New Year's Day

Glad you all made it past the end of the Mayan calendar. Let’s hope those who believe that it is the dawn of a better world are right. I wasn’t worried about the world ending so much as I was that it would continue more or less how it has for the past few decades.

I put books at the top of my Christmas list again this year, although a very different list from last year’s. Last year was mostly theology. This year covers philosophy, psychology and history. There is one “A”-theology book in there, The Christian Delusion, a collection of essays edited by John Loftus. I bought this one at the suggestion of Richard Carrier, a historian whom I have read and heard lecture. I emailed him and asked for comments on my recent blogging, and he wrote back. It was not really flattering, but that is his style, and I took it as constructive.

He recommended I read his entry in this book. So there may be corrections coming soon. In his essay, he covers earlier history of science than I do, but notes that many of the claims made by Christians and Muslims about discoveries of science were already done by the Greeks. So although not directly addressing the Islamic Golden Age as I did, his comments are quite relevant.

Others are:

381 AD by Freedman, a history of the shift into monotheistic governing

The Republican Brain by Mooney, recent science on how conservatives think

Answers for Aristotle by Pagilucci, I’m not sure exactly what that one is about, but Aristotle interests me and I wanted to find out more about the author

The Structure of Scientific Revolution by Kuhn, this is an old one, but I see it referenced and recommended often.

Hard to say exactly what this year will bring.