Plotz does in this book exactly what the title says: he read the whole Bible (something that most Christians and Jews report never having done) and records his thoughts about each chapter. With caveats: The Bible he reads is the Jewish Bible, which ends at 2 Chronicles. He says he’ll leave the New Testament to a non-Jew, but I would love to see a sequel or a revised edition that includes his impressions of the NT.

Plotz finds and is comforted by the moments of beauty in the Bible, but he is horrified at God’s punishment of the people who are most faithful to him, the encouraged murder of innocents, and the surprise endings to the most famous Bible stories–where most of the stories end and the indiscriminate killing begins. He seems to gloss over some of it–there are some horrid verses in Deuteronomy 22 about punishing rape victims that he does not address–but he touches on some of the big stories, like the rapes of Dinah and Tamar, and the mauling of the children by the bears.

This is a great book for Christians and Jews who do not understand how people can be offended by the very substance of their religions, or how one could possibly leave the faith if they “truly knew” God. The way most people read the Bible is not the way they would read any other book; they open the Bible to a particular chapter or to a random page and read until they feel better. When one reads it as they would read anything else, from cover to cover, one learns a lot, and is often disappointed and even “brokenhearted,” as Plotz is, at the brutality and fickleness of God and his people.

Tags: agnosticism, Christianity, Daniel Plotz, Judaism

rating: 5 of 5 stars
I will let the book speak for itself:

“The world is simply ablaze with bad ideas. There are still places where people are put to death for imaginary crimes–like blasphemy–and where the totality of a child’s education consists of his learning to recite from an ancient book of religious fiction. There are countries where women are denied almost every human liberty, except the liberty to breed. And yet, these same societies are quickly acquiring terrifying arsenals of advanced weaponry. If we cannot inspire the developing world, and the Muslim world in particular, to pursue ends that are compatible with a global civilization, then a dark future awaits all of us.

“The contest between our religions is zero-sum. Religious violence is still with us because our religions are intrinsically hostile to one another. Where they appear otherwise, it is because secular knowledge and secular interests are restraining the most lethal improprieties of faith. It is time we acknowledged that no real foundation exists within the canons of Christianity, Islam, Judaism, or any of our other faiths for religious tolerance and religious diversity.” (p. 224-225)

“Man is manifestly not the measure of all things. This universe is shot through with mystery. The very fact of its being, and of our own, is a mystery absolute, and the only miracle worthy of the name. The consciousness that animates us is itself central to this mystery and the ground for any experience we might wish to call ’spiritual.’ No myths need be embraced for us to commune with the profundity of our circumstance. No personal God need be worshiped for us to live in awe at the beauty and immensity of creation. No tribal fictions need be rehearsed for us to realize, one fine day, that we do, in fact, love our neighbors, that our happiness is inextricable from their own, and that our interdependence demands that people everywhere be given the opportunity to flourish. The days of our religious identities are clearly numbered. Whether the days of civilization itself are numbered would seem to depend, rather too much, on how soon we realize this.” (p. 227)

Tags: agnosticism, atheism, irreligion, Sam Harris

rating: 4 of 5 stars
Another great book that will be passed over by the very people who need to read it. Jacoby outlines the history of America’s willful ignorance and how it manifests today. She gives no suggestions on how to fix the situation; indeed, she doesn’t think it can be fixed, the way things are going. Americans just enjoy being stupid too much.

I disagree with her on two major points. First: I don’t think the Internet is necessarily killing intellectual discourse. In fact, I think that for those of us who are too shy to hold such conversations in person–or for those of us who are surrounded with the type of person Jacoby reviles–the Internet can be a great facilitator. I have been part of many good, intellectual conversations in blog comment threads. Jacoby seems to think that only ignorant non-sequiturs get posted to these threads, and that the other commenters don’t police them. This could not be further from the truth. Check out blogs like Shakesville; the commentariat there is ruthless in the driving out of trolls.

Second: Jacoby does not seem to take into consideration that many Americans work a LOT. When you’re working twelve, fourteen, sixteen hours a day, you don’t have a lot of mental energy left to read something educational or engage in stirring discourse about the failings of Plato. It’s easy to see how people could extrapolate from their own experiences that people who do these things obviously don’t work grueling, mind-numbing jobs, and are therefore somehow less. Maybe if the economic situation were better and people didn’t have to work so hard, they’d be more accepting of intellectuals…But then, it is their disdain of intellectuals that helped lead America to elect The Big Dumb twice, and possibly to elect The Even Bigger Dumb in 2012. So, I don’t know.

Tags: agnosticism, America, atheism, freethought, ignorance, irreligion, reason, religion, Susan Jacoby, willful ignorance

rating: 4 of 5 stars
Mr. Hitchens illustrates in examples from his own life and career, as well as in views from historical religious, philosophical, and political figures, exactly why religious beliefs are not worthy of respect by default. Particular examples: why religious people should not be prima facie considered more moral or ethical than non-religious people; why claims such as “God outlawed the eating of ham because it made the ancients ill” are specious; why religious people’s need to prove their faith based on reality actually undermines their case; and why even Mother Teresa, Gandhi, and the Dalai Lama cannot be seen as stellar examples of goodness simply on the basis of their faith.

As with Harris’s Letter to a Christian Nation, the people who need to read it won’t. But it’ll keep a place on my bookshelf.

Tags: agnosticism, atheism, Christopher Hitchens, injustice, irreligion

rating: 5 of 5 stars
It’s brilliant. The people who should read it won’t, but it’s briliant.

Tags: agnosticism, atheism, Christians, Sam Harris

rating: 5 of 5 stars
The last James Morrow book I read was just pure gleeful blasphemy. This one is still fairly blasphemous, but it also asks a serious question: What would people do if they had concrete, smelly proof that God was 1) a corporeal being and 2) currently dead? Morrow shows the reactions of all types of people–nonbelievers, hardcore atheists, feminists, indifferent people, evangelical Christians, and the Vatican–in this thoughtful work. He balks at no embarrassing question, even wondering if God has a penis, and if so, what it looks like. (If you’re wondering–yes, and very big but otherwise normal.) The struggle to tow the massive Corpus Dei to his angel-built Arctic tomb (and find redemption for the tow-ship’s troubled captain) is compelling.

There are a couple of sequels that I can’t wait to get my hands on.

Tags: agnosticism, atheism, Christianity, God, irreligion, James Morrow

rating: 4 of 5 stars
If you don’t enjoy blasphemy, you probably want to steer clear of this one. I, however, find blasphemy to be a tasty treat, so I enjoyed it a lot, if very quickly. There are some very interesting ideas here: what if someone besides Noah’s family escaped the Flood, what if God reversed his Babel punishment and made everyone understand themselves perfectly, what if Moses had not received a second set of commandments after destroying the first. I love the reimagining of old stories, so I thought this book was pretty cool.

Tags: agnosticism, atheism, awardwinner, blasphemy, fractured faerietales, irreligion, James Morrow