Yesterday afternoon I was shopping around for a new mattress for my son’s bedroom, and I happened upon a brand-new America’s Mattress outlet in my town with a flashy “Grand Opening” sign out front. Business wasn’t exactly brisk on a Wednesday afternoon, so the store manager, whose name badge read Sue-Z (no kidding), happily took her time showing me the “plush-but-not-pricey” mattresses I had asked to see.

Sue-Z had some nice things to show me, was quick to whip out a calculator and engage in some on-the-spot price slashing when she felt me hesitate, and she cheerfully offered to give me her business card when I said I needed to think things over (i.e., compare her prices with other stores). We headed to her desk — and there, on a table, was a big ol’ stack of Bibles.

Now, I’ve become accustomed to seeing Bibles for sale in the book department at Target; I’ve spent a bit of time in Christian bookstores (mostly as a teenager, if I remember correctly, because one such store was on my paper route); and it’s not unusual to see the occasional Judeo-Christian trinket (not to mention a Buddha or any number of feng-shui fountains) in a boutique or tchotchke shop. And I’ve heard about the trend toward businesses that wear their religion on their sleeves, from realtors to banks to hair salons. (There was even an article about such businesses in Time a few years back.) But this was a new one for me: Bibles being given away in an otherwise seemingly non-religious store, much less a mattress shop.

My first response was a mental leap to the place where one usually finds a Bible next to the bed – and thinking of hotel rooms and Gideon’s Bibles always sends me into a couple of sung-to-myself verses of “Rocky Raccoon.” But I must admit that I was put off by that stack of religious literature – so much so that I gave serious consideration to not returning to the store, even though its prices were extremely competitive and Sue-Z (I can’t stop writing her name!) was even offering free delivery.

I am an agnostic. That’s an unfashionable term these days, I know; in addition to the scorn and/or proselytizing it traditionally provokes from believers, agnosticism has recently come in for derision from trendy atheists as well, who demand that agnostics get off the fence and call us cowards for refusing to admit that God doesn’t exist. In my case, I find it impossible to rule out the existence of some kind of guiding force in the universe. What I have definitively ruled out is devotion to any particular set of religious principles, or attachment to any creed that excludes or rejects the beliefs or devotion of any other creed. I firmly believe – despite the good works performed by countless people and institutions in the name of their faiths – that organized religion is divisive, delusional bullshit. But that doesn’t mean I reject the possibility of God. (more…)