Book Review: "Derren Brown: Tricks of the Mind"

Genre: "Religion and Philosophy... and Magic? Fuck it, I don't have a damned clue."
     Non-fiction... and Fiction? Shit.

Imported from England only
took two days!

Good news everyone!
I'm back, with an enthralling review of the ever-affable chicanery-connoisseur Derren Brown's book, "Tricks of the Mind"!
"Certainly", you say, "a book by a magician! How could you stoop so low!", but since so many of you are from Eurasia and other neighboring/slightly distant states, I'm sure you know exactly what Brown revels in.

Now, Derren Brown is a master of the countenance, seduction, illusion, and the mind, but one lovable trait he shares with both Penn & Teller is his sense of humor. It's not often one laughs out loud while reading a book, but I have committed the act multiple times whilst reading this tome. (And I'm not completely finished yet, so more out of obligation than for volition I will omit the last set (which is kind of dry anyway), as not to lie to you, my clever and unbelievably magnanimous readers).
One of my favorite bits that he's done was his "Russian Roulette" segment, shown live on British Television, where he influences someone to place a live round into a chamber numbered "One" on a revolver (also because he got away with saying "fuck". That might just be my American FCC experience, though), and then proceeds to fire the chambers at his cranium.


Now, I will provide an entertaining, yet 100% accurate pictoral representation of how this book's readership feels afterwards, based off of AskMen's "article reviews":

The "Furious" and "Sad" people
are obviously fundamentalists.

Now, for the actual book:

I have to admit, this book has one of the funniest/most interesting premier lines I've ever seen, "The Bible is not history." Now, I know what you're thinking, "Well of course not, I know that because I'm not an American", or for the Americans, "Well of course not, I know that because I'm not an imbecile!"; now, I loved this opening since it was such a "draw-in", per se, as a son of a marketer, I appreciate the finer things meant to attract attention, "Angry listeners are good listeners" (Or something like that) as the protagonist in "Pontypool" responds to the executive of the station impugning his jests at the citizens' drunken incidents.
Brown goes on to introduce himself as a former-fundamentalist (The U.K. still has those, apparently), and divulges his deepest secrets of his experiences of the abhorrent lifestyle. Of course, Derren Brown is now an "outed atheist", joining in the New Wave of Atheism and more specifically its newfound hobby of impugning ludicrous practices such as homeopathy (I'm sure you've experience with the absurdity) and "crystal healings", as well being as an illusionist himself. He reveals that it was actually his pursuit of the art of magic that eventually led to his self-condemnation, and hilariously so.
As I'm sure there exists those of you who have participated in the experience of Disillusionment (Title of first part, actually) , and there are those that haven't/have no interest in hearing about it, I will omit the major point of his experience and simply state his involves hobbies growing into professions, hypnotism, illusion, "peripheral seduction", telepathy, telekinesis, (sometimes) prescience, and other feats of human capacity that most people don't know are possible. Now, one thing you will notice whilst reading his book is that my writing is very similar to his, an unnecessary (his is less unnecessary than mine) amount of larger words, coy remarks toward(s) the readership, and hilarious digressions. (Digressions ranging from the "civility" to the "jubility", such as his account of leaving for a filming from his apartment: "A neglectful resetting of my lower garmenture after a last minute wee-wee had left the trouserly copula less than interdigitate, but I was manifestly unaware of my manifest underwear.")

Magic:

As I said before, and you, I am sure, my wonderfully illustriously astute readers have grown tired of me repeating myself, Derren Brown is a "Magician", of course, he refers to himself as an illusionist, and aptly so (of course, the skill-set he possesses extends well beyond the archetypal "illusion" domain, it is egregious of me to limit him to such a simplistic and limited term).

 The Coin Trick, Card Manipulation, Ouija Boards, and "Real Magic" 

Derren begins his literary journey with rather simple, fun tricks, a coin trick, to exemplify; it's simple, simply moving a coin off of a table with your hand, making it appear to still be in your hand, WHEN, REALLY, IT'S IN YOUR LAP. However, Derren Brown knows this trick is simple, and begins expounding on methods to intensify, stupefy, and magnify the reactions of your audience, "where the real magic happens". It eventually got so convoluted I got lost, again. Now then, it is in the first passage that the true intention Brown has for his book is partially revealed, a message can be gleaned then through his explanations and directions for this trick, magic is really in the audience's perspective. Simply dropping a coin into one's lap, whilst acting like it is in one's hand, and casually showing its absence isn't any fun. You have to prevaricate both your intentions and what exactly your attempts are.
And of course, Brown posits hilarity in wit regarding your actions of succeeding in any kind of deception you achieve, of which, I cannot ruin, that would be truly odious of me, I would cry myself to sleep another night, alone, for such a terrible act of double-think.

"The coin is in your kidney!"

The next trick epitomized for deception and mental convolution, is a simple card trick, the typical, "Is this your card, you fat, drunken excuse for a human being?" 'Tis really a simple trick, at least through Brown's explanation, you simply, whilst during a certain exercise of positing the cards for your audience to see, glimpse a card on the bottom of the deck, unbeknown to the simpletons surrounding you. This becomes the card you wait for, whilst revealing cards one by one from the deck, for the card after is the card they chose (because of how you split the deck, the bottom card, once the deck is split into two halves and switched, becomes the card most proximal to the chosen card).

As I'm sure you're all aware, Ouija Boards are bullshit. No, that's not a link, because this is axiomatic, for you, my unbelievably brilliant and talented readers.
It is a result of (some scientific jargon I can't remember, but basically:) unconscious movements of the muscles, of which can be manipulated in other activities. All one has to do, is simply think of something, and the brain will begin to evince activities in the exterior muscles in order to approach the end-goal, e.g. spelling a name or creating a message.

Memory

As a budding, strapping young psychologist, I know everything about the human mind, because I am an adolescent prodigy; however, I can only partially elucidate my knowledge on the subject, for fear of losing meaning and your sanity. Now then, memory, as you all know, is a very finicky thing, at times it amazes us, at other times it inactively prevents you from pulling your pants up or remembering where you put that goddamned remote. The main problem with memory, however, is how inefficiently people use it. We always try to remember phone numbers by repeating them constantly, or writing things while listening to people talk, and eventually getting lost or forgetting half the sentence, the reason for these things, is that both written numbers and words are a rather recent invention, in terms of Homo Sapien's existence. 

Oh my.

Now, what is it that people remember best?

Smells? Of course, the nose is one of the closest things to the main memory center of the brain, with a direct line to it as well, a trait not common to other parts of the body (most have an "interpreter" through specific parts). 

Tastes? Since taste is primarily smell as well, of course!

Sounds? Of course! This is obviously an evolutionary advantage for survival, especially sensitive ones. We have to remember dangerous sounds, e.g. rattlesnakes, cobras, lions, tigers, and bears.

Sights? Of course! Vision is actually a primary factor in perception, so much so, that it sometimes overrides other ones, e.g. when one sits at a stoplight and sees another move forward, and it feels like you are moving backwards, even though you are not moving at all.

Touch? I would honestly say this is the one that is less memorable, usually, pain is simply registered as "generic pain", of course, there are no exceptions.

To take true advantage and control of your memory, you have to incorporate the most powerful of your senses and use them in creative ways. Such as associating words with pictures, and connecting them, as well as doing the same things with numbers, There is also the Method of Loci, useful for memorizing lists. 

Words

Let's do an experiment: I am going to read off the example list Brown uses as his experiment to show you how powerful and useful these tricks are. Here is a twenty word list that he has engendered, that I will write from memory, I swear to you, on the oath of my veracity, I will not look at the book, the list is as follows:

1. Telephone
2. Sausage
3. Monkey
4. Button
5. Book
6. Cabbage
7. Glass
8. Mouse
9. Stomach
10. Cardboard
11. Ferry
12. Christmas
13. Athlete
14. Key
15. Wigwam
16. Baby
17. Kiwi
18. Bed
19. Paintbrush
20. Walnut

Ha! I still remember nearly a year after reading it.
Now, what is so fantabulous about this trick, is that I can now do it backwards just as easily, that I won't do in text since the list is right there.
The instruction:

• Look at the first word. Create an image of a telephone in your head, the more ludicrous or silly, the better. Brown suggests an old rotary phone. 
• Connect the second word to this word. In this case, sausage, once again, the more ludicrous or silly, the better, so, imagine, for example, trying to dial a number using a sausage as a "finger". Silly, right? EXACTLY.
• Now do this with the rest of the list. I followed Brown's example, and memorized it best from that.

Numbers

This is more difficult, because you've already a set list of numbers, which, unfortunately, changes per language, so Ett, Un, Ein, One, واحد, один obviously don't correlate very well. I'll try to do a universal set.

What Brown does is associates, for some numbers, the similarities in appearance to a letter, others in the sound the numbers make (the one more difficult for me to exemplify for you non-English speakers, unfortunately), and some that are just arbitrary, it looks like, and then associates those letters with generic and memorable words.

1. l: since it looks like an 'L', so "ale". The 'l' sound.
2. n: two downward strokes in a lowercase 'n', so "hen". The 'n' sound.
3. m: this one is explained by turning the '3' sideways, to make an 'm', or three downward strokes in a lowercase 'm', so "ham". The 'm' sound.
4. r: this one explained by the sound it makes, so "whore". The 'r' sound.
5. f/v/: simply the sound related to the word, so "hive". The 'f'' or 'v' sound.
6. b/p: the appearance of the '6', like a 'b', so "bee". The 'b' or 'p' sound.
7. t: the appearance of the '7' if drawn oddly, so "tea". The 't' sound.
8. ch/sh/j: I don't know exactly his reasoning for this one, but I think it is the odd spelling, so "shoe". The 'sh', 'ch' or 'j' sound. (Not the native German "ch" sound, unless you speak Southern German)
9. g: the appearance of the '9', like a 'g', so 'goo'. The 'g' sound.
10. l - z/s: now, since I can't get the formatting to start from zero I'll put it here, the zero correlates to the 'z' or 's' sound, his example is "zoo". Now what occurs here is the concatenation of the two letters/sounds used. When you approach the double digits, you associate them together to make their words, and then images. So here, "lice".

Miscellaneous: Card Decks, Scores, Names, and The Memorization of the Entirety of Shakespeare's Works in Chronological Order.

Brown then goes on to list his methods for memorizing decks, associating the numbers avec the letters of the cards (Hearts: 'H', Clubs: 'C', Spades: 'S', Diamonds: 'D'), and creating "peg words", i.e. creating a word of these, and then using a similar method to the aforementioned "Numbers", how to memorize their place in the deck.

Now, I was rather lost on the next part, since I don't pay attention to sports, specifically team sports, as well as being an American, "Soccer" or "Football" is not an interest to me. Using the amalgamation of the sciences above, Brown extends his example of how he memorizes the scores of the FA cup finals from 2005 to 1984.

I'm terrible with names until the second meeting, as are most people, so Brown uses an association method, associating one person with another well-known person, in some odd way, as to remember the name vicariously.

For some hilarious reason, Brown has the entire works of Shakespeare memorized chronologically, utilizing a "Memory Palace", such as Hannibal's, in "Silence of the Lambs", which is basically a more centralized and labyrinthine Method of Loci application. Brown associates particular events in a pathway through a building he has explored thoroughly, in order to prevent serious memory usage, going through particular events with names attached to the event.

Hypnosis and Suggestibility

I can't talk about this because I have been hypnotized.
But seriously, this section is dedicated to the power of unconscious and conscious manipulation through language, visual imaging, and pacification.

Bane and Joakim would be disappointed.

Have you ever been watching a movie, such as... the recent "Dark Knight" trilogy, and just suddenly had to masturbate to the sounds of Bane's voice? Well that's the power of suggestibility. Suggestibility is basically the non-obnoxious way of nagging somebody until they do something, most likely a way they or thing they never intended or wanted to do.
Hypnosis is almost entirely psychological. I say almost because I don't want you to think I know everything (even though I do). It is basically pacification with suggestibility woven into it. It is the process of making someone do something, with little to no resistance to the suggestions or "orders".
However, many people hold the misconception that they've a large penis. A common misconception about hypnosis is that it is extremely powerful, it is instigated by droning on with an annoyingly smug voice, or conducted by simply waving a watch as a pendulum. The process is really just gradually wearing down one's mental bulwarks of common thoughts and conscious processes.
The major focus and power of suggestibility lies in superficially innocuous repetition, and using key words. I mean, that's pretty much all I can give you.
Because I've been hypnotized to say no more.
There is, however, a portion of this section dedicated to motivational and self-help methods, such as confidence, phobias, fears, and anxiety. Focusing on how to present yourself, to yourself, who better to make you a better person than yourself? The answer is me. But unfortunately, teleportation and mass-telepathic RSS feeds don't exist yet. Yet.

Unconscious Communication

Now, I'm sure you all know, body language is a very revealing and sometimes annoying beast. Sometimes, simple gesticulations can lead to eventual capitulations, evinced countenances can lead to completely unethical workplace behavior, and sometimes body language can help you seduce that pelican you've been watching ever so closely at the zoo every Friday. The real "annoying" part of body language is the unequivocally convoluted and specific gesticulations for each person (and sometimes universal ones, I'm quite certain a fist placed on one's face forcefully is usually a bad happenstance), and the fact that a majority of it is completely unconscious.
"Does that girl like me? She keeps making eye contact..."
"Why the hell does that guy have a pelican on his shoulder?"
"SCREE SCREE"

"Dammit, Jim, I'm a doctor, not an Alpaca!"

See how complicated body language can make things?
I believe this to be a very important note, one that is actually applicable, and serious:
I'm sure you men can sympathize with others who believe women are confusing.
And I'm sure you women can sympathize with who believe women are confusing.
Well, I, Dr. Albino Psychomantis, am here to help.
You see, in situations where "communication is key", what multitudes of people omit, is how the communication is conducted, through what medium? This is the key. I will present Brown's example.
In a land across the pond, a man is growing frustrated with his wife, whom says she doesn't hear him say "I love you" enough. The man, of course, is frustrated by the fact that he believes himself to be a very dedicated and giving husband, he brings home gifts of affection much more than any man in a serious relationship he knows, e.g. flowers, chocolates, etc. So what is he doing wrong?
Well, what he is doing wrong is communicating in the wrong way, to show his affection. He is showing her his dedication, but she wants to hear his dedication. Savvy? I didn't know this beforehand. That was before I was a doctor. Which, in chronological accordance, would be about a week ago.
But you can trust me, I'm a doctor.

Anti-Science, Pseudo-Science, and Bad Thinking

Goddammit, he even looks
like a stupid fuck.

This section of the book, of which I'm almost through reading (but I've read enough books with this as a dedicated section, so I know all the examples already) is expounding on how humans think, but in irrational, and non-holistic ways. It is primarily focused on percentages and math, fortes most people don't have. Unlike myself of course, for some reason I've memorized all the squares up until 25, I wait for the day that someone asks, probably won't happen in Psychology courses, where math-illiteracy seems to be a requirement.
That digression aside, a major portion of this section is lionizing and demonizing common human rationality.
Like the MMR vaccination insanity, a result of "fright sensationalism" (papers writing shock essays for more subscribers and other nefarious, short-sighted purposes).
So, how about that homeopathy? Yeah. You spray water and suddenly, your convalescence is either accelerated or spontaneously appears! My god, no wonder Africa is in such terrible shape! They've no water to spray into the air!
Crystal Healings, the fuck is that about? If crystals really had the chance to heal, then coal miners wouldn't need to wear masks, and would practically be invincible.
"Alternative Medicine". There's medicine, and there's not medicine. If something is an "alternative medicine", and it works, it becomes medicine. "Alternative Medicine" is the universal moniker for palliatives. (HOLY SHIT I'VE BEEN TRYING TO REMEMBER THAT WORD FOR OVER THREE WEEKS.)
Then, "anti-science", people claiming atheism, science itself and other secular institutions "religions" themselves.
Atheism: The lack of belief in gods.
Science: The rigorous testing and analyzing of phenomena. There's no 'belief' directly involved. Objectivity is pretty much its reason for existing.
Secular Institutions: The end goal is to completely separate religion from the political sphere, it's the "politically correct" "anti-religion".

Finally,
My Bit:
I have to say, I honestly didn't know what to expect when I ordered a book from Derren Brown, I vaguely remembered him from some illusionist show he did on the tele in America (as to deceive people with the aid of anonymity), as well as seeing some interviews with Dawkins. But I was very pleasantly surprised immediately when I started reading it. Derren Brown's writing is the epitome of a British Bill Cosby, but yet, instead of family-oriented humor, we've humor meant for intellectuals, meant for skeptics, meant for the iconoclastic contrarians who spend their spare time improving their affability and ability to interest and seduce people with coin tricks. 


6 788 arbitrary things out of 6 788 arbitrary things.


Witty Catchphrase

Book Review: "The God Delusion", by Richard Dawkins

Genre: "Religion and Philosophy"
   Non-fiction

This book, that I actually only just read last fall, is also a product of one of the four Horsemen, this time, Dawkins, and as I've said before, Dawkins is the fiery proponent of Science over Religion, compared to anti-theism itself (Eventually I'll get around to reading Daniel Dennet's book, so I'll finish a quadrology), another major focal point of Dawkins is his opinions about the effects of religion on children, which I will get to momentarily. If you wish, you can look up multiple experiments he conducts that show his cunning and mockery of silly things such as "psychic mediums" and so forth. So, going off of that premise:

Let the review begin!

The Premise: "Religion is bad", but rather, as the title suggests, religion's "faith centroid", i.e. the deities put forth inward of the religion, basically the entire foundation, is a "delusion", it is something that is a noumenon, it is almost certainly not physical, nor will it ever be. Of course, as us being atheists, we are required, (reluctantly, at times), to talk mainly about the "Desert Trinity", (since they're the ubiquitious assholes (no exceptions, it's all of them (all generalizations I make are false))), however, as is with the "New Wave of Atheism", a discussion also turns its head and focuses on certain aspects, typically considered "innocuous" by the mainstream trinity (except the fact that they're "wrong"), are just as egregious (specifically certain actions of particular sects of Buddhism and other related religions, as well as animistic religions), as any atrocities they've committed since the advent of their reigns. 

Part 1: "Why there is almost certainly no God"

Dawkins is what you could call... "Old". Regardless, Dawkins explicitly states the definitions of Agnosticism and Gnosticism, that I think is an excellent point to use on a scale, shown below:

My Real problem is more about how "obnoxious" or "pretentious" they are about it, follow any discussion of [X religion] vs. Atheism, and it's ineluctable, people claiming to be "Agnostics", or "I don't give a fuck about religion"-ists, and think that absolving themselves of an inexorable "ultimatum" makes them better.

Moving past my indelible hatred of "agnostics", I believe it important to actually talk about the book; Dawkins is a man fond of math, fond of science, and very fond of Darwin. So, Dawkins elucidates why he believes there is certainly no God, going off of mathematical probability, as well as the effects on them resulting from monumental leaps and bounds made in the last few decades of (rather) unbridled scientific inquiry (the 80's was a good age, since everyone was doing cocaine. Everyone.).

"The God Hypothesis": Dawkins begins with his analysis of the "God Delusion" by basically creating an "abstract", like that of academia, summarizing his points and elaborating briefly on what exactly he will describe and analyze. Thusly, Dawkins differentiates between the common "Deist"/"Pantheist" Gods (Such as Einstein's), and that of an anthropomorphic, personal God, one multitudes of "flocks" (diction chosen) arrogantly arrogate their entire adult (and sometimes young) lives. As a devoted scientist, Dawkins, reluctantly and temporarily, performs the ascription of "Hypothesis" to the God claims, giving it momentary credibility (and thusly, falsibility), simply for the sake of adjucating, like any valid hypothesis must be put under, and to (hopefully) persuade people to remove the shackles of their credulity (I commit this, unfortunately, but with people instead, I'm a very trusting individual; I don't prevaricate, as much as people impugn that. Mendacious individuals are obdurate reprobates (any redundancy intended), linguistically meretricious mountebanks, and deserve any aspersions they receive), an unfortunate predecessor toward(s) extreme penury of critical and perspicacious thought.
As any sagacious and intelligent individual knows, learning as much as one can about a subject is never detrimental (unless it's porn), unfortunately, the non-detrimentality does not extend to indemnifying its infallibility, quite often it does the opposite.

Dawkins accuses the actual theism side of the "ultimatum" (if you so choose) as being the obverse side of the argument on any form of personified God. 

Multiple times, he instantiates practices that religion has... basically fucked over both believers and "infidels" of that religion, such as the re-emergence of Polio in India, because of Islamic fundamentalists propagating the beliefs that vaccinations were actually chemicals implanted to sterilize their population (a stronger strain, too, similar to the phenomenon of excessive uses of anti-bacterial materials leading to super-strains of viruses as well), and, of course, the Bosnian-Serbian conflicts.
Dawkins is (as are Harris and Hitchens) persistently hounded on the "natural selection" topic, since a majority of the public (America, I'm looking at you) believes it to be synonymous with "chance". This is obviously not the case, because "Natural Selection" has the fucking word selection in it. Anyway, since they must constantly answer these questions, I will posit it, for you, the people, as to prevent from making fools of yourselves. Because I love you.
Natural Selection is "defined as the gradual, non-random, process by which biological traits become either more or less common in a population as a function of differential reproduction of their bearers", i.e. it is not so much, "Survival of the Fittest", as it is "Survival of the Most Adaptable".
Now that your knowledge has increased in size exponentially, I return to a major point in this part of the book, the favorite of scientist's, "Occam's Razor", in such, he suggests that a universe with an omniscient and omnipotent god is much more complex than a universe without one, in that this God would be so much more unnecessary from a scientifically explaining standpoint. It's just too mentally labyrinthine, or convoluted, (so to speak), to be worth considering.

Part 2: "Religion and Morality"

"What is morality?", you, my astute reader is obviously asking yourself after reading the preceding heading, "It's a religious phenomenon, right?", you, my (temporarily) naïve reader, then asks, of course not! This is an atheist book review, you should be ashamed of yourself for asking such a ludicrous question! Anyway, morality has long existed before any bigots came along to ruin everyone's fun (specifically referencing the dominant religions, who claim morality comes directly from their holy texts), and it is only recently that non-religious can openly challenge both that fact, and the other holistically trivial (yet still important!) fact that they're not fucking assholes.

Religious Morality is illogical

Dawkins, ever the evolutionary biologist, continues onward toward(s) his specialty, the direct effects of evolution itself, he contributes to the genetic discussion that altruistic genes, and other respectful gregarious genes are passed down lines, since these traits usually aid in survival, as a larger group has better chances at hunting and protection. And of course, the laughably ridiculous accusation "If you don't believe in God, what's to stop you from raping, stealing, and murdering?", and of course, my ever witty self, retorts, "Well other than the fact that I've never done those, not really having any desire to do those things, of which, you obviously wish to do, since those are the first things to come to mind once you imagine life without God" (Although, I don't believe I've ever heard that question either directed at me or in person, I wait for the day, eagerly).

"Toward(s) Religion": Dawkins has an obvious contempt for religion, more so in specific categories, such as their indefatigable attempts to subvert science, manipulate and subjugate people's lives, indoctrinate, and vitiate any progress humanity can make that disagrees with their anachronistic worldviews. But even more so, Dawkins is an avid proponent/activist toward(s) autonomy for the children of religious parents and communities. Ever the Briton, Dawkins strongly opposes the assignation of "[Religion] Child", such as "Catholic Child", or "Muslim Child", since these attributes are:

1. Inappropriately authoritarian
2. Disrespectful
3. Inciting, and 
4. Foolish.

He likens this to saying one is a "Marxist Child", or "Republican Child", which is simply something people don't do. 

And finally:

My Bit:

I have absolutely no complaints to say about this book, (not that I can remember, of course), but I didn't have any to give about the last ones, did I? And of course, I enjoyed it thoroughly, because the more "intellectual" a book is, the more likely the book is euphuismistic. Of course, the book can be dry at times, since Dawkins is a dedicated proponent of science, and science can be dry sometimes, but it is still definitely worth a read.

I give it a .87 out of .88 arbitrary things.

About the author:

Did you know he was born in Kenya?
He can't be president!

Dawkins is an atheist, a vice president of the British Humanist Association, and a supporter of the Brights movement. He is well known for his criticism of creationism andintelligent design. In his 1986 book The Blind Watchmaker, he argues against the watchmaker analogy, an argument for the existence of a supernatural creator based upon the complexity of living organisms. Instead, he describes evolutionary processes as analogous to a blind watchmaker. He has since written several popular science books, and makes regular television and radio appearances, predominantly discussing these topics. In his 2006 book The God Delusion, Dawkins contends that a supernatural creator almost certainly does not exist and that religious faith is a delusion—"a fixed false belief".

Witty Catchphrase

I'M OUT OF OLD GEMS!

Bad news everyone!
I've run out of Old Gems (that I've completed), so I'll have to expedite the completion of the few I'm currently in the process of finishing.
I'm also enthralled and consumed by Demon's Souls and Dark Souls at the moment, because they really are as hard as their reputation leads one to believe (I spent 3 hours on one save game without even getting to the first boss).
To clarify, it is NOT because I was watching the olympics. Or glued to my television for the Mars landing. It was definitely because of the PissTree.

I've also rediscovered Falconer, man, I thought my Swedish leanings stopped at the Language and Sabaton, nope.

So, for this week, I may review either "The God Delusion" by Richard Dawkins, triple review "Free Will", "The Moral Landscape", "Lying" by Sam Harris, or possibly Bruce Bawer's piece, "While Europe Slept: How Radical Islam is Destroying the West from Within"; since you all seem to love reading me ramble on about the Four Horsemen and New Atheism. Shit, I should review a Darren Brown book one time, his have information that you can use outside of arguing with religious people.

Book Review: "The End of Faith", by Sam Harris

Genre: "Religion and Philosophy"

   Nonfiction

This book is one of my favorites in the nonfiction category.
It has all the things I love in writing:

1. Big. Fucking. Words. (Or words not every person knows)
2. Sentences that take up halves or wholes of pages.
3. A topic and diction/syntax for intellectuals. Is it obnoxious? Who gives a shit?
4. The challenge itself to the Political Correctness Disease™.
         A great book for that topic: "While Europe Slept: How Radical Islam is Destroying the West from Within", by Bruce Bawer.

The Premise: Sam Harris, at the forefront of the "New Wave of Atheism", as one of the Four Horsemen (Hitchens, Dennet, Dawkins as the other three), is one of Islam's greatest antagonists. Whilst Hitchens argues against religion itself, Dawkins advocates for science above religion and complete separation, and Dennet for skepticism and philosophical replacements of religious influence, Harris is aiming directly for Islam (And spirituality without religion). In this book, Harris begins his greatest and (I think) most powerful piece: The absolute rejection of faith itself, and its indemnity.
Hey, that's what the title says!

Religion:

In the aftermath of 9/11, Islam became a powerful scapegoat and  fear usable as an excuse for any American intervention in Southwest Asia (The Middle East). Just as Reagan's "Welfare Queen" was a political euphemism for Hispanics (shown again and again to not be the largest receiving demographic), Bush's "Terrorist" was a political euphemism for Arabic People.
It is in this that Harris begins his book, he begins with an anecdote of the last day of a suicide bomber, who succeeded in his attempted jihad against "infidels" in his native country. Harris (and I), however do not find this to be the most horrifying fact of the story, for outside of the actual event, the family and close friends of the bomber laud his actions, claiming he has "Sent the infidels to Hell", and has "honored his family and religion".
Harris continues throughout the book to provide examples of how refusal to address the root of the problem, faith itself, has led multiple countries to the brink of theocracy and medieval brutality. Harris explicitly states that it is this/these belief(s) that embolden jihadists and allow them to "justify" their actions.
Harris, however, also addresses another problem he believes to be filling the niche of Fundamentalist Islam in the United States: Fundamentalist Christianity (The Christian Right). He addresses specific examples of their recalcitrance on affairs the majority of other developed countries have already passed with success and without major repercussion, gay marriage, Stem Cell research, and attitudes towards/actions taken to prevent HIV/AIDS of and by the Christian Right, and the Islamic Right.

Harris, a neuroscientist, whose major works in psychology have actually been the live-action monitoring of brain activity during moments of faith/spirituality, and certainty/uncertainty between religious and non-religious individuals, defines these two states as having similar physical abnormalities to associated reward and egocentric regions of the brain, and that these states "allows otherwise normal human beings to reap the fruits of madness and consider them holy." In effect, Harris claims that it is faith that allows these people to commit these crimes, through motivation, and ignorance of any facts counter to their beliefs.

   The Witch Trials and Holocaust via Religion

In a deviation from Harris' major drive (that many are afraid to actually agree with or individually push forth, par exemple: The Dutch Muhammed "Crisis"), Harris posits that the influence of Christianity throughout the ages, the Inquisition, the Witch trials in Germany, and all persecutions of Jews, he claims is a result of the historic and indelible Antisemitism both Islam and Christianity share. And if you beautiful people have a memory long enough to remember your history and you didn't skip your history classes (Of the youth under 24 years of age surveyed in Germany in 2005, 50% didn't know what the Holocaust was), this concept is axiomatic.

There are gruesome details not needed to be mentioned in this review, i.e. the torture and killing methods used on the "witches" during the trials.
It involves crushing balls.
I'm sorry, you didn't need to know that.
IT INVOLVES CRUSHING TESTICLES.
WITH A HAMMER.
I regret nothing.

Terror: 

• Terrorism is actually a major reason Sam Harris exploded onto the scene in the New Wave of Atheism, after 9/11, Dawkins, Dennet, and Hitchens joined him breaching the public anti-atheism barrier of the U.S. with their  unadulterated criticism of Islam, finally becoming "relevant" to the (relatively) uninformed American public. 

In the next section of his book, Harris expounds on the effects and implications, the motivation and community, and lastly the reasons of terror in the modern Islamic world. Harris continues his assault on faith vicariously through its physical manifestations in the circumstances of "terrorism". Just like the opening anecdote, Harris continues providing examples and explaining multiple occasions where faith has both justified and motivated acts of terror and crimes against humanity through both scripture(s) and cultural manifestations of the religion and faith's results of them. 

Unfortunately, Acts of Terrorism are very hard to prevent just on the basis of a religious denomination, as religion can be of any skin color or appearance, Harris further explains in his debate with Bruce Schneier, "To Profile or Not to Profile".

A majority of the "Terror" subtext of the book can be attributed to the "Religion" subtext, however, this section is almost entirely about Islam and its attacks on other cultures. In it, Harris calls Islam the "cult of death", believing its end goal to be "Spread Islam at all costs", which, unfortunately, is exemplified quite often by higher-powers, specifically the late Ayatollah Khomeini, of the Islamic culture: 

Islam makes it incumbent on all adult males, provided they are not disabled and incapacitated, to prepare themselves for the conquest of other [countries] so that the writ of Islam is obeyed in every country in the world. But those who study Islamic Holy War will understand why Islam wants to conquer the whole world...Those who know nothing of Islam pretend that Islam counsels against war. Those [who say this] are witless. Islam says: Kill all the unbelievers just as they would kill you all! Does this mean that Muslims should sit back until they are devoured [by the unbelievers]?

Islam says: Kill them [the non-Muslims], put them to the sword and scatter [their armies]. Does this mean sitting back until [non-Muslims] overcome us? Islam says: Kill in the service of Allah those who may want to kill you! Does this mean that we should surrender to the enemy? Islam says: Whatever good there is exists thanks to the sword and in the shadow of the sword! People cannot be made obedient except with the sword! The sword is the key to Paradise, which can be opened only for Holy Warriors! There are hundreds of other [Koranic] psalms and Hadiths [sayings of the Prophet] urging Muslims to value war and to fight. Does all that mean that Islam is a religion that prevents men from waging war? I spit upon those foolish souls who make such a claim.

This quote is a notion shared by many in this position throughout the culture, and those beneath it. Acts of terrorism are not just a side-effect of the conquest, they are a requirement.

The Future of Reason:

As almost always in books of nonfiction such as this, there are endings and epilogues giving hope to the reader about the results of the history written in the books. This subtext refers specifically to the ideal future almost every humanist looks forward to. One without anachronisms of rituals, beliefs, and cultural practices, one without brutality towards others who disagree or are born a certain way, one without suppression of freedom; but one with science being the major advocate of the future of the human race, one with people accepting others for how they were born, one with critical thinking to be the final objective of education, one with everyone born has the equal opportunity to become something grand, one with religion not being justification for any behavior, and no ability to indemnify behavior that is conducted in its name, and finally, one with freedom from all the horrors we've committed on ourselves, that we try to rationalize with irrationality that we are not born with, but with what we can choose to believe out of fear, out of hatred, or out of oppression, a future without religion is only one step, but may be one of the most crucial.

And Lastly: My Bit:

I have to say, this book really got to me, I mean, any book that requires me to pull out of dictionary is a book I'll remember for a long time, as well as a book I pay special attention to.

I have to say I enjoy Sam's work pretty well, if you get hooked onto one of his pieces, it's only inevitable you'll read and enjoy the others, it's ineluctable, don't resist.

I mean, look at that face down there.
Look at it.
FUCKING LOOK AT IT.
Resist it, I dare you.

I give it 5 arbitrary things out of 5 arbitrary things.

Dr. Sam Harris

About the Author:

Mr. Harris is a cofounder and the CEO of Project Reason, a nonprofit foundation devoted to spreading scientific knowledge and secular values in society. He received a degree in philosophy from Stanford University and a Ph.D. in neuroscience from UCLA.

And my own personal note, one of my favorite authors, so far, I've read:

"Free Will"

"The Moral Landscape"

"Lying"

I recommend all, and may review "Free Will" and "Lying", if I do,

   it'll be in one post, since they were both rather short compared to the first.

Witty Catchphrase

For Dan