Saturday, March 19, 2011

Why I Am Not a Christian

A donor who wishes to remain anonymous has commissioned on my behalf a print publication of a slightly updated version of my 2006 essay "Why I Am Not a Christian." All proceeds will go to me. He just wanted it to exist so he could hand it out to door knocking evangelists, and make other handy uses of it in his own atheist evangelism. At the donor's request (and generous payment) I made several minor additions and some changes, to get its content up to date. It is available in print and kindle.

For those unfamiliar with the original, it explains the four reasons I do not accept the Christian religion, describing four facts of the world that, had they been different, I would believe. Those four reasons are God's silence, God's inaction, the lack of evidence, and the way the universe looks exactly like a godless universe would, and not at all like a Christian universe would, even down to its very structure. I address all the "usual" replies to these claims, in ways you might not have heard before, relying on my wide experience in debating and studying these issues all over the world for more than fifteen years.

In this version I am brief, clear, and down to earth, covering the whole topic in under ninety pages of easy-to-read explanation. My donor is right, it does make a perfect book to introduce yourself, or your friends, to why fewer educated people are embracing Christianity than ever before, and is ideal for handing out to door-to-door missionaries. I don't expect everyone will want one (it's content isn't new), but for the above uses it's handy and cheap, and makes for an easy read. I'll be selling copies at all my upcoming venues.

16 comments:

BlogHer said...

Like!

bobfelton said...

Why no NOOK edition?

LadyAtheist said...

Great idea! When a coworker insisted on forwarding godspam to me after I repeatedly asked her not to, I copied & pasted from Bertrand Russell and then I copied and pasted all the e-mail addresses from all the other godspammers (of course none had deleted mail headers before hitting the forward button)... and the e-mail addresses of all the victims of the godspammers and I sent my one and only ever spam e-mail.

I never got more godspam from her.

Vic said...

I have tried handing out literature to door knockers. JW's won't take it, but will allow you to read anything to them (the ones I tried it with actually recoiled a bit when I attempted to hand them my some literature I had on hand).

Mormons will take it, though. They are very committed to learning as much as they can about religion (for the purpose of converting others, of course). It won't change their feelings immediately, but the sooner they learn arguments from a rational viewpoint the more likely they will be accept it later in life.

This essay is very good. I'm glad it's available.

Josh said...

Is there a link to where these can be found?

Ben said...

Cool.

said...

Thank you, Richard Carrier. I first read an earlier edition of your essay called, "Why I Don't Buy the Resurrection Story," several years ago. The essay was a major factor in my deconversion.

Richard Carrier said...

Bobfelton said... Why no NOOK edition?

I don't even know what that is.

Richard Carrier said...

Josh said... Is there a link to where these can be found?

All links are in the original post, above. Everything you need is there.

Josh said...

Ah, I have discovered the issue. The links were blocked by AdBlock in my browser. I open the link up in Chrome, and Viola!

Richard Carrier said...

Thanks for reporting that, Josh. It's good to know. I didn't realize the Amazon links could get blocked like that. I'll keep that in mind in future and include different ways to get to the item.

Unknown said...

Richard Carrier said... Why no NOOK edition?

I don't even know what that is.


The NOOK is the Barnes and Nobel version of the Kindle, i.e. a different brand of portable book reader.

Just bought this for my Kindle, and I look forward to reading it!

Nualle said...

You might also want to figure out how you can make your work available as google books. I prefer google books for scholarly works because they offer a scanned page display option, which makes words and phrases in Greek legible (whereas kindle and all other flowing text options mangle nonLatin letters).

Richard Carrier said...

I don't use non-Latin letters in WNC (or any of my books).

mamagonekrazi said...

Hi, I have received your book as a result of what turned out to be a pleasant mix up of orders by Barnes and Noble. I ordered Bertrand Russell's book, they sent me yours :) Both my husband and I were pleasantly surprised by this mix up after we read your book of course.

Just wanted to say, nice to meet you and that we will be following your publications :)

Best,
Alev & Demir

Richard Carrier said...

Thank you for the kind words.