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Review: “I Sold My Soul on eBay”
By bk | April 17, 2007 20:31
I Sold my Soul on eBay
As mentioned previously I got a slightly early version of I Sold My Sould On eBay
The Book
If you’re not at all familiar with the book I would suggest checking the Amazon info or the Wikipedia entry, but briefly, Mehta is an atheist who chose to expand his experience and attend church, just to see what it is like and find out if he was missing anything. Part of this adventure included an eBay posting allowing the winner to decide where he would go to church.
I’ve really enjoyed the book, Mehta’s style is conversational, easy going, and appropriately funny. Sections are generally short and he gets right to the point with relevant, insightful comments - a fast read packed with information and truly open, uncensored (at least it seems) feedback. While I sense the book is targeted at church leaders (more on this in a minute), almost anyone could read this and gain some new insight. As someone who grew up in a ‘progressive’ Protestant church, and attended may different flavors of church over those years, I still picked up some new insights and perspectives - and recognized a lot of old themes from my past. The accessibility of the text and conversational, helpful tone helps to temper some of the tensions that may sometimes arise between the believing and non-believing communities. This open, dialog focused, positive tone is a real strength.
Why Believers Would Read It
I think it is obvious why believers would read the book - it is a guide to what helps a church connect with people who don’t go to church - because they are believers who stopped believing in church, or non-believers for whom church just doesn’t make any sense. This book can help churches stop ‘preaching to the choir’ and start connecting with people who, presumably, need church. The I Sold My Soul… is published by WaterBrook Press, a Christian publisher, and seems to be targeted at church leaders, pastors/ministers, and anyone highly involved with church outreach. Mehta provides the very unique perspective of an educated, mature, sincere reviewer who has not had significant exposure to the Christian church experience. In my experience, many church leaders have been in the church all or most of their lives, this is the perspective they never had.
Why Non-Believers Would Read It
This is a more difficult one, but I read it, so there must be a reason. I can think of two, related reasons non-believers would, and should, read this. First, many of us have not experienced the Christian church at all, or not for a long time. It is valuable to understand and appreciate the perspective of our friends, neighbors, and co-workers. Second is Mehta did it, so we don’t have to. OK, that part is a joke.
Seriously, there is great value to the non-believing community in understanding where the believers are coming from, not from the creation/evolution type arguments, but from an everyday experience point of view. And Mehta goes there for us and lets us in on what a large portion of the US population does on a Sunday morning. For non-believers, it is also a great example of atheism working with the religious community and promoting a positive dialog.
I highly suggest taking a look at this book - at least a chapter or two at the store, and also checking out Mehta’s blog, Friendly Atheist, which is an ongoing, friendly discussion on issues related to belief/non-belief.
Topics: Books and Resources |
[…] at the New Atheist blog has a nice review of I Sold My Soul on eBay up at his site! He offers two reasons why non-religious […]
Posted by: Friendly Atheist » I Sold My Soul On eBay Review: The New Atheist and YouTube (Complete) on April 18th, 2007 at 0:16Hi,
I have written two novels both of which are strongly slanted toward atheism, and both of which were inspired by the philosophy of the novelist Ayn Rand.
The first novel is called “Zeno’s Paradox” and it can be viewed at http://www.booklocker.com . The galley copy of the novel, “Hunker Creek’s Gold”, is being sent to me and I should have it shortly. It will appear at http://www.booklocker.com during the first week of December.
If you are interested in adding “Zeno’s Paradox” to your list of books fore sale, please advise me by return e-mail.
I have set out below the short synopsis for each novel that appears on the covers.
“Zeno’s Paradox” can also be purchased through Barns & Noble and Amazon. Hunker Creek’s Gold will be available through these sources in December.
Gordon
Zeno’s Paradox
My novel, Zeno’s Paradox, was inspired by the philosophy of the novelist Ayn Rand.
Howard Rhodes’ father was a renowned physicist. He and his wife were killed in a suspicious car accident when Howard was fourteen years old. Howard is now sixteen and living on his own as an emancipated minor. He is also an intellectually gifted and well-adjusted teenager whose mother stimulated his love for learning, explained Christianity’s fatal flaw to him, and taught him that his most valuable asset was his brain and his ability to reason.
In school, Howard deals with a challenge from a classmate who is a class bully, and who is making everyone’s life miserable. He also entertains his classmates and stuns his math and physics teachers when he unravels the error in the logic to Zeno’s famous Paradox, which has had scientists baffled since 400 BC.
Howard’s interest in physics leads him to investigate various possibilities regarding small particles, and he attracts everyone’s attention, including Stefan Nacouski’s who is a sleeper al Qaeda agent living in the United States, when he discovers a new source of energy.
Not only does Howard’s new source of energy eliminate the need for burning fossil fuels, but also, he can create a particle beam shield that will protect the United States and its allies from a Ballistic Missile attack. Unfortunately, this same device can be refined to create a beam that will silently kill hundreds of innocent people. Stephan will resort to anything to get his hands on Howard’s Killing Machine.
Hunker Creek’s Gold
A group of highly trained terrorist snipers are keeping almost every US law enforcement officer busy investigating random attacks. A second arm of the terrorist group is secretly importing and warehousing enormous amounts of narcotics.
Posted by: F. Gordon Robinson on November 28th, 2007 at 15:09The group’s intention is to flood the US market with drugs at prices anyone can afford. Their aim is to addict as many people as possible including high ranking politicians, business people, law enforcement officers, civil servants, and military personnel. The terrorists predict that this will cause America to grind to a standstill. They plan to step up the random sniper attacks spreading terror throughout United States. And, this will be the signal for the Militant, Right Wing groups’ leaders to band together and agitate for a citizen’s revolt against their government that can no longer protect its citizens.
Mike Cranston is a trained Navy Seal sniper, and Little John knows all of the Militant, Right Wing groups’ leaders in the country. Together they plan to infiltrate the terrorist group.
During the summer, Shane Atkins operates his placer mine on Hunker Creek, and he is studying philosophy at the University of Oregon during the off season. He and his mentors are concerned that the moral culture of the United States is in a downward spiral.
Shane’s lecture series for artists, called the Philosophy of the Nature of Man, attracts the attention of the councilors at the many rehab clinics that have sprung up throughout America. The drug councilors are convinced that his compelling logic in support of a rational basis for ethics, a romantic renaissance in the arts, and man’s efficacy offers a valuable alternative to the Twelve Step program.