Are you a disciple?

[abaris]

I think his books on evolutionary theory are top-notch examples of popular science writing that should be more widely known.

As I said, I never read even one line written by him or any of the other prominent atheists. But everyone of us probably has their own pet authors, the ones they always come back to because they enjoy their writings. For me it's Karlheinz Deschner, died in 2014 at the ripe age of 90. He was a very vocal critic of (mainly) the Catholic Church. And his writings were smack down my own avenue. History. He got his facts right, but I was always aware that he was transporting an agenda. You can be right but still having an agenda in leaving certain things out of your narrative. Certain mitigating factors so to speak.

I'm aware of that with everything I read. Fiction or non fiction. I use to think that this is a distinction between me and most theists coming here. I don't buy any narrative at face value, just because it meets my expectations. Probably a result of my time at university and my work as a journalist, but it's something I recommend to everyone. I remember once grabbing a volume by Terry Goodkind because the synopsis appealed to me. After the first hundred pages or so, I thought, all right, you want to sell something to me. So I looked him up and realized he was an Ayn Rand follower. I still finished the book, but I knew what to make of it.