As always, (since last year), here's a summary of the books I read in 2004 which a) were worth reading, and b) I haven't forgotten because I liked them so much I lent them away to the kind of friend who never returns books. (You know who you are.)

I welcome suggestions for other books to read. But be gentle - I suffer from book-stack-syndrome, that feeling of despair that overcomes you as you realize that no matter how much you read, the stack of unread books will never ever go below 20cm. Giving me a list of ten must-read books is like offering ten bottles of vodka to an alcoholic. I'll be genuinely grateful, but hate myself for it later. Almost burned out on reading alltogether a few months ago, and I've only slowly worked my way up to a point where I don't hate the sight of non-fiction. Don't place my recovery in danger.

Politics

David Frum, Richard Perle - An End to Evil. Good ideas, and not at all the dark work of neo-conservative imperialism it's been portrayed as, but there's a frivolent attitude here towards global conflict that unsettles me.
James Randi - The Faith Healers. On fraudulent healers, and skeptic-magician Randi's investigation of some of them. Not all faith healers are conscious about their fraud, but enough of them are to suspect anyone who lengthens people's legs in the name of the Lord.
The 9/11 Commission Report. Good, considering it was written by a committee.
David T. Hardy, Jason Clarke - Michael Moore Is A Big Fat Stupid White Man. More serious than its title indicates. Moore-bashing is so easy it gets tiresome, but for those of us who are surrounded by his admirers, displaying this book in the bookcase, and handing it out to the needy, is good for morale.
Al Franken - Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them. Translated into Norwegian as "Lias and the Lying Liars Who Place the Whole World In Danger", I feel obligated to dislike it, but I can't. Franken is what some people tell me is a contradiction, a funny, honest, American liberal. Or fairly honest - Franken is a partisan, blind to any fault of his own side. But he aims fair.
Ben Fritz, Bryan Keefer, Brendan Nyhan - All the President's Spin. Both a despin of Bush rhetorics, and an attack on the preferrence of neutral over objective reporting in today's media. Flawed in style, important message. Full review here.
V.S. Naipaul - Among the Believers. Religious travel account of Naipaul's journey in Iran, Pakistan, Malaysia and Indonesia in 1979-80. A model for how religion should be investigated, not by scrutinizing scriptures but by talking to believers.
Erik Nord - Kruttrøyk og fredspipe. Norwegan polemic against anti-smoking puritanism. Full review here.

Science

Mark Ridley - Mendel's Demon. About the challenges early life had to overcome to evolve into complex, multi-cellular life. (The book has also been published under a different name.)
Philip Ball - Critical Mass / Steven Strogatz - Sync / Albert-Laszlo Barabasi - Linked. Exciting, layman-friendly treatments of various intersecting subjects and their practical relevance: Complexity, synchronous behavior, and networks. Based on recent and developing research, so moderately speculative.
Susan Blackmore - Consciousness, An Introduction. Blackmoore does not attempt to explain consciousness, only the problem of consciousness, mystifying without leaving the natural world.
Susan Blackmore - The Meme Machine. Interesting, but very speculative attempt to apply memes to society, mind and evolution. Points to the potential of memetics while failing to reach it itself.
Kenneth Highbee - Your Memory. Practical guide to memnonics, without superlatives. Had no idea it was this easy, and by that I don't mean effortless but uncomplicated. A book I wish I'd read in school.

History

Bart Ehrman - Jesus, Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium. Interprets the historical Jesus as a millennarian prophet, who expected an immediate and very real Kingdom of God on earth. Moderately speculative, but sane.
Ramsay MacMullen - Christianizing the Roman Empire. Covers the growth of Christianity up to the fifth century. How it spread, who it spread among, what distinguished it as a faith, and what it had in common with competitors. Scholarly approach, but no verbiage, (in fact admirably concise - barely over 100 pages).
Richard E. Friedman - Who Wrote the Bible? Good layman account of the Documentary Hypothesis about the authors, sources and editors of the Old Testament, as indicated by the different styles its books are written in.
Isaac Asimov's Guide to the Bible. Detailed historical commentary on the books of the Bible. Good fun for those of us who always wondered who all these -ites were.
Roy Porter - Quacks. On quack medicine in Britain between 1650 and 1850. Respectful towards its subjects, unassuming and thorough. Porter defines quackery not as fraud but as non-professional medicine, which before the birth of modern medicine was often no more fraudulent than the professional kind, just flashier.
James Mann - Rise of the Vulcans. Covers the political background of the members of Bush's war cabinet, plotting their careers along a general trend in Republican foreign policy thinking from realpolitik to idealism. Books that deal with modern political history too often become political works themselves, but Mann avoids that trap.
Anna Funder - Stasiland. Stories of victims and former members of the Stasi, mixed with the author's own story of finding them.
Anne Applebaum - Gulag. Thorough, high-class work of history. Covers the horrors of Soviet slave labour in scope and detail. The most unpleasant book I read this year.
Samantha Power - A Problem From Hell. On American behavior during the genocides of the 20th century: mostly despiccable, except for Kosovo, the genocide that was prevented. Power's focus on the US should not be inferred as an absolution of anyone else, though. The lessons are meant for all of us.
Con Coughlin - Saddam: The Secret Life. A few years out of date by now, and Iraq's own archives will complement most of it, so I can't really recommend it.

Fiction

Robert Heinlein - The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. Been reading this at regular intervals for years. Can be noticed by immediate, short-term lunification of grammar. Heinlein amazing writer and fair dinkum-thinkum, with noticable but charming obsessions. Ja-DA! (How's the screenplay coming along, Tim?)
C.J. Cherryh - Downbelow Station / Cyteen. I thought Cherryh only wrote fantasy, but Cyteen is hard, intelligent scifi, a genetic engineering tale. Downbelow Station takes place earlier in the same universe, and although it too is a Hugo winner, it lacks the extra that makes Cyteen so amazing.
Neal Stephenson - Snow Crash / The Diamond Age. Why, oh why, can't Stephenson write decent endings? Everything else about his books is high class. The Diamond Age is the better of the two, but also has the most disappointing ending. Read them anyway.
Philip K. Dick - Second Variety / The Father-Thing. Second and third of Dick's five volume collected short stories. The quality of the second varies (ha!), but watching Dick find his voice is worth it, and the third volume is consistently excellent. Written before he turned often unaccessably psychedelic.
Philip K. Dick - Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said. Speaking of psychedelic, this is it, but in measures I can handle. A good place to sample the themes that color most of Dick's novels: scizophrenia, drug use, and paranoia.
Iain Banks - Player of Games / Use of Weapons. Two gems from Banks' Culture-series. (Avoid Excession.)
Robert Silverberg - Roma Eterna. Collection of short stories from an alternate world where Rome never fell, because Moses failed to leave Egypt. Not plausible as what-if's, but works very well as stories.
Philip Pullman - His Dark Materials trilogy. The anti-Narnia. Lousy ending, but otherwise wonderful.
Neil Gaiman - Coraline. Doesn't deserve all the rave, but good, dark children's story.
Patrick O'Brian - Post Captain / HMS Surprise / The Mauritius Command. Book 2-4 in O'Brian's series of historical novels from the Napoleon wars. Not my typical literature, slow and understated, and it took a while to hook me, but now that I am I never want it to end.
Stephen King - The Gunslinger / The Drawing of the Three / The Waste Lands / Wizard and Glass. First four books in the Dark Tower series. I'd heard of the Dark Tower before I opened The Gunslinger, but hadn't imagined I'd rank the series at the top of King's work. Now is a good time to read it, as the last three volumes have just been published.

Humour

Al Franken - Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot. Would belong in the politics section, along with Lies, except for the number of obesity jokes about Limbaugh. This is ostensibly an attempt at satirizing the tone of the political debate or something, but I think Franken enjoys finding creative ways to call Limbaugh fat. Yet Limbaugh still manages to come out the less admirable of the two.
Jon Stewart - America, the Book. Non-partisan satire. If you like the show, you like the book.
Cristopher Buckley, John Tierney - God Is My Broker. Self-help satire, with Deepak Chopra the primary target.
Spike Milligan - Adolf Hitler: My Part in His Downfall / Rommel? Gunner Who? First two volumes of the British comedian's insane WWII memoirs, truthful in essence but (probably / hopefully?) not in detail. For an extra treat, look up Spike's own recording of these books.

As for next year, I think I'll do something new. I have hundreds of books stacked about, and I've read most of them, (except for a hundred or so bought during a bookaholic binge seven years ago). But I've read few of them more than once. Maybe it's time to revisit some old friends. Many of them deserve it, and there's more in a good book than can be absorbed in one reading.

This is more like a bottle of martini:

Ziauddin Sardar: Desperately seeking paradise. See my review here. Otherwise "Å lese Lolita i Teheran" published by Humanist forlag might be worth checking out :).

Don't party too much!

Sir, having been aquainted to the fact that you have taken upon yourself to read the books of Patrick O'Brian, I find it my duty to admonish you to the fact that the reading of these books can develop into a most harmful and addicting habit, much like the taking of laudanum, or the sinful use of tobacco.
Which you are hereby warned of.

PS. I wish you all joy with the forthcoming new year, for love.

That is a lot of reading for one year Bjorn.

My addition to the list would be The Lucifer Principle. It is billed as a Scientific exploration into the forces of history and the role evil plays in creating history. I think calling the book Scientific is a bit of a stretch but there are some interesting ideas presented.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0871136643/qid=1104174826/sr=2-1/ref=pd_ka_b_2_1/102-6880562-8634501

Hm. I guess you mean me when you're talking about the one that doesn't return the books. Guilty as charged. But .. I suffer from the same syndrome as you. The Book-Stack-Syndrome.

I envy you. I simply don't have the time to read book anymore, whereas that used to be the main thing I did in my spare time.

cool blog, I just moved to Norway and its good to know there are some funny, cool Norwegians around ;)

Some books I've read these last to months.

Dan Brown - The Da Vinci Code
Edgar Allan Poe - Tales of Mystery and Imagination
Edgar Allan Poe - Collected Works
Stephen Hawking - A Brief history of Time
Dr Karl Kruszelnicki - Great Myth Conceptions
Rhylle Winn - High Tides & Hard Rides

Bill Whittle's Silent America: Essays from an America at War, is now available on Amazon.

Via Instapundit.

Bill is Eject!Eject!Eject!

You can read some of his stuff there.

Hugh Hewitt's got a book out about blogs and the revolution.

hughhewitt.com

He's part of the Northern Alliance. Lileks is on sometimes. LGF/Charles has also been heard on his show.

If you want to listen, you can link thru his site, IIRC.

I'm going to read more this year, too. I want to finally finish John Adams' bio, Ben Franklin's is in the wings, and I still need to purchase

The Politically Incorrect Guide to American History
by Thomas E. Woods Jr.

The Press Enterprise must have read Hugh Hewitt's new book,

Blog : Understanding the Information Reformation That's Changing Your World

Via Bill Hobbs.

2004 was a busy year and only found enough time to read one book, but read many interesting articles. Too man irons in the fire and interests to distract me.

The Struggle for the Birthright by Steven Jones. Although I read this book about two years ago its worth mentioning because I believe nearly everyone interested in current events needs to know the background of what would ultimately shape politics in the Middle East into what we have today. This book addresses the dispute over the thin strip of land called Palestine, and helps you understand The Birthright vs. the Dominion Mandate, and much more. If you don’t understand the history Jones reveals, you’ll never understand scripture and what’s going on in the Middle East. You are not going to find this book at Amazon, or Barns and Noble. However, I believe you can order it through artisanpublishers.com. I’ll guarantee once you start reading it will be difficult to put down.

Flyboys by James Bradley. The account of nine American World War II pilots shot down over the remote island of Chi Chi Jima (located 150 miles north of Iwo Jima). One pilot is rescued by a submarine (G. H. Bush) while the other eight were captured by the Japanese, and disappear. Bradley explains the Japanese history that lead to the militarization of Japan in the post Samurai period. A must read for both Americans and Japanese, or anyone interested in the Pacific theater of WWII. Bradley also wrote Flags of Our Fathers; a well documented account about the six flag raisers and the details behind the invasion of Iwo Jima by US Marines in February 1945.

The Earth Chronicles by zechariah sitchin -- rather revolutionary theory about the origin of humankind. Extraterrestrials may yet be in our midst and involving themselves in human affairs.The chronicles of revealed religions ,in particular the abrahamic religions : judaism, christianity ( and islam ???=faux abrahamic for reasons too detailed to be discussed here)eerily suggests the intervention of otherworldly being(s)...Yahweh - Lord of Hosts ( captain of an army)....leading the israelis around by day in a pillar (vehicle) of cloud and by night in a pillar (vehicle/capsule) of light....hmmmm so reminiscent of UFO's. Further , the Quranic texts constantly refer to Allah in the grammatical plural "we" suggestive of collective alien intervention ...and that pesky angel Gabriel popping in and out of Mohammad's brain, giving him just the right idea and instructions and strategy in his career as a bandolero LOL.....hmmmmm suggestive of high-tech psychotronic control . More recently our apparitions of a Nossa Senhora de Fatimah and the apparitions of our lady at Zeitun, egypt... what with luminous clouds,and spinning wheels, streaks of lights and glowing globes in the sky...hmmm all very UFO -ish .

God and the New physics by Paul Davies - not a new book, but finally got around to devour it.How did the universe begin and how will it end? What is matter? what is mind, and can it survive death? What are time and space, and how do they relate to ideas about God? Is the order of the universe the result of accident or design? Physics/astrophysics is a very active field with new information becoming available at an amazing rate. Mr. Davies knows the arcana of physics well....and talking about physics ( nothwithstanding Fritjof Capra's Tao of Physics) you folks might want to check out this link for a bit of mental presdigitation vis a vis buddhist cosmology and eschatology.. a far cry from the dreadful doomsday pulp of 'the left behind series ' by whats-his-face?...or the seductively pseudoscientific ramblings of Harun Yahya LOL ....

o.k. here's the link:

http://home.btclick.com/scimah/

This next one i think is a must read for everyone given the insidious and surreptitious nature of militant islamists:

Sun Tzu on THE ART OF WAR ( 孫子兵法 )

You can read the hypertext on line via:

http://www.chinapage.com/sunzi-e.html#01

Looking at this excerpt:

"18. All warfare is based on deception.

19. Hence, when able to attack, we must seem unable;
when using our forces, we must seem inactive; when we
are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away;
when far away, we must make him believe we are near.

20. Hold out baits to entice the enemy. Feign disorder,
and crush him.

21. If he is secure at all points, be prepared for him.
If he is in superior strength, evade him.

22. If your opponent is of choleric temper, seek to
irritate him. Pretend to be weak, that he may grow arrogant.

23. If he is taking his ease, give him no rest.
If his forces are united, separate them.

24. Attack him where he is unprepared, appear where
you are not expected.

25. These military devices, leading to victory,
must not be divulged beforehand."

item 18 is of importance to us infidels -- the militant islamists are masters at deception --the art of taquiyyah. Item 25 presents problems to the western press..especially in the US where the ubiquitous free press ( oh of course we need free press..but one with common sense LOL ) is ever so ready to blab about our military strategy if ever given the chance( go ahead sacrifice everything on the altar of free-speech.....just like my good friend - Oeyvin's pristine "ability-to-unseat-the government" pristine democracy LOL.

The Sun Tzu site is cross-linked to the original in chinese ,,,,,, for those who are bilingual and want to fathom the nuances of the elevated language style of wen-yen-wen chinese, here's an extract:

孫子曰：兵者，國之大事，死生之地，存亡之道，不可不察也。

故經之以五，校之以計，而索其情：一曰道，二曰天，三曰地，四曰
將，五曰法。道者，令民于上同意者也，可與之死，可與之生，民不
詭也。天者，陰陽、寒暑、時制也。地者，高下、遠近、險易、廣狹
、死生也。將者，智、信、仁、勇、嚴也。法者，曲制、官道、主用
也。凡此五者，將莫不聞，知之者勝，不知之者不勝。故校之以計，
而索其情。曰：主孰有道？將孰有能？天地孰得？法令孰行？兵眾孰
強？士卒孰練？賞罰孰明？吾以此知勝負矣。

Kim Sook-Im
Still platinum blonde, still agent-provocatrice and still not wearing that damn burqa or hijab

Scientist

Oh, yes, radical Islamists do deceive. Some of them, I believe, refer to this as "operational safety".

But it is not about taqiyya - most radical Islamists belong to branches of Islam who utterly despise taqiyya (which means to hide ones true beliefs - mostly in a religious meaning (i.e. to say that one is Sunni when one is Shiite), and is mostly - but not only - a Shia concept).

The interpretation of taqiyya - that of jihadwatch et al. - is rather creative, to put it mildly.

There are rules for lying in Islam, and while these rules are very strict, lying is sometimes and by some scholars considered partly legal in war and militant islamists do consider themselves in war with both governments in their own countries and western allies of these governments. That militant islamists lie would hardly be a surprise, even regardless of this, see "operational safety" again.

Militant islamists will, true to their nature, find a religious foundation for this - but it is not taqiyya. It is however revealing that Kim Sook-Im choses to follow this utterly false interpretation.

Øyvind

my good friend Oeyvin,

but that is part of my Taquiyyah...ahem...but shusshhhhhhh don't you be telling no one , you hear?
Mama San

Ah, of course, the good old "Protocols of Zions trick":

- Jews are allowed to lie!
- No, they are not. Look at the Torah!
- But the Protocols of the Elders of Zion says that they are allowed to lie.
- But that is a false work, and Jews do not believe in it.
- That is a lie, too, of course.
- Aaahh.

Nice to live in a conspiracy?

Øyvind wrote:

"There are rules for lying in Islam, and while these rules are very strict, lying is sometimes and by some scholars considered partly legal in war "

Aaah Sooooo des-ka.........hmmmmm Lying is permissible in Islam, how devious...but wait....there are rules controlling lying..and oooh oooh they are very strict ( something that will warm the hearts of our apologistes norvégiens
to no end ha ha ha) What the heck is 'lying' doing in a 'religion' which is supposed to teach the golden rule? But who says Islam teaches the golden rule (Monsieur Oeyvin...you naughty Askeladden, i am sure you will contrive a way to excuse Islam of this sin ).

My oh my how naive of you to believe everything the islamisk scholars tell you. Well what do you expect all those friendly muslims in Bergen to tell you if one of their co-religionist decides to knock down one of your towers? ...that they are delighted to have done you in? Of course not... they will as usual tell you that those people are not true muslims, that they have misinterpreted the Quran , hadith, sunnah blaah blah and double blah . Truth is we do have muslim clerics of stature truthfully and publically denounce the hideous tenets of islam : religious bigotry, language and intent of violence against infidels, misogyny, totalitarianism.......as long as these remain the operating manifesto of Islamdom........nonsensical apologia served up by the Øyvindians of the world should be summarily dismissed ......baring which we should enlist Lady General Hwa Mu Lan to muzzle them LOL !

Ayesha binti Kim
عيشة بينتي كيم

( not related to that teeny-bopper concubine of Mohammad the Lecher )

ERRATUM:

O.K. CORRECTION
to my above post...it should read " Truth is we do NOT HAVE muslim clerics of stature truthfully and publicly denounce the hideous tenets of Islam........"

Oeyvind should spend more time reading the muttaquns online to appreciate the stupidity and bigotry that the supposed strictly-controlled-lying 'faux-religion' imparts to its adherents......instead of reading Hvitebjørn Kong Valemon LOL

Sook-Im binti Kim

oops double ooops,

here's the link for a sample muttaqun:

http://muttaqun.com/index.html

sorry it's late and too much coffee

Kim Sook-Im

I might add that there are rules for lying in other religions, as well? Having rules for lying does not per se permit lying.

Lying isn't permitted in Islam, just like it isn't permitted in any other world religion. But there are exceptions, and lying in warfare is - under further regulations not agreed upon by different scholars - is one of them. That has nothing to do with taqiyya, it's based on other principles and interpretations.

Wahhabis and their kin in generally hate the use of taqiyya (i.e. hiding ones believes to avoid persecution), as they consider it a shiite tradition that the shiites use to hide the "fact" that they are giving God partners (the Wahhabis consider the Shias to be polytheists). They also consider it abhorable to hide ones religion in general.

It is, of course, not surprising that Kim Sook-Im does not know this, nor surprising that she denies it, it reveals both her lack of actual knowledge on the subject and her subscription to anti-Islamist sites of the kind that gladly conjures up equivalents of the Protocols to further their cause.

In general, Kim Sook-Im, I do not waste my time reading the sites of wahhabis and their kinred. I do not deny their existance, I do not deny their stupidity, I do not deny their abhorable views on numerous issues. Even Ex-Christian thinks of wahhabism as a problem, and that sure says a lot. However, Kim Sook-Im, as you have yourself pointed out, Islam is not monolithic - and it would do you good to acknowledge this.

Øyvind

P.S: I am currently in Leuven, centrally placed in our lovely Eurabia, and not in al-Bergen.

Hei Øyvind,

Nice of you to write from Leuven/Louvain...i used to know a fella from the katholieke Universiteit Leuven, a very scholarly chap delirously enamored with the westphalian and non-westphalian paradigm of Islam....who oooh like you professes to be sooo akademisch...to so neatly compartmentalize this monster of Yshlam into neat little theoretical compartments. Oh yes pan arabism as distinguished from pan-islamism...oh yes one kills the other does not hmmmm go on dream away .........maybe you can explain , whine, apologize away as to why
many terrorist states such as Libya, Iraq, Syria, the PLO, and Egypt are secular and mix Nazism with Islam. Iran is a fundamentalist terrorist state as is Saudi Arabia. The violent Wahhabi Cult that developed in the 18-19th centuries in Saudi Arabia refers to Shiite Muslims as "the enemy." To complete this mess is the support of radical Islam by the Western Left and the dirty politics of oil. And to cleverly make this ridiculous ivory-tower akademisk distinction between pan arabism and pan islamism, when in reality you have a continuum and an intricate interrelationship between the two.....truth is you cannot extricate the Yshlam factor from araby...Islam is a tool for arab hegemony ( oh yes i know not all muslims are arab blah blah blah)....do you really think the arab street or the street in jogdjakarta cares a hoot about your neat 'academese' perspective of their religious welfare?

Arabia prior to the advent of islam was a tolerant place where the supposed 'jahiliyah' arabs live and coexist peacefully with the sabaeans, jews, zoroastrians, early christians etc...You snobbishly accuse me of not knowing the intricacies of Yshlam... have you not read Sun Tzu..but no, pseudo-academes like you have to engage in mental gymnastics to excuse the existence of a nefarious Cult...leftist 'scholars'and legions of european apologentsias like you have to come up with high fallutin theories and constructs to explain away the hooliganism that is so synonymous with Yshlam....truly you have become a veritable mouth piece for the devil himself if you persist in this unseemly islamo-sympathetic prestidigitations.

Also, now you purport to be psychic too -to read my mind and know what i know.( it would be interesting for you to know what i know about isssslam.., probably more than you would comprehend in your ivory tower.... ..and to further discredit your warped sense of humor you would state that even 'ex-christian' disapproves of the Wahabist--- oh really, someone like 'ex-christian' who had publically confessed that "issssssslam is dearer than life itself to a mussssslim " ..hmmmmm gives new meaning to the adage : the pot calling the kettle black ha ha ha.

Beware ! Leuven...the hordes of Yshlam are at your city gate... and you have brave Øyvind to swat at them with his pen and Aftenpost.......pity such beautiful city in the heart of Eurabia ( do i sense a wee bit of Loki's pride in you when you say 'eurabia'...hem? )

Princess Naboo
Mistress of the blue Nile

نابو الأميرة للنيل الأزرق

藍色尼羅的公主 Naboo

Oh , one more thing my dear friend abdul Oeyvind, regarding that little matter about lying..ahem...I would like for the readers to read this most interesting article concerning the duplicity of lying in Yshlam and why muslim clerics and statesmen have habitually engaged in lying since the inception of Yshlam.

http://www.islamreview.com/articles/lying.shtml

oooh i refer you to your statement:

"I might add that there are rules for lying in other religions, as well? Having rules for lying does not per se permit lying.

Lying isn't permitted in Islam, just like it isn't permitted in any other world religion. But there are exceptions"

...so christianity /Jesus of Nazareth encourages lying? The enlightened Buddha said : most of the time don't lie , but there are exceptions to the rule..etc. etc.? .....and then immediately thereafter you contradict yourself by saying lying is not permitted in any other world rligion. Do you categorically qualify Yshlam as a religion?.......oh as studious as you are, i am sure you can come up with a working definition of religion that will delight the likes of our friendly mr. Krekars of islamdom?

Princesssss Naboo

I would also recommend Patricia Smith Churchland's "Neurophilosophy" if you want a biological study of consciousness. It is a bit long but well-written enough that I did not mind.

Kim Sook-Im.

Apparently a teaspoon is needed. Okay, a teaspoon it is, then.

1. The Quran, the only scripture all Muslims have in common, says pretty much the same thing about lying as for instance the Bible.

"Truly Allah guides not one who transgresses and lies." Surah 40:28.

2. In hadiths, secondary scripture accepted - in part at least - by most Muslms, there are however found some exceptions to this rule, although the general idea is pretty much summed up by this hadith:

"Be honest because honesty leads to goodness, and goodness leads to Paradise. Beware of falsehood because it leads to immorality, and immorality leads to Hell."

The exceptions found in the hadith can be summarized thus: it is legal to create reconciliation amongst people, in war, and amongst spouses to keep peace in the family. See for instance "Ehiaa Oloum al-Din," by the famous Islamic scholar al-Ghazali, Vol. 3: PP.284-287.

One hadith also quotes Muhammed thus:
"The sons of Adam are accountable for all lies except those uttered to help bring reconciliation between Muslims."

One can of course discuss the morals in these hadith statements, but it is hardly what you portray it as, Kim Sook-Im. And you are perfectly right to point out that Buddhists are much, much stricter concerning this than Muslims are. There is a heavy focus on duty ethics in Buddhism, while Islam and Christianity sometimes uses consequence ethics instead.

3. Taqiyya is a limited concept, that has nothing whatsoever with lying in warfare to do. It does, however, allow lying to prevent oneself or others from harm, mostly in the context of religious persecution. It is mostly, but not exclusively, a Shia concept. The Ibadis, decendants of the Khawarijites - mostly found in Oman - have a somewhat similar concept.

4. Taqiyya is not accepted amongst the worst nutcases of Islam, for instance by Wahhabists and Salafis. When they lie, it is not because of taqiyya. I understand you think the word sounds cool and scary, but your use of it reveals nothing but your lack of knowledge of Islam.

5. Throughout the times there has been written an incredible number of legal interpretations in Islam, as in Christianity. Some of these allow lying, and set rules for lying, in given circumstances - for instance in warfare. This is not very different from Christianity.

With this I write my final post on this thread, and I hope, Kim Sook-Im, that you will find room for some other books on Islam on your "Books of 2005"-list than "Prophet of Doom" and its equivalents. Ziauddin Sardars "Desperately Seeking Paradise" is not a bad place to begin.

Ma salaama,

Øyvind

Oh, and David - I read that Da Vinci Code, too, and was pleasantly surprised. The things presented as "facts" are often quite... er... original and perhaps not so factual, but the book is highly readable.

As of yet, I'm reading "Holy blood - Holy grail", which has just been translated into Norwegian. After checking this out, I might end up being a Believer, too (Movie recommendation: "The Believer"). Anyway. If anyone is looking for cheap and entertaining thrillers that you don't really need to think a lot when reading - check out Dan Browns other books as well. Worth a read. But that's it.

Øyvind

My dearest brother abdul Øyvind wrote:

"
I understand you think the word sounds cool and scary, but your use of it reveals nothing but your lack of knowledge of Islam."

haaa ha ha ha ha ha.....are you referring to moi ? My oh my how presumptious can you be.... you have not been reading Sun Tzu ....but then knowing you , you probably think you are wiser than the ancient sage........so you blithely glow with pride and purport to 'educate' the readership of the blogosphere with your 'academique' version of Issssssslam !!!. Oh my and how nice of you to recommend western authors on Isssslam ah ha ha ha... dear brother Oeyvind...i read their texts and their writings in the arabic too ! Here is the foolishness of western scholars and supposed scholars whose meagre knowledge of Issssslam is gleaned from books versus those of us who circulate, work with read with interact with and are in the inner circles of the various cultic byproducts of the motherbrood /the Ummah. Case in point Yassir arafat grand Vizir of the palestinian people will say something nice for western consumption in english or french, and then when he addresses his kinsfolk in arabic the speech is quite something else . Another case in point many of the english translation of the Quran oftentimes tone things down a bit...the original in the arabic is even more violent and scary. Another case in point currently the Da'wa'ists/ proselytizers/evangelicals of Islam are furiously converting infidels by presenting all the pretty facets of islam and hiding the more unpleasant aspect of the religion from the unsuspecting victims -- interestingly they have been using cyberspace with some success. What wonderful allies they have in the likes of the Øyvinds of the world. Poor innocent Øyvind...do you really think i do not already know all those things that you so studiously elaborate above.......and this is why the hordes of Yshlam will take al-Bergen and al-Leuven without even firing a shot much less raise a spear ........oooooh woe be unto ye followers of Odin for this day has Loki betrayed
Midgaard !!!

Princess Ayesha binti Kim

أميرة عيشة بينتي كيم

Sweet cactusblossom of the east,
you charm us all with your polite but persistent anger. Your last post was enlightening, it cleared my confusion ever so slightly. I`ve been wondering why you and poor Øyvind, both seeming so scholarly, take so opposing views. Not seeming like liars or narrowminded fanatics any of you. Now I see.

Øyvind gives us the normative point of view, how things should be. You supplying the more descriptive one, down to reality so to spak. He, like so many leftwingers, like to belive they can THINK the world to become Utopia. As do they cling to the belive that man is basically good and that evil only springs from circumstance. (The last might be true for all I know, but we realy realy seems easily shoved out of course sometimes).

We need not look either long or hard at our 100 000 years of history to see that violence, cruelty and injustice has been more the rule than the exeption. How old is modernity, 400 years? Get real, see man as he is. We don`t have the powers to WISH people better. We need to be TOLD to behave, a polite request isn`t always sufficient.

Problem is these dreamers, like Øyvind, is the leftist intelligensia. They rule the governments, universities and the media in most of Europe. IQ and wisdom do not seem to correlate positively. (I Have never heard of any measurement of wisdom. Wisdom can be defined, so it should be possible to measure like IQ? What a wonderful tool it would be for choosing leaders!)

Please keep shouting,
yours humbly
Nils

Permit me to recommend "Idealister" by the danish (far left) author Hans Scherfig. Brilliant satire on superstition, politics, religion, and above all idealism in Denmark just before world war II - with a fair deal of self-irony thrown in.

Nils:

Sorry for not keeping my promises on not posting more on this thread, but hey:

1. I suggest you read more of my posts - for instance what I write about wahhabism - before you start believing your own dreams about me.

2. I would also appreciate it if you chose to debate instead of using moronic straw men.

3. Does this technique of degrading anyone who might disagree with your analysis to "the leftist intellensia" and make stupid statements about IQ (I thought that was the Silly Leftists technique on George W., and that the Sensible Right had understood that debates are rarely won by refering to IQ - obviously I was wrong)

4. By the way, Kim Sook-Im is for once right, by all means - read Arabic texts, talk to Muslims, listen to their speeches, check out Islamists yourself. You dont even have to be a polyglot, the worst nutcases are just as nutty in English as in any other language.

But although both Kim Sook-Im and you, nils, seem to dream that the worst nutcases are the majority, they are not.

5. Ziauddin Sardar is, by the way, a Muslim, although he is - indeed - Western Muslim. He is well worth reading, and disregarding him is quite silly of y'all.

Øyvind

P.S: Kim Sook-Im, its probably nice and all for you to have apocalyptic visions on Europes future. But, then - as you feel so sure of the stupidity of Europeans - why bother?

Oooh, and by the way: Which religious nut would be stupid enough to convert people to a religion different from their own?

Herrrooo Øyvind and Nils,

You (Øyvind) wrote:

".........But although both Kim Sook-Im and you, nils, seem to dream that the worst nutcases are the majority, they are not"

ahem...again you display extreme short-sightedness as usual.....the extreme nutcases are the tips of the ice-bergs..they are easily identifieable...it is the rank and file "moderate'
islamists ..especially your western educated ones that you should fear even more !......they are the ones that will eventually cannibalize you LOL.

I refer fellow blogistanis to the following articles:

http://www.islamreview.com/articles/islamicstrategy.shtml ( sneaky strategies !not by Oeyvinds's standards LOL )

http://www.islamreview.com/articles/puttingtolerance.shtml

http://www.islamreview.com/articles/europeanfears.shtml

Øyvind also wrote:

".........P.S: Kim Sook-Im, its probably nice and all for you to have apocalyptic visions on Europes future. But, then - as you feel so sure of the stupidity of Europeans - why bother? "

..........Herr Oeyvind ...did i make such a sweeping indictment of all europeans?..or are you infering that my comments indict all europeans as stoopid LOL?......are not europeans a rather diverse group.. I would think that like all viable population group their intellect will observe a rather staid gaussian curve distribution ?.

Methinks Mr. Nils is an european too and he strikes me as being a very smart gentleman despite your rather generous bestowing of honorifics like "silly" and " moronic" :)( Nils -- tell Oeyvind about your europeaness, less he apologizes you away into oblivion LOL ). Hmmmm is my cactus blossom pricking your leftological complacency a wee- bit ? tee hee and double tee hee :)

Aiim'.....
Princess Bhagavatam
Temple of the Goddess Sri Sri MahaDevi Mahavidya Mahaswaroopa Sarasvati

Om
Bhur Bhava Swaha
Tat Savitur Varenyam
Bhorgi Devasya Dhimahi dhiyo
Yo Na prachodayat

Hi Bjoern,

would you be intoducing a thread to discuss the current brouhaha over evolution and creation-science deceptively labeled as intelligent -design LOL.

Religion -especially the revealed kind - has been a major impediment to scientific advancement is my premise.

Princess Bhagavatam

Jayy!!! Sri Sri MahaVidya Swaroopa Saraswati - Goddess of Knowledge and Arts.. Jayy !

Hey, thanks for posting this list. I had never heard of the book Stasiland before your list, but thanks to you I have not only heard of it I have read it.

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