A New Earth

I read A New Earth based on a recommendation. I do think there were some interesting ideas in there, but I think that all of them come directly from Christianity and Buddhism. Let me summarize (very much in my own words) - if you are feeling frustrated, upset, worried... then stop, take a deep breath, relax, put the situation in perspective (good advice, but not exactly original).

I think I could write a book as long as A New Earth describing my issues with it - in fact kind of like the books talking about the science of star trek or harry potter, you could write a book explaining the science that he gets wrong or fails to account for. So I will merely list the types of issues I had with it. First off were numerous scientific inaccuracies which ranged from somewhat subtle to glaring to purely nonsensical. Next were internal inconsistencies of which there were at least a few and had to do with major points he was trying to make. I think he somewhat clearly claims to be a messiah. He talks about God and spirituality without ever really explaining what he means which is crucial since he is turning away from conventional religions. He uses the Emperor's New Clothes Argument - those who are ready to be awakened will be and those who aren't will dislike the book. Some of his advice is good, but some is bad even though it might sound good on the surface. And probably the most subtle and most infuriating is that a number of the things he tries to explain with his ideas are already explained by established science. There were portions of the book (especially where some of the contradictions occurred) where I wondered if he was writing a parody and actually read portions of the book that way so the mistakes wouldn't be as frustrating (or maybe it is genius and he purposefully made the book frustrating to give people a chance to practice relaxing).

Ok - must stop here before embarking on full rant. Although I will say I haven't read anything about being spiritual apart from traditional religion - so from an outside seeing what others are reading perspective it was interesting. If you are interested in any of the interesting ideas I recommend reading about Buddhism and meditation in particular.