Don’t just blame the Marlboro Man

It’s a curious coincidence that the announcement of the online publication of the
complete works of the Creationists’ Antichrist, Charles Darwin, comes on the same day as press reports about a new book, The 101 Most Influential People Who Never Lived. The subtitle, “How characters of fiction, myth, legends, television, and movies have shaped our society, changed our behavior, and set the course of history”, says almost all you’d need to know about the book. I say almost, because the Amazon blurb makes it clear that the list is the creation of its three authors, and not the result of a poll.
It’s pretty standard newspaper filler, suitable for pub arguments and little else (certainly not worth forking out your hard-earned cash).
There’s the droll revelation that Marlboro Man is number 1 because his biggest influence on society has been to cause the death of millions from cancer, although I’d argue that Ronald McDonald is a bigger villain because of his appeal to children.
But it is curious why this admittedly subjective list doesn’t include the character in whose name people have been tortured and killed consistently since, oh, Old Testament times.
Of course this would render the book unacceptable to believers, but the omission of God from this edition of the book renders it just as invalid to atheists.

The top ten reads: The Marlboro Man; Big Brother; King Arthur; Santa Claus; Hamlet; Dr Frankenstein's Monster; Siegfried; Sherlock Holmes; Romeo and Juliet; Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.

Tags: Books