Books-a-million

Since Amazon.com I rarely go to a bookstore but yesterday I had some time and went to check it out. As I walked through I couldn't miss the religious (read Christian) section. I live in a red state by the way. There were 8 aisles of books on Religion. There was a couple of books on the Quran, the Quran, and another on how Christians can talk to (read convert) their Islamic friends and that about summed up the non-Christian books.

Then I saw the WALL OF BIBLES. This would be around 4 or 5 good aisles comparing it to the 8 aisles. Wow. I started to look at them and was dumbfounded on the marketing angle. There were Bibles for Boys, Girls, Teenage Girls, Women of Faith, Women who did this or did that. It just went on and on. Picking them up all they did was throw in a few colorful pictures related to the market group and wrap the Bible around it in some well know English version. Since I also living in a hunting community there was a Bible that was fully camouflaged so you can read a text before you bag your dinner.

I found a child section for parents to pound Christian ideals into the minds of their precious offspring. Lots of low-level sparkling things and colorful books to attract the young one. This aisle I found particularly saddening.

"Little Johnny you must have this book about Jonah and the Whale."

"No, Mommy, I want a comic book."

"Johnny, it is a comic book" wink...wink.

How inviting even the Lions are smiling. Didn't know they had that capability. Oh right this is not the science section.

Continuing around I saw half of the 8 aisles devoted to Christian Fiction. I amused myself thinking that label should be on every aisle. I didn't even want to waste my time there.

These sections were quite busy with so many people browsing I had to occasionally politely excuse myself to get around them.

So I decided to see if I could find the science section.

Finally I found it conveniently far enough away from the Christian books so as not to offend them or cause them to fall from their faith. Less than 1/4 an aisle had scientific books. There was one copy of the excellent book by Jerry Coyne, Why Evolution is True and one copy of Richard Dawkin's book, The Greatest Show on Earth (which I have yet to read). Also, there were books about why evolution is false and in crisis, etc. I thought why take up the little space reserved for this here and not put it in the mega-Christian section. Perhaps the word evolution on a book might offend Christian sensibilities. Anyway they did have a compilation of Charles Darwin's writing which I purchased. There was book on Fossils with great pictures of the fossil record, but oddly none of the human ape's lineage. This again might be too offensive. However, showing Darwin's head on top of a chimpanzee body is OK. Well, it is kind of endearing. The rest of the section was books to help identify birds, reptiles, etc. So it was a pitiful section.

Associated with a popular cartoon, etc.

Love and Sex Sells

Why is America falling behind in technology and sciences? I wonder.