insisted that religious polarization is part of many world conflicts, including those involving Israel and Iran.
"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."
Harris is thrilled with the readers' feedback.
"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."
Ripple
The Rev. James Halstead, chairman of the Department of Religious Studies at Chicago's DePaul University, believes the anti-religion books phenomenon is "a ripple" by the book publishing industry.
"These books cause no new thought or moral commitment. The arguments are centuries old," he told Reuters.
Halstead said that too often 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, insists that any growth in interest in atheism is a reflection of the strength of religion -- the former being a parasite that feeds off the latter.
He said that happened late in the 19th century America when an era of intense religious conviction gave rise to voices like famed agnostic Robert Ingersoll.
"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."
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