Book Review: The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins

This is technically the first book I've finished reading since we started our reading list, though it is not actually in the top 100. So while I've added it to our spreadsheet, I still have at least 100 books to go! I'm sure that these reviews will have some variety depending on how much I enjoyed the book and how busy I am with other things at the point when I finish them, but it is a new challenge so let's get things started!

As this is more of a scientific text and I began it before we decided we were going to do the reading list, I'm probably a little under prepared to write a proper review. I really wish I had been taking notes as I read, but I will just have to make do with what I can find quickly.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. While, at times, Dawkins can come across a bit arrogant and pushy, I greatly appreciated the degree to which this book was well researched. It is littered with quotes and citations and provided quite and exploration of religion. If you don't know (or can't gather from the title) Dawkins is one of the primary faces of atheism (or at least one of the most vocal) in current day. He evaluates various aspects of a religion from a scientific position and, in my opinion, he did a pretty good job of it. I would highly recommend this book to anyone interested in exploring religion further. While, as I mentioned earlier, he can be a bit pushy and arrogant at times, I don't see this as proper justification to ignore what he is saying. A car salesman may be pushy, but that doesn't mean that you won't learn anything about the car by listening to him.

As this book was well researched, I would feel improper having a review of the book that didn't share at least a few of the interesting quotes and tidbits that I found most intriguing / could readily find in the text.

One of the things I found very interesting was the exploration of the founding fathers. Many people in America consider this to be a Christian nation and to have been founded with those principles, when there is substantial proof that that is not only false, but many of the founding fathers were very likely atheists. Here is a quote from the book from a treaty between America and Tripoli that was drafted in 1796 under George Washington and signed by John Adams in 1797:"As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquility, of Musselmen; and as the said States never have entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mehomitan nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries." Hard to imagine the any politician drafting something like that nowadays, huh?

Another quotation that Dawkins included was one that I have heard many times as almost a slight against Evolutionary Theory. From Darwin himself: "To suppose that the eye with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest degree." That really does seem to give Creationists something to latch on to, doesn't it? But as Dawkins points out "Needless to say they never quote what follows. Darwin's fulsomely free confession turned out to be a rhetorical device. He was drawing his opponents towards him so that his punch, when it came, struck the harder. The punch, of course, was Darwin's effortless explanation of exactly how the eye evolved by gradual degrees." Things like that I enjoy because it provides a little elucidation to something that I had been slightly familiar with, but not all that knowledgeable about.

While I could find more interesting examples, I don't want to get carried away with quotations. Again, I highly recommend this book, regardless of your faith, especially for anyone interested in a scientific exploration of religion.

I'm hoping that I will hone my "craft" as these book reviews continue. Especially since some of the books on our list are tapping on 1500 pages, I believe it may be in my best interest to keep a little notepad with me as I read so I don't have to rely entirely on my memory (which most people know is sub-par haha). And so continues an immense literary journey!

Reading List / Challenge

So, recently, MC and I decided that we need to stop having the TV on as our default activity when we just want to relax and so we devised a few activities to do instead. One of the activities was to have "Language Night" where we both study language for at least an hour (She's working on Italian for the honeymoon and I'm working on Spanish). The other one was reading. We had a few books that we had sitting around that we had been wanting to read but never got around to it. So we also have a "Reading Night" where we spend at least one hour reading our current book (though just doing this has made us turn most nights into reading nights as well).

Once we started reading a bit more, we decided that we would try to find a "Must-read Books" list of some sort that would include a lot of classics that most people should read, but don't always get around to doing so. So we looked around and found many lists, some shoddy, some extremely long, until we finally found one that we both liked. Now it has a little bit of a British skew since it was done by BBC, but I liked that it was basically an accumulation of reader responses, as opposed to one "expert" telling me what I should read.

We thought that such a large undertaking would benefit from documentation and it would be nice to have some milestones to celebrate along the way. So I created us a Google spreadsheet to keep track. I have all the fancy formulas to keep counts for each set of 20 books (read in any order), a total count, and rewarding automatic changes when milestones are reached. MC may think I'm a little obsessive, but I think it turned out pretty good :-) I also left room at the bottom for us to add our own books whenever we want to read something not on the list. (I am currently reading "The God Delusion" by Richard Dawkins and MC is reading "The Watchers" by Dean Koontz) These additional books have no effect on our 20 book milestones, but they are added to the total so we still "get credit." :-)

It will definitely be an interesting undertaking and, perhaps, I may start adding book reviews to my blog since I will have much more to contribute in that arena (though I hardly have the literary background to provide a very meaningful critique). AT the very least I can look back and read what I wrote since I am terrible about remembering anything haha. Wish us luck!

Finally Updating! - Utah 2009

I haven't taken the time to sit down and make an update in a while, though I have tried to keep it from getting too stagnant by at least posting the occasional picture (even if I can't get the tagging feature to work properly). I looked back through my blog to see what I was missing, and in actuality there hasn't really been that much to blog about anyway. I was wrapping up the semester and getting a lot of work done in the office while we figured out our wedding venue and started working on wedding stuff. Since MC took care of the wedding venue post, I will just make this post about the family ski trip. This year it was Park City, UT!

Usually the Tallahassee Airport is pretty dull and not very busy. Our flight was leaving at like 6 in the morning, so we figured the combination of those two things would mean we wouldn't have to deal with crowds too much and showing up 45 minutes before our flight would be plenty. Boy were we wrong! The lines were ridiculous and by the time we actually got to the counter the lady had to do an override because it was less than 30 minutes until our flight was supposed to take off. Not exactly a relaxing way to start the morning! While it was a little hectic, we (and MCs checked bag) actually made it to Atlanta ok. We met up with the rest of the fam and were on our way!

Park City hadn't had a lot of snow before we left to head out there, but the forecast looked promising. The first day it was snowy, but the amount of residual snow was unimpressive.We were very glad to be getting snow, but it definitely was a little sloppy for the first day of skiing, especially for MC (her 3rd time out!).By the second morning, I think we had gotten over 20 inches of snow. Definitely an improvement in the scenery!One of my favorite parts of going on family vacations, especially out west, is the beer! Dad and I love to sample all the local brews, and Park City had several BrewPubs, which typically means samplers!It also means you occasionally stumble upon some pretty cool decorations, like this snazzy christmas tree!After a day of skiing and some beer, rest usually came pretty easy! Luckily, after snowing the first few days (I think we got like 28" total), the weather cleared up so I got to have some nice lift rides with my fiancee...and some action shots of my sweetie in action!Usually, after a hard day on the mountain, we'd come home, relax for a bit, then head downtown to explore some shops before finding a place to refuel (dinner and beer!)Occasionally, we'd run into some risque bears...or some bears who just wanted the accompaniment of a beautiful lady...or just confusing signage about the accomplishments of the local transit system.One really great thing about being out west is that you are surrounded by beautiful scenery, whether it be from your bedroom window...or just looking out from the slopes.I was excited about some of the scenery shots this trip because I actually brought my nice D90. It was a little cumbersome to snowboard with some of the times, but mostly it wasn't too much of a hassle and I think that some of the pics I got during the trip were definitely worth it. I only wish I had been in better shape because I could really have gotten some awesome action shots! Fortunately I still got some ok ones (Photo credit to Lauren Fincher for the ones of me).

Ramping over the barrel	Throwing a grab next to the slider
Actually hitting the slider	Backside Backslide
Mom tearing it up	MC following suit in a very active manner
Dad shredding	And Lauren on the harder stuff.

We even got some videos while we were out on the slopes! My camera will do video, but it is a little cumbersome so Dad and I just used our phones whenever we wanted to capture something. Dad caught a nice one of me on a sliderAnd I got a good one of MC and Dad tearing down the slopes.While Dad and I enjoyed the beer, the girls tended towards enjoying the food side of things a little more. You know, things like tiny little bowls of soup at the Margariteria.Or edible treats you have to build yourself, like super snazzy gingerbread trains!All-in-all it was a pretty awesome trip. Good snow, good weather, good beer and good company. As pointed out by my mom, it was also the last ski trip where we aren't all Finchers! I can't wait for next year!

As an additional note, speaking of all being Finchers, as we were filing through the craziness that was the Salt Lake City Airport, trying to get to the Medallion line, the guy looked at us and asked my dad "These all with you?" He replied yes, then he pointed at MC and said "Even this one?!" Haha, it was quite funny and my favorite brownie turned noticeably pink. Just had to share :-)

Up and At'm Turkey Trot 5k

The whole family did this one! It was low 40s with a light breeze, and I'm pretty sure it was the exact same course as last year. Plenty of rolling hills, but no huge ones that really destroyed us. Being sick the past two weeks, my training regimen was negligible, but I just did my best to keep up with Lauren and Mom (even if it almost killed me!). We found out later that mom actually won her age group! Woohoo!

It took us about 30 seconds to reach the start line, so I adjusted all the times accordingly.

30:57

Mom - 30:41
Lauren - 30:46
Dad - 37:36

Sender: Fishel This one was made of wood!

Sender: Fishel

Sender: Corey