sudo life

In the last month, I’ve heard several different people talking about The Shack, a book that supposedly has new ideas about god and what it means to have a relationship with it.  Last night, a friend loaned me his copy, and I sat down and read it.  At right around 250 pages, it’s a quick read, although the writing itself is not high quality.  For those of you in the know, think “Twilight.”  The writing is self-important, predictable, cheesy, and only thing good I can really say about it is that it’s sincere.  I don’t know how old the author is, but this is the level of writing I would expect from a junior high or high school student.

As for the content, there is nothing that’s really ‘new’ in this book.  It’s basically an anarchist’s reinterpretation of christianity using new age ideas.  The main theme is an attempt to solve the problem of evil by using an appeal to emotion.  There is nothing in the way of evidence or reason offered, and many parts of the book can be considered anti-intellectual.  The parts where it did mention something scientific, the author got it horribly wrong, including a bungling of quantum mechanics (to be fair, though, who doesn’t bungle quantum mechanics?), and the continuation of the idea of mind / brain dualism.

Important issues were brought up by the protaganist in the book.  The doctrine of original sin is re-interpreted as ‘humans wanting their independence and getting it.’  To his credit, the author seems to skirt the issue of hell, and seems to imply that everyone goes to heaven no matter what, and holds to the idea that justice and grace are completely incompatible.  That is a refreshing view from a christian, but nothing life-shattering.

Over all, I have to say this book really isn’t worth reading.  My evening would have been better spent finishing up Proust was a Neuroscientist (review to be posted soon).

Theology Book Reviews, christianity

Back in August, my MBP developed some hardware issues that required a visit to the Apple store.  The Kansas City Apple Store happens to be on the famous Plaza, and very near to a Barnes and Noble.  So during this time, I ended up spending a large amount of time browsing books at said store.  As I went through the store, I happened to wander over to the science & technology section where my eyes fell upon a book with a very strange title:  “Everything Bad Is Good For You.”  If that wasn’t enough to pique one’s interest, the subtitle would be: “How today’s popular culture is actually makeing us smarter.”

Needless to say (but I’ll type it anyway), I was extremely skeptical.  Never-the-less, it was a provokative enough title for me to pick it up and turn to the first few pages.  The author, Steven Johnson,  begins with a discussion about a precursor to the modern fantasy sports games.  The story was engrossing enough that I went ahead and purchased the book, and once I was home I devoured it.  I just couldn’t put it down.

Johnson describes what he calls “the sleeper curve.”  His basic argument is that popular culture requires an increasingly complex involvement by the consumer to fully enjoy.  He supports his arguments with several specific examples taken from tv shows like “The Bachelor” and “The Sopranoes” and video games like “Zelda.”  I’m not much of a popular culture participant, and was unfamiliar with all three of these, but this did not hinder my understanding of his argument.  While I had started reading the book quite skeptically, by the end, I felt like he had made a good case using the examples that he did.  However, I do think his argument benefited from a selection bias to begin with.

One of my main criticisms is how citations and the bibliography were handled.  There were no in text citations.  The bibliography contained a snippet of the text where the information was used and then the source itself.  It’s a painful way handle sources.  One nice consideration was a section on suggested further reading, however.

Overall, this is a very worth-while book, and while I’m not completely convinced by his argument, I have to agree that Johnson is certainly on to something.  Published in 2005, it is available from Amazon.com, and other retailers.

Other Book Reviews Coming Down the Pipeline:

1) The Tipping Point and Blink by Malcolm Gladwell

2) The Black Swan by Nassim Nicholas Taleb

3)  Multiple Intelligences by Howard Gardner

I realize I’m a bit behind the times, especially with gladwell’s books, but I don’t personally know anyone else who has read them.

Book Reviews Book Reviews, education, technology