WE HAVE BOOKS?!?!?!?

So I understand that a lot of my posts recently have been about atheism and unaplogetic rationality and I'm going to try and avoid making this whole blog about religion bashing or any of that sort of thing (thought I know some of you might like that) but I am going to have another one for now. Well, not so much bashing as surprise at the community that exists. I am well aware of the atheist blogosphere but I don't run into much of it in mainstream media (remember this doesn't really exist...but you know what I mean). I went into Barnes and Noble yesterday though and was totally surprised to see that there is an atheism section. I used to work at B&N and when I was there we definately didn't have a section for the atheists and agnostics anywhere in the store. I had such a sense of validation...until I looked down the shelf and saw that there was about 10 times the shelf space devoted to religion (mostly christianity but not all). Of course then i thought about it (as i'm prone to do) and realized that we (the non-believin folk) shouldn't expect lots of shelf space because unlike religion we only have one version to the story. Atheists are remarkable consistent in their arguments for a lack of god in the makings and machinations of the universe. With that in mind, we don't need to have multiple theories or explanations and definately no factions. A faction in the atheist community is pretty much confined to...how much should one actively protest against the religion of others, i.e. should their be atheists for prosletyze or should we just take the approach of live and let live. I'm usually more prone to the later though I can definately see the value in the former as a means of saving, lives, time, and money (which religion seems to always lay claim to). But back to shelf space...I think its a real statement of the growing influence in this country of the non-believers and I think its especially true amongst my peers that have grown up seeing in real time the evil that religion can engender: 9/11, israel and palestine, yugoslavia, northern ireland, abortion clinic shootings, african embassy bombings, the ethnic cleansing in darfur etc. etc. etc. Lets all keep in mind that just a SMALL sampling of the last 10-20 years. Most Americans have at least a certain amount of pragmatism about them and realize that the benefits must outweigh the costs and once you make peace with the idea of bucking the trend...the benefits of religion will NEVER outweight the very heavy costs. With that, I promise there will be no more atheism posts for this week. Patrick OUT!!!