{"id":2213,"date":"2013-11-01T17:00:00","date_gmt":"2013-11-01T22:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/backgroundprobability\/?p=2213"},"modified":"2013-11-01T14:52:45","modified_gmt":"2013-11-01T19:52:45","slug":"freethought-fridayreads-and-a-child-will-lead-them","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/backgroundprobability\/2013\/11\/01\/freethought-fridayreads-and-a-child-will-lead-them\/","title":{"rendered":"Freethought #FridayReads &#8211; And a Child Will Lead Them"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Feeling increasingly sickly this afternoon, hopefully it&#8217;s just another god-ordained virus. That said, the universe has somehow arranged for a far more popular and well-connected writer to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/friendlyatheist\/2013\/11\/01\/a-novel-about-a-young-celebrity-who-becomes-an-outspoken-atheist\/\">post a write-up<\/a> on a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/B00E80Y34C\/\" target=\"_blank\">new work of freethought fiction<\/a> today. Thank the gods, whomever they are!<\/p>\n<p>The book is about a young singer-songwriter coming to unbelief and then speaking out about his lack of faith:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Julian could get fascinated with any topic, obsess over it for a few months or half a year, and then he&#8217;d move on. But the one topic that he could never quite leave alone&#8211;the topic that wouldn&#8217;t leave <\/em>him <i>alone&#8211;was religion.<br \/>\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 One day I asked him why, and he said, &#8220;Because it&#8217;s everywhere. It&#8217;s always been everywhere. Every single civilization since the dawn of history had myths about the creation of the universe and the supernatural beings that supposedly did it. And even today there are churches in every little town, there is Christmas and Easter, there are religious conflicts in distant places, and there are suicide bombers who blow up our buses and trains in the name of their faith. I want to know why that is.&#8221;<br \/>\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I had no doubt that he&#8217;d eventually find out. <\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Go <a href=\"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/friendlyatheist\/2013\/11\/01\/a-novel-about-a-young-celebrity-who-becomes-an-outspoken-atheist\/\" target=\"_blank\">check it out<\/a> and please do me know if I should add it to my ever-increasing\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/lm\/R1MHDPEFUZPNM1\/ref=cm_lm_pthnk_view?ie=UTF8&amp;lm_bb=\" target=\"_blank\">list of worthwhile freethought fiction<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Feeling increasingly sickly this afternoon, hopefully it&#8217;s just another god-ordained virus. That said, the universe has somehow arranged for a&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2213","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-friday-reads"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/backgroundprobability\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2213","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/backgroundprobability\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/backgroundprobability\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/backgroundprobability\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/backgroundprobability\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2213"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/backgroundprobability\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2213\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/backgroundprobability\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2213"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/backgroundprobability\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2213"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/backgroundprobability\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2213"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}