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Atheist Books Overtaking Christian Titles in Best-Sellers Lists

COLUMN By TERRY SANDERSON
From NSS Newsline
June 6, 2007

The Association of American Publishers (AAP), the national trade association of the U.S. book publishing industry, recently released its annual estimate of total book sales in the United States, and according to its findings, religious books had a "difficult year."

The report, which reveals sales from 2006, marked a sharp 10.2 percent drop in religious books sales compared to the previous twelve months. The trend was one of the biggest decreases among all the book categories reported on by AAP. According to AAP, the drop is not critical, however, since "compound growth is still strong at 7.5 percent per year."

Coincidently alongside the sag in sales of religious books has been a rapid interest in atheist books over the past months. Books that had not sold that well in the past are now beginning to turn into purchases. According to some critics, people in the United States are starting to resent the role religion has played in society.

"There is something like a change in the zeitgeist," explained Christopher Hitchens, author of God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything, in the Associated Press. "There are a lot of people, in this country in particular, who are fed up with endless lectures by bogus clerics and endless bullying."

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Can't find the thread where there were different views on the question: "How long can they keep this up?" But the change in sales trend between religious books and atheists books seems to be another indication of changing social consciousness.

I have randomly met other atheists in the last few months. Many of my agnostic friends are becoming less indifferent toward religious people. I have had a couple of friends mention conversations with their other friends who are openly athiest.

Then take the presidential debates where at least the candidates have to answer where they stand on evolution (now that's worth a thread by itself). There seemed to be many candidates conceeding that they believe in evolution, even though they somehow believe that god just used evolution as a mechanism in his creation. That these folks even suggested that the two are not mutually exclusive drives me nuts. I am just of average intelligence...oh now I digress and change the topic...sorry.

It's good to see logic increasing in sales but Neil, as long as you aren't a fundie, god and evolution are not mutually exclusive. To someone with religion, evolution is the mechanism and god created the mechanism - no problem with 5 billion years on this planet or 15 billion years for the universe to do it.

As to the book sales - it's cyclical. Get us a nasty war on home territory, another depression, or some of the more unpleasant effects of not addressing global warming, and you will see the churches refill and the religious books doing better. When times are good, people use their frontal cortex. When times are bad, it's lizard brain time (and "daddy" fix it for me).

NeilS wrote:Can't find the thread where there were different views on the question: "How long can they keep this up?"

Christopher[] Hitchens debates Douglas Wilson

NeilS wrote:Then take the presidential debates where at least the candidates have to answer where they stand on evolution (now that's worth a thread by itself).

It is, and yet it only got two posts.