Reviews for Como Encontrar Su Pareja Ideal

The average rating for Como Encontrar Su Pareja Ideal based on 2 reviews is 2 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2013-12-30 00:00:00 Brian Fried Pity the poor scientist. For a long time, science has been uncovering a number of facts that have challenged traditional dogmatic beliefs. Nowadays it is demonstrably proven that the earth is round, that it revolves around the sun, that the universe is at least 13.8 billion years old, and that evolution is a fact. There is less certainty about the origin of the universe or life, but the Big Bang theory and the theory of abiogenesis have been offered up. At any rate it seems likely to have been a self-generating effect, and the processes that led to you and me took billions of years. This is something we all know. Or do we? Unfortunately not. The moment that scientists began to learn about these things, they came into conflict with mainstream religions that have been teaching something very different for years. The overwhelming evidence for evolution is such that intelligent religious believers have been forced to accept it, but in my experience even they jump gleefully on every bad argument that they imagine blows a hole in the theory of evolution. However it is not the intelligent open-minded believer that we have to worry about, but the unintelligent closed-minded one, and there are a lot of them. Soon the fightback started, and creationism morphed into Intelligent Design, that ironically-named theory that posited that the universe needed a designer to reach this level of complexity. Where this designer came from himself is not something they can explain, and even the courts have ruled that Intelligent Design is unscientific. Nonetheless Intelligent Design is being taught in some schools, and the spread of ignorance is threatening to undo the hard work of scientists. Plenty of religious people and indeed many atheists complain about figures such as Richard Dawkins for stridently taking on religion and god. For myself, I wonder why it took him so long. There were a full 30 years between Dawkins writing The Selfish Gene and the publication of his later work, The God Delusion. That is 30 years in which an evolutionary biologist has seen his life's work challenged by bad arguments that are being given the same stature as good ones. Perhaps it is about time that scientists did begin the attack. It is hardly surprising that we have seen the rise of the New Atheists. The label is misleading. Strictly speaking, new atheism simply means saying aloud what we old atheists have been saying in private for years. Notably many of the New Atheists are older men, and not youthful rebels. All that has happened is that in face of dogma and bigotry, we have finally grown tired of showing respect for religion. Robyn Williams joined the fray with his publication of Unintelligent Design, in which he outlines his own argument for atheism, and more specifically has a tilt at Intelligent Design. Williams' name has not joined that of other prominent atheists such as Dawkins, Harris, Hitchens and Dennett, and one may well wonder why. Part of the problem may be location. Williams is a British man living in Australia, a country further away from the world's main focus of interest. Indeed Unintelligent Design contains a number of allusions that I may have needed to be Australian to understand, and Williams devotes a brief chapter to Intelligent Design in Australia. The more important problem though is perhaps the length and scope of the book. It is very short. Williams throws up a lot of scientific theories and ideas, but never has time to explain them to the layman, so I fear that the reader will not learn much from Unintelligent Design, which is a pity. However Williams is a lively writer, and his prose is surprisingly casual for a man with a scientific background. He does a good job of pointing to the absurdities of Intelligent Design, such as a universe that is too vast and too long in the making to be a plausible work of design by a god. Why indulge in such a wasteful process? Williams points to the human body and its many 'design flaws', which he points out look more like evolution trying to find a 'solution' through development of an existing structure than an intelligent designer beginning from scratch and making the best body he could design. If god designed us, he is a very unintelligent designer. The origin of morality is also touched on by Williams, who stresses the need for cohesion in social groups and the waste of energy that is required in fighting and murdering when peaceful alternatives are available. By contrast, the moral religions have helped to cause a good deal of conflict, and we may well ask where god was then. Occasionally Williams makes allusions to Stalin, as his father was a Communist who reluctantly supported the party line. Often Stalin is used by religious people as an argument against atheism. Look what atheists can do, they say, conveniently forgetting that atheism was not Stalin's motive. More accurately Stalin is an argument against religion. Where was god when a dictator killed millions of people? What happens when a dogma with an authority figure takes control? No less fascinating than Williams' arguments are the personal asides that the author provides us with. From these we can form some ideas about why atheism came to appeal to Williams. The author was brought up by a Communist father who was not averse to beating his children until Williams stood up to him. Faced with this humourless authoritarian upbringing, Williams turned his back on Communism in favour of a more liberal and anarchic form of socialism. I am not sure how far Williams still holds these views, but the book's politically correct title calling god a 'she' indicates that some of his past beliefs still linger. It is hardly surprising therefore that a man who grew up to hate authority figures should turn his back on religions. After all, what is the belief in God, Jesus, Allah or Jehovah but a fear that a celestial bully will punish us for not doing what he says? Indeed I have to think here about my own motives for being an atheist. I was bullied at school by my classmates, and this has given me a cynical view of the value of conformity and belonging. I have seen what people do to the outsider, the one who does not fit in. Naturally I do not favour religions which also promote in-groups and out-groups, and often have hostile opinions about those who are not part of the in-group. I am not presenting the view that atheists are all rebels as a result of personal hang-ups. However I think it is fair to say that psychology and personal experience do have an influence on the position that we take. This goes in the opposite direction too. The patriarchal attitudes of Williams' father may have made him more susceptible to Communism, and notably religions often appeal to people with authoritarian personalities who can impose dogma on others. The religious convert or revert is often a weak-minded person who needs the validation of others, which joining a religion can bring. The addict or criminal living a desperately chaotic life will similarly leap at a chance of structure and having someone else make their life decisions for them, something offered by religion. All in all, Unintelligent Design is a decent book. If I was recommending one book that people considering atheism should read, it would not be this. However it is a worthwhile supplement for those who are interested in the subject.

Review # 2 was written on 2008-08-16 00:00:00 Ken Stevens I am exactly the choir that Williams is preaching to but I couldn't even finish this short book. Snide, poorly executed, and poorly explained. Examples used to back up arguments are outlined but not explained, so that anyone unfamiliar with the topics could never figure out the sense of it. Read another book on this topic.