Let's A-go!: Book Review #1 and #2 Starts Monday

Thursday night, I went to the Michigan State library to meet my girlfriend. She watched a vegan Youtuber, I read a book. We're two different types of people, yet we still make it work somehow. It's seriously weird. She's almost the complete opposite of me in every way! She's the embodiment of Beauty, Love, and everything nice. But, now I'm sidetracking.

After I took her back to her dorm, I decided to stay in the library and write my paper for my Western Religions class. My paper's title (right now) is, "Three Views of Mystical Union: Engulfed Unity, Perfected (or Perfecting Unity) and Distinctive Unity". In this paper, I try to compare and contrast three seemingly different articulations and argue that they are expressing the same thing in different words. 

In the middle of writing the paper, around 4:30 am, I fell asleep. I woke up three hours later at 7:30. As I woke up, I decided to walk down the stairs, looking the Thriller music video, to grab a coffee. Next to the delightful coffee shop is a little nook that houses bools published by the faculty. Two books caught my eye. Both for the same reasons: Slim books about religion. Usually when I read books on religion, they're these volumes that dread on for 300+ pages in the boring "academic" tone that neglects the humanity of the author. But, these two books weren't trying to hide behind some ideal (rather, inadequate) idea of the academy. They were real and authentic, and precisely to the point.

Book 1: Atheism, Science, and Me by Alain F. Corcos



52 pages long! Here's the back cover's description:


Alain F. Corcos was raised by a family of nonbelievers. When he grew up and pursued a career in science, he encountered nothing to challenge his lack of faith. In fact, he would have considered his atheism completely unremarkable if not for the reactions he confronted again and again.
  •  How can you be moral when you don't believe in God?
  • If you know you can't prove God doesn't exist, doesn't that make you agnostic?
  • Aren't you afraid of death?
In Atheism, Science, and Me, Dr. Corcos reminisces about satisfying his thirst for knowledge through research rather than religious doctrine or philosophy. While he has no interest in "converting" anybody to atheism, the good-natured enthusiasm with which he presents his worldview conveys the joys of a life unencumbered by religion.

Book 2: Perennial Philosophy by Arthur Versluis



110 pages long! Here's the back cover's description:

"This brilliant little book, written with a stunning clarity, offers an entirely new perspective on what "perennial philosophy" actually means and entails. This is a return to the real philosophical quest, almost entirely forgotten by the academic world: a going beyond the limited self, to experience our kinship with the greater world and the deepest levels of reality, which results in a transformation of the self and a realization of our human nature.

For anyone interested in the roots of our philosophical tradition, or what a living philosophy could look like today and in the future - a philosophy that actually inspires and fertilizes culture, art, and human experience - this book is indispensable." - David Fideler, author of Restoring the Soul of the World

"This book is about transcendence: self-transcendence. It traces a pathway to such self-transcendence from Plato (Pythagoras and the Orphic mysteries), through Plotinus, Damascius, Meister Eckhart and Emerson. Perennial Philosophy unveils a contemplative way often referred to as "mysticism" that leads to a selfless, compassionate caring for all existence, from the animate to the inanimate, since all that exists expresses divine creation. The book has no footnotes and yet is scholarly. It records a perennial way of being-in-the-world that contrasts sharply with the way most of us live and see, and is about a past that offers a glimpses of a better future. To read it is to question the contemporary understanding of who we are, and what we are capable of becoming. It is medicine for difficult times." - Robert E. Carter, Trent University, author of Encounter with Enlightenment, The Kyoto School, and many other books.






As you can see, they are two vastly different books. The first book is by an atheist and the second by a perennialist. Both of them being professors at Michigan State University: Alain F. Corcos a retired professor of botany; Arthur Versluis head of the Department of Religion. A very interesting choice of books to start of my Book Reviews. Let's see how I'll react to each...

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