Friday, April 18, 2008

The Year of Living Biblically, Finale

I finished A.J. Jacobs' The Year of Living Biblically. I recommend it. It made me laugh a lot, but it also made me think. Jacobs heritage is Jewish, so you learn more about that denomination than any other, but he also dives into other forms of religion a bit, too. He travels to Israel, he travels to the Creationist Museum, he travels South - uncovering for himself many different ways to worship. Jacobs is very honest about his struggle as a secular Jew to dive into a project like this. I felt the ending was just as it should be, too.

Whether or not you believe in a higher power, the book is definitely interesting. And I think it's more interesting because Jacobs was an agnostic going in. No preaching, few judgments. Because of the wide divide that there is between people who strongly believe in something and those who don't, or the divide between those who believe in one thing and those who believe in another - well, I feel pretty good about the country we live in. We're allowed to practice whatever religion we want (or don't want). While we could disagree with our neighbor over religion, and even argue loudly with him about it, we don't have the right to persecute him - and him us. For the most part, we honor each other. And that's a great thing. Obviously, as current events relay, not everyone is so fortunate. I forget that sometimes.

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