NOW READING

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Read Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth, by Reza Aslan. Aslan, like myself is a Religious Studies scholar and his book is the culmination of 20 years of research. His thesis is there WAS a historical Jesus and HIS story is much more fascinating and worth paying attention to than the mythical fiction woven in the Gospels. He does a great job of painting a picture of the social and political state of Judea/Palestine before, during and after Jesus and what his original message was and how it was morphed immediately after his death and further more after the destruction of the temple in 70 C.E.

Aslan is part of the general consesus among the academic and religious communities that agree the Gospels are mostly fiction, but HINT at a historical individual. I say this because I've been watching a lot of Videos about the gnostic gospels and among them were a few videos by Richard Carrier, a philosopher who contends not only are the Gospels pure fiction, so is the "character" of Jesus. He gives interesting talks, makes good points, as does Aslan. Which is why I appreciated when in his introduction he clearly states he documents his research, points to his evidence, etc, but that for every well researched, documented and peer reviewed argument there is an equally well researched, documented and peer reviewed counter argument. Also, in the Q&A section of the his video, Carrier admits he is in the minority opinion, that his colleagues agree on the Gospels exagerations and lack of actual history, but the overwhelming consensus is that there was a man named Jesus of Nazareth.

Interesting read, learned a lot, I spent my undergrad focused on the Fourth Lateran Council, so the historicity of the New Testament wasn't really a priority.

Currently reading The Spy by Paolo Cohelo, full review in the next couple days, already half way through.
 
Magnus said:
Why on Earth anyone would read Paolo Cohelo is beyond me, frankly.
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I LOVE The Alchemist. Changed my life. The I read the pilgrim and it was... OK? Weird at best. I bought a whole bunch of his books and made the mistake of reading The Winner Stands Alone first... fucking... sucked. So now I'm more careful. I Went into The Spy VERY skeptical and I was right to do so (will explain in the review), BUT it is an enjoyable read. It's engaging, I care, I want to keep reading, despites its problems.
 
Thanks for the rec on Zealot, sounds really cool.

I actually just finished up The Alchemist and loved it. Some of the message was heavy handed (granted I read it in English so maybe some of it got lost in translation) but somehow Coelho did it in a way that I never faulted him for it. The story itself was really nice. Definitely a comfort food book, like warm soup.

On the other end of the spectrum, I’m currently reading MetaMaus, a retrospective of Maus by Art Spiegelman. It talks about the making of the book, goes more in depth into the family history, and talks about auxiliary topics such as Holocaust literature and the validity of comics as a medium. Really interesting stuff and, of course, I’m going to have to go back and re-read Maus after this. All essential reading.
 
I never think of Dave as a homophobe. And I don't think that saying the f word a few times makes him one.
 
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My theory is that Mustaine's whole Christian persona is fake af. I read his autobiography and his wife basically gave him a choice of either going to visit her priest or church or something, or divorce + never seeing his kids again.

His kids have grown up, but I bet divorce would majorly hurt him financially right now.

He's certainly softened up since his early Christian days. He's fine with Satanic bands playing on festivals with him, played "The Conjuring"etc.
 
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