I profess myself openly as Christian, which I am, even though I came to being a Christian late in life.
I just finished the book Ishmael, by Daniel Quinn.
My brain, which I have no idea why it does the things it does or operates in the fashion it does, for good or bad, it goes over things repeatedly during every spare moment until I come up with an answer I am happy with or I can live with. With things like parts of the Holy Bible, some of the ancient mythological texts, and the ideas and proposals presented through the dialogue in Ishmael I end up with things I can live with until I can further assimilate the information and answer questions.
Is the book appropriate for my book club ladies? These are a group of ladies from my church which have been meeting once a month for around twelve or more years. I am the youngest one of the group by about fifteen years. I would say they are hard core Christian. But are they open to the idea that parts of the Bible are not a literal translation but parts of it may actually be orally told stories which convey metaphorical aspects of things which occurred before recorded history.
The concepts presented in the book about Adam (man) and Eve (life). The idea that the story of Cain and Able was possibly written from the Sumerian Lore and not necessarily the Hebrew point of view. That Able was a leaver, and presented as more righteous than Cain who is portrayed as taker. That the agricultural way is bad and evil and rejecting God. In Ishmael the author suggests we should return to a way more natural and more along the lines of a hunter gather type civilization.
He does suggest that an agricultural is not entirely bad in it’s own right. Because of being able to produce food we are able to specialize and compartmentalize what each of us does in our society which results in an increase of knowledge, technology, and improvement in the arts, and sciences.
He even suggests that we could invent our way out of this situation. This for the engineering and science side of my overloaded brain and studies opens itself up for a multitude of possible ways to deal with over population. I don’t ever see mankind’s population being checked in a serious manner other than a Global thermonuclear war or a new epidemic of Biblical proportions caused by are ignorant use of antibiotics and tampering with DNA of virus’ to effect cures of other ailments such as cancer. I do see mankind building ships and developing new technologies to leave the planet in mass to scavenge materials from other planets and moons. To begin again the age of colonies and expansion of mankind across the universe. That is a way we could stave off the impending doom of starvation and drowning in our own garbage and refuse from over population of a finite space.
I do agree with much of the logic and information presented in the book. An increase in food production is always answered in an increased population. Each generation says they agree with population control and how we will do it in the near future, yet we make no steps toward that direction. When he suggests an air lift of condoms being supplied to a starving nation facing a famine, I actually laughed out loud. It would never happen!! Yet he is exactly right that if a society has outpaced its food production and you throw food at the problem and the society will answer with more mouths to feed in the near future, not more food production of their own.
I also heard very recently that back when they were taking the land away from the terrible white racist landowners of South Africa and gave the land to the local workers of the area. Back then South Africa exported food! Now they can’t produce enough to feed their own, and the local owners are failing as farmers and trying to sell their farms back to the terrible whites. They want somebody else to run it and let them work the farms so they won’t starve to death.
He refers to the Gods and actually has a dialogue between them. I know why he did it that way. I know in many cultures they believed in multiple Gods. One of my primary questions concerning the Old Testament and God is a combination of statements from the Old Testament.
It is stated that God is a jealous God. In the Ten Commandments it specifically states that man shall have no other Gods before God. I know what the people of the church say concerning these statements. I got the feeling when I read the Bible myself that God was actually warning of other Gods. The statement about him being a jealous God, my first thought from the way it was written was, what is He jealous of, He is God Almighty! What is he warning us about? Are there other Gods? Where there other Gods?
There are ancient texts which mention the watchers, and peoples from the skies. Texts that mention flying machines, and weapons the result of which sound very similar to our current day nuclear weapons. That poses the question that if these stories are real where is the evidence of such pre recorded history of these grand nuclear wars. Well recently archeologists have uncovered cities where the ancient bones of the people of the city are in the streets where they died instantly. The area has a larger than normal radiation that can’t be explained. The area has the glass like evidence of molten rock as if the area around the center of the city was instantly brought to a high enough temperature to melt stone. These same characteristics can be seen at test sites for nuclear weapons of our era.
So many questions. I love books which challenge my beliefs, make me compelled to research things for myself. Things that make me ask questions. Things that make me search for solutions that our greedy fouled up ego centric society could do if they could see a profit in it, that may also be good for the planet or a means to save mankind from it’s impending doom. I do believe in God! I am not naive enough to stick my head in the sand and say don’t worry about it because the end times are near and God will save us all at the last minute.
The people thought that when Genghis Khan’s horde was trampling empires. They thought that during World War I, the war to end all wars! They thought that during World War II!! Don’t you think when the world learned what a nuclear bomb was they thought the end was near. I do sincerely feel that the Bible makes a strong point to study the word, learn and question. We have partaken of the tree of Knowledge. I don’t know if it is literally the knowledge of good and evil or just the searching for knowledge for its own sake that has and will condemn us to death. I know ignorance is bliss, but I also realize the more I learn the more I realize I don’t know so technically the closer I get to total ignorance! Vicious circle isn’t it.
For something on the lighter side, my first book ‘Whisper’ is now available as a paperback on through createspace and Amazon dot com. Just search Whisper By Thomas Wilson.
http://www.amazon.com/Whisper-Wiley-Randolph-Novel-1/dp/1466220031/
Oh yeah, by the way my second book is available as a E-book on Smashwords dot com and Amazon dot com. Just search 'No Rules Of Engagement' By Thomas Wilson.
http://www.amazon.com/Rules-Engagement-Alexander-Hawk-ebook/dp/B005KG60US/
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