Candidate Without a Prayer: An Autobiography of a Jewish Atheist in the Bible Belt (Unabridged)
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5.0 • 1 Rating
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- $21.99
Publisher Description
In this deeply revealing and engaging autobiography, Herb Silverman tells his iconoclastic life story. He takes the listener from his childhood as an Orthodox Jew in Philadelphia, where he stopped fasting on Yom Kippur to test God's existence, to his adult life in the heart of the Bible Belt, where he became a legendary figure within America's secular activist community and remains one of its most beloved leaders.
Never one to shy from controversy, Silverman relates many of his high-profile battles with the Religious Right, including his decision to run for governor of South Carolina to challenge the state's constitutional provision that prohibited atheists from holding public office.
Candidate Without a Prayer offers an intimate portrait of a central player in today's increasingly heated culture wars. It will be sure to charm both believers and nonbelievers alike, and will lead all those who care about the separation of church and state to give thanks.
Customer Reviews
Riveting
The tale of an American electorate and political system that has willfully embraced superstitious ignorance and forsaken the American principles of equality, freedom, and applying no religious test for office. The saddest part of this tale and most disturbing thing about a religiously suffocated government is that the very things that can potentially save us (sanity, reason, and compassion), are to this day seen as fatal political flaws and social sins. While the tide seems to be slowly turning, America still seems decades away from realizing the damage done by religious fundamentalism being given preference in and by government. From apocalypse informed military decisions to women's health care to tax payer funding of religious institutions to dumbing down of education to hindering the progress of science, religion has many sins to make up for and can start by kindly exiting the political arena as had always been intended. When one religion is given governmental preference, all religions, including the religion given preference, and non-believers suffer, as this preference opens the door for American citizens being treated as second class citizens. Can we please return to the days of being "Indivisible"? E Plurubus Unum!