Well, I’ve reached a fairly major breaking point in my religious research reading: I have finished reading the Hebrew Bible (‘Old Testament’ to us Christian types). There is a lot of crazy stuff in there—brutal wars, murder, incest, famine, pestilence, and slavery. Yet there is an underlying theme that God really loves us, even though we humans generally behave like spoiled, ungrateful, easily-distracted children.
Now that I’ve completed the Hebrew Bible, I will read “Everyman’s Talmud” by Abraham Cohen to complete my initial study of Judaism before moving on to the Christian scriptures (‘New Testament’).
Meanwhile, I’ve reached the American Revolution in my political studies. My reading to this point has included Machiavelli, Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Montesquieu, Hume, Smith, and Kant. Still to come are the American Founders (Jefferson, Madison, etc.), Tocqueville, Hegel, and Marx.
Other than that, nothing too interesting happening lately. I’ve been a total slacker on writing for a long time, but I am hoping to have an opinion column ready soon (and I might even get back into the swing of writing fiction, if I’m lucky).