I was at Goodwill buying a few books that seemed like a good enough deal for a dollar (including the just-reviewed Flame Alphabet, which … no. The cover was pretty though!) and at the last second I threw this one on the pile. My love of behavioral economics is well known, it was a fairly slim volume, and I particularly love learning the reasons why people often behave irrationally. Sure, let’s figure out why people resist happiness!
…They turn away from God.
*Flips book over, sees religious press, comments about Lent* Fuuuuuuu……
So super atheist octothorp continues on, skeptical but hopeful that there is wisdom to be gleaned here.
Visiting the elderly, doing good works … ok, I’m with it, even if it’s interspersed with a lot of r/thathappened stories from his kids (I’ll eat my hat if your daughter really said “Jesus made him all about us so I don’t mind being all about him). Making work meaningful – ok, good for the author for acknowledging that not everyone has the type of job where the work is intrinsically meaningful! – by considering each piece of it a prayer for someone… this is gonna be a long hundred pages and change.
Even aside from the religious aspect, this falls prey to a lot of books written for people who don’t read written by people who don’t write – content filler. I see it in self-help and business books A LOT – you pad the length with drawings and exercises and workshops so that your 60 pages of pamphlet content stretches to “book” length.
But really, the “nope, not just not for me, actively harmful and I’m not here for it” moment came on the section about how people are actively spreading untruths and certain moral stances are black and white that leans in the general direction of “increased tolerance is media LIES” that I decided this was gonna be a zero star review and finished only as a hate read.
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