What are you reading now - and then

[Stavros]

Yes, those look good as well. I have purchased a copy of "Twilight of Democracy " but am saving it for my upcoming vacation in mid October .

I hope you find it a good read, and enjoy your vacation -going anywhere safe and nice? Have today bought Margaret MacMillan's book War. How Conflict Shaped Us.

[Stavros]

Re Margaret MacMillan’s book- erudite, often fascinating, but the subject is too broad, and while the chapters are arranged by theme, much in one can be found in another, so a disappointment by the standards of her other books.

[GroobySteven]

Recently,
Ride of a Lifetime by Robert Iger (former CEO of Disney) and 'That Will Never Work' by Marc Randolph (Netflix founder). Both had good takeaways and were easy reads if you are in business or entrepreneurship.

V2 - Robert Harris. Not as gripping as his other books. They're usually a better read. Half way through.

Ready for the new Lincoln Lawyer book by Michael Connelly.

[sukumvit boy]

I have read and thoroughly enjoyed Anne Applebaum's ,"Twilight of Democracy: The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism" ( as previously reviewed by Stavro ) . It inspired me to purchase a copy of Hannah Arendt's ," The Origins of Totalitarianism" which I understand to be 'required reading ' for anyone interested in this subject. Although it is reportedly a 'difficult' read.
By the way, I also understand that there are some very poorly printed editions of the Arendt book ,such as those now available on Amazon, and have purchased the Penguin Classics edition through Blackwell"s London . That is also the edition cited by Anne Applebaum in 'Twilight'.https://blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/pr.../9780241316757

[Stavros]

Arendt's Origins of Totalitarianism was a slog for this undergaduate, and I am not sure it was worth it, being far too long. Arendt's most famous book is Eichman in Jerusalem, A Report on the Banality of Evil (1963). It is a brilliantly written study of both the trial of Eichmann, and the way that the Holocaust developed from the legal segregation of Jews from German society and economy, through their physical separation into ghettoes, then camps, and then the 'Final Solution'= extermination.

Scholars have since criticised Arendt, but had access to archival sources she did not, but also because they disapproved of her secular, Liberal-Jewish politics and culture. Critically, where Arendt viewed Greco-Roman Law and the classical concepts of Virtue and Citizenship as the foundations of Westen Democracy, her detractors have replaced it with something called 'Judeo-Christian Civilization' which subtract any Islamic content in Western Civilization, and sees Religion, rather than secular law as its foundations. In political terms it means Arendt is associated with the Israel of Ben-Gurion, Judah Magnes and Martin Buber, rather than Vladimir Jabotinsky and the Nationalists like Avraham Stern, Menachem Begin and Ariel Sharon. A good example of this desperate form of 'replacement theory' can be found in the late Roger Scruton's introduction to Bill O'Relly's execrable book The Closing of the Muslim Mind (2011). There is also an article about Scruton's theories somewhere but I have lost the link.

If you are interested in the clash between Modernist culture and National Socialism in the Weimar Republic, her essays Men in Dark Times (1968 ) is of real interest not least because she lived through much of it, and knew some of the people she was writing about.

[sukumvit boy]

Recently,
Ride of a Lifetime by Robert Iger (former CEO of Disney) and 'That Will Never Work' by Marc Randolph (Netflix founder). Both had good takeaways and were easy reads if you are in business or entrepreneurship.

V2 - Robert Harris. Not as gripping as his other books. They're usually a better read. Half way through.

Ready for the new Lincoln Lawyer book by Michael Connelly.

Michael Connelly is always a great read ,I'm a fan of the "Bosh "series Lincoln Lawyer book 6 was released today Nov. 10.

[sukumvit boy]

An 'up close and personal' look at one of our nearest relatives. Authoritative and well written look at all the amazing new evidence from chemical analysis techniques ,better dating and DNA analysis . and forensic science . The story behind the bones,campsites and kill sites is now coming together to paint a more nuanced picture of these resourceful people who populated our planet for 700 thousand years.

https://www.amazon.com/Kindred-Neand.../dp/147293749X

[sukumvit boy]

This is actually a transcript of the now famous 2 hour discussion about atheism of 2007 that came to be known as "The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse" with an introduction by Stephen Fry and some additional essays by the participants Christopher Hitchens,Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett and Sam Harris.
https://www.amazon.com/Four-Horsemen.../dp/0525511954
The actual 2 hour discussion is still available ,I think, on Youtube.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Atheism

[Stavros]

This is actually a transcript of the now famous 2 hour discussion about atheism of 2007 that came to be known as "The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse" with an introduction by Stephen Fry and some additional essays by the participants Christopher Hitchens,Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett and Sam Harris.

Unstructured talks like this can be interesting but do not in my view present the dilemma at the heart of the debate, which is there early on when Hitchens talks about offensiveness -can we distinguish between arguments on the existence of God separate from the organized religions that claim the authority of that God?

There have been numerous debates between Philosophers and Priests on the existence of God -you can try Bertrand Russell arguing with FC Copleston in 1948 (link below). I once watched a pointless argument between AJ Ayer and a Bishop, I think, on tv in a debate hosted by Bryan Magee (can't find it on youtube though some of Magee's programmes are there, eg John Searle on Wittgenstein).

Debates on the existence of God thus turn on language and morality and become arid because if people cannot agree on what words mean, or refuse to agree, the argument, as Copleston points out can go on into infinity with no resolution.

It seems to me the more critical argument concerns the manner in which organized religion, based on a foundation of documents or records, usually of one man, provides society with both a set of beliefs, an Orthodoxy, and a set of practices that confirm and perpetuate the beliefs, namely an Orthopraxy, and that is is the relationship between belief and practice that marks the divergence between the faith of a believer, and his or her behaviour.

A good example is provided by Judaism, Christianity and Islam. And in all three, acts of violence offer evidence of a catastophic divergence.

Thus, Judaism in the Bible advocates that adulterers be stoned to death, but in practice Jews some time after the age in which it might have happened, stopped doing it (possibly in Roman times), and as far as I am aware, Jews today neither stone adulterers to death, nor advocate it.

By contrast, the Quran does not advocate the stoning of adulterers, yet it has become, if not common, a form of punishment in Islamic societies, today, most recently in Iran.

In the case of Christianity, the Lord's Prayer makes it clear that forgiveness of other people's sins is fundamental to the beliefs a Christian must hold in order to 'follow Jesus', yet it appears to be one of the most common human acts notable by its absence, while, in the age of Osama bin Laden, loving one's enemies seems to many Americans preposterous to the point of being insulting, and yet evey American Christian on 9/11 and since then, was, indeed, is obliged to declare that they love bin Laden, and forgive him.

The divergence between belief and practice can be explained simply -foundational texts and declarations tend to be, in categorical terms absolute because they deal with categorical issues of life and death even when they touch on day to day issues, such as sexual relations, punishment and reward for good or bad behaviour, diet and so forth.

The austerity which is often required when matching belief with practice has thus led to subsequent interpretations of the religion which, in effect, amend the original -few Muslim scholars would dare claim they know better than Muhammad, but engage instead in a lexical or hermeneutic analysis of the Quran, or rely on the Hadith to claim that what this Sura means is something that makes more sense in the 12th or 20th century than was meant in the 7th, though in the case of the Hadith there are now so many claims of what Muhammad said and interpetations of what he said as to enable many things to take place which have no reference in the Quran or even contradict it -cutting off the hand of a thief, for example, is a barbaric punishment not found in the Quran where if anything it must be banned, because Muhammad -or rather, God (!)- says time and again that restoring faith to someone who doubts is more important than punishment -if the thief repents, does it mean the police will sow his hand back on?

Again, and with Christians, the 'Just War' was invented in order to let young men dress up in armour, ride around on horses, and get stuck into wars here, and there and even better, Crusades in which Christians slaughtered Muslims on behalf of a man who said we should not slaughter anyone, and whose sacrifice on the Cross was a demonstration and an invocation: 'let my violent death be the last for all mankind'.

Hitchens, to end, is a persuasive thinker and talker, albeit something of a misogynist, but is unreliable and,as a scholar, untrustworthy and sloppy. Browsing in a bookshop, I noted that he makes a claim about a Sura in the Quran in one of his books (I think 'God is not Great') which I was able to check because there was a Quran on the same shelf -only the Sura does not support his claim.

Without an orderly and rational approach, we risk descending into chaos where nothing is achieved. It is pointless arguing about God with a Muslim, but one can take a different appproach and argue about what the Quran actually expects of Muslims, and then attempt to show how variants of Islam, such as Saudi Arabia's 'Wahabi' doctrines are perverse and have caused so much actual damage to the faith, and the death of real people.

On another level, the attempt by Benjamin Netanyahu to make Israel a Jewish Nation in every sense of the word, is not just the Fascist project that he is heir to, given Avraham Stern was trained in Italy when it was a Fascist state, by using Judaism is a totalizing ideology it means, by definition, that to oppose Israel is to oppose Judaism, and to oppose Jews, and is thus anti-semitic.

But this is a cynical exercise in politics, because most if not all of Israel's Prime Ministers have been atheists, half of Israel regards the other half either as godless, dope-smokng beach bums, or elaborately costumed religious nutters who live on state benefits and refuse to fight for their country. In other words, this Israel has little or no connection to Biblical Israel, least of all in terms of its laws and values, so why can't critics lay into it without being shut down as 'anti-semites'? The divergence between Religion and Politics can appear to make a mockery of both.

For a good example of the nonsense you can find when disinguishing betweeen faith and practice, this strange entry in the Philosophy Dungeon might help-
https://www.learnreligions.com/ortho...rthodoxy-95857

Russell and Copleston here-
https://philosophydungeon.weebly.com...l-summary.html

[sukumvit boy]

Unstructured talks like this can be interesting but do not in my view present the dilemma at the heart of the debate, which is there early on when Hitchens talks about offensiveness -can we distinguish between arguments on the existence of God separate from the organized religions that claim the authority of that God?

There have been numerous debates between Philosophers and Priests on the existence of God -you can try Bertrand Russell arguing with FC Copleston in 1948 (link below). I once watched a pointless argument between AJ Ayer and a Bishop, I think, on tv in a debate hosted by Bryan Magee (can't find it on youtube though some of Magee's programmes are there, eg John Searle on Wittgenstein).

Debates on the existence of God thus turn on language and morality and become arid because if people cannot agree on what words mean, or refuse to agree, the argument, as Copleston points out can go on into infinity with no resolution.

It seems to me the more critical argument concerns the manner in which organized religion, based on a foundation of documents or records, usually of one man, provides society with both a set of beliefs, an Orthodoxy, and a set of practices that confirm and perpetuate the beliefs, namely an Orthopraxy, and that is is the relationship between belief and practice that marks the divergence between the faith of a believer, and his or her behaviour.

A good example is provided by Judaism, Christianity and Islam. And in all three, acts of violence offer evidence of a catastophic divergence.

Thus, Judaism in the Bible advocates that adulterers be stoned to death, but in practice Jews some time after the age in which it might have happened, stopped doing it (possibly in Roman times), and as far as I am aware, Jews today neither stone adulterers to death, nor advocate it.

By contrast, the Quran does not advocate the stoning of adulterers, yet it has become, if not common, a form of punishment in Islamic societies, today, most recently in Iran.

In the case of Christianity, the Lord's Prayer makes it clear that forgiveness of other people's sins is fundamental to the beliefs a Christian must hold in order to 'follow Jesus', yet it appears to be one of the most common human acts notable by its absence, while, in the age of Osama bin Laden, loving one's enemies seems to many Americans preposterous to the point of being insulting, and yet evey American Christian on 9/11 and since then, was, indeed, is obliged to declare that they love bin Laden, and forgive him.

The divergence between belief and practice can be explained simply -foundational texts and declarations tend to be, in categorical terms absolute because they deal with categorical issues of life and death even when they touch on day to day issues, such as sexual relations, punishment and reward for good or bad behaviour, diet and so forth.

The austerity which is often required when matching belief with practice has thus led to subsequent interpretations of the religion which, in effect, amend the original -few Muslim scholars would dare claim they know better than Muhammad, but engage instead in a lexical or hermeneutic analysis of the Quran, or rely on the Hadith to claim that what this Sura means is something that makes more sense in the 12th or 20th century than was meant in the 7th, though in the case of the Hadith there are now so many claims of what Muhammad said and interpetations of what he said as to enable many things to take place which have no reference in the Quran or even contradict it -cutting off the hand of a thief, for example, is a barbaric punishment not found in the Quran where if anything it must be banned, because Muhammad -or rather, God (!)- says time and again that restoring faith to someone who doubts is more important than punishment -if the thief repents, does it mean the police will sow his hand back on?

Again, and with Christians, the 'Just War' was invented in order to let young men dress up in armour, ride around on horses, and get stuck into wars here, and there and even better, Crusades in which Christians slaughtered Muslims on behalf of a man who said we should not slaughter anyone, and whose sacrifice on the Cross was a demonstration and an invocation: 'let my violent death be the last for all mankind'.

Hitchens, to end, is a persuasive thinker and talker, albeit something of a misogynist, but is unreliable and,as a scholar, untrustworthy and sloppy. Browsing in a bookshop, I noted that he makes a claim about a Sura in the Quran in one of his books (I think 'God is not Great') which I was able to check because there was a Quran on the same shelf -only the Sura does not support his claim.

Without an orderly and rational approach, we risk descending into chaos where nothing is achieved. It is pointless arguing about God with a Muslim, but one can take a different appproach and argue about what the Quran actually expects of Muslims, and then attempt to show how variants of Islam, such as Saudi Arabia's 'Wahabi' doctrines are perverse and have caused so much actual damage to the faith, and the death of real people.

On another level, the attempt by Benjamin Netanyahu to make Israel a Jewish Nation in every sense of the word, is not just the Fascist project that he is heir to, given Avraham Stern was trained in Italy when it was a Fascist state, by using Judaism is a totalizing ideology it means, by definition, that to oppose Israel is to oppose Judaism, and to oppose Jews, and is thus anti-semitic.

But this is a cynical exercise in politics, because most if not all of Israel's Prime Ministers have been atheists, half of Israel regards the other half either as godless, dope-smokng beach bums, or elaborately costumed religious nutters who live on state benefits and refuse to fight for their country. In other words, this Israel has little or no connection to Biblical Israel, least of all in terms of its laws and values, so why can't critics lay into it without being shut down as 'anti-semites'? The divergence between Religion and Politics can appear to make a mockery of both.

For a good example of the nonsense you can find when disinguishing betweeen faith and practice, this strange entry in the Philosophy Dungeon might help-
https://www.learnreligions.com/ortho...rthodoxy-95857

Russell and Copleston here-
https://philosophydungeon.weebly.com...l-summary.html

Great links,thanks.
I definitely want to read more Hitchens though, such an extraordinary far ranging intellect. I haven't had the opportunity to read any Dennett or Harris yet. I have read all of Dawkins' books and just finished rereading his "The Ancestors Tale", the new updated and expanded 2016 edition.
Funny to hear about Bertrand Russell again ,I remember reading his "Why I Am Not A Christian" so many years ago it seems like another lifetime .