Ixan read and liked Jamey's review of Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon:

"If I understood it, the basic thesis of Dennett's arrogantly titled Consciousness Explained was that consciousness is a phenomenon that emerges from the harmonious orchestration of many smaller, dumber subsystems in the brain. Among the good ideas i...more If I understood it, the basic thesis of Dennett's arrogantly titled Consciousness Explained was that consciousness is a phenomenon that emerges from the harmonious orchestration of many smaller, dumber subsystems in the brain. Among the good ideas in Breaking the Spell is the claim that one of these little modules is an "agent detector," and that it's "over-active," so that people experience the wind as the breath of a God; the rain as the God's gift, disease as the presence of exorcisable unclean spirits, and so on. If you do believe in a God or Gods, this is a strong enough book to make it worth your while outmaneouvering it; if you don't, this is a strong enough book to take on as an ally. It has little or none of the hysteria you find in Dawkins and Hitchens.(less) "

Ixan read and liked Jamey's review of Nim/a Chimpanzee Who Learned Sign Language (Animal Intelligence Series):

"This is the person who single handedly destroyed primate language research in the U.S. by writing a debunking book that caused all the funding to evaporate overnight. Unfortunately, the book is brick stupid. Terrace describes situation after situat...more This is the person who single handedly destroyed primate language research in the U.S. by writing a debunking book that caused all the funding to evaporate overnight. Unfortunately, the book is brick stupid. Terrace describes situation after situation in which he somehow tests the chimpanzee he calls Nim and finds him inadequate, but as you read these anecdotes you're struck by how pigheaded the author is, and how his own shallowness, rigidity, and lack of moral imagination cause him to misinterpret what's happening. This guy is deaf to ethology. Roger Fouts and Jane Goodall are the people to read on the subject of chimpanzees and their world, who they are, what they can do and so on. Not this guy. (less) "

Ixan read and liked Jamey's review of There Is a God: How the World's Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind:

"Once in a while I read yet another book by a sophisticated thinker on the issue of whether a God exists. Often it turns out that there's also a chapter on the alleged "resurrection" of Jesus; this always feels like a betrayal, as well as a...more Once in a while I read yet another book by a sophisticated thinker on the issue of whether a God exists. Often it turns out that there's also a chapter on the alleged "resurrection" of Jesus; this always feels like a betrayal, as well as an admission that the main driver of the argument has actually been magical thinking all along.

I'm aware that many brilliant and honest people over the past 18 centuries have claimed to believe that this fellow Jesus was dead for three days and then became alive again, but it seems to me quite impossible and unworthy of special pleading.

I am far more ready to entertain the hypothesis that there is a divine mind without a brain (though I can't imagine how this could be true), than that a particular guy rose from the dead and was, for that matter, a human incarnation of the infinite God of the ancient Hebrews, and was somehow his own Father and his own Son, and so on. It is so absurd, so pitifully, heartbreakingly far-fetched that I won't waste ink on it. Such a belief may be laudable as a cultural formation, but it's not my culture. Unfortunately, Flew's book does include such a chapter, written by a guest author he admires. It seemed very silly to me.

I'm genuinely and un-ironically interested in the question of what speaks for theism and what speaks against it. I would like very, very, much to become convinced that God exists, which is my reason for putting in the time reading such books as this one by Antony Flew. When such a book turns up the old saw that God provides a transcendent foundation for moral values, I give the book away as non-worthwhile (for example, God: The Evidence, by Patrick Glynn).

Happily, this book doesn't do that. It claims that God is a good explanation for the origin of life, the phenomenon of consciousness, and the fact that there is a world at all. While I agree that Richard Dawkins seems to be an a-hole of some kind, I am not ready to believe that no amount of biochemistry can account for emergent self-replicating macromolecules. As to why there is a world at all, I don't prefer to ask why there is a God at all, which is the obligatory next move if I say there's a world because a God made one. Consciousness as an emergent property of a computational neural network, I just don't understand; but I certainly don't understand consciousness as an incorporeal spirit any better.

Somehow Antony Flew thought others would be persuaded by this book, and I respect him so I wonder if I simply read it too fast. I don't think so. (less) "

Ixan read and liked Jamey's review of Crossing the Rubicon: The Decline of the American Empire at the End of the Age of Oil:

"A word from the book's editor, Jamey Hecht, November 10, 2004


I'd like to extend my thanks to everyone who has reviewed Crossing The Rubicon, and to everyone who has read the book. And a special thanks to those who have done both. ...more A word from the book's editor, Jamey Hecht, November 10, 2004


I'd like to extend my thanks to everyone who has reviewed Crossing The Rubicon, and to everyone who has read the book. And a special thanks to those who have done both.

Let me reply to a recent review by a Mr. Watson. "Already some of his witnesses are unravelling as in the case of Mike Vreeland." The sentence starts with the plural, but it really refers only to Vreeland -- whom the book describes as utterly unreliable EXCEPT in the special case of his 911 warning. Why? Because the warning was a physical document whose authenticity and pre-9/11 provenance have been attested by Vreeland's lawyers, court records submitted under oath, interviews with the attorneys, former Canadian federal prosecutors, and news media. At no point does Ruppert's use of Vreeland depend on the latter's personal credibility.

Then Watson refers to the exchange between a "Victor Thorn" of "Wing TV" and Mr. Ruppert. For a complete and accurate account of the matter, including Wing TV's questions and Mike Ruppert's answers, see Ruppert's website, page:
http://www.fromthewilderness.com/10quest...

Watson continues: "The improbability of such an event [9/11] being pulled off under the noses of every uninvolved government/military official is not discussed." It is discussed at length -- see pp. 2-4; 12-18; 103; 203-224; 291-306, et al.

"Ruppert asks us to believe that Bush/Cheney could pull 9/11 off with such precision and them fumble so publically with WMDs in trying to connect 9/11 with Saddam - which he states was their main reason for 9/11 - an excuse to grab the oil." Ruppert does not say any such thing. Nobody who had read this book could possibly come away with the view that the Iraq war was the "main reason" for 9/11.

"Plenty of dots, but not many connections. Indeed, given enough dots, one can connect any kind of picture one wants." Yes, and this applies to the official story (the conspiracy of 19 highjackers and the man in the Afghan cave), and to the 26-volume "Warren Report," and to every other text. The job of an investigator, like that of a lawyer or an historian, is to configure an accurrate interpretation whose logic is more compelling than the others. This is achieved through a combination of sound evidence gathering and valid argumentation. Mr. Ruppert has produced both in abundance.
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