Marianne Williamson's "A Course in Weight Loss: 21 Spiritual Lessons"

Marianne Williamson (born July 8, 1952)is a spiritual activist, author, lecturer and founder of The Peace Alliance, a grass roots campaign supporting legislation currently before Congress to establish a United States Department of Peace. She is also the founder of Project Angel Food, a meals-on-wheels program that serves homebound people with AIDS in the Los Angeles area.

She has published ten books, including four New York Times #1 bestsellers.

Title: A Course in Weight Loss: 21 Spiritual Lessons for Surrendering Your Weight Forever

Author: Marianne Williamson

Publisher: Hayhouse Inc, 2010

Pages: 299 pages

Original Language:English

Firstly let me say that I read this book as an atheist. I didn't know it was written from a christian viewpoint, but I am open to "spiritual" stuff in general so once I realized it I kept listening anyway. I recently enjoyed a selfhelp book by the Dalai Lama even though I don't agree with him on many points, I still found it to be true in a lot of places.

So why is this book so bad?

Firstly, the title is completely misleading. This is not about weightloss, it's aimed at people who have trouble compulsively overeating. Seeing as how 90% of women want to lose weight but only a fraction of these overeat compulsively "a course to beat overeating" probably wouldn't have sold as well, I get it.
Really though, this is one of the PLUS points of this book: It does not focus on getting skinny much. It talks of eating unhealthy things your body does not want and being obsessed by the desire to overindulge and binge. Selfhelp books for this are much more applaudable than just another "get-to-size-0 now despite you being healthy and fine" books.
On the other hand, the book doesn't even mention the possibility that there are people who want to lose weight despite not being unhealthy and who are already in tune with their bodies. And there are many of those.

Now, the religious part. I could deal with the "prayers" she advises. I could deal with the constant direct appeal to God à la "Dear God, let me stop eating bad food and find inner peace, amen." I could even somehow manage to understand why it could help to constantly see yourself as one with God for inner Peace, if I changed the "God" to "universe" and "nature" it mostly still made sense. But still it annoyed me that it wasn't not only ignorant to atheist beliefs but also to any other religious belief.
The thing that flipped me off was that she, very literally, says that if you do not let god lead your way and if you do not pray to him daily there is no way to ever be happy, fulfilled and to stop overeating. Oh, sorry, but I'm pretty sure there are people who've managed to beat overeating without praying. Love? Yes, but selflove and love of and for other human beings, for the world, the universe, but not a bible-induced figure.

There are some practical things in there that make sense, but you can get that from any other self-help book. Really, this is only for the ignorant religious reader. And if you consider yourself an open-minded tolerant Christian yet found yourself enjoying the book, at which part you're being honest to yourself.
Plus, do you really want to build a shrine and put the book on there and have friends down with you and pray for your weightloss? Why not try other methods to get more comfortable with yourself and your body? And if you really have a problem with food and eating, there are much better selfhelp books out there.

Williamson seems like a nice enough woman but a very kooky religious freak nonetheless. I also had to laugh at the idea that there is scientific proof that praying for others helps them heal. In fact all I have found is a study that shows it's not true: "Praying for the sick does not help, study finds"

Fitting Music:

= 5/100

Richard Dawkins' "The God Delusion"

Title: The God Delusion

Author: Richard Dawkins

Publisher: Bantam Books, 2006

Pages: 406 pages

Original Language:English



While I was recently very dissapointed by Richard Dawkins' ignorance towards sexism and its prevalence within western society - which you can read about at skepchick's blog in The Privilige Delusion and her later posted FAQregaring the case- I still love Dawkins in his argumentation for atheism no less (well, maybe a little bit less..).

He is great at explaining biological processes and getting the bigger picture across but he's still at his best at explaining why he hates religion

so much.

I don't think I'm doing injustice in calling his feelings towards organized faith "hatred". Yet, one of the reasons why I love this book so much, is his analyzing structure that is very factual and tries to win the argument by logic, not by shouting.

So let's go back to the times when Dawkins was not shocking with his ignorant white privileged "woman-in-the-western-world-you-can't-have-it-bad!-don't-complain!"-slurs but merely by strong atheist thesis that aim at changing the public eye on atheism and religion.

Some of the "consciousness-raising" messages he writes about:

• Atheists can be happy, balanced, moral, and intellectually fulfilled.
• Natural selection and similar scientific theories are superior to a "God hypothesis" —the illusion of intelligent design— in explaining the living world and the cosmos.
• Children should not be labelled by their parents' religion. Terms like "Catholic child" or "Muslim child" should make people cringe.
• Atheists should be proud, not apologetic, because atheism is evidence of a healthy, independent mind.

You don't have to agree with everything said in this book. But even then it will give you some interesting facts and something to think about. How about the study where US Americans were asked whether they would vote for a Black/Female/Gay/Atheist president? While it's not surprising to hear that the majority of US citizens would vote for a Black president (as they have done), it is rather shocking to hear that least people would want an atheist president of all these choices. The only attribute that had more negative association was "muslim". You wouldn't want to think of how they'd judge a muslim-gone-atheist, scary!

While the majority would in theory vote for a catholic (95%), a Black man (94%), a Jew (94%), a Woman(88%), a Hispanic (87%), a Mormon (72%), someone married three times (67%), someone 72 years or older (57%) and for a Homosexual Man (55%) - the majority would NOT vote for an atheist (45%).

Of course the "God Delusion" is not mainly about why atheists have such a bad reputation in society, but about why would should stop putting religion on a special pedal. Why is it not okay to criticize someone's religious beliefs logically but everything else?

I've now read it for the second time and while there are two or three small bits I disagree with, they're not directly to do with his arguments against religion and God. Most importantly for me: his arguments against God and against religion can be views separately. So while I'm an atheist and don't believe in either, I'm mainly concerned with the wrong-doings of religion, not whether there is a God or not, because as long as nothing follows from there being something bigger than us, it ultimately doesn't matter for society. This is a personal matter, I believe. Organized religion is not. It concerns all of us.

Music that goes well with reading this:

= 89/100

* Here is a nice graphic showing the results of the 2007 poll.

P.G. Wodehouse's "The Crime Wave at Blandings"

Title: The Crime Wave at Blandings

Author: P.G. Wodehouse

Publisher: Penguin Classics, 2011

Pages: 96 pages

First appeared in: Saturday Evening Post, 1936 & "Lord Emsworth and Others", 1937

Original Language: English

+15 October 1881 in Guildford, Surrey, UK

* 14 February 1975 in Southhamton, New York, USA

For a story that is almost 100 years old "The Crime Wave at Blandings" is surprisingly fresh! It's a short story set in the Blandings Castle Universe - a reacurring fictional location within Wodehouse's oeuvre where Lord Emsworth and several members of his family live.

In this particular story Lord Emsworth's sister Lady Constance decides that Lord Emsworth's grandson George needs a tutor and chooses Rupert Baxter who Lord Emsworth can't stand at all. He'd much rather just keep his peace and read "On the Care of the Pig", but as his young niece Jane asks him to take her fiancé George Abercrombie on as an Estate Manager. He's torn between pleasing all of his family members and trying to please his own inner child as an air gun comes into place.

This is a short and sweet amusing piece. It sounds like it would be bland, but feeling with and for Lord Emsworth totally prevents any kind of boredom. I'm not sure if this would keep up if I read more of the Blandings Castle stories, but I'd not be opposed to trying.

But first I'll be busy reading through the rest of the Penguin Modern Classics series! (Yes, I got them all!)

Music this makes me feel like listening to:

The Royal Teens - Short Shorts

I know, I know, the book is significantly older than this, but I still get the same "old-fashioned sneaky non-caring humorous-but-not-in-a-laugh-out-loud-way" vibe from it.

= 69/100