Tag: The God Delusion

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Books & printed materials Science & technology Society

[1490] Of The God Delusion

I am finally done with the Dawkins’ The God Delusion which I bought last year. Yes, I finished it just over a year after I picked it off the shelf at some bookstore.

It is filled with too much polemics and I was caught off guard on how fierce Dawkins argues against religion in The God Delusion despite being familiar with his well-publicized opinion. I should have braced myself when I read this paragraph:

A widespread assumption, which nearly everybody in our society accepts — the non-religious included — is that religious faith is especially vulnerable to offence and should be protected by an abnormally thick wall of respect, in a different class from the respect that any human being should pay to any other. [The God Delusion. Richard Dawkins. Page 20]

The first chapters are dedicated to discrediting religion. Ignoring the polemics — sometimes, it is hard; I couldn’t help but smile at one point or another; simply too amusing and entertaining — reading for me was easy and I breezed through it. The one point which I stopped and pondered for awhile amid the polemics concerned the Pascal’s wager. I really think I should thank Dawkins for solving the puzzle for me.

The rhythm goes a pace higher at midpoint where he explains, to a certain extent, how evolution affected religion and — more interestingly — moral. I have read earlier on how moral might be dictated by genetics but I am convinced of it only until I read Dawkins’.

From the same idea, he insists that moral and religion are independent of each other. I have reached the same conclusion before and I could only nod in agreement with him. Dawkins goes further by stating that moral precedes religions. To strengthen that, he shows how there are commonalities of morality across most religions despite the fact that many of these religions developed separately. To answer the puzzle of commonalities, he returns to genetics and evolution, his forte.

For those unfamiliar with Dawkins, he is a biologist at Oxford. Wikipedia, as usual, has a great article on him.

What surprises me, given the Malaysian authority’s tendency to ban the most innocent of all books such as Anthony Burgess’ Malayan Trilogy and Karen Amstrong’s A History of God, is that The God Delusion escapes censorship. The escape, of course, is absolutely fine by me.

Categories
Books & printed materials History & heritage

[1097] Of purchasing books liberally

It is Chinese New Year and I got myself more books. I did not mean to purchase anything in the first place. The act was impulsive especially when I have yet to finish up the previous books that I bought earlier. In fact, I am still reading The Origin of Wealth. Furthermore, I have not even started on Clinton’s My Life and Dawkins’ The God Delusion. Yet, here I am, supporting the economy by spending.

At first, since I was in the vicinity of Kinokuniya under the majestic Petronas Twin Towers, I thought I could do with a browse. Alas, temptation got the best of me.

I found myself in the history section. For some reason, I wanted to read more about Srivijaya. It was kind of hard to find a book on the ancient Malay kingdom which in my opinion is greater than the Malay Sultanate of Malacca. If the Malays wanted to look for something to build their pride on, they should look beyond Malacca and embrace the Srivijayan. At the very least, acknowledge Srivijaya as a kingdom as great as Malacca.

Despite the size of the store, its collection is limited. I could not find a specific book on Srivijaya.

Nevertheless, Hugh Clifford’s Farther India looked promising. For those that score F for history without fail, Clifford was one of the more important colonial administrators of British Malaya. He was also one of those foreign administrators that fell in love with the Malays and Malaya, just like Frank Swettenham. At Cambridge Journals, the phrase “doyen of the colonial service” is attributed to Clifford.

The synopsis describes Farther India as one of the most important publications on Southeast Asian history. Yet, it seems to me that the book is concentrating on mainland Southeast Asia and talks about European explorations and discoveries of old Southeast Asian civilizations. I suspect the book does not talk much about Srivijaya. So, when I saw Paul Michel Munoz’s Early Kingdoms of the Indonesian Archipelago and the Malay Peninsula, it placed Clifford’s back on the shelf and grabbed Munoz’s instead.

While on my way out of the history section, I stumbled upon a book entitled British Malaya. That book directly reminded of an article at Wikipedia of the same name that I have been working on for more than a year. I thought this particular book might help me finish up what I started. So, book number two.

While on my way out of the store, somehow, Sophie’s World came across my mind; I made it as my third book.

And so, right now, five books await the completion of The Origin of Wealth. The pressure is now on me.

Ah… the curse of purchasing books liberally.

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Books & printed materials Personal

[1016] Of drunk and sobering again

I suffered temporary madness just a few hours ago. Or maybe, I was just a little drunk.

It was Friday and merely a few days before Christmas. With having nothing to do, I decided to give Kinokuniya a visit. With me running out of books to read, I felt it was the perfect time for me to go on book shopping.

Initially, I had a specific title in mind and probably one or two other titles I would decide once I actually saw them. For that one specific book, I was looking for Francis Fukuyama’s The End of History and the Last of Man. I thought, I have never read Fukuyama despite being familiar with his ideas. At the book store, I went straight to the counter, asked for Fukuyama’s and got it. One thing though, Kinokuniya placed The End of History at the history section…

The girl at the counter was cute though.

Then, the random walk amid the racks began.

First was The Undercover Economist. It was right beside Freakonomics. And yes, I admit, I haven’t read Freakonomics. I know it’s pop-econ but I feel I know enough economics that I wouldn’t feel too astounded to the facts in the wildly popular book. What’s more, I actually had read some of its content and while entertaining, I could say I’m familiar with it. Besides, I prefer not to read what most others read. As with The Da Vinci’s Code, I only read it after a friend incessantly told me I should read it day in day out. I read Da Vinci’s just to shut her up. Digression aside, I picked that book.

The third book was Amartya Sen’s The Argumentative Indian. I don’t know why I picked it up but I suspect it was because Nik Nazmi mentioned it earlier in his blog. For all I know, Nik Nazmi probably run a subliminal message that would sound like “read Sen. read Sen.” And The Argumentative Indian became the third book I picked up.

I thought I would stop at three books but soon, I spotted Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion. I remember Dawkins from an article on New York Times. Furthermore, the title was on Kunikoniya’s top ten non-fiction list. I picked that one up too. So much for “don’t really like reading what most people like to read“, eh?

The fifth book was The Affluent Society by John Kenneth Galbraith, one of the more prominent economists in our times. I have great respect for him, despite the fact that some of his ideas aren’t too friendly to libertarianism.

The sixth was The Origin of Wealth by Eric D. Beinhocker. The reason I picked up this book is pure curiousity. At the back of its jacket, it writes “There is a revolution underway in economics and you need to know about it.” Call me a sucker but I really wanted to know about the revolution. And judging from the selection of the books, you could probably guess which section I was lingering at.

Bill Clinton’s My Life was next. People — well, my democrats-friendly friends actually — told me how great the book is. They might be biased but I do think Bill Clinton is a great President. So, one more.

The last one was History the Malay Kingdom of Patani by Ibrahim Syukri. Why I picked this one up? I thought, hey, maybe I could read this and then contribute to Wikipedia!

After all the madness, I started to sober up. The cause of the awakening was the increasingly heavy burden I was carrying. Yes, the burden was the books. And all those books probably would have burned a hole through my wallet if I hadn’t sober up.

I inspected price tags and I said to myself, “whoa!”. The whole thing cost more than RM 500. In fact, it was more like RM 800!

I didn’t plan to spend RM 800 as recklessly as I had picked up the book and so, with heavy hearts, I had to filter them out.

The first victim was The Undercover Economist. Second was The Argumentative Indian.

Then, it was History of Patani. This book in particular is priced in the most irrational way. It’s a relatively thin book but priced nearly RM 50. Clinton’s My Life is about five times as thick and cost just RM 65. Maybe, I could blame it on economies of scale!

The fourth unfortunate victim of the unwanted culling was The Affluent Society.

Ironically, the scourge cost the book that I came in the first place. Yes, I threw away The End of History.

So, in the end, I was left with My Life, The Origin of Wealth and The God Delusion.

While I’m currently happy with two titles, I’m not so sure with The Origin of Wealth though. When I got home, I immediately opened by New Years’ present and took a sneak peak of what to come. Naughty me.

The Origin of Wealth unfortunately looks like an economics thesis instead of something one could read for leisure. The appendices itself could be made into a book by itself. That’s how thick it is. Maybe I should just return and trade it for Fukuyama’s instead.

And great. I forgot that I wanted to get Sophie’s World.

Regardless, these three titles ought to keep my busy for weeks.