Penn Jillette is a hero of mine. Back when I was figuring out a word to attach to my disbelief in Jeebus, I stumbled across his beautiful show Bullshit. My growing skepticism and pursuit of the truth about everything mystic absolutely exploded in my early twenties, and Penn's book God, No! was the perfect Jesus rejecting companion. So, I was really fucking excited to read this one.
If you don't believe in a god, and you want to read a book about that, your choices are not to be taken lightly. Ayn Rand, Hitchens, Dawkins, these authors have written some of the most intelligent and accurate arguments against religion that you will ever read, but they are certainly not to be taken lightly. Reading Godless, or The God Delusion is a serious commitment, these books aren't to be casually enjoyed, they are written to blow your brain out of the back of your head when you realize just how unlikely religion really is.
So, as great as those heavy books are, it's really nice to be able to read a more light-hearted book that deals with non-religion. Mr. Jillette is truly inspiring, and I find myself trying to memorize sentences and whole paragraphs for future use, as his insights are quite unique and profound. Atheism can be a scary thing, and especially as a father, it's nice to be able to read another father's words and be comforted that you have indeed been going about things in the right way.
The book is divided into chapters that deal with holidays, (my favorite is Chiquita Banana Wednesday), in which Penn will tale a personal story about his exciting life as a magician in Vegas, or on Celebrity Apprentice, etc, and insert personal nuggets of advice. This isn't a book that preaches at all, he simply states his opinion, and writes about some of the more crazy shit that has happened to him, and how he thinks that applies to a grander idea. He talks about some really interesting subjects, American racism, Chinese abandonment of infant girls, Christianity, Andy Warhol's death, Clay Aiken's assholeness, morality without religion, and a bunch of other eyebrow raising topics. It's also funny as fuck.
I loved the book, and I really took my time with it, it's definately worth a read, and his best work yet. I will finish this rushed review with my favorite excerpt from the book dealing with atheist fatherhood:
It's not fair to say that all Christians are murdering rapists being held back by fear of hell, or desire for heaven, but as unfair as that is, it's bothersome how many Christians lead with it. The argument that the only reason you're not killing and raping me is that your magic book tell you not to is not reassuring, and I don't think it's even true. Christians defend the insanity of the bible by saying how good, kind and peaceful Jesus was in the New Testament, even though he negates none of the Old Testament's horrors. What do they mean by "good" about Jesus anyway? If all morality comes from god, isn't all of the Old Testament's genocide, slavery, rape, incest, torture and ignorance good by definition? If all morality comes from god, what does it mean to believe that "god is good?" Wouldn't that be tautology? If Satan were to win the final battle (the spoiler says he doesn't), defeat god, and become the most powerful being in the universe, wouldn't he be our god? We'd meet the new boss, and he'd be the same as the old boss, good by definition. Would we just replace the cross with heavy metal horns and start fucking our sisters' assholes on beds of goats' blood in the name of all that is unholy, while listening to Slayer? Wouldn't that be community service?
No comments:
Post a Comment