It was pretty good stuff. He starts off as an agnostic and ends there, but he now calls himself more of a "reverent" agnostic. While there's definitely some stuff in The Bible that he can't get behind, he winds up with an appreciation for ritual and a lot of rules that seemingly don't make sense but turn out to be pretty good when put into practice.
I like that term - "reverent agnostic". In a way, I think of myself as a "reverent atheist". I genuinely get pretty stirred up when talking about the Jesus story, and I'd hate to think of what it would be like if I never knew it. Of course, I can't believe it literally, and I get the same charge out of it that I do with The Odyssey, but still, being an atheist hardly makes me think that The Bible is completely useless.
I definitely recommend checking it out if you haven't already. Above all, it's an entertaining read.
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...he winds up with an appreciation for ritual and a lot of rules that seemingly don't make sense but turn out to be pretty good when put into practice.
ReplyDeleteI haven't read it, so can you give an example of a rule that he finds pretty good when put into practice?
Crud...that was awfully vague, wasn't it? This might not be the best example, but the commandment against lying seemed to make him a better person in some respects.
ReplyDeleteFor instance, his wife would often ask him what he was thinking, and he was compelled to tell the truth - and sometimes that truth wasn't something very nice. Therefore, he had to make a concentrated effort to always think good thoughts about how thankful he was for everything he had. That made him get rid of a lot of negative vibes and make him a more positive person all-around.
Also, the act of prayer and saying thanks was good for him. While he was still agnostic, he wrote that it made him appreciate what he had more.
There's some sense to that, I think.
Lance, wasn't this guy interviewed several times in regards to this project? I think I remember seeing him with a long beard, and his wife talking about the crap it puts their marriage through (though she was saying it in mostly good humor).
ReplyDeleteWord verification = undes
But Ray would say he still wasn't a good person, that he was still condemned to Hell by the Law and that he needed to be a Christian, a true, Ray Comfort Christian, that is, if he didn't want to go to Hell. But it was a interesting book. Jacobs is also the guy who read through the entire Encyclopedia Britannica.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I want to check out his other book now that I read this one.
ReplyDeleteJust to share, if you've not yet seen this: Jacobs at TED.
ReplyDeleteI find him to be a most amiable fellow.
Therefore, he had to make a concentrated effort to always think good thoughts about how thankful he was for everything he had. That made him get rid of a lot of negative vibes and make him a more positive person all-around.
ReplyDeleteInteresting. I wonder though, whether forcing yourself to think positively all the time either (a) makes you a better person or (b) is mentally healthy. I'm not qualified to comment on the latter, but admitting that constant positive thinking = better person seems to me to accord with a lot of what Ray comes up with, about lust being adultery and hate being murder. It seems a bit like thoughtcrime.
Does anyone else agree?
That's a good point - after all, you don't want to make yourself into a robot, do you? Still, I know that I probably waste a lot of energy on negative thinking that gets me nowhere.
ReplyDeleteI'm probably not doing that great of a job of paraphrasing him anyway, but like I said, there is some sense in it.
::adds yet another book to the reading list:::
ReplyDeleteI'm probably not doing that great of a job of paraphrasing him anyway, but like I said, there is some sense in it.
ReplyDeleteProbably not wise of me to judge something you've loosely paraphrased and which I haven't even read yet, eh?
Thanks for the tip anyway, will look out for it.