When my (now) editor telephoned me, suggesting this topic for a book, my first reaction was that it seemed a bit ambitious. Why not, I asked her, start with a less-sweeping topic, like “Zoroastrianism is Probably Not The One True Faith”, or “A Few Minor Points the Rabbis Got Wrong”, or “At the Center of the Catholic Church Lies a Murderous Conspiracy That Only Tom Hanks Can Uncover and Defeat”? Someone named Dan Brown, she informed me, had already written on my Zoroastrianism idea, and Simon and Schuster (Jews both) would never allow such an overtly anti-Rabbinic book to be published. In addition, she continued, the publishing world was currently enthralled by what she called “The New Atheism”, a concerted push by Communists (though she never explicitly identified them as such) and creators of series of vampire-themed young-adult detective novels (“Nancy Drew Blood” is the one I explicitly remember her mentioning) to purge the bestseller lists of religious mainstays like The Bible, Chicken Soup for the Zoroastrian’s Soul, and Tony Robbins’s Awaken the Giant Within, to make room for a new generation of heathen authors. A book like Your Religion Is False could be “publishing gold”, she concluded, and could help her eradicate some of her payday-loan debt.
Video: https://vimeo.com/3575931
More from BIL 2009
- "Material Social Change" How a fabric company is transforming lives in local communities globally — Eve Blossom
- 10 Lessons I Learned from Starting Companies in a Downturn — Francine Hardaway
- 15 minutes with an evil genius — Whurley
- A Garage-Level Biomedical Research Effort is Taking on Death — John Schloendorn
More on Society & Politics
- Advancement of the TED Prize — Bill Erickson
- Always the Next Human — Quinn Norton
- Anonymous and the Tools of Revolution — Lorraine Murphy
- Bay Area Housing Crisis: Lessons from History — Kim-Mai Cutler
