The Book Review: The Richest Man in Babylon

Great book on money that is actually different than all the others.  Most books on money I have read are either heavily based upon one man's experience and story (Rich Dad Poor Dad for instance) or heavily a research book describing what they found (Millionaire Next Door is next on the list).  This one, however, goes about it in a different way through a number of parables from Babylon.  Seriously, if you want to learn about money, but find most money books to dry try this one.  It's a good, easy read, with lots of information on how to live a life that is wise with money.

My biggest critique is the attempt to use Elizabethan English.  It is really annoying, I realize it's supposed to convey an antiquity feeling.  The reality is, the Babylonians spoke Akkadian and therefore anything we hear is a translation, so what not actually do it all the way?  That being sad, as long as you are reasonably familiar with the language it's not to bad to listen to or read.

I do wonder about whether there is any basis in history for any of these stories, or if they were based upon actual myths and stories from Babylon.  Somehow I doubt it, I mean on character actually mentions how he envisions life insurance in the future.  There is no real explanation about the historical connection, though they try and imply such in a correspondence letter from a Sumerian linguist and and archaeologist, but that doesn't necessarily mean that is not fictional as well.

Overall, this is an excellent book.  It's easy to read, flows well, tells compelling stories, and manages to educate you about money in the process.  Oh, and if you think you don't need to learn about money, then let me tell you this: those who think they have nothing to learn usually have the most to learn.  Money handling ability, like everything else, is a learned skill.  You can learn from the school of hardknocks, and maybe squeak by, or you can learn from others of wisdom (parents, authors, etc) and become stable, independent, and able to use your money for good will rather than just scraping by to meet your own needs.

Coercive help is better than volunatry according to Mr. Obama

Obama Closes Summit, Vows Broader Engagement With Latin America - washingtonpost.com

In this article, 5th paragraph the line states that President Obama " felt the United States could learn a lesson from Cuba, which for decades has sent doctors to other countries throughout Latin America to care for the poor." So apparently apparently the US needs to learn that rather than the thousands of volunteers, we need to curtail our efforts and make it mandatory for top doctors to win us geo-political support. Stupid doctors who volunteer...

Seriously, the IMB, Samaritan's Purse, and Doctor's Without Borders all export VOLUNTEER doctors in vast numbers. These people sacrifice their financial abilities, earning no pay beyond what support they get (which is no more than the lay, untrained man with a hammer) to use their years of expensive study to simply aid others. Added to that, often these missionaries go with no compensation and at their own expense! Now, I don't know about you, but to me that seems to be a larger amount of compassion and caring than state funded doctor's drawing a salary as they go over seas. Added to that, private practice physicians have to pay staff while they are paying their way.

Shame on you, Mr. Obama, for disparaging those who sacrifice so much. Medical missions is just one of a plethora of foreign aid put out by private individuals. Step back from your socialist agenda for a moment and see what good the free market has had. Yes, greed can abound and people do run around using their wealth to their own selfishness, but that happens in socialism to. What is more interesting is the huge amount of aid, both financial and service based, that the US sends over seas. Learn to see what Americans do, and then think about whether we should embrace a political gambit that would actually lower our aid to others.

Book Review: Do Robots Dream of Electric Sheep? (Bladerunner)

Continuing my Sci-Fi theme, I listened to "Do Robots Dream of Electric Sheep" by Philip K. Dick, which is the novel Bladerunner is based on.  I have to admit I have never actually seen the movie (yes, I know I'm a sinner, forgive me), and from listening to this I have to wonder how well you could make a movie based upon this book.  I say this as it is a very thought based novel.  It seems to follow mainly a stream-of-conciousness approach.  It was good, don't get me wrong, but I fail to see how well it could be transitioned to the screen without major alterations.  There were action scenes, but they were short and uneventful.  "Oh no, an andy, DIE!" Pew Pew, dead.  That's about it, very short action scene, so I'm curious as to how it was altered.

The novel really had a number of 60s era psychological concepts throughout.  A high emphasis on medical model of psychology as well as emotional concepts, especially empathy.  In fact, empathy seems to be the major point.  I am kind of vague about the message, and all good Sci-Fi must make a point, but I think it has to do with the idea that as computers get more sophisticated what distinguishes us?  Empathy seems to be it, the ability not only to feel, but understand and feel what others feel.  Maybe I'm wrong, but that did stand out to me.

Typical of Dick, or so I'm told, it was rather dark about how the future is.  Post nuclear war, death of many animals, etc.  Especially in the era it was, that seems pretty normal motif.

Overall, I liked the book, but it was a bit different than a lot I've read.

Up Next: Money books- "The Richest Man in Babylon"

Book Review: Dune

Wow, can't believe I had not read this yet.  As a Sci-Fi junkie, you'd think I would have read it by now, but somehow it slipped out.

Really though, what can I say?  I liked it, but I think it's beyond my liking or not liking.  This book did for Sci-Fi what Lord of the Rings did for fantasy.  A whole set of motifs, genre trends, universe conceptions go back to this book.  I actually recognized trends from the fantasy setting that come from this book as well.  Any and all Sci-Fi readers must read this.

The plot flowed well, a world and universe was created.  A character came, grew up, and you came to to see the world through his eyes.  A message was made, a world was changed.  It was good literature and a good story.  I am ashamed not to have read it until now.

Book Review: Reading Judas

So after my foray into liberal theology, I listened to a book in secular scholarship about a non-canonical book, Reading Judas: The Gospel of Judas and the Shaping of Christianity by Elaine Pagels and Karen King.  To my surprise, I actually liked it.  I was preparing myself for all sorts of nonsense about how this should be part of the canon, yada yada yada, but I did not get any of that.  Instead, this book took the book of Judas to be what it was, an obvious pseudonymous work dated to the mid second century at the earliest, and explored what that might mean.  Most notably, it used the content of this book and other heretical writings of the time to analyze what it tells us about the church today.  Rather than trying to raise controversy, it was simply an attempt to peer into history, and an interesting look it was.

The summation of it all was that the book of Judas probably was written to argue against the attitude of martyrdom of the time.  The idea was that the writer felt marytrdom was exalted to the point that the church bascially implied that realy Christians get martyred, or something of that nature.  The writer of the Book of Judas attempted to invoke Christ and Judas as a reprimand for essentially recommending human sacrfices.  It also dealt with some more esoteric ideas, but that crux of the historical nuances gained centered around the martyrdom point.

The biggest gain I personally had to this book is it finally showed me something about secular biblical scholarship I had been grappling with but not quite grasped.  There are two types of secular biblical scholars.  The first study the Bible with the explicit intent of showing Christians up.  This author, and others like her, are of another sort.  They study the Bible as a historic piece of literature.  Much like my undergraduate paper at Oklahoma Baptist on Germanic culture in Beowulf, they study the Bible to understand a segment of early Christianity.  They are not trying to prove Christianity wrong, they really don't care.  They may be amused that we take these things so seriously, but they are not out to attack us.  Rather, they are simply taking an academic literay and historical approach to the Bible like others do the Iliad or Gilgamesh.  Its helpful to realize that, I think, as it lets me know intent.  To be fair, some of this scholarship does create controversy and difficulties in the church, but they are not attacking, merely studying.

Overall, I would say it was a good read (or listen in my case).  It gives an interesting insight into the book without getting all preachy about what it really means for the Bible as the National Geographic tends to.  It also gives some possible insight into what was happening in the second century, though I wonder if there might be competing explanations, or at least wonder if we still have enough information to reach much of a conclusion.  I'd recommend it as a reading of interest to thouse dabbling in Church history, but probably does not have broad appeal.

Book Review: 10 Things your Minister wants you to know (but can't because he needs the job)

I read (or rather listened to the audio) because the description of the book called it the "centrist's answer to the Purpose Driven Life." I have heard from my fellow conservatives about liberal theologies, and decided I'd like to get it from the proverbial horse's mouth rather than more 3rd party. Ironically, I think there is correlation between 10 Things and Purpose: they are both very shallow. Don't get me wrong, Purpose Driven Life is a very good primer on living a life of faith, but it is actually sad that it was so big as that really reveals how shallow Christianity was. Likewise 10 Yhings really is probably a good primer of liberal theology, but rather than providing solid support for what it proclaims it simply makes statements.

The book opens criticizing "fundamentalists" (which he misues interchangeably with conservative and evangelical) for their poor exegesis, or selective use of scripture as he says, and their caricatures of those who disagree with them. With great irony I quickly realized most positions espoused by the author came from very selective use of scriptures and refutations came via straw-man arguments and caricatures. "Kettle, this is pot, you are black."

What follows the introduction is a series of statements about either questionable exegesis or historical/philosophical theories that are of some question. For example, Daniel was written in the 2nd century and the "4 Kingdoms" were Babylon, Media, Persia, and Greece. Apparently, Daniel is totally ignorant of his own history since there was no Media empire, and he even contradicts himself in his own book since he ties the two together. Now, this is not an uncommon theory, but it is based upon secular idea of anti-supernatural bias against foretelling. No alternative is even mentioned, rather this theory is stated as fact. Likewise, Israel did not cross the Red Sea, but the Sea of Reeds (more a tidal bog really). What is the argument for this? We're left to wonder, it is just stated as true.

Another interesting is his proposition that homosexual monogamy is biblically blessed, only loose living for either sex and child molestation is condemned. Now, he quite right I believe, points out flaws in citing biblical texts against homosexuality. After all, its hard to argue from one verse that is in the midst of others about stoning people for working on the sabbath and for wearing mixed fabrics (at the moment I have a cotton/polyester blend shirt on). However, he then takes a creative run-around on 1 Corinthians' citation about men who have turned their unnatural desires to other men. Apparent, the first man means Roman patrician, and the second man means "slave boy." So, it's really written against a not uncommon practice of Roman rich taking slave boys for sexual pleasure. Except for two things. 1) He mentions men, not boys, slaves, or rich men. 2) This is corinth, and THE city of the time for sexual misconduct, including homosexuality between consenting men, not Rome where boy sex slaves were the practice.

Another mistake he takes is called scientific/theological parallelism. Theology and science are two different worlds, and they do not overlap. The problem is, there are definite areas of overlap, and to deny such is intellectual dishonesty. Yet, he blissfully asserts that science and theology have no meeting points, so we can be happy being a theist and naturalist, because even those two are mutually exclusive, they're from different realms so it doesn't matter.

Overall, I would say it is a decent primer to some liberal ideas, but it is a very weak book when it comes to justifying its position. It might persuade those with a very weak sunday school education, but any serious student of the bible will find some very obvious flaws in his arguments. The danger is, because his arguments are so flawed, a conservative might become more confident than is justified. A more serious study of liberal theologies perhaps may be found elsewhere, but this does give a loose index of some ideas.

edit: Addendum to all that, having been a minister and been very good friends with other minsters, I can tell you his list is pretty bad. There are much more vital things church goers should know, and the pastor is afraid to tell them about. How to handle disputes with leadership for instance. How to leave a church.