Beta testing a book: Chapter 1: Don’t Panic!: On Finding Atheism Unfamiliar and Scary

This is probably not helpful but I want to copy and paste the whole chapter and write, “This!”

I look forward to reading the rest, and to buying it in tangible form when it’s published!

General praise:

I appreciate and approve of the aim of the book, and I think it has a valuable contribution to make to the discussion about atheism. I look forward to reading more. I also find myself agreeing with most of what you have to say.

I particularly like the bit of background you give to the history of atheism and the coining of the phrase “New Atheist”, as well as the discrimination against atheistic views in contemporary America.

Your description of the distinctions between different types of atheists and agnostics is also very helpful.

Voice:

Personally I dislike this casual, conversational style of writing in a non-fiction book, using many contractions such as “you’re” and “they’ve” etc. While I don’t mind it in a blog or an email, in book form it seems inappropriate. This is a matter of taste, however, and others have commented that they appreciate it and find it easy to read. Therefore I’m not suggesting you change it, I’m just letting you know that not everyone might like it.

Tone:

I find it hard to judge as the book is not targeted at me, but it seems like it may be a little on the patronising side in general. Coupled with the conversational voice of the writing, it seems like your targeting a child or young adult audience. Is this the case?

Any Christian who reads this is going to be put on the defensive by words like “silly” and is not going to engage with what you’re saying. In some ways, “silly” is worse than words like “misguided” or “wrong” or “incorrect”, because it’s condescending and dismissive. It trivialises the attitudes of the reader and this is unlikely to be productive.

Similarly, I doubt many Christians would describe atheism as unfamiliar and scary. They would describe it as incorrect or immoral. Ascribing these feelings to them is likely to turn them off.

Also, there’s some stuff you explain in a way that illustrates your low opinion of the reader’s intelligence or literacy.

I’ve heard many people’s deconversion stories (stories of how they gave up religion), and there’s one book I hear credited with helping cause people to deconvert more often than any other.

Here, you’re explicitly defining “deconversion” because you’re afraid the reader won’t know the word. Your fear may be justified, but there might be better ways of dealing with it than defining it explicitly. For example:

I’ve heard the stories of many people who have given up religion, and there’s one book I hear credited with helping cause people to deconvert more often than any other.

This avoids using “deconversion” but does use “deconvert” in a way which makes it hard to mistake your meaning. Then the next sentence uses “deconversion” as before, and your meaning should be established without the reader feeling insulted.

Another example of this kind of thing is “(Note: from here, the first time I mention someone who has died, I’ll always give the years they lived in parentheses, like this: Bertrand Russell (1872-1970).)” Is this a note to yourself or an editor or is intended for publication?

Despite all this, sometimes derision is clearly warranted. “This is nonsense. Plenty of people see no reason to pass through any metaphorical wilderness” – I applaud this and agree with it wholeheartedly.

Pascal’s Wager / Hell:

I’m not sure that this section fits in a chapter which is predominantly about the background to atheism and types of atheism. It may be related to why atheism is a scary belief to adopt, but it is not directly related to fearing atheists themselves, which seems to be the thrust of what you’re talking about here.

Yeah, you can make a case that it fits in and I see why you put it here, but it just seems out of place to me. I mean, if you’re going to write about the fear that atheism condemns us to hell, then why not write about the fear that atheism leads to immorality too? I note you give a quote about this from Luke Muehlhauser towards the end of the chapter, but that’s not the same as a discussion from you. Maybe these types of concerns deserve to be fleshed out more and put in a different chapter? You could also talk about the fear of ostracising friends and relatives, the fear that life would have no meaning, the fear of fear of death, etc.

Anyway, you assert that Hell doesn’t exist yet you don’t really prove this, instead you argue successfully that Pascal’s wager is, well … yeah, actually …”silly”.

Maybe here is not the place to assert that hell doesn’t exist and you should instead focus on discussing Pascal’s wager more thoroughly. Perhaps God rewards critical thinkers and punishes the intellectually lazy? Perhaps God doesn’t care whether we believe in him or not? Perhaps we go to hell for not believing in unicorns or fairies or the FSM?

Militant Atheism:

I disagree with you that this terminology is problematic. Nobody thinks it means violence. Everyone understands that it means you are forthright in your views and care a great deal about the harm caused by religion. This is just a matter of opinion, however. You may be right and if you feel strongly about it then of course you should discuss it. If we can’t use this term then you should suggest a better one.

Actually I think the term is possibly helpful in that it helps to highlight the difference between extreme atheism, where “militant” is metaphorical, and extreme religion, where it is not. The more religious people call us militant, the more opportunities we have to remind them that there are no atheist suicide bombers.

Instead of discouraging the usage of the term, therefore, I think you should possibly just remind the reader of the distinction.

Observations:

(These are more than likely due to it being a work in progress)

The subheadings at the beginning of chapters don’t match up exactly with the subheadings in the text.

You might want to have subheadings in the introduction rather than sentences such as “That’s my public service announcement for reading the Bible” or “So now let me give you a little background on this book.”

Conclusion:

Good work, looking forward to reading more!

I know you’ll be proofreading and correcting errors. I actually noticed several, but expect you’ll fix them. This one, however, “spoke” to me:

Blaise Pascal (1663-1662)

It’s amazing that he could develop such a knowledge of mathematics in a lifespan of -1 year!

Not my real name above, but it is my real email address. (And my real gravatar, too.) I’m not quite ready to confess what at this point is agnosticism and don’t want a possible internet search by someone I know, or who knows of me, to turn up this note.

I do have a comment that you might find useful: The thing that shocked me into realizing that the Bible is not of divine origin was reading Genesis 3. You’ve mentioned this narrative in some of your writings, but not with the same reasoning.

I was in Sunday morning assembly as the preacher read a couple of verses, and having turned there (being in a Church of Christ, you always read along) I read the entire chapter. It suddenly hit me that there is no “Satan” in the chapter, that as far as the author was concerned, this was a real snake.

Importantly, I also realized that not a single person there that morning actually believes what the chapter says. No Christian I’ve ever met actually believes Genesis chapter 3, yet every one of them who claim to take the creation story literally will tell you that they do believe it. They have inserted Satan into the narrative because that’s the only way it makes any sense.

That’s my “conversion” story.

It makes me wonder whether members of churches of Christ are good candidates for atheism. We reject original sin, and create logic trains to support our doctrine. We reject modern miracles because we they’re obviously fake, and find Biblical passages to try to prove that this is the Bible view. We even take verses about physical healing and suggest that perhaps they’re really about spiritual healing, because we don’t really see people get well when they’re expected to die. It seems that we’re really close to waking up and realizing that it’s all a myth.