No Sacred Cows: Investigating Myths, Cults, and the Supernatural

by David G. McAfee, Yvette d'Entremont

While belief in religious supernatural claims is waning throughout the West, evidence suggests belief in nonreligious supernatural claims is on the rise. What explains this contradiction? How can a society with a falling belief in God have a rising belief in ghosts, psychic powers, ancient astronauts, and other supernatural or pseudo-scientific phenomena? Taking the same anthropological approach he employed in his notable studies of religion, atheist author and activist David G. McAfee turns his attention to nonreligious faith-based claims. Whether going undercover as a medium, getting tested at Scientology headquarters in Los Angeles, or interviewing celebrity paranormalists and famous skeptics, he leaves no stone unturned in his investigation. As in the case of religion, he finds an unwillingness among "believers" to critically examine their most closely held convictions. Only once individuals honestly assess their own sacred cows will they be able to ensure that their beliefs conform to the known facts—and that our decisions as a society are based on the best available evidence.

Genres: Nonfiction, Religion, Science, Atheism, Self Help, Cults, Collections

450 pages, Kindle Edition

First published August 22, 2017

About the author

David G. McAfee is a journalist and author of The Curious Person's Guide to Fighting Fake News, No Sacred Cows: Investigating Myths, Cults, and the Supernatural, and other books. He is a former columnist for Canadian Freethinker Magazine and a contributor to American Atheist Magazine. Mr. McAfee attended University of California, Santa Barbara, and graduated with bachelor’s degrees in English and Religious Studies with an emphasis on Christianity and Mediterranean religions. After experiencing discrimination within the American public education system as a result of his secular activism, David G. McAfee sought to help those who fear similar professional or familial consequences to their public non-belief.

Reviews

[Beauregard Bottomley · Rating 2 out of 5]

Rational skeptics need to realize that the deniers and fringe believers in the supernatural, myths and the paranormal don’t care about meaningful discourse. The eight points of argumentation that Daniel Dennett advocates or the modified 10 points of Michael Shermer each itemized in this book are useless. As Nietzsche said "What the populace once learned to believe without reasons, who could— refute it to them by means of reasons?"

Our side needs to realize that the world is not fair. Our books have to be better than previous books that debunked these nutty beliefs and they have to teach us something we don’t already know. Our side wants to know the truth, and we care about reality. They don’t. There will always be crappy books like ‘The Boy Who Went to Heaven’, featured in this book. There’s a market for those nutty books and for those who want to believe without substantiation or reasons.

Life is not fair. Our side knows ‘climate change is real’ and is ‘not a Chinese Hoax’, vaccines work and don’t cause autism, when a neo-Nazi rams a car into a group of anti-Nazi protestors that it’s not true that both sides are equally to blame and it’s wrong for a leader to shout ‘lock her up’ before there’s a trial or to say an alleged terrorist deserves the death penalty the day of his capture. Tolerance is not a suicide pact. Our side does not have to show deference to those who want to undermine our relationship to reality based on only nut cases gut feelings void of logic, empirical facts, reason, rational thought or a non-nutty narrative tying their theory together. Fringe believers will always have a large market for their nutty beliefs because learning about reality is hard and for the nutty beliefs featured in this book one can always put a new even nuttier spin on them. ‘Fake news’ is what they call reality based journalism that doesn’t fit their nutty world view, and ‘alternative facts’ are for those who want to remain in the dark, and a necessary but not sufficient condition for democracy to thrive is the repudiation of the anti-science beliefs featured in this book.

I can’t really recommend this book. I’ve read ‘Skeptical Inquirer’ for years and there is almost nothing new in this book that hasn’t appeared in that magazine or I haven’t already read the Wikipedia entry debunking the myth. I realize that the five star reviews I’ve read on Amazon on this book are reasonable and all of the 1 or 2 star reviews didn’t like this book for different reasons from me. As for me, I think our side knows this stuff already (and there are better books on this topic then this book), and we already know Wikipedia exists, and the people who are living within the myth don’t know they are in a myth and will not even attempt to read this book and they have no interest in reasonable discourse. I’m not saying they aren’t reachable, their positions are so weak and they will ultimately yield to science and reason but they only do that to move the Overton window – the reshaping of the frame of the argument. Also, I find when dealing with paranormal fringe people the most effective argument is having them look things up on Wiki, or citing ‘Scientific American’ or ‘Science News’ and demonstrating to the deniers of reality’s lack of foundation and purposeful misunderstanding on the real nature of science.

[Steve · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent read which should be on everyone’s bookshelf (physical or virtual!). McAfee puts things plainly and has clearly been thinking about the issue of good thinking for a long time. The book is not just a catalogue of criticism of poor thinking; there is some excellent discussion of what good thinking is, the need for it, and how to do it. The issues explored in depth are contemporary and show just how easy it is for any of us to be taken in by all sorts of non-evidenced ideas and beliefs. Highly recommended.

[Grantley Leith · Rating 4 out of 5]

A well written book on the nature of superstition and critical thinking

I enjoyed reading this book as much as David's other books on religion and critical thinking. I am a scientist myself and found his explanation of evidence based rational scientific thinking good and concise. Faith based thinking is helping to destroy our world, we need books like this to help people break free from religion.

[Richard Lawrence · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is very good book in a lot of ways. It is a great introduction into Naturalism and how naturalists approach both the world and various claims about it. This would be the perfect text for a course in Critical Thinking both at the High School and Undergraduate level. In addition to a well written book there are copious end notes and hyperlinks in the Kindle edition which let the reader follow up on whatever areas of interest they may have.

[Stephen Rowland · Rating 2 out of 5]

A good primer for the novice, but kind of useless for everyone else.

[Josh Gunnar · Rating 3 out of 5]

Agree with all of the points, but needs editing, very repetitive. Too much on the author's own personal beliefs and quotes from other books. Could be less than half as long and make the points more effectively

[Amanda]

I got about 50 pages in and then started to skim, and flip through to see other chapters. Another review notes that this book could use a good editor and I have to agree. After reading AGAIN that he's "not trying to be cruel, [he] just wants people to think rationally" I was pretty tired. I guess I expected that this book might address the history of certain subjects and then also give counterpoints/arguments that you could make, but it feels lost in the authors back-patting and justificaton for writing the book. Maybe it gets better, but I have other books that I would rather be reading.

[Jason Tanner · Rating 5 out of 5]

No Sacred Cows is a thorough and thoughtful introduction to skepticism that discusses a wide array of topics and includes several nonconfrontational interviews with practitioners of pseudoscientific and spiritual systems. The stated goal of this book is to get people to look at everything critically, including our own closely held beliefs.

[Michael Moseley · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very though provoking read. Left me with a set of principles to test my predetermined knowledge/answers with. A real shame that too many people in the democratic world don't adopt some of David's thought process. I found the read a little Americanized perhaps a little too long winded. But please do read it and thing again about what you think you know.

[Sharon C. Robideaux · Rating 5 out of 5]

Highly quotable

Now and then, I need a dose of skeptical sanity. McAfee always satisfies that need. He kindly and patiently skewers each sacred cow and reveals the truth hiding behind the myth. Not good reading for anyone unwilling to submit their own sacred cow to the test, but a must-read for those who prefer reality to superstition.

[Sammi Faktor · Rating 5 out of 5]

McAfee is unlocking truths in this novel. I enjoyed his thoughts and the wit with which he delves into the world's religions and cults. Never thought I would be interested but I couldn't stop reading. I give it five stars.

[Tommyg13 · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really interesting read

Well written and sourced (always a good thing). Mr McAfee understands the value of not putting the reader to sleep. Highly recommended

[Chris · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some well put truisms on the importance of critical thinking, and some interesting insights on supernatural belief systems (both religious and otherwise). Interesting interviews with psychics and former cult members later on.

Leans on some fairly predictable references, however - so not anything all that novel for anyone who's done even light reading into this kind of thing. Plus it takes a few baffling and unnecessary diversions into McAfee's milquetoast poetry and prose, which gives it a weird tone at times.

Good book overall, but feels all too familiar for the most part.