"Attack" from the other side: an Atheist

[cyn]

Just posted at the (now defunct) LGG blog in response to Sue Dent's on her Anne Rice piece:

Keith has left a new comment on your post "Lestat Lives, says Anne Rice!":

So you people only really read sanitized books published by one publisher? Is you faith so weak you cannot wander into the wilderness of popular culture without fear? What good is your faith if all you read is stuff you believe in, what good is your life if not constantly examined?

BTW, I am an athiest who just wandered in here by mistake

I think he makes a point here, despite the fact that he missed the tongue-in-cheekness of the article. And, this subculture does it to themselves, in my opinion.

What do you think?

[debkinnard]

I view reading as something like eating. (I gulp books, sometimes at a single sitting, so I don't think the analogy is totally out-there.) I eat foods I enjoy, some of what is good for me, and drink a lot of water. These things keep me (moderately) healthy, and if you count chocolate, very happy indeed.

Why should I not read the same way? If I don't enjoy romance novels with sack-scenes in the first few pages, and then snippets of "romantic" plot to stitch the rest of the sack-scenes together, why then should I read them? If I don't care for horror, or books in which there's cannabalism, sadistic behaviors, or graphic cruelty, why then should I read them?

"What good is your life if not constantly examined" doesn't make a good argument for literary open mindedness. I wonder if the shoe would fit just as well on the other foot? How many broad-minded atheists read Christian fiction? Hmm?