The blueprint for an energetic new religion—composed mostly of woo-woo and blather.
A book that presents a new cosmological theology.
God is the cosmos, writes Oraiah in his nonfiction debut, and all humans are parts of that totality. The word cosmos, he writes, refers to “the universal order and intelligence present in the world, as opposed to just chaos and disorder. It also implies the deep interconnectedness of all things in the universe.” As a stave against such chaos, the author proposes a new religion: Cosmism, which seeks to fuse religion and science into a kind of conceptual soup that’s equal parts dark energy and dark matter. “The field of cosmology is intricately connected to the field of theology,” Oraiah writes. “Researching and understanding the Cosmos and our place in It is the same as understanding the nature of God and our relationship with It.” According to Oraiah, this realization is one of the fundamental tenets of Cosmism. Oraiah writes all of this with a profusion of narrative energy and a generous amount of quotation and allusion; the book is immersive, providing readers with plenty of food for thought. The main drawback is that much of it is almost complete gibberish. “The spirit Supersoul houses the Ghost of the superior intelligence & supreme consciousness at the Cosmic scale,” goes one passage among innumerable passages of undiluted nonsense. “It is the power beyond our limited material data and comprehension ability.” Few to none of the author’s assertions about the nature of reality have any grounding in scientific fact. And Oraiah adds an element of blasphemy to his work by constantly invoking Carl Sagan in the context of Cosmism. Sagan’s book Cosmos (1980) is called “one of the sacred writings that is part of the Bible of the religion of Cosmism”—a statement that would have surely irked the rationalist atheist Sagan.
The blueprint for an energetic new religion—composed mostly of woo-woo and blather.Pub Date: June 9, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-03-912283-3
Page Count: 568
Publisher: FriesenPress
Review Posted Online: Sept. 6, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
An incisive, urgently relevant analysis of—and call to action on—America’s foundational ideal.
An examination of how the U.S. can revitalize its commitment to freedom.
In this ambitious study, Snyder, author of On Tyranny, The Road to Unfreedom, and other books, explores how American freedom might be reconceived not simply in negative terms—as freedom from coercion, especially by the state—but positive ones: the freedom to develop our human potential within sustaining communal structures. The author blends extensive personal reflections on his own evolving understanding of liberty with definitions of the concept by a range of philosophers, historians, politicians, and social activists. Americans, he explains, often wrongly assume that freedom simply means the removal of some barrier: “An individual is free, we think, when the government is out of the way. Negative freedom is our common sense.” In his careful and impassioned description of the profound implications of this conceptual limitation, Snyder provides a compelling account of the circumstances necessary for the realization of positive freedom, along with a set of detailed recommendations for specific sociopolitical reforms and policy initiatives. “We have to see freedom as positive, as beginning from virtues, as shared among people, and as built into institutions,” he writes. The author argues that it’s absurd to think of government as the enemy of freedom; instead, we ought to reimagine how a strong government might focus on creating the appropriate conditions for human flourishing and genuine liberty. Another essential and overlooked element of freedom is the fostering of a culture of solidarity, in which an awareness of and concern for the disadvantaged becomes a guiding virtue. Particularly striking and persuasive are the sections devoted to eviscerating the false promises of libertarianism, exposing the brutal injustices of the nation’s penitentiaries, and documenting the wide-ranging pathologies that flow from a tax system favoring the ultrawealthy.
An incisive, urgently relevant analysis of—and call to action on—America’s foundational ideal.Pub Date: Sept. 17, 2024
ISBN: 9780593728727
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: June 25, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2024
Worthwhile reference stuffed with facts and illustrations.
A compendium of charts, time lines, lists and illustrations to accompany study of the Bible.
This visually appealing resource provides a wide array of illustrative and textually concise references, beginning with three sets of charts covering the Bible as a whole, the Old Testament and the New Testament. These charts cover such topics as biblical weights and measures, feasts and holidays and the 12 disciples. Most of the charts use a variety of illustrative techniques to convey lessons and provide visual interest. A worthwhile example is “How We Got the Bible,” which provides a time line of translation history, comparisons of canons among faiths and portraits of important figures in biblical translation, such as Jerome and John Wycliffe. The book then presents a section of maps, followed by diagrams to conceptualize such structures as Noah’s Ark and Solomon’s Temple. Finally, a section on Christianity, cults and other religions describes key aspects of history and doctrine for certain Christian sects and other faith traditions. Overall, the authors take a traditionalist, conservative approach. For instance, they list Moses as the author of the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Hebrew Bible) without making mention of claims to the contrary. When comparing various Christian sects and world religions, the emphasis is on doctrine and orthodox theology. Some chapters, however, may not completely align with the needs of Catholic and Orthodox churches. But the authors’ leanings are muted enough and do not detract from the work’s usefulness. As a resource, it’s well organized, inviting and visually stimulating. Even the most seasoned reader will learn something while browsing.
Worthwhile reference stuffed with facts and illustrations.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2005
ISBN: 978-1-5963-6022-8
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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