in case you haven´t found it yet, the authors of the Ferkel-Buch/piglet-Book have now published the translation of the book on their page, which means you can download and read it for free. You will find the download of the text here: http://www.ferkelbuch.de/
On the left side you will have to choose “read the book”
A link to the images of the book will also be found there.

Greetings,
shevek.

By reasonable, I mean rational but also appropriately audience specific, of course.

You see, I do not want my children to grow up into atheists because I taught them that – and their theist mother was not strong enough to oppose me. I want them to be able to respond to theistic claims with some detachment and (probably, scorn) reject them out of a conviction of their own personal confidence about being right rather than some adult’s cartoon view of religion (no matter how richly deserved that satirization might be).

Has anyone written ‘The Dummy’s Guide to Rational Thought’? Perhaps, if they read “How Do I Get To God, Asked the Small Piglet”, I could have a rational conversation with them, though. That would be a significant step forward in these dark, anti-atheist times.

That said, in response to Jonathan, and backing up what Andrew Nixon said, most non-believers are perfectly happy to leave Christians quite alone; the majority because they really do have absolutely no interest in the entire subject whatsoever, most of them to the point of not even bothering to label themselves as ‘atheists’ ever. It tends to be that section of the non-believing community who retain some ‘interest’ in the subject – and in the second-class way that they themselves are treated within the community – who identify themselves as such.

As for atheists supposedly having ‘a live and let live philosophy’, yes, for the most part we do, but that certainly doesn’t preclude using the freedom of speech we all supposedly share to express our own ideas, to criticise and critique others’, particularly where we think those other ideas have done and still do great harm to the world, and even to ridicule. All too often this latter is the only option left open to us as the religious power-brokers do all they can to control more and more aspects of our lives, our government and our education system, and do all they can to have measures implemented that will render them totally immune to criticism.

Also, the abuse heaped upon atheists and other non-believers by the Christian community, much of it truly vile and hateful, outweighs anything the atheists have directed in the opposite direction a thousand to one. I have lost count of the number of blogs and articles and web-pages I have had the sad duty to witness in which Christians have, at best, grossly misrepresented those who don’t worship their Hebrew thunder-god, and at worse, screeched to all who would listen that we are evil, satanic, immoral, criminal, cowardly, life-and-god-hating, hypocritical nihilists.

By and large, we bear all of this vitriolic, libellous noise with great equanimity. Conversely, the moment the religious community feels its ego territory to be even remotely threatened by some criticism or abuse from us, and the cries of persecution and intolerance ring out loud. It is pure hypocrisy.

I greatly doubt that ‘How Do I Get To God’ is in any way a sensible approach for non-believers to express their views to children or anybody else, but I also can’t help feeling that people who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.

Or to use a religious admonition, “before attending to the mote in thy neighbour’s eye ….”