Christian Anti-intellectualism and Economic Terrorism

A Christian friend of mine refuses to buy my book WIBA, as he explained to me in an email: "I do not refuse to read your book, I refuse to support the book and the publishing company by purchasing it. I do not have access to a library because of where I live. But if I could borrow a copy or someone gave me a copy, I would have no problems reading it." I've heard this kind of crap so often I need to respond to this idiocy.

Here's what I wrote to him:

Your faith inconsistently targets people who disagree with economic terrorism. Since there are more Christians in America this can and does hit non-Christians very hard. The fact that you won't buy books you disagree with lest it provide the publisher and the author needed income disgusts me. Starve out the people who disagree. Hit them where it counts. and then use that as an excuse not to consider their viewpoint. Again, that disgusts me to no end. And it is quite plainly anti-intellectual, hypocritical and inconsistent with the goal of learning from others.

Did you say you went to college? If this was their policy then your education doesn't mean shit to me. No educational institution worth any accreditation at all would abide by such a policy. You must read the literature of people who disagree in order to be considered an educated man. That you don't means my time with you is wasted.

I'd love to go through your library, if you even have one, and point out the books in it that are written by people who don't believe what you do. Why in hell did you buy them if it supports people whom you disagree with? And what about their lifestyles? Why would you support gay people since it supports them? And why would you support scientists (not creationists) who argue in their classes against things you believe in? Your policy, if followed consistently, would result in an unthinking brain dead type of a person.

What if Christian apologists whom you admire followed the same policy? Or the Christian colleges where they teach? Then their libraries would have no book in it supporting anything they disagreed with. Burn those damn books while you're at it. Censor them and their authors. Why not? How could those apologists and their schools be considered educational institutions at all? What, are Christians only supposed to go to secular libraries to read these types of books lest they support people who disagree? Why not just live in a commune, a sequestered space on earth. Become Amish, leaving the whole of secular culture alone too.

And what if everyone followed that same policy of yours? What if secular colleges had the same ignorant policy of not buying books that didn't agree with secularism? Then what? There would, in the end, be no learning. Everyone would just end up inside their own prejudices without being forced to confront the dreaded "other." And there would be less tolerance for other viewpoints as well, leading to more violence between people who disagree.

Become educated. Drop this utterly ignorant anti-intellectual cockeyed notion of yours. My publisher produces many other types of helpful books, just become informed: Prometheus Books