Win a copy of Atlas of Creation!


Would you believe someone has received a copy of Harun Yahya’s epic tome, Atlas of Creation, and doesn’t want it? Weird, huh?

Let’s imagine, though, that someone for some bizarre reason wants one. Here’s your chance: write a comment here that testifies to your deep and unholy desire to possess a copy, and the current possessor of a copy will judge them and decide to whom he will impart this strange book of lunacy. All you have to do is pay the cost of shipping it to where ever you are.

Here’s the way it works. Leave a comment here using a valid email address. The current owner will pick one of you as the lucky recipient, and will contact me; I’ll give him your email address (he and I will be the only ones to see that), and then the two of you can negotiate the cost of sending it.

Easy. Just be aware that if you comment in this thread and say anything, you may win a copy of the book. I’ll be curious to see if this thread goes instantly dead, or becomes amusingly entertaining.

Comments

  1. zer0 says

    I make a measly amount of income, sometimes I can’t even afford toilet paper. This would be a great prize for me. I would love to keep this tome of science near the throne for just such occasions!

  2. FutureMD says

    If I receive this book I will place it in book Hell. Book Hell is the part of my book shelf where I keep God is not Great, The God Delusion, Letter to a Christian Nation, God:The Failed Hypothesism, and Why I Am Not a Christian by Russell. The creation atlas will lay on it’s side with these books upright on top of it.

  3. Wes says

    I’m currently working on my master’s thesis, “Fossils and Fish Hooks”, in which I explore the comparative morphology and and phylogenetic history of fly fishing lures. Yahya’s invaluable contribution to comparative fly fishing palaeontology would be an enormous boost for my research. I also intend to study the overlap between fly fishing palaeontology and the banana and peanut butter proofs of the existence of God.

  4. Sven DiMilo says

    I want it.
    I like to laugh and laugh and laugh.
    And I need a reference for keying out my fossil fishing lures.

  5. says

    I’m relying upon the professorial tradition of not stiffing poor graduate students with unnecessary bills to not win. At least, when I become a Professor, I’ll pay for things like meals and postage and stuff, not expecting poor graduate students to foot the bill for anything they can’t afford.

    That said, it would end up in the “free books” pile in the department hallway.

  6. Atilio says

    I would like to win a copy of the Atlas of Creation so, when I feel tired of reading science books or I find a passage particularly difficult and arid I could have a quick look at it and renew my interest in serious knowledge.
    I am also very very very poor…

  7. AllanW says

    – text deleted –

    Shit, PZ this posted by mistake after I read that I might win that crappy book. Can you delete this too before it gets to the forum ‘cos I’d be bloody annoyed if I won it. grrrrrrrr.

  8. Peri_P_Laneta says

    I’ve seen pictures of the book, and immediately I desperately coveted a copy. It is absolutely the most perfect size to place under a custom music stand I built to raise it to appropriate playing height. And the color of the cover matches the color of my carpet PERFECTLY. It’s as if it was intelligently designed for this purpose. I must have it. My precious . . .

  9. says

    I need it because I want proof that fishing flies were designed, and did not evolve.

    After all, isn’t Yahya a historic first for creationism in all of its forms, the actual detection of design and proper conclusion that something did not evolve? Sure, it was badly done, but at least it was finally done.

    Glen D
    http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7

  10. Sarah says

    I might like to have a copy (the one I paged through was beautiful and funny, at least since I knew it was full of crap), but has anyone else actually seen this thing? The postage–even media mail–would make me go broke. No thanks.

  11. Kevin L. says

    Wow. I don’t know what else to say.

    Why would I possibly want a copy of “Atlas of Creation?” Oh hell, I don’t even know. Probably the same reason that I somehow ended up with a copy of a Hal Lindsey book: why the hell not.

    Besides, it’ll offer a fun contrast to all the books I have on actual science, actual history, philosophy, etc.

    Finally, best case scenario: a good laugh. Worst case scenario: a good excuse to drink.

  12. Pablo says

    A couple of weeks ago at an auction, I purchased a cute little piano bench. Unfortunately, a coaster is missing from one of the legs. From the picture of Atlas of Creation I found at Yahya’s website (you actually have to link on “BuyNow” to see it), it seems as if the book is the perfect thickness to make my piano bench sit level on the floor.

    With that, all I need is the piano.

  13. Ric says

    I would comment here to enter the contest, but I don’t want to pay the shipping fee. In fact, I think the owner should pay the shipping fee, in effect paying someone to take it off his/her hands.

    Aw crap, did I just enter the contest? ;)

  14. Anthony Kerr says

    “anything”
    There. Now at last I can learn the truth you godless experts don’t want me to know. And see some pretty pictures of fossils and fishing flies. Can’t wait.
    AnthonyK

  15. says

    If elected, I promise to cut taxes while increasing social services, reduce the number of patronage appointments to key positions in government while making sure the poorest and most deserving members of our society are taken care of.

    And bacon. I promise a BLT in every sandwich maker and a bacon placemat for each to eat them off of (including tofu-bacon for my vegan and vegetarian constituents).

    Seriously though, the main reason I want that book is, well, it’s full of pretty pictures and I can’t read.

    Every commenter here can attest to that latter fact.

    Thank you and good night.

  16. Carlie says

    I would like to win a copy, because if I get it, it will be cut to shreds. My colleague likes to give out little goodies as rewards in her bio classes, and some of those pictures would be awesome. (The text will have been carefully excised, of course.) Plus, I’m in a depressingly industrial-looking office, so I need something to put on my wall. Oh, and once the contents are eviscerated I could amuse myself by using the cover as a fake over The Structure of Evolutionary Theory, reading it in public, and then zapping any creationist sympathizers who notice the title with actual Real Science!

  17. Matt says

    I would like a copy of the “Atlas of Creation” because my copy of the Holy Bible is lonely and needs a friend.

  18. says

    I would like to own the book to show to my offspring, because it is every fathers responsibility to spin tales, fantastic tales, that disillusion children.

    Please.

  19. says

    There’s a draught under my kitchen door and I don’t have one of those stuffed snake things to block it.

    An atlas of creation’d be the very thing.

  20. says

    Oh well, I really would like a copy. First rule of winning an intellectual (with non-intellectual people) battle is to know thy enemy. I always want to read books by dunces like Yahya, Behe, Coulter, etc., but I don’t want them to make money off of my actual curiosity into their inane “arguments”. Now I can get my hands on one of those books without them making a single dime.

    Besides, I’m just angry that our dept. at Tulane never received a bunch of copies. I know we’re all the way down south, but we still count as godless evilutionists! (a few creotard colleagues excepted).

  21. says

    Warning! The pages of this book are on very thick, high gloss, non-absorbent paper, making them completely unsuitable for bathroom use!

  22. says

    Heh. Given as I live in Las Vegas, my money is on ‘goes instantly dead’.

    Sure it would be great to own a lump of paper which used to be a lovely tree but now is creationist claptrap — otherwise known as a creationist book. But here’s the thing: everything that could possibly be contained within the pages of said book can already be found in neat indexed form online at Answers in Genesis. So what is the point?

    Alas, the damage is already done, that tree is already pulped and the book pressed.. Why not put it in a good home alonside my collection of other books which destroyed our environment just to propagate Christian silliness..

    Oh and to shamelessly blogwhore, visit my blog. I have Pat Robertson’s NEW! IMPROVED!! 2008 prophecies laid bare and ready to mock…

  23. Bjørn Østman says

    I actually want to read this book. I have been wanting to since I first heard of it. I’m a Ph.D. student in evolutionary biology with a strong side interest in the impact of evolutionary theory on society, and it’s struggle with intelligent design and creationism(s). Apart from looking forward to see the fishing lures compared to fossils with my own eyes, it is necessary to be familiar with the exact arguments made, in order to argue back. Several times have I been told by creationists to shut up, if I hadn’t read the book (Darwin’s Black Box (read it), Edge of Evolution (got a copy – for free), Darwin Strikes Back (read about half – zzzzzzzz)), so with “the Atlas” in hand, it will be a piece if cake to expose opponents whenever they mention it.

    It will have its place at a prominent position in my office for all to see, along with ibn Warraq, Russell, Dawkins, Harris, and Behe.

    P.S. This semester, Michael Shermer will give a course at Claremont Graduate University (CA) called “Evolution & Society” Mondays 7-10pm. If you are in the neighborhood, I highly recommend attending. Info is here:
    http://www.cgu.edu/print/1159.asp?instrm=0920&insubject=MATH&Submit=Search
    (scroll to TNDY 402D)

  24. Bjørn Østman says

    I actually want to read this book. I have been wanting to since I first heard of it. I’m a Ph.D. student in evolutionary biology with a strong side interest in the impact of evolutionary theory on society, and it’s struggle with intelligent design and creationism(s). Apart from looking forward to see the fishing lures compared to fossils with my own eyes, it is necessary to be familiar with the exact arguments made, in order to argue back. Several times have I been told by creationists to shut up, if I hadn’t read the book (Darwin’s Black Box (read it), Edge of Evolution (got a copy – for free), Darwin Strikes Back (read about half – zzzzzzzz)), so with “the Atlas” in hand, it will be a piece if cake to expose opponents whenever they mention it.

    It will have its place at a prominent position in my office for all to see, along with ibn Warraq, Russell, Dawkins, Harris, and Behe.

    P.S. This semester, Michael Shermer will give a course at Claremont Graduate University (CA) called “Evolution & Society” Mondays 7-10pm. If you are in the neighborhood, I highly recommend attending. Info is here:
    http://www.cgu.edu/print/1159.asp?instrm=0920&insubject=MATH&Submit=Search
    (scroll to TNDY 402D)

  25. Traffic Demon says

    I hope to win a copy because I am the only non-creationist in my immediate family. Being able to poke holes in this book, literally and figuratively, will be a huge boost in our discussions.

  26. says

    There’s a Bible on that shelf there. But I keep it next to Voltaire — poison and antidote. — Bertrand Russell

    Obviously this would be shelved in between The Origin of Species by means of Natural Selection by Charles Darwin and Extraordinary Popular Delusions & the Madness of Crowds by Charles Mackay.

    You can’t be too careful.

  27. dtsh says

    I would love to put it on my bookshelf with the rest of my books. It serves as an excellent example of how a person can manipulate data to fit a preconceived answer. In addition, it would look wonderful sitting next to Origin of Species.

  28. says

    I love Creationist propaganda but I shudder at having to pay for it. So winning the Atlas of Creation would be a dream come true. So much simpler than sending a check to the ACLU to offset the price of admission for my visit to the Creation Museum last week. Hell, I’ll even tack the face value of the book onto my ACLU donation if I win.

    By the way, here are my photos and comments from the visit: http://nd.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2116776&l=ccd49&id=15620983

  29. says

    I would love to have this book, which says a lot about my masochistic tendencies. I will either take a red pen and go to town correcting it, or I’ll hollow it out with an X-Acto knife , place a copy of A Brief History of Time inside, and gift it to a deserving theist.

  30. says

    As much as I’d like to have a copy of this exceptionally arrogant work of vanity publishing, I’d like to suggest that commenter #3 above should be the winner. Book Hell is an excellent idea; I have some good candidates for bottoms in my collection.

  31. says

    I WANT to winz Teh Book becuz I are is good a Sientist and its impotant teht I considder Allturnativ Theeries. Also I stopt taking drogs so I needs sumthing to Punish my Brayn so teh Voiciz will stop telling me to DO THINGS.

    Thanx you.

  32. me says

    I’m a fend shui disciple.

    If I had the Atlas, I’d have something for the coffee table that visitors to my home could leaf through for the pictures, which can counterbalance my Playboy magazines, which visitors leaf through for the articles.

  33. Louis says

    Ok, fuck all you whiny bitches! I don’t want the damned book because it isn’t fit to be taken past my house let alone into it. As for wiping my ordure dripping, pink, puckering anus with material so vile, I would sooner be sodomised by a series of sexually starved sperm whales than allow that book’s atrocious, asinine asshattery near my sacred little sphincter.

    Frankly, begging to be given a book banned as a Weapon of Mass Stupid under the Geneva Convention, a book written by one of the most deludedly vile, anti-Semitic, shit-gobbling little semi-humans to disgrace the face of this fair globe, is beneath me. Hey it’s beneath you, Bob Dole and even Ann Coulter (may she burn in the metaphorical fires of eternal mockery).

    If anyone recieves this tome of turdalicious tard, take it from its dust jacket and beat yourself stoutly around the head with it (remembering to post the video to YouTube of course). The damage you will cause your brain will be vastly less than that incurred by reading the vapid volume of vacuous veracity-vilifying vituperation.

    Louis

    P.S. Humour, people, humour. Don’t make me come over there with a disclaimer.

  34. Gilipollas Caraculo says

    DO NOT WANT! As proof I am supplying a fake email address and a name not my own.

  35. J. John Johnstown says

    This book would go well in my collection. I currently have half a dozen Gideon Bibles, a copy of The Neo-Tech Bible, all the SubGenius books (PRABOB), High Wierdness by Mail, Everything In This Book is False But Is Exactly The Way Things Are (the source of the Tool song “46 and 2”), and may other horrid/funny books.

  36. zer0 says

    Warning! The pages of this book are on very thick, high gloss, non-absorbent paper, making them completely unsuitable for bathroom use!

    Sounds perfect for building my own paper urinal though!

  37. Steve P says

    “Warning! The pages of this book are on very thick, high gloss, non-absorbent paper, making them completely unsuitable for bathroom use!”

    Damn! So I guess using the all the pages to roll joints will be out of the question. Oh well, luckily I have my Gideon Bible handy to fulfill that task.

  38. says

    I need a copy so that I can pray over it to make everything inside become true.

    uh, nevermind. Mosquitoes would really suck if they had metal barbed hooks protruding from their abdomens.

  39. says

    I would honestly like to have the book in order to see what form Islamic creationism takes. I have some notion of it, since Yahya actually did send out requests for comments on the book to forum denizens (and I responded, demonstrating one of the particularly bad sorts of “arguments”), but I’m sure that the book would fill me in further.

    After all, American creationism is not the only kind of creationism out there.

    That said, I would not be willing to read much in it, primarily keeping it around for reference. And I certainly would not pay the postage (obviously a very reasonable requirement), since it would cut into my desire to buy bits and pieces of various types of meteorites (like one from Vesta, and perhaps even a tiny piece of lunar rock).

    Glen D
    http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7

  40. says

    Well, I’ll take the gamble. Think I could try doing a little armchair comparison if I find particularly egregious examples of two very different critters being described as identical.

  41. Ryan F Stello says

    I want it because I want to reaffirm my already strongly-held stance that Darwin was materialistic and didn’t base his findings on science. Even though I also have a strongly-held stance that science is materialistic (the bad kind), I am unable to see a contradiction when I smugly criticize scientists.

  42. says

    Do NOT send me this book. I don’t want it and won’t read it. If I did lose and end up getting this book, I would be in quite a conundrum because I couldn’t bring myself to through it away or destroy it because that would group me in with the book burners I despise so much. The Atlas of Creation would sit on the shelf, not wanted, not giftable, and not read. I would be forced to lock my home office so that no one would ever know that such a piece of crap was on the premises.

    Or I could put it next to my Onion books and claim it’s a parody.

  43. says

    I have a centipede in my house that seemes to have evolved the ability to survive the impact of my full weight channeled (at near-relativistic speed) through my size-11 doc maarten boots.

    It needs killin’ before it reproduces. This book could be my only chance.

  44. J-Dog says

    I DO NOT WANT THIS DAMN BOOK, AND IF I WIN IT I WILL NOT ACCEPT IT. However, there is a poor starving Graduate Student named Abbie in OK that has taken on both Dembski and Behe and won in the past year, and I think SHE deserves to recieve the book.

    Since I have enjoyed this tremendously, and still laugh out loud just thinking about her Pwning them, I would pay for the shipping. Maybe if Dembski and Behe are dumb enough to demand a rematch, with this book in hand, she can smack them both literally and figuratively upside the head next time.

    Please keep in mind that I have NOT talked to Abbie about this, so she might not want it either. She might not like to read fiction.

  45. Werner says

    Already 35 requests are listed. There is some heavy competition out there.
    I would like to have a copy of the book, because I can’t believe that it really exists. It must be the figment of the imagination of some wild evolutionist, who invented this story just to make fun of creationism.
    Please, make a believer out of me!

  46. Heather says

    I choose to believe that this book will come to me. It is precisely because I have put no thought into my entry in this great contest that I will be favored above all of you. Even if I do not win a physical copy of the book, I have won because I BELIEVE.

  47. helioprogenus says

    I really feel like I need this book because my frame of reference in life has changed greatly since understanding evolutionary theory and biology. I would like to experience vastly different “theories” as to our origins, and can’t wait to share these wonderful “theories” with all of my educated friends. Perhaps this book will provide me and hundreds of others with a scrumptiously wonderful perspective.

  48. Ryan F Stello says

    Heather said,

    I have won because I BELIEVE.

    GACK! The accursed power of personal conviction!
    Can…not…fight!

  49. Physicalist says

    As a philosopher of science, I’ve long been interested in quacks who reject overwhelming scientific evidence. I started collecting some books once I noticed the similarities between creationists and the deniers of relativity theory. I usually get my copies of quackery for free (I see on my shelf such self-published works as The Intersections of Reality: Paradigms of Ontological Structures: Praecipe, Ultimate Exista, Eigenstates and The Sun rounds the Earth! The Age of Complementarity between Science and Religion: Innaechon and the Neo-Copernican Theory).

    I certainly wouldn’t want to support Harun Yahya or any creationist, and so won’t pay money for the volume, but I haven’t been able to get my hands on a free copy yet. I’d be very grateful to win this one.

    As a plus, I can guarantee that it would be loaned out to many students who would likewise benefit from the lesson in creationism.

    Thank you for your consideration.

  50. Sven DiMilo says

    As for wiping my ordure dripping, pink, puckering

    Had to stop reading before the noun. Please refrain from sharing in the future. Kthx.

  51. ShavenYak says

    Who needs Atlas of Creation?

    # cat /dev/random

    You’ll get more useful information that way.

  52. b shepard says

    Is it volume 2? I have volume one, and i love it. It is a surreal reading experience. Thousands of beautiful pictures with bizarre and even hilarious captions. How could people not like this book? I keep it in my office and other graduate students are free to waste some time turning the pages and laughing at the insanity. We have a slightly creationist grad student here, and so this tends to be a great conversation piece (she is a Christian creationist that hates Muslims and so when she agrees with the content… yes, i know scary enough… we make a point of highlighting the fact that this is a “muslim” creationist book)… me and a few of the others in the department have it as our secret mission (and sometimes not so secret) turn her.

  53. Mike says

    I NEED this book. It will serve as the primary – indeed, only – reference for the article I plan to submit to Answers Research Journal, thus making me eligible for yet another great prize.

  54. minusRusty says

    I think ERV was disappointed she didn’t receive a copy, and since she’s posted the best t-shirt picture evah, I think she deserves it.

  55. Skippy says

    This book would look great on my shelf as part of my collection of other woo books. Maybe nestled in between “The Devil’s Web” and the complete set of “Mysteries of the Unknown”.

  56. Matt M says

    If I were to win this book, I would prefer that the current owner lives in Houston, so that I could just drop by and pick it up. Failing that, ship that brick and I will pay the freight.

    As for the ultimate use, I can see this being a gag gift that gets regifted time and again. I count amoung my friends and relatives at least 15 in the biosciences. Plenty to choose from. Perhaps it could be placed on the gutted piano down at the Rice University graduate student pub, for proper derision.

  57. says

    ….Mosquitoes would really suck if they had metal barbed hooks protruding from their abdomens.

    News, dude: ‘skitters do really suck. Literally. But with their mouths.

    Oh, and I DO NOT WANT the book. I’ve already got Wilder-Smith’s Man’s Origin, Man’s Destiny, Harold Hill’s How Did It All Begin, Harry Rimmer’s The Harmony of Science and Scripture (source of the “Joshua’s Long Day” UL), and some kid’s book from the ICR. I’m afraid adding one more piece of stupid to the library might make all our other books leave in disgust. Not to mention the incremental risk of neurological damage.

    I’m serious, PZ: if you send me this book, I’ll drive all the way back to Morris and….and….say mean things to your face! I’ll tell the world the truth about the Cephalopod Throne! I’ll tell everyone you’re actually a polite, mild-mannered small-town college professor who barely swats mosquitoes, let alone eats kittens! You have been warned!

    (And I note that the donor is remaining carefully anonymous to avoid revenge from the recipient.)

  58. hausen says

    I use a huge leatherbound bible as the right bookend for the “Humor” section of my library. This ridiculous tome would be the perfect compliment.

  59. Kseniya says

    This book is crap. Everyone knows Atlas holds up the Creation. He didn’t, like, Create it. Sheesh. The author is a moron.

  60. evan garber says

    I have been rather depressed lately (the vote in Florida ) and as I can not live in a world where “science” is the result of the vote of the believer class, I have considered various methods of suicide. I am certain that the act of reading this book will become a preferred methodology for suicide for masochists, as it will result in the slow but progressive destruction of neural tissue beginning in the cerebral cortex.

    Therefore, I humbly request in the name of the great pasta being in the sky (whose name should never be mentioned as you will then be subject to being meatballed to death and not admitted to the great pasta plate in the sky upon death – where it is I am hoping to go.) the offered copy. – forthwith.

    (P.S., I will include the sender in my insurance to cover postage.)

    Evan

  61. firemancarl says

    Since I live in Floor-ee-duh, I think I need a copy of this tome. It would make an excellent resource, allowing me to think like a creationist and thus giving me an stroke.

  62. says

    I would like it because I enjoy pretty, pretty pictures of naked dinosaurs and such. It’s a fetish that was first realized when I took a trip to the Creation Museum. I sported enough wood that day to build a freakin’ ark.

    By receiving this book, I can keep my fetish in private and away from the beady, judgmental eyes of the really crazy people who flock to the Creation Museum for anything other than raw, sexual arousal.

    Will that work?

  63. says

    By awarding me this book, you will actually be saving the life of another book.

    Let me explain.

    In October of last year, I was fortunate enough to find a free (and functional!) jukebox while curbshopping in my town. Knowing that such opportunities do not come often, I risked life and limb to haul this 300+ pound beast home atop the trunk of my Buick, with me riding on the roof to steady it.

    Upon returning home, I discovered the jukebox had lost two of its legs somehow. It was with reluctance that I allowed my Romanian/English dictionary to be used as a temporary leveling replacement for these legs.

    Had I known at the time that winning your book might depend on you developing sympathy for my Romanian/English dictionary, I would have kissed it lightly, while making a solemn promise to someday free it from the tyranny of being trapped under a jukebox.

    It is with great dramatic flair that I now ask you– who better to support a terrible burden upon itself than Atlas?

    –DaveX

  64. Roadtripper says

    I’m considering taking some time off to go fly-fishing for coelacanths this coming April, and I desperately need this book so I’ll know which lures to bring.

  65. says

    I feel inadequate in the face of all the excellent posts above. To tell the truth I think I’d be happier if I were a bit more stupid, and this book seems to be the ticket to that goal.

    Luck to all entrants. I bet you’ll have to pay postage.

  66. GK4 says

    Oh, the fish-hook pictures and stolen fossil photos are *only the beginning*. Did you know that Volume One has these winners?:

    — a CGI “transitional” fossil with several arms and legs (of the chimp and human variety) which is apparently what Mr. Oktar thinks a transitional fossil would look like.
    See it here

    — a similar skull within a skull, with accompanying text. See it here

    And, yes, I actually have a copy of this book and would also like to get rid of it. But I would send it only to serious debunkers of nonsense/researchers of strange pseudoscience.

    I’ve been looking for a good scientific/skeptical library to send it to. Someone at the JREF suggested I offer it to the National Center for Science Education, or to the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry. Does anyone have any other suggestions (besides yourselves)?

  67. mothra says

    The Atlas of Creation,
    looking for a new abode.
    The Atlas of Creation,
    Southern Baptist, Allah mode.
    The Atlas of Creation,
    owner’s willing to unload,
    butt the Atlas of Creation,
    is unfit for the commode.

    The Atlas of Creation,
    a mighty tome to see.
    The Atlas of Creation?
    Atlas shrugged, or did he pee.
    The Atlas of Creation,
    mine for just a senders’ fee,
    The Atlas of Creation,
    (rubs hands [Satanic glee])

    The Atlas of Creation,
    a sore sight to behold.
    The Atlas of Creation:
    ‘we’ll just follow what we’re told.’
    The Atlas of Creation,
    over marketed, undersold.
    The Atlas of Creation,
    is pure pyrite, who needs gold?

  68. Ben says

    I want to submit it to the South Carolina state board of education as an alternative text for students and parents who cannot stomach the one-sided neo-Darwinist textbook by Miller and Levine.

  69. says

    I have a book on my shelf called “Life: How Did it Get Here? By Evolution or by Creation?” This book has provided me countless hours of laughter as well as being a handy reference when religious people attempt to claim that real creationist arguments aren’t that stupid.

    This atlas sounds like it would make a good companion volume… ;)

  70. madder says

    As I am on the academic job market, my significant-other is currently rampaging through the house, discarding things not needed so as to make the move easier.

    Unfortunately, the SO’s efforts are jinxing the enterprise, for I am an avid disbeliever in “The Secret.” Therefore, preparing to move will guarantee that none of my application packets are even received, much less positively reviewed.

    My professorial aims will only be realized upon the completely unnecessary and pointless acquisition of about fifteen kilos of utter horseshit and codswallop.

  71. Dustin says

    I don’t know what the hell I’m supposed to do with the book. If it’s as heavy as they say it is, I’ll never be able to convict the heathen of witchcraft by balancing them against it. I’ll have to go on using my free pocket copy of the New Testament.

    On the other hand, I wouldn’t want a false positive when divining a witch by her ability to float, so I could use it as a weight when throwing the alleged witch into a pond for that added measure of diagnostic security.

  72. Dinzer says

    I would make a video for YouTube mocking the book. If the book is as ridiculous as you have made it out to be, the video should be hilarious.

    Maybe I’m a little weird, but I have been dying to get my hands on a copy of this book. The curiosity is killing me.

  73. Hank Fox says

    Top Ten Reason Why I Damned Sure Don’t Want This Book

    1) When I was 21, and a non-drinker, my brother gave me a bottle of Black Velvet for my birthday, and it was one of the hardest things I ever did to smile and pretend to like it. But I felt so empty inside. It was like my own brother knew nothing at all about me and, worse, didn’t even care to find out, and was lazily giving me something HE would like. I’d feel just like that if someone gave me a copy of this book.

    2) There’s so much to do in life, so many worthwhile things to spend my time on. I don’t get even a tiny fraction of those things done. To add this time-sucking waste of a book to my life would be ugly.

    3) It would be discouraging. It’s not just that lots of my fellow men are ignorant. It’s not that so many of them are content with that ignorance. It’s not even that so many want OTHER people to be ignorant. It’s that this book is evidence that there’s a business, an active, vital INDUSTRY of catering to and enhancing that ignorance in our entire society.

    4) Books were my first freedom. Growing up in a white trash environment, I discovered the pleasure and power to be gotten from reading, and I never looked back. If anything in my life could be classified as “reverence,” it’s my feeling for books. The Bible has an excuse — the people who created it didn’t know any better. But today … to hold in my hand a book recently and deliberately created to misinform, to destroy independence of mind in its readers, would be like … like witnessing a mad scientist genetically engineering Golden Retriever puppies to give off nerve gas.

    5) I have so much crap. If I got this book, my respect for books would force me to — rather than just throw it in the garbage or burn it — find someplace to put it. And then every time I moved, to pack the damned thing and take it along, hating it at every trip.

    6) It’s like nuclear waste. You know you don’t want it around, but you can only keep OTHERS safe from it if you keep it in your possession, under carefully controlled conditions. So you’d have to not just have it around, but to guard it.

    7) Fear that I might die in a car wreck or something, and someone would come across it among my possessions and say “Oh, look at this. All this time he pretended to be an unbeliever, but Jesus worked a miracle on his soul and made him one of us. Let’s call the news media and tell everybody the good news! Before he died, Hank accepted Jesus Christ as his personal savior. He rejected that evil atheism and evil-lootion and became a Born Again Christian.”

    8) Fear that I might live and be fine, but one day a friend would be visiting and find it on my bookshelf and say “Oh, I’ve always wanted to see that book. I heard about it, and I want to know what the controversy is all about. Do you mind if I borrow it?” And then two months later, he’d bring it back and say “This book changed my life. I was so confused before, but now it’s all really clear. Evolution CAN’T work.”

    9) If I cracked it open and read any part of it, it would make me want to DO something about it. To write a letter, or an essay, or start a campaign against it. And I’m too busy right now with all the other projects I need to do. So I’d feel that I wasn’t doing my part in the fight for reason, and freedom, and good.

    10) I haven’t even read this book, haven’t even seen it, and it’s sucking some of the life out of me already, causing me to spend the time to write this AND to feel bad about the whole mess because, while writing it, I had to think about the big picture of why I was writing it, and realize just how bad the whole thing is: Harun Yahya is a poisonous shithead who prefers to sway his fellow men toward blind ignorance rather than toward intelligence and freedom, and he appears to be backed by a cadre of think-alikes who want the same thing. And that’s just so damned depressing.

    PZ, this is not some kind of reverse psychology thingie to sway you into sending it to me; I really, really, really don’t want this book.

    Don’t go all puckish on me.

  74. says

    I think PZ must have a bet with someone about how long and vacuous a comment string he can generate in a single day. (The bet can’t be with anyone over at an ID site, because they always win when it comes to vacuity.)

    That said, I would treasure a copy of an expensive creationist tome because I collect junk like that. Free is the right price, too, since I always try to minimize the compensation the creationists get for their work of “art”.

  75. dWhisper says

    I’m always looking for some good targets to take out to the range with me. I promise to shoot it as full of physical holes as it is full of intellectual and informational ones.

  76. AlanWCan says

    I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed – we hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal.
    This will be the day, this will be the day when all of God’s children will be able to sing with new meaning “My country ’tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the Pilgrim’s pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring!
    And when this happens, when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every tenement and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, “Free Atlas, free atlas. Thank FSM Almighty, for a free atlas of cretinism.*
    …well, that and the fishing lures.

    *and yes I do apologise for mangling the MLK quote.

  77. Pete says

    I always wanted to make a hidden compartment inside a book – and every time I try to do it, I just can’t bring myself to ruin a perfectly good book, no matter how little interested I am in it. Well, I think this would present me with the perfect opportunity. It’s also of the right size and heft, or so I am told.
    It’s either this or I do it to my copy of A New Kind of Science

  78. Todd says

    CREATION SPAM
    With sincere apologies to Dr. Seuss

    I am Yahya man
    I am Yahya man
    Yahya man I am

    That Yahya man-I-am!
    Than Yahya man-I-am!
    I do not like
    that Yahya man-I-am!

    Do you read
    creation spam?

    I do not read it,
    Yahya man-I-am.
    I do not read
    creation spam.

    Would you read it
    here or there?

    I will not read it
    here or there.
    I will not read it
    anywhere.
    I do not read
    creation spam.
    I do not read it,
    Yahya man-I-am.

    Would you read it
    in a house?
    Would you read it
    with a created mouse?

    I will not read it
    in a house.
    I will not read it
    with a mouse.
    I will not read it
    here or there.
    I will not read it anywhere.
    I do not read creation spam.
    I do not read it, Yahya man-I-am.

    Would you read it
    in a box?
    Would you read it
    with a created fox?

    Not in a box.
    Not with a fox.
    Not in a house.
    Not with a mouse.
    I will not read it here or there.
    I will not read it anywhere.
    I will not read creation spam.
    I do not like it, Yahya man-I-am.

    Would you? Could you?
    In a car?
    Read it! Read it!
    Here you are.

    I would not,
    could not,
    in a car.

    You may like it.
    You will see.
    You may like it
    in a tree!

    I would not, could not
    In a tree.
    Not in a car!
    You let me be.

    I will not read it in a box.
    I will not read it with a fox.
    I will not read it in a house.
    I will not read it with a mouse.
    I will not read it here or there.
    I will not read it anywhere.
    I do not like creation spam.
    I do not like it, Yahya man-I-am.

    A train! A train!
    A train! A train!
    Could you, would you,
    on a train?

    Not on a train!
    Not in a tree!
    Not in a car!
    Yahya man! Let me be!

    I would not, could not, in a box.
    I could not, would not, with a fox.
    I will not read it with a mouse.
    I will not read it in a house.
    I will not read it here or there.
    I will not read it anywhere.
    I do not read creation spam.
    I do not like it, Yahya man-I-am.

    Say!
    In the dark?
    Here in the dark!
    Would you, could you,
    in the dark?

    I would not, could not,
    in the dark.

    Would you, could you,
    in the rain?

    I would not, could not,
    in the rain.
    Not in the dark. Not on a train.
    Not in a car. Not in a tree.
    I do not like it, Yahya man, you see.
    Not in a house. Not in a box.
    Not with a mouse. Not with a fox.
    I will not read it here or there.
    I do not like it anywhere!

    You do not like
    creation spam?

    I do not like it,
    Yahya man-I-am.

    Could you, would you,
    with a goat?

    I would not, could not,
    with a goat!

    Would you, could you,
    on a boat?

    I could not, would not, on a boat.
    I will not, will not, with a goat.
    I will not read it in the rain.
    I will not read it on a train.
    Not in the dark! Not in a tree!
    Not in a car! You let me be!
    I will not read it in a box.
    I will not read it with a fox.
    I will not read it in a house.
    I will not read it with a mouse.
    I will not read it here or there.
    I will not read it ANYWHERE!

    I do not like creation spam!
    I do not like it,
    Yahya man-I-am.

    You do not like it.
    So you say.
    Try it! Try it!
    And you may.
    Try it and you may, I say.

    Yahya man!
    If you will let me be,
    I will read it.
    You will see.

    Say!
    I like this silly creation spam!
    I do! I like it, Yahya man-I-am!
    And I will read it in a boat.
    And I will read it with a goat…

    And I will read it in the rain.
    And in the dark. And on a train.
    And in a car. And in a tree.
    It’s just so bad, it’s good, you see!

    So I will read it in a box.
    And I will read it with an evolved fox.
    And I will read it in Darwin’s house.
    And I will read it with an evolved mouse.
    And I will read it here and there.
    Say! I will read it ANYWHERE!

    I still dislike
    creation spam!
    But thanks for the laugh
    Yahya man-I-am!

  79. Halcyon says

    Here’s the thing. I think that, out of everyone that reads Pharyngula every day, I am almost certainly the most qualified to receive this book. Allow me to explain.

    You see, you, PZ, and many others here, are well versed in *reading* stupid things and mocking them mercilessly. I, on the other hand, have a special tool that I’ve been studying for mocking things, one that I think sets me apart for this task, and that is my deep and abiding love of Mystery Science Theatre 3000. You, and many of the readers here, have a background in biology that is perfect for making fun of mischaracterizations of DNA and RNA and junk DNA and all those other science-y things. I, on the other hand, have a background in watching robots and a guy in space make fun of terrible godzilla costumes with visible zippers. I think, after seeing that fossil lure, we can all agree that this burden should fall squarely on my learned shoulders, as having the experience necessary to do what needs to be done here.

    That being said, I am aware that you, PZ, are not the judge here, but on the off chance that you have some say in the process or that the actual judge also celebrated cephalopodmas, I also promise to pay extra careful attention to the parts that talk about our squishy brethren and their inevitable takeover (or to properly excoriate the book if it ignores this important facet of the discussion).

  80. General Woundwort says

    PZ:

    Just be aware that if you comment in this thread and say anything, you may win a copy of the book.

    Anthony K:

    “anything”
    There. Now at last I can learn the truth you godless experts don’t want me to know. And see some pretty pictures of fossils and fishing flies. Can’t wait.

    Sorry Anthony, but you typed “anything”, you did not say “anything”. I, however, just said anything (I even spoke in italics) just as I was posting this, so I and I alone may win. Nyah Nyah Nyah.

    General Woundwort, the baddest bunny in the whole damn town (meaner than a junkyard dog, as well).

  81. Halcyon says

    Crap! I also just realized that as an additional bonus, while I haven’t read it yet and don’t know how big and slow a target it is for making fun of religion as well, I also promise that, if chosen, I will try my darndest to point out all the holes in this thing so scathingly that I hope to achieve Salman Rushdie-like levels of hatred. And really, isn’t that what the internet needs more of? (Consider this an addendum to my post at #102.)

  82. Tommy says

    I would use the book to show my 3rd and 5th grade children

    1)How NOT to do science.
    2)How religion can be used to corrupt science.
    3)About critical thinking.

  83. Mark says

    I must second Matt M, #69. Valhalla, the Rice University grad student pub, *NEEDS* this book. Trust me, they would do a most excellent job of ridiculing it, possibly by making a snarky art car out of it somehow. I can envision many fish hooks with fake flies, being eaten by “Billy Bass.” See: Highly recommended.

    I would gladly take possession of this tome for now and transport it to Valhalla when I visit Houston in March. I’ll even pay shipping.

  84. Kimberly Streeter says

    I would love to have this book. As an undergraduate student in biology I would take an X-acto knife to it and see if it is possible to rearrange its parts into a real science book (and of course a real book on fishing lures). That would indeed take intelligent design. I am curious as to whether I could leave more than 10% of whole words intact, or if everything would have to be cut down into individual letters. It could be a department-wide challenge for the semester. If successful it would be donated to our library to enjoy for generations to come.

  85. Ryan F Stello says

    It might be a little late to say so, but after reading some of the later entries, I’d have to state:

    It should go to someone who’ll find a constructive purpose in educating others in the cretins’ wily ways.

  86. says

    I read nearly 60 books last year, starting with “The Blind Watchmaker” and ending with “Parenting Beyond Belief” and including books by Darwin, Hitchens, Dawkins, and even Templeton Prize winners Freeman Dyson and Paul Davies. I am probably one of the few who would actually read it. Also, I have an impressive amateur fossil collection as well as a not so impressive collection of fishing lures of recent vintage. Plus, I am holding various cephalopods hostage.

    Pretty please, with flying spaghetti monsters on top!!!

  87. says

    I was looking through a copy of that book this summer in the lab I worked in, and I remember he used a landspeeder from Star Wars as an example of a modern-day airplane to compare to some hieroglyphs. I think he was trying to prove that human beings have not evolved at all in the past few thousand years, or something like that.

  88. Invigilator says

    I need this book to promote religious tolerance in our society. This outstanding evidence that Muslims as well as Christians can swallow large tomes of counterfactual nonsense when so prompted by their faith will a) diffuse the intolerance of Christianists by the secular, who will better realize that it is not only Christians who can be very silly, but Muslims too, and b) lessen the mutual antipathy between of Christianists and Islamists, once both groups recognize that they share a common approach to science. I haven’t figured out yet how I can use it to lessen the intolerance of “people of faith” for rational human beings, but I promise to give it my best shot.

  89. Flex says

    Is this where they are handing out free copies of Atlas Shrugged? (Or Telemachus Sneezed?)

    Oh. The Atlas of Creation. Well, I suppose it has the same level of relevance to reality as Ayn Rand.

    Let’s see, I could put this on my shelf with:

    The Atlas of Imaginary Places
    The Altas of Pern
    The Everquest Atlas
    The Journey’s of Frodo – An Atlas of J.R.R. Tolkien’s the Lord of the Rings

    I wouldn’t let it near my biology shelf. Or, for that matter, my philosophy shelf.

    Cheers!

  90. Rob says

    I’m a beginner fly-fisherman and desperately need to learn about the different types of lures available and I’ve heard that this book has detailed pictures of a wide variety of lures. I’ve heard that the lures can even fool Creationists into thinking they are prey, if this is the case I am sure they could fool a fish (no offense, fish). Please help my hobby get off the ground!

  91. says

    An excerpt from my own blog post (linked in my name) yesterday:

    Vowing to come up with a (hopefully) acheivable new years resolution this year, I was casting about for suitable goal to set whilst folding up some laundry. It finally came to me that this year’s goal will simply be to finally learn how to fold a fitted sheet so that the final results no longer resemble the outcome were I to simply ball the damn thing up, squish it between a pair of hefty encyclopaedias, and toss it into the linen closet.

    This resolution was a neccessary consequence to the fact that I finally moved the old set of encyclopedias out of the laundry room….

    It occurs to me that with this book and just one other useless tome I could neatly sidestep the requirement to actually learn how to fold a fitted sheet for this year – thus ensuring that I maintain my 40+ year unbroken record of spectacularly failing to fullfill new year’s resolutions.

    As a bonus, you can also rejoice in the knowledge that the volume will also enjoy near-daily contact with a variety of soiled undergarments as, unlike the retired 1911 Britannicas I would feel no compulsion to keep this book safely distant from the “dirty” pile.

  92. says

    In all earnestness, PLEASE consider sending this to yours truly. Anyone who knows me knows that I’m committed to defending evolution education, to the extent that I’ve attended churches for the express purpose of opposing creationist presentations. I would find it incredibly helpful to have this particular tome at my disposal for polemical reasons in dealing with Christians, as many of the more virulent young-earthers are equally scornful and dismissive of Islam. An elaborate Islamic creationist book forces them to do a little tap dance away from their alleged science, and right into the thing that actually drives them, their theological commitments.

    Anyway, if you want to see the weird anti-science artifact in your possession be used to promote real science instead of religious dogma, you could do worse than sending it my way, because I would use it, and to good effect.

    Sincerely….Scott Hatfield

  93. says

    If I had a copy of such a book I was donate it to the Minnesota Atheists library and make it available for research along with the thousands of other works in the collection (as soon as we have a building to house it in…anyone else want to donate to that?)

  94. wildlifer says

    ALLAH WILLS IT!!

    And if you refuse Allah’s will, may the fleas of a thousand camels infest your armpits, or may the crabs of 70 virgins infest your groin, which ever comes first.

  95. Roger Scott says

    I collect creationist shite. This gets reused in PowerPoints explaining evolution and ridiculing creation. As a retired high school teacher, I send it on to former colleagues.

  96. stumpy says

    I love books as objects of art. I also love fantasy and myth. If this is the book I’m thinking of, it’s beautifully realized in its workmanship and quality. In addition, it’s an earnestly produced example of inspired mythologizing, produced by a true believer (as opposed to, say, a scholarly text on Greek or other mythological system that’s not widely supported these days). Leaving aside the anger that the Intelligent Design crowd, and other religious zealots, engenders in people on our side of the political spectrum — myself included — I would regard this book as an art object, and a cultural/sociological curiosity, and would value it as such.

  97. Will Von Wizzlepig says

    Certainly, this book belongs on my shelf between “The Book of the Subgenius” and “Raising Earthworms For Profit”- and safely here in the world capital of kook, Portland, OR.

    I promise, the book will either be preserved Ad Aeternum in my collection, or will be donated to The 24 Hour Church of Elvis, or, should they turn it down, I will ship it to the Church of Satan in California… or possibly leave it in a bathroom stall at my local Dennys.

  98. noncarborundum says

    paq QIpvam tungeHbe’chugh, verengan Ha’DibaHmey, porghDu’rajvo’ taghDu’ vInge’qu’nIS targhwIjvaD bIH vIjabmeH!

    Send me the stupid book, you Ferengi dogs, or I’ll have to rip your lungs from your bodies and feed them to my targ!

  99. says

    I don’t know where wildlifer’s 70 virgins got their crabs, but I suspect there’s a toilet seat somewhere what needs a good spritzing with Lysol.

  100. Prazzie says

    I collect atlases, world maps and star charts.

    I live in South Africa, though, and feel that the clause about “negotiating the cost of sending it” smacks of a Nigerian email scam. Shipping that tome here would cost a fortune and really take the edge off the whole “winning” thing.

    My collection will have to remain incomplete. Bjørn Østman gets my vote for winner.

  101. Flonkbob says

    I need the book to balance my psyche. You see, I am a recovering Fundamentalist. I was even (to my lasting shame) a deacon in a fundamentalist, literal bible, young earth church…and the deacon of the Board of Evangelism to boot! I’m terribly sorry about all that, but here’s the problem. All of my fundie insanity is from the Xian side of the coin of ignorance.

    I need to get the same information as presented by the other side so that I don’t go through life being fundamentally imbalanced.

  102. says

    PLEEAAAASSSEEE pick me! As an evolutionary biologist this is a critical reference text for me to own, I can’t afford it, and the library won’t buy a copy???!!! Can you believe it – academic censorship!

    Thank you in advance :-)

    S

  103. says

    Do I have any claim of priority given that I already stuck my neck out and made my request in a post earlier today? Sheesh — you make a simple request, and suddenly all the kooks come out of the woodwork.

    I already mentioned my reason — I would like to place this book on my shelf of literary follies, together with _New Kind of Science_ and _Codex Seraphinianus_. As an auxiliary reason, I’ll point out that I have a talent for spinning textbooks as one might spin a basketball. Given what I’ve heard about this book’s size and heft, it would make for a good workout for future book spinning.

  104. alex says

    i would like a Creation Atlas so that i could observe the topography and major cities of Creation.

    although i wouldn’t want it if the shipping fee to Scotland is as astronomical as i guess it would be.

  105. Isaah Vincent says

    Hey PZ,

    i would love a copy. I have alot of loose paper around my lab bench and i need a good paper weight.

  106. DiscoveredJoys says

    I’m in the middle (well, early middle) of writing a book about gaining wisdom and happiness with an evolutionary viewpoint. The provisional title is “Discovered Joys” – now you know where my blog name is coming from.

    I’ve shelves full of books and intertube articles as background research, but no far out lunacy. Based on my research to date I should argue that not sending me the book would be as acceptable as sending me the book, but on the other hand if it was sent to me it would be out of circulation for 6 weeks (surface mail) and it would end up in Europe, making America that little bit better…

  107. says

    Incidentally, PZ, I’d say you have an opportunity here to create an _Atlas of Creation_ adoption agency. It appears there are both people who want copies, and people who want to get their copies as far away from themselves as possible. Can we match up unwanted copies with good (or at least contemptuous) homes?

  108. noncarborundum says

    I’d rather have my nostrils split open with a boat-hook!

    I’d rather have my blood sucked out by leeches (leeches)
    Shove an icepick under a toenail or two
    I’d rather clean all the bathrooms in Grand Central Station with my tongue
    Than spend one more minute with Harun Yahya

    (with apologies to Weird Al Yankovic)

  109. says

    I’m a huge fan of both Science Fiction and Comedy… and since I can’t really decide whether or not to start reading a new SF book or watch some comedy – I think Yahya would satisfy both needs.

    Also should I receive it I promise to punish disobedient high school student by reading to them from yahya (fortunately we don’t have a constitutional ban on “cruel and unnecessary punishment in Denmark).

  110. Snomann says

    I cannot believe there have been 144 comments so far. What kind of nimrod would post on this thread and take a chance on getting such a booby prize?

    Oops.

  111. Matthew S. says

    While I realize my odds are low, I feel I would give this book a wonderful home. I’ve a small but respectable collection of fundie paraphernalia, entirely comprised of items given by missionaries on street corners (Left Behind I & II movies), or given to me as gifts to save my soul as an impressionable child (like On the Edge, a work of fiction in which we learn that prayer opens stratospheric vortices that allow the fierce angels of gawd to protect us from mind-controlling demons). I will even share with you a website featuring the homoerotic tale of Jesus reappearing to a traveling WWJD hair scrunchy salesman (not authored by me, but it helped me pass many a cold night).

  112. says

    Ooh, I would love to have this. I hear the illustrations are beautiful (even if some are of fishing lures).

    I would give it a proud place on the shelf right next to the huge, beautifully-produced book about astrology we received as a gift from the friend who edited it (whacked-out new age nutter, that one, but a sweet dear).

  113. Glen Ledingham says

    This book will give me the common ground I need for uniting Al Quaeda Moslems, Hezbollah Moslems, Southern Baptist Christians, and the remaining followers of Teilhard Chardin into a force that can rule the world. The concepts contained in it will allow us to beat the Bushes to rid the world of infidels.

    The most useful concept in the book is shown by the illustrations of hooked insect “fossils”. These show the antiquity of hooking, justifying its epithet as the world’s oldest profession. They also justify the ancient practice of bondage. Moreover, especially for Baptists, they show that God DID make honky-tonk angels.

    With this book in hand, I can begin a new, united jihad of all fundamental religions and cleanse the world of thought forever. I must and shall have it.

  114. Brian English says

    Give me the book PZ. My last neuron is lonely (the rest were destroyed through drinking to drown out creationist babble in my brain and reading some of you “I get mail” posts) and this should knock the poor bugger of his mortal coil. Put him out of his misery for Zeus’ sake.

  115. says

    I need this book to attain grace and a higher plane of functioning.

    I plan to balance it on top of my head, and stand on it to reach the top shelf.

    Oh, I do plan to open and read it too. I always wondered how that Atlas guy held up the world.

  116. Anthony says

    Intensive study of this atlas is bound to shake the entire foundation of my scientific “beliefs”. Who needs that Darwin hogwash anyways? Survival of the fittest? psh…I’m not fit, I’m a pale, scrawny, short, and ugly man who runs out of breath sleeping. I prefer the comfort of The Almighty who says I am just the way he wanted me to be. It’s not my fault that I smoked for years, drank too much booze, and contracted numerous sexually transmitted diseases; it’s fate. Should fate put this book into my hands, surely I can come up with some reason for my existence and utterly depressing life…

  117. Christ Davis says

    As the only atheist that I know named Christ I believe, somehow, that this entitles to me to this book. If I pass muster with the present owner, I promise to cherish it.

  118. xebecs says

    No thanks. I’m really not big on illustrated fiction, unless it contains spaceships and cool aliens — or spaceships and Malcolm Reynolds, at the very least.

  119. says

    I’ve got a secret plan to turn the world into a utopia, but to complete it I need a free copy of this book, along with Dembski’s sweater and trimmings from Ken Ham’s beard.

  120. says

    Are we allowed more than one entry? If so, how about this:

    I am a borderline moron with a desperate thirst for “knowledge” that bolsters the beliefs foisted on me since toddlerhood. Science-like presentations of phenomena ranging from UFOs and ESP to miracles and life-after-death take me to that happy cuddly place where EVERY question has an ultimate answer: God did it.

    Plus, my cephalopod hostages are rapidly approaching a gruesome end involving a tangy cocktail sauce.

  121. Bayesian Bouffant, FCD says

    I need this book to accompany my volumes of The Lie: Evolution by Ken Ham, The Collapse of Evolution by Scott Huse, Icons of Evolution by Jonathan Wells, Darwin on Trial by Phillip E. Johnson, Evolution: A Theory in Crisis by Michael Denton, and Of Pandas and People by Davis and Kenyon. Unfortunately I was not sent my own copy because I am not a famous scientist and I post under a pseudonym. But it’s a cool pseudonym. My desire to have this book is deep and unholy. I have another shelf where I keep the more factual books by Dawkins, Zimmer, Douglas Adams, et al.

    By sending this book to me, you will be keeping it out of the hands of gullible children somewhere else. Won’t somebody think of the children?

  122. Darby M'Graw says

    Unlike all these other posters, I will offer to trade a rare book for Atlas of Creation. I will send you in return a copy of the 1908 classic The evolution of the atmosphere as a proof of design and purpose in the creation, and of the existence of a personal God;: A simple and rigorously scientific reply to modern materialistic atheism by John Phin. In my exclusive review at amazon.com I judged this “by far the most honest book on Intelligent Design creationism I have read to date.” My copy is legible throughout, but has sustained some mold damage.

  123. says

    Sometimes I just get curious about things like how the Grand Canyon was formed. This book will help explain how this could be done in under 6000 years. This book obviously transcends Jesus. It shall be mine.

  124. Big Dave says

    I’d like it just to see what it is that he’s put together. I’m curious like that.

    Also, I’d like to cut out some of the fossil pictures in there (I assume there are some good ones).

    When not reading it, I could put a teddy bear named Mohammed to sit guard on top of it. And it could live right next to the Ancestor’s Tale by Dawkins which (in my head) seems to me to be what an Atlas of Evolution would be like.

  125. pradeep says

    I would like to have it to archive it for future generations to see how stupid humanity once was.

  126. Erasmus, FCD says

    I like purty pictures, and I collect pseudoscience literature. I can haz book now?

    I might use it as a textbook for my introductory biology course, if I can’t find a good job and have to go teach at Bob Jones or Liberty or Dembski’s Institute of Bible, Barbeque and Servility for women.

    And perhaps because I study caddisflies, and the fishing lure on page 244 imitates a Limnephilid (probably Platycentropus), it seems to be serendipitous and synchronous and also God’s will and probably Allah’s too.

    And Jesus came to me in a dream and told me good things were on the way. And I thought he just meant that I would find the joint that fell in the floorboard of the car, but now I can tell that he meant I was going to get a big fat heavy book.

  127. Brian says

    I majored in Math and Computer Science and minored in English with a creative writting emphasis. I’ve dabled in some writting since graduation, but I haven’t done much. I’ve thought of writting some stories about children growing up who show some mathematical and scientific potential, but get suckered into ID or another type of religous doctrine, have their education go south and their career options dwindle. Later in life, they catch up to their friends, and see what they could’ve been.

    Also, I’m thinking of writing some historical fiction when people start coming into the Enlightenment and the Scientific Revolution, and come into conflict with those who see The Folk in every shadow. While they strugle, those who try to understand the world on its own merits do better.

    This book would serve as a good reference for me for the modern parables, and not a bad one as to the type of thinking that have been popular for centuries.

    Brian

  128. Reginald Selkirk says

    J-Dog in #55: However, there is a poor starving Graduate Student named Abbie in OK…

    Well now that sounds all altruistic-like, don’t it? But I know the deep dark truth: J-Dog is ERV. Think about it, have they ever been seen in the same room together?

  129. windy says

    Do you deliver overseas?

    This reminds me: what happened in the 500,000th comment contest? Who won?

  130. Steve says

    I actually want the book. As a book. The connection between truth and beauty has been milked dry, but the connection between beauty and stupidity has been woefully neglected for the entire history of everything. As Frank Zappa observed, stupidity is the most abundant substance in the universe, so imagine the beauty that would become possible if the connection between stupidity and beauty were fully understood. Also, I’m the guy who blogged the fishing lure connection.

  131. Kevin L. says

    Come to think of it, this would also make a good stepping stone for my grandmother, who uses a walker.

    Also, I never win anything, though to be fair, this is more like losing a contest than winning one.

  132. Ichthyic says

    ooh, if I were PZ, i would go with #163.

    that would indeed be a nice book to have in one’s collection.

  133. says

    Here’s my comment, because you can’t win if you don’t play.

    Really, other people are probably more deserving of the book, but if it comes down to a random drawing, at least I have a chance now. I’m just really curious (in that train wreck sort of way) as to what’s in the book.

  134. delurking_librarian says

    I don’t want the book — I have enough storage problems in my apartment as it is! But I wanted to point out that the library where I work (University of California, Berkeley) has a copy, if any Bay Area-based folks want to come and look at it: the call number is BL227 .Y34 2007 (which places it in religion, not in biology, I might add). If you’re not in the Bay Area but would like to lay eyes on this glorious tome, try searching the WorldCat database (worldcat.org) to see if a library near you has a copy. Since the volumes were sent to biology professors all over the country, I think quite a few of the professors have gotten rid of them by donating their copies to their institution’s library.

  135. says

    I actually want the book. As a book. The connection between truth and beauty has been milked dry, but the connection between beauty and stupidity has been woefully neglected for the entire history of everything. As Frank Zappa observed, stupidity is the most abundant substance in the universe, so imagine the beauty that would become possible if the connection between stupidity and beauty were fully understood. Also, I’m the guy who blogged the fishing lure connection.

    Steve’s got a point here. Much as I’d love to have it, he should be rewarded for his exposé.

  136. says

    I understand the book, she is thick. And I am, how you say, not so tall. And the book, she is making me up higher in the seat of driver. The book, she is saving the lives of womens and the childrens who are to running in front of the street. A real saver of life, I think. Ver’ nice.

  137. Barrett Fricke says

    I want this book! If donated to me, I promise to make a high-resolution scan of every page and upload it to a bittorrent tracker as a .PDF so EVERYONE can enjoy this masterfully ignorant work!

  138. HP says

    So, a scientist was working late in the lab one December when he suddenly realized he’d forgotten to buy his wife a Christmas present. He hurriedly picked up his copy of Harun Yahya’s Atlas of Creation, which had arrived in the mail that day, and headed for his car. Absently dropping the book in the back seat, he raced for the mall before closing time.

    He got to the mall, and fought the crowds to get inside. As he was looking for a suitable last-minute gift for his wife, there was an announcement over the PA: “Due to a recent rash of car break-ins, we strongly urge you not to leave any items in your car where a thief might see them.”

    “Oh, no!,” cried the scientist. “My copy of Harun Yahya’s Atlas of Creation!” And he raced back out to the parking lot.

    As he approached his vehicle, he noticed that, sure enough, his driver’s side passenger window was busted out, and there was broken glass everywhere. Filled with trepidation, he crunched through the pebbles of safety glass and peered into the vehicle. His worst fears were confirmed:

    There, in the back seat, were two copies of Harun Yahya’s Atlas of Creation.

  139. HadasS says

    “I want this book! If donated to me, I promise to make a high-resolution scan of every page and upload it to a bittorrent tracker as a .PDF so EVERYONE can enjoy this masterfully ignorant work!”

    Oh, no you don’t. DO NOT pass those memes forward.

    Why should I win the book…well, my friends and I already burned an Ann Coulter book (given to a friend by his dad). I think we can do a good job on that one,too.

  140. says

    There are several reasons to send the book to me. I live all the way over in The Netherlands and I will promise never to bring it back to the USA.

    Another promise I can make is that I will use it for my own site. Pretty pictures are always useful and it can’t be that hard to debunk.

    Another very good reason is that I work for an American pharmaceutical biotech company that has a plant over here. Since America itself is not teaching its youth the skills we need you will be dependent on us Dutchies for your quality drugs! (Eccl. 1:9 :-p )

  141. Michael Suttkus, Ii says

    Well, I have a small library of creationist books, all of which have been given to me free because I refuse to pay for them (that is, I refuse to give creationists any of my money, I have picked one up from a used book store). Naturally, this keeps my library from expanding very quickly, limiting my ability to mercilessly shred creationist nonsense.

    In my time online debating creationists, I have had five Muslim creationists assure me that if I could only read this book, I would be converted instantly. I, personally, don’t consider this extraordinarily likely, but I did promise to read it should I ever get a copy of it, which, of course, I refuse to pay for.

    If you send me the book, I will post a shredding of it online to Evowiki, one section at a time. Here’s an example of my work:

    http://wiki.cotch.net/index.php/Dinosaurs_and_the_Bible%2C_Ham_K

    See, unlike others, I’m willing to do work!

  142. longstreet63 says

    Give me the book or the kid gets it!

    Steve “Put it down and back away slowly” James

  143. unwords says

    I would pay some money for that book, if it said that the Flying Spaghetti Monster created the world. Of course, then there’d have to be pictures of pirates in it, too.

  144. DrFrank says

    If I got this book, I promise that I would dispose of it in the only safe manner – covered in several feet of glass, then concrete, and then finally sunk into the ocean.

    After several hundred thousand years, the dangerous amount of stupid in the book may have attenuated to safe levels, leaving only the danger of people laughing themselves to death if they read it.

  145. dogmeatib says

    My reason for wanting the book:

    I don’t watch NASCAR and need to have that urge to see a car wreck sated in some way?

  146. Alethias says

    If I had a copy of this book I’d enjoy the quality of the typography and bookbinding and take pleasure in the irony of such a lack of quality in the actual information it attempts to impart.

    I would also spend time trying to document the original source of all the pictures. I’d find it interesting to track down the correct attribution.

    I wonder if the author of this mighty tome is aware of potential legal issues with instances of provable plagarism?

  147. susanbrown says

    I live in Texas and either my husband or I will be testifying as concerned citizens (if we are able to, otherwise we’ll be writing letters like mad) for hearings on the proposal for the ICR “Masters in Science Education” program and also on the upcoming SBOE hearings on science textbooks. (I’m not sure if public comment is allowed at the January 24 ICR hearings.)

    This tome would be a valuable prop at the hearings. I can see Scott holding it over his head shouting, “Just look at this malarky! If you allow creationism/id in our schools, you are an islamofascist partisan, and the terrorists have won!” (or somesuch rant — Scott is a ranter extraordinaire, and would add a great deal of color to these hearings.)

  148. susanbrown says

    p.s. — If we win the book, we’d be willing to share. After we use it to bludgeon the TX SBOE, we would be happy to send it to someone in Florida or Kansas, wherever the need is greatest.

    (thank FSM for the “preview” option — I almost posted a mess.)

  149. says

    Three reasons I deserve to win this book:
    1. I’m writing a book, and one chapter discusses the tendency of “true believers” of any sort to stray from the path of logic (if they start there at all) and make an endorphin-fueled wild-ass leap of faith in their arguments. I’m less likely to be burned as a witch starting off with this book, than if I went straight to the big leagues right off (Aquinas, Kristol, Pascal, Mohammed, Pope Tsatthoggua, etc.).

    2. It’s the largest bound collection of stolen images I know of; I must have it!! o.o

    3. I’m strange and unpredictable enough that if I left it out for my fellow a
    Atheist friends to stumble across, it would give them a bad moment, and me much merriment. :)

    Thank you, I’m here all week! I’m serious, too!

  150. David Nielsen says

    It’s really cold in Denmark and that bible the Jehovas Witnesses gave me didn’t last me all winter. I will be using the Atlas of Creation to keep my stove warm so that my family might not freeze.

  151. Skeptyk says

    I want this book so I can gift it to James Randi for the JREF library.

    If he already has a copy, I will use it to prop the wobbly table in the laundry room.

  152. says

    I, like Michael Suttkus, am a fairly regular contributor to EvoWiki. If (FSM willing) I recieve this prize of inestimable value, I will add new pages to EvoWiki that eviscerate whichever of Yahya’s arguments aren’t already vivisected therein.

  153. David says

    I collect pseudo-science and Creationist garbage so that I always have something handy to refute for friends and family. I have to prove that stuff wrong, or I fear those around me may fall to those dark forces.

    I also appreciate a good laugh.

  154. octopod says

    I want it.

    Wait, not yet. I haven’t built my pyrolyzer. If this comments wins, please give it to ERV instead.

  155. rrt says

    I’d like a copy, but mainly for my own amusement. Others here clearly have more constructive uses for it.

  156. Tom says

    Hank #94 – you are articulate, eloqent and awesome as usual. Please resume writing your blog. People like me need you.

    Tommy #107 – spot on man!

  157. Matt H says

    I have a bookshelf.

    It rests on a floor that’s not quite flat.

    It would, however, be helped to sit straight by sitting atop a copy of a book that’s not worth opening anyhow. I don’t need pictures of fishing lures – I can find real lures by going down to the creek and finding fishermen.

  158. noncarborundum says

    After several hundred thousand years, the dangerous amount of stupid in the book may have attenuated to safe levels, leaving only the danger of people laughing themselves to death if they read it.

    Too much of a risk. Why not put it on a rocket and shoot it straight into the sun?

  159. OMB says

    Hey, PZ over here.
    I hears you and your “client” gots a problem.
    Hey, not to worry, everybody gots problems.
    Waste Disposal problems. I knows all about it.

    Hey, your scheme is pretty good. For a college boy. But this is serious shit.
    You need a pro, like me.
    I see more hazardous waste in a year than you college boys would see in a half life.
    Know what I mean?

    Hazardous waste – I deal with it, you know?
    Biological, radioactive, don’t bother me. I’m good.
    I ain’t afraid of no harrumph yahoo turkey.
    Whats his name? Whatever.
    You got lab waste? Bio, Chem, Gene, Nuke, Zebrafish, hey, no problem.
    You gots it – I lose it. It’s that simple.

    It sounds simple, I know.
    That’s because I’m a pro and you’re not.
    Hey, I’m just sayin.

    So here’s the plan.
    You and your uh, “client” sends me the goods, OK?
    US Postal Service.
    It’s gone. Lost forever and all eternity, ya know?

    Oh yeah, you and your “client”, you gots to sign the “book”.
    Provenance is very important in the waste industry. Govmint regulations and all.

    Now should the USPS fuck up and actually deliver the goods, I gots a plan B.
    Now that’s the difference between me and you, PZ, I thinks these things thru.
    Hey, that’s why I’m a pro.
    I mail it again. It gone for sure. It’s proved with statistics and probability shit.

    PZ, you really should study that probability and statistics shit.
    Look I know you’re a biologist, college boy,
    But a little math won’t hurt you!
    It help you think like me.
    It’s about dice & cards and mean deviant shit. I know all about it. Ask me. Go ahead.

    If that don’t work, ya gotta have a plan.
    I do.
    I mail it again.
    Now get this, I’ll send it to scientists named Steve, they sign it
    and mail it back. I mean how many Steves can there be! Right?

    Damn I’m good. Yeah, I’ll send it first to that Dawkins guy, Steve Dawkins.
    He’s a prefessor at Oxford. Does research on religion science.
    If uncle sam don’t lose it, the limeys will. Hey.

    If all else fails, there’s Ebay. I can lose anything on Ebay. Damn Fools.
    “For sale, one yahoo turkey book. Signed by Steve. $1,000”
    The damn fools will pay for it! Problem solved.
    I’ll even split the loot with ya. It’s only fair.

    So, PZ, you and me, we should do business.
    You look like a good kid, I might know your momma.
    I don want you to get hurt, know what I mean?

    You and your uh, “client” think it over.
    We’ll talk.

    Hey.

  160. chriss says

    If I win this book I will donate it to Kent Hovind.

    Actually I won’t.

    God would want me to keep it if he wanted me to win it.

  161. Kimpatsu says

    Modern world atlas, Atlas Shrugged, Atlas of World Creation…
    Atlas-t my collection will be complete!

  162. Brian O'Connell says

    Well, the weather has been nasty this year in Oregon…trees down…power out…the wood stove is hungry.

    Peace & Love, boc

  163. Micro Zealous says

    You know those books that open up to reveal a hollowed out core as a seekrit hidey place? Always wanted one. With some nails, glue, a router, and a nice thick tome, I can have one. (I don’t want to waste a good Readers Digest condensed book on this project.) This is called Value Add. (The ‘hollowed out core’ part is a kinda cool metaphor, no?) I win, send please!

  164. says

    I would like to win this copy of “Atlas of Creation” so I can use the photographs of the fossils as references for my prehistoric art. I really want to see the photos of the fossil seahorses in it, also.

  165. Dahan says

    Like most artists, I’m a bit of a pack rat. I often get inspiration by having materials around me. While I’m not exactly sure how I would use this piece of shit in a sculpture, I assure you it would be disturbing. Pics of finished work would be sent to PZ.

  166. k says

    The winner should hollow out the middle so it’s a secret compartment and then keep a fossil in it.

  167. Casey Schmidt says

    I would just love to have a copy to add to my current creationist library. I’ve been collecting all the little chic tracts and other pamphlets that the crazy preachers give out on college campuses…and I’ve been in school a long time, so I have a decent collection. This would make a nice, glossy, big budget addition to my collection of pamphlets

  168. Kevin L. says

    I drive a small car. When winter weather strikes, I throw a bag of salt in the trunk to help weigh it down. But why waste a perfectly good bag of salt when I can toss the “Atlas of Creation” in there instead?

    Factor in the stupendous weight of its editor’s ignorance and I’ll never have to worry about poor traction ever again.

  169. says

    I would like to add this book to my ever growing collection of antievolutionist literature which currently stands at 347 volumes (see my web site for contents), all of which I use (and have used for over 15 years, volunteering on the Talk Origins Archive etc.) to fight against the effects of said literature and its authors on our society.

  170. Dan Phelps says

    I teach geology part-time at a community college in Kentucky (home of Ken Ham’s Creation Museum). Since I only teach part-time, I have been unable to get them to mail me a free copy. Eugenie Scott even tried to get someone with a spare copy to send me a free copy, but they never bothered to follow through and send it to me.

    Presently, I am teaching a class called “Dinosaurs and Disasters.” The class is an overview of the evolution of life and the history of the earth with an emphasis on dinosaurs.

    If I win, I promise to use the pictures from the book to illustrate my lectures and subvert the author’s ignorant intentions.

    Moreover, I have written a review of Ham’s Creation Museum (The Anti-Museum) at the NCSE website. I think this would be a proper reward for my efforts.

    This would also be a good addition to my collection of creationist and other crank literature. I would use the book as a trophy and to demonstrate the similarities between Islamic and Christian fundamentalism and fanaticism.

  171. Wes Wessells says

    I deserve the book because all of the reasons listed here are untrue. Only mine is true and therefore worthy. I believe in the one true “the-book-is-mine” reason. It’s that simple. The others are going to hell.
    Wes Wessells
    Fort Collins, CO

  172. Abner Cadaver says

    I wouldn’t mind a copy.

    I’ll draw a row of theater chairs on every page with the MST3k crew in them, making acerbic remarks and pointing out inconsistencies and scientific errors and generally treating it like a Gamera movie (though it probably deserves far, far less respect).

  173. Robert Madewell says

    Sometimes I get a bit depressed. It would be nice to have a book like this to read. It would definitely make me smile. It would make a great cofee table book too! Would definitely open up some conversations.

  174. says

    If I were to get it I would first compare it to the gallery at the EvolutionDeceit Yahoo group; hosted by none other than Harun his own self.

    Then I would do as Cat’s Servant and donate it to the soon to be built library in the building for the Minnesota Atheists.

  175. Candy says

    Fear that I might die in a car wreck or something, and someone would come across it among my possessions and say “Oh, look at this. All this time he pretended to be an unbeliever, but Jesus worked a miracle on his soul and made him one of us. Let’s call the news media and tell everybody the good news! Before he died, Hank accepted Jesus Christ as his personal savior. He rejected that evil atheism and evil-lootion and became a Born Again Christian.” – Hank Fox

    Okay, I’ve no idea who should win the book, as there are so many excellent pleas, but this is an absolutely excellent reason to not want the book. This would be even worse than dying while wearing dirty, torn underwear, like your momma always worried you would.

  176. A Majzels says

    As the dramaturg for an upcoming university (UMN) production of Brecht’s “Life of Galileo”, I would use the text as part of the actor’s packet and research, as the director wishes to use this production to interrogate the current debates on the status of science in the States.

  177. Michael says

    I will bring this textbook to my first year biology class and put it in plain sight of the professor (I sit in the front row).

  178. I'mRichBeeotch! says

    If you do not send me the book I shall buy a copy from the author, obviously encouraging him on to further prolificity.

  179. MLE says

    I do not want such a book (look no email), and would prefer it destroyed in the most contemptuous manner possible. Burning in near anonymity in some power-generating carbon-sequestering (yay! environmentally friendly) municipal incinerator would seem ideal. But not until carefully electronically scanned, so that persons like Troy #230 could use the information within to fight against such ignorance. Anyone live in a community with such an incinerator?

  180. Hank says

    Hi –

    I like owning loony religious books. The crown jewel of my collection is a Book of Mormon in German (Das Buch Mormon, no less). I stole it from the bedside stand in a room at the Holiday Inn outside Bryce Canyon in Utah. The Atlas of Creation would go inconceivably well with Das Buch Mormon on my shelf of wackiness.

    – Hank

  181. Just Al says

    I simply want to be notified of where the book ends up. There is ample evidence that it is a catastrophic event waiting to happen, and it is prudent to know where it is at all times.

    There are three distinct possibilities:

    1) From all accounts, the density of the book far exceeds its mass, and it may not take much more (the author’s signature, perhaps) to cause it to undergo gravitational collapse and form a localized black hole;

    2) Paradoxically, the book also appears to be near-total vacuum, and Nature has this bug up its ass about things like that;

    3) It displays too many properties of the theorized “anti-fact,” and contact with real facts may cause both to annihilate violently.

    Just let me know where it is so I can stay the hell away. But I’ll be glad to pay shipping to FtK.

  182. noncarborundum says

    Burning in near anonymity in some power-generating carbon-sequestering (yay! environmentally friendly) municipal incinerator would seem ideal. But not until carefully electronically scanned, so that persons like Troy #230 could use the information within to fight against such ignorance.

    You can burn away, then. The scans have already been done, and can be downloaded in convenient .pdf or .rtf form from harunyahya.com.

    Vol. I,

    Vol. II, and now, as if that weren’t quite enough already,

    Vol. III.

    As someone is reputed to have said once, “Ask, and it shall be given you”.

  183. JamesK says

    I -WANT- this book. Not for any earth-shattering reason, but just because it’s the sort of thing I love. I have my collection of Chick Tracts, poorly xeroxed fliers, handwritten political rants, every piece of literature handed to me randomly by people with an idiological bug up their ass, el-cheepo Scientology and Creationism books I found at garage sales, an entire Home School Teaching course with entire chapters about the evils of evolution, complete with Teacher’s Guide and question book solely because I love to read them.

    I also have an extensive MST3K and bad movie collection. Probably for similar reasons.

    I wont do the great and wonderful things others in this thread would, but if I were to have Atlas of Creation, I would treasure it always for what it is: A great and glorious monument to the endless creativity of human nature in full bloom, a praise of all things unseen and imagined, and a glimpse into the worlds that might’ve been but thankfully never will be.

  184. Marion Delgado says

    Not that i have a chance with 103 other entries, but it would fit nicely between my giant copy of “What is Scientology” and the Imp’s big comic book on Jack Chick.

    If i get it i promise to dramatize at least part of it on KSUA radio in Fairbanks, or other suitable substitute station, which has an online presence.

  185. says

    I am male, so pleasuring myself is naturally a bit messy. I’m squeamish about using socks (in case I run out of clean pairs before laundry day), and my ejaculate is unusually runny, meaning that is frequently soaks through tissues, paper towel, and scrap paper – this does not bode well for the carpeting in my apartment. I am desperately in need of glossy, non-absorbent paper onto which I can spill my seed before folding said paper and disposing of it.

    I’ll need at least enough to last me roughly three weeks, so roughly 800 pages will be required.

  186. MikeM says

    Because I’m a demented fuckwit.

    I just can’t think of a joke. But I did read Mark Morford today:

    http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/gate/archive/2008/01/09/notes010908.DTL

    I had this idea of doing a Letterman-like list of top-10 reasons I want this book, and that made me think of Morford. Read the article above; it’s really funny.

    5) Top 10 Christianity-related stories of 2007 (Christianity Today).
    In which successful atheist authors get jabbed, Jerry Falwell is actually not acknowledged as Satan’s newest fluffer and hardcore religious orgs of every stripe celebrate and/or lash out at other religious orgs for either a) not being religious enough, b) not being bigoted enough, c) not hacking away women’s rights, d) not slamming gays, e) all of the above.

    Highlight: Militant evangelical nutjob Dr. James Dobson tries — and fails — to have slightly less militant nutjob Richard Cizik ousted as vice president of the National Association of Evangelicals over the latter’s global warming activism. Also: Episcopal church fractures because one half doesn’t hate gay people enough. And Jesus returns, says Christianity was “a huge mistake,” turns Wiccan.

  187. Conor Burke says

    We, from the far reaches of the Pharynguloid empire, the land-of-giant-squid that is New Zealand, salute PZ Meyers. All hail PZ!

    As in accordance to the holy book, if I was to win this tome I would offer it as a burned token to the (admittedly false) idol that is PZ.

  188. says

    I would like to own the book so that I can have it as a memento that will only grow over the years as I go to as many atheist, freethinker, and scientific book readings, to gather as many autographs on it as possible.

    I’m angling for a big permanent marker signing of Dawkins right on the cover.

  189. Cath says

    I think it should go to John Scalzi, because of the review of the museum on creation. he would have a good review of this work of …
    then sent on to E. Bear for the secret project reference section

  190. Patrik L says

    I am an evolutionary biology researcher and haven’t received my own copy from the Cretinists. Makes me feel lika a nobody. Please send me the book to pump up my self-esteem.

  191. says

    I need a new copy because I accidentally soiled my one by burying it under peat for 80 million years and recycling it as fire-lighters.

    [with apologies to Douglas Adams]

  192. bernarda says

    I really, like you know, need this book. I need the pictures for a wall collage in which I design my own animals.

  193. Amenhotep says

    I have NO interest in this book. Please please please do not choose me. My brain is a Temple unto Darwin and Dawkins, and much as I love Turkish Delight, I do not wish the hallowed tracts of my White Matter to be polluted with cobblers.

    So just leave me out of it, OK?

    [Just kidding – would love the book – I’m only 5’8″ and can’t reach the top shelf]

  194. ChrisKG says

    My dead parrot needs a new cage liner and I am taking origami next semester so I could use the paper.

  195. BSD says

    This book would be the perfect object for complete Feng Shui in my home, and, it may ward off evil spirits too. I want it. Gimme gimme.

  196. mattmc says

    If given this testament to stupidity I would use it to prop up a wobbly table upon which I sacrifice creationists to honor The Flying Spaghetti Monster, Thor, Richard Dawkins, and L. Ron Hubbard. If that fails I can always beat myself over the head with it until I find its contents plausible.

  197. Squidworthy says

    Come on. It’s called fly fishing. The book is simply showing some flies that got caught.

  198. Billy says

    I am an historian. I would love to have a copy of this just to see how many egregious errors I can find as a moderately well educated liberal arts major (and do you want fries with that?).

    Additionally, I broke a leveling leg on my oven/gas range and my omelettes are coming out fat on one side, thin on the other. This book should be about the right thickness.

    If I do win it, I promise to send you an email of the mistakes my liberal arts mind can find (sorry, did you say large or medium drink?)

  199. JT Eberhard says

    I am the Captain of the MSU Chapter of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, and if the copy could come signed by you, I’d like to put it on our wall of fame. :D

    JT

  200. says

    I want this book because my girlfriend says I spend too much on books. By getting a free book, I can include the 0 I spent on this book to lower the average price I’ve paid for all my books. Though one zero averaged in the thousands of books I’ve bought in my lifetime won’t actually lower my average significantly, my girlfriend is pretty bad at math.

    Also, I once appeared on “Win Ben Stein’s Money,” so I’ve already had such a huge dose of exposure to creationist wackos that the stupid coming off this book won’t add too much.

    Don’t forget to tip your waitresses!

  201. says

    I will pay for the book to be sent to ERV. Its well known that she eats creationist babies for breakfast and this book will hopefully persuade her to desist. It will also bring her great karma and ionised happiness in her heathen life by harnessing the quantum energy states of intelligently designed fish bait. It will also vaccinate her against vaccinations.

    Brown stuff from a wooly mammoths backside! Did I just enter myself into the competition?

  202. Erkin KALAYCI says

    I want this book because i have not seen it in my own country that is also Harun YAHAYA’s. (real name Adnan OKTAR).

    he is nobody in scientific platform. (no Ph d, even not a medical nurse.)
    he was sentenced many times… using drugs, harassment, rape …. etc. He says all of them was political.
    what is more he was in an insane asylum once, with a diagnosis of schizophrenia.

    and he is not handsome as in the photos on “http://www.harunyahya.com/theauthor.php”.
    he is something like that now.
    http://www.agoravox.fr/IMG/vignettes/19221130_harun.gif
    fat, disgusting ……

    he just translates icr resources (if you meant them to call resource anyway..) into Turkish.
    and my people believe in him as Harun Yahya, dont know he is Adnan Oktar, with schizophrenia, drugs, harassment, rape ….
    DISGUSTING

    i am fighting with them.
    so i want the book to see, how they study out of Turkey.

    May the force of the free mind and the common sense of the science be with you.

  203. says

    Actually, I really really want this book (Panda’s and People too), because I would like to focus an article I am working on developing on some of the creation arguments in these two books. However, I cannot bring myself to buy them, and my local library thankfully has no copies.
    This of course presents a conundrum, I can’t give idiots money for these books, but cannot get them to write about.
    Please help me out.

    Thadd Nelson
    SUNY Stony Brook

  204. ML says

    I was a convert to, and subsequently an apostate from, Islam. As you well know, many Muslims out there believe that the punishment for apostasy is death; I am not in a country where this is common nor would it be tolerated, but it takes just one crazy person, so I think I should get the Atlas as the crowning glory of my anti-fundamentalist security system.

    As it turns out, it’s a grave sin to place the Qur’an on the ground, where someone could step on it. The command has been extended to include anything that book that might contain sacred text, up to the point that some would say any book at all cannot be placed on the ground (the Taliban’s ban on recycled paper came from the same place, so far as I can tell).

    You can see where this is going.

    With this book, I’ll have enough Islam-related tomes to create a Home Alone style trap for any loon wanting to play judge, jury, and executioner. Imagine, if you will, the jihadist smashing through the window, only to see his beloved Atlas flying toward him at a frantic pace. He must chose in a split second between dodging the book and permitting it to fall to the floor–surely a most grave sin–or to take it square in the face, giving me the all important opportunity for escape.

  205. Rich Stage says

    I’m not sure that I want this book,
    though it might be fun to have a look.
    It would be helpful to me
    as I get my Ph.D.
    on how life evolved from a fish hook.

  206. Dan says

    If I win this book, you must send it out in a lead box. It is easy to see that this thing is sending out deadly rays of stupidness which could render the greatest of intellects into a driveling moron in mere moments. It will also have to have the appropriate hazardous shipping label attached. I mean, what if the package broke open en route? Think of the casualties amongst the innocent populus. (OK, maybe no one would notice, sheesh)

    Please, safety first when handling such materials.

    Also, I want the book for investment purposes. Yes, this is all a matter of greed. At least for my grandchildren. One hundred years from now, everyone will look back at this crap with a sense of wonder. How could anyone have believed this? All these materials will be left to rot and decay. But then museums will want to display some materials in their History of Stupidity wing and they will be willing to pay bigtime for primo stuff in mint condition. That’s when my grandchildren cash in on my (and your) wise decision to allow me to acquire this treasure of human moronics.

    Thanks in advance.

  207. Shenda says

    Living in Conservative California (Northern Sector), I need something to periodically lower my IQ so that I fit in with my community. I used to travel to Texas for this, but that turned out to be overkill. Please help me from being identified and lynched!

    Note: This is not an actual request for the book – I barely have enough room for the books I already have, not to mention the ones I’ll need to finish grad school!

  208. says

    If I had a copy of the book, I would first create a detailed analysis of just how wrong it is. Then I would slice out its pages and give a page each to noted bloggers, writers, artists, etc., and encourage them to each make their own statement with said page. I’ll create a blog to document how each page was used.

    I’ll start by using the title page to line my Java finch’s bird cage and go from there.

  209. says

    April 2006 I wrote a paper about the ID debate in the Muslim world. In my research I came upon Harun Yahya as the foremost creationist in the Muslim world and devoted a good section of that paper explaining as objectively as possible how this man is batshit. And I did this long before he starting mailing free books to you bastards.

  210. says

    I’m sick of “America’s Providential History.” I need a new fundie textbook to get infuriated over. (In fact, if I get Yahya’s book, I just might have to make room on my bookshelf by passing my copy of APH along to somebody else. It’s not very pretty or glossy at all, really pathetic really, but I’d wager it’s just as aneurysm-inducing if not more so! Pay it forward, right?)

  211. Sean Bernhoft says

    If I were to win The Atlas of Creation, I would place it alongside the Book of Mormon to read while on the John.

  212. sil-chan says

    My hobby is book binding and other book related tinkering. I am rather fond of making “Book-book” safe whereby you gut the inside of one book to make a safe for another book. I have a bible on my shelf currently that contains origin of species in it. That way when my christian friends come over and pick it up, they promptly fling it across the room like it has the plague.

    I would like to place a copy of Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses within this book and, if I have room, perhaps a copy of Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s Infidel. This way I can take care of my Islamic friends at the same time.

  213. Peter Ashby says

    I will remove this work from the sight of the gullible thus:

    Our two sprogs are grown and flown and both swear blind they will not procreate, therefore no grandsprogs will espy it. As my final act in this veil of tears I shall open said tome for the first time (for better ignition) and fall across it just as I spontaneously combust, the ultimate party trick.

    Pass the phosphate please.

  214. JMero says

    By the sound of it, it seems to be so full of shite already that it can’t even be used as toilet paper.
    Contrary to Bibles and Korans which can at least be recycled as toilet paper, which when soiled can be used for Bibles and Korans again.

  215. Pantufla Milagrosa says

    Oh, how I would enjoy possessing this zaftig tome.

    Or, in the words of Karl Rove: “I will do a book.”