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God and His Creation of the World, and the Origins of Languages and Nations

Debut author Jehangir offers a brief look at Christianity and its relationship to other world religions.
How is one to understand the Holy Trinity? Is God truly omnipotent? The book explores these and other topics, beginning with the Bible before moving on to more diverse subject matter. As the author states, “this book is not intended to promote or reflect a particular theology or religious sect.” It does, however, promote the idea that “no legendary or archaeological history of the world would deny” the biblical story of the flood, which was followed by a society of “people who had a common language and political unity.” The book’s underlying concept, therefore, is that all human beings are related, and so we must all avoid prejudice against others. It offers a swift primer on Christian theology and history, including a plain listing of the 12 disciples and a highly readable account of the Protestant Reformation. It’s often bolstered by tables and images, which make its chapter comparing Christianity, Islam and Judaism particularly easy to follow. Skeptical readers may take issue with its citations of Wikipedia as a primary source and with its more controversial assertions, such as that “[a]rchaeology has discovered thousands of items, which prove the historical accuracy of the Bible,” but the prose style remains earnest throughout. A foray into the story of the wedding of Prince William and Catherine Middleton helps humanize the proceedings (“At least one-third of the peoples of the world put aside whatever work or activity they might have been engaged in just to witness a solemn church wedding of two young people”), although the photographs of this event, included in an appendix, seem somewhat out-of-place. Overall, readers who are sympathetic to this book’s viewpoints will come away with new ideas to consider.
A brief, digestible investigation of religion and historical topics.

Pub Date: Nov. 12, 2014

ISBN: 978-1481146401

Page Count: 206

Publisher: CreateSpace

Review Posted Online: Dec. 24, 2014

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THE MYTH OF SISYPHUS

AND OTHER ESSAYS

This a book of earlier, philosophical essays concerned with the essential "absurdity" of life and the concept that- to overcome the strong tendency to suicide in every thoughtful man-one must accept life on its own terms with its values of revolt, liberty and passion. A dreary thesis- derived from and distorting the beliefs of the founders of existentialism, Jaspers, Heldegger and Kierkegaard, etc., the point of view seems peculiarly outmoded. It is based on the experience of war and the resistance, liberally laced with Andre Gide's excessive intellectualism. The younger existentialists such as Sartre and Camus, with their gift for the terse novel or intense drama, seem to have omitted from their philosophy all the deep religiosity which permeates the work of the great existentialist thinkers. This contributes to a basic lack of vitality in themselves, in these essays, and ten years after the war Camus seems unaware that the life force has healed old wounds... Largely for avant garde aesthetes and his special coterie.

Pub Date: Sept. 26, 1955

ISBN: 0679733736

Page Count: 228

Publisher: Knopf

Review Posted Online: Sept. 19, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1955

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THE ART OF SOLITUDE

A very welcome instance of philosophy that can help readers live a good life.

A teacher and scholar of Buddhism offers a formally varied account of the available rewards of solitude.

“As Mother Ayahuasca takes me in her arms, I realize that last night I vomited up my attachment to Buddhism. In passing out, I died. In coming to, I was, so to speak, reborn. I no longer have to fight these battles, I repeat to myself. I am no longer a combatant in the dharma wars. It feels as if the course of my life has shifted onto another vector, like a train shunted off its familiar track onto a new trajectory.” Readers of Batchelor’s previous books (Secular Buddhism: Imagining the Dharma in an Uncertain World, 2017, etc.) will recognize in this passage the culmination of his decadeslong shift away from the religious commitments of Buddhism toward an ecumenical and homegrown philosophy of life. Writing in a variety of modes—memoir, history, collage, essay, biography, and meditation instruction—the author doesn’t argue for his approach to solitude as much as offer it for contemplation. Essentially, Batchelor implies that if you read what Buddha said here and what Montaigne said there, and if you consider something the author has noticed, and if you reflect on your own experience, you have the possibility to improve the quality of your life. For introspective readers, it’s easy to hear in this approach a direct response to Pascal’s claim that “all of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” Batchelor wants to relieve us of this inability by offering his example of how to do just that. “Solitude is an art. Mental training is needed to refine and stabilize it,” he writes. “When you practice solitude, you dedicate yourself to the care of the soul.” Whatever a soul is, the author goes a long way toward soothing it.

A very welcome instance of philosophy that can help readers live a good life.

Pub Date: Feb. 18, 2020

ISBN: 978-0-300-25093-0

Page Count: 200

Publisher: Yale Univ.

Review Posted Online: Nov. 24, 2019

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019

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