Social justice book reviews
I had been meaning to read Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why by New Testament scholar Bart Ehrman for several months, but I kept putting it off. Now that I’ve finally read it, I wish I had done so earlier. It was incredible!
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Interest in human origins should be more widespread regardless of which worldview it entails, because it is the study of where we came from. Especially for anyone who was once religious and entranced by the story of God creating Adam and Eve, your curiosity about our origins should increase, not decrease, significantly, when you leave the religion and discover that only science can answer your questions.
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Three weeks ago, I reviewed my first ever Ian Tattersall book, Masters of the Planet. As I said then, Ian Tattersall is the curator of the American Museum of Natural History’s Spitzer Hall of Human Origins. He’s been involved in paleoanthropology since the 60’s, and his books combine his undeniable expertise with just enough of his own evidence-based opinions and a dash of wit.
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Have you ever been going along throughout your day, minding your own business, when suddenly you were bombarded with an absolute fossil of a buried memory? Or rather, you get bits and pieces of a memory of an old book, movie, or TV show? When this happens, it can be next to impossible to think about anything else until you remember exactly what it is that your brain is reminding you of.
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I am so excited to finally be writing the post we have all been waiting for since January. This week I finished Rick Warren’s evangelical Christian bestseller The Purpose-Driven Life: What on Earth Am I Here For? I can’t wait to put it back on the shelf and let it gather dust, as it should. That way, it can’t hurt anybody.
“Here we go,” some people might be thinking. “What is it this time in this uplifting Christian book about finding your purpose that made this atheist so upset?”
I will tell you what.
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If you have been following my blog for a while, then you might know that I’m becoming a bit of a fanatic for paleoanthropology. The study of human origins has taken over my bookshelf, and I’ve found myself daydreaming about going back to human origins exhibits in museums. This is easy to do each time I get really lost in another book on the topic. This time, that book was Ian Tattersall’s Masters of the Planet: The Search for Our Human Origins.
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Just when you thought, or at least hoped, that I had forgotten about my series reacting to Rick Warren’s The Purpose-Driven Life, I’m posting about it yet again. On the bright side, we are nearly finished with this damaging book! This will be my reaction to Purpose Four out of five. This time, it’s all about serving God.
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A few months ago, I wrote a rave review of one of my now-favorite books, Andrew Seidel’s The Founding Myth: Why Christian Nationalism is Un-American. Being such a fan of the book, and being in agreement with so many of Seidel’s ideas, you can imagine how excited I was last October when I learned that I could meet him on his book tour in April!
Of course, his lecture with the Pittsburgh Freethought Community has been not canceled but sadly postponed for obvious reasons. As the PFC’s marketing chair, I had excitedly but prematurely drafted an advertisement for Seidel’s visit. For now, though, I will stash away my excitement for the day when Seidel finally makes it to Pittsburgh and instead share with you 36 of my personal favorite quotes from his brilliant book.
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I have been excited to write this post since last May. My husband and I were on a weekend trip in State College, PA celebrating our six-year dating anniversary by visiting all the local bookstores as we like to do. In a cute café and bookstore called Webster’s, I came across a uniquely rustic book called The A B C of Evolution by Joseph McCabe. It was $20 which is above the average price for a used book, but something told me I would never find a book like this again, so I bought it. Part of what sold me was the copyright date of 1920; at the time I thought to myself that that would soon be 100 years ago! Since then I’d been waiting for the perfect time in 2020 to look back at where the study of evolution was 100 years ago.
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It can be easy to assume that old books don’t say much. The books themselves often serve as rustic decorations. I’ve definitely been guilty of buying old books with the primary intent of showing them in my collection and a secondary intent of actually reading them. But when I bought The Causes and Cure of Unbelief last fall, I knew I wanted to eventually read the whole thing. After doing so, I learned why some ideas best remain forgotten.
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