I went to my local bookstore the other day. I wanted to give a beautifully bound Bible to a Christian friend of mine. Suddenly, I felt space around m… - Erik Naggum

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I went to my local bookstore the other day. I wanted to give a beautifully bound Bible to a Christian friend of mine. Suddenly, I felt space around me warp and I was in USENET space. People from comp.lang.scheme offered me a beutifully bound Torah. People from comp.lang.dylan offered me a beautifully bound Koran. People from elsewhere on the Net offered me beautifully bound copies of The Lord of the Rings, Atlas Shrugged, A New Kind of Science, and then other people chimed in with suggestions for Gray's Anatomy, The Chicago Manual of Style, and the 25-year anniversary edition of Gödel, Escher, Bach, all of them arguing that if I wanted the most important book, I would want their suggestions. I scremed, "Enough!", and space just as suddenly warped back to the bookstore and the very helpful young Muslim woman behind the counter went to find a soft-leather-bound Bible with gold edges on the India paper, just like I had wanted and asked for, without unwelcome suggestions or anyone pretending to know better than me. It was so respectful I almost got religion, myself.