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chuckroIn order to get in touch with his Jewish heritage and prove something about organized religion, an NYC-based writer decides to try to obey every single rule in the Bible as literally as possible. Hilarity ensues.
Okay, maybe not “hilarity”, but certainly some degree of absurdity. To be fair, Jacobs is kind of a pretentious dick,* especially early on when he’s clearly ignoring “solved problems” in favor of absurd solutions—his homemade tassels, that he eventually abandons for a store-bought tallit, are an obvious example. I get the impression that his original goal, to prove that moral relativism was common to all bible-based religions and everybody is picking and choosing absurd rules, played itself out in the first few months. So then he switched gears to interspersing religious tourism with snippets of his own life, which plays less as comedy or satire and more like a heartwarming examination of faith. Which admittedly plays better than a full book of, “Hey look, isn’t this nutty? I’m doing it ‘cause it’s in the bible!”
By the end, he’s trying very hard to be even-handed and play the whole thing as a journey out of skepticism into finding a new appreciation for religion. As a fellow agnostic Jew, I can appreciate the idea (even if I think some of his choices were entirely goofy); but as a cynic with an MBA, I can imagine that being relatively soft with his skepticism and only writing about the nicest examples from every sect was a very calculated decision. There’s virtually nobody in the book who comes off badly; even his ex-uncle the abusive, crazy cult leader is at least presented as a decent host.
Jacobs notes (when visiting the Creationist museum) that a certain type of religious person will say your name a lot. You know who else does that? Salesmen. We are, in fact, taught to do that in sales classes, because it creates a sense of camaraderie and makes you feel like you’re getting more intimate attention. That “certain type of religious person” wants desperately to sell you on their religion. Whether they also want your money is debatable (the Creationist museum folks clearly do), but they use those sales techniques for a reason.
(Really, the takeaway from a religious tourism story is just that virtually any religion will welcome you with open arms and treat you well if they think they have a chance of converting you. Especially if you’re a well-off white boy with a platform to bring them some fame and possibly more converts.)
*Apparently in real life this isn’t true—my mother has met him and thought he was very nice. Apparently the “Jacob” featured in this book is mostly a persona, which gives me hope that his wife—an apparent bastion of patience in the book—doesn’t have to put up with it on a regular basis.
Overall: It’s an interesting story with a lot of religious knowledge tidbits and factoids (and though it’s hardly a replacement for actual research, his bibliography is probably a good starting point). I doubt it’ll change anyone’s opinion about religion in general or theirs in particular—though it might cause someone drifting towards less orthodox/more relativist religion to continue doing so—but I give him credit for taking a gentle touch to the absurdity and approaching everything with at least some reverence.
Okay, maybe not “hilarity”, but certainly some degree of absurdity. To be fair, Jacobs is kind of a pretentious dick,* especially early on when he’s clearly ignoring “solved problems” in favor of absurd solutions—his homemade tassels, that he eventually abandons for a store-bought tallit, are an obvious example. I get the impression that his original goal, to prove that moral relativism was common to all bible-based religions and everybody is picking and choosing absurd rules, played itself out in the first few months. So then he switched gears to interspersing religious tourism with snippets of his own life, which plays less as comedy or satire and more like a heartwarming examination of faith. Which admittedly plays better than a full book of, “Hey look, isn’t this nutty? I’m doing it ‘cause it’s in the bible!”
By the end, he’s trying very hard to be even-handed and play the whole thing as a journey out of skepticism into finding a new appreciation for religion. As a fellow agnostic Jew, I can appreciate the idea (even if I think some of his choices were entirely goofy); but as a cynic with an MBA, I can imagine that being relatively soft with his skepticism and only writing about the nicest examples from every sect was a very calculated decision. There’s virtually nobody in the book who comes off badly; even his ex-uncle the abusive, crazy cult leader is at least presented as a decent host.
Jacobs notes (when visiting the Creationist museum) that a certain type of religious person will say your name a lot. You know who else does that? Salesmen. We are, in fact, taught to do that in sales classes, because it creates a sense of camaraderie and makes you feel like you’re getting more intimate attention. That “certain type of religious person” wants desperately to sell you on their religion. Whether they also want your money is debatable (the Creationist museum folks clearly do), but they use those sales techniques for a reason.
(Really, the takeaway from a religious tourism story is just that virtually any religion will welcome you with open arms and treat you well if they think they have a chance of converting you. Especially if you’re a well-off white boy with a platform to bring them some fame and possibly more converts.)
*Apparently in real life this isn’t true—my mother has met him and thought he was very nice. Apparently the “Jacob” featured in this book is mostly a persona, which gives me hope that his wife—an apparent bastion of patience in the book—doesn’t have to put up with it on a regular basis.
Overall: It’s an interesting story with a lot of religious knowledge tidbits and factoids (and though it’s hardly a replacement for actual research, his bibliography is probably a good starting point). I doubt it’ll change anyone’s opinion about religion in general or theirs in particular—though it might cause someone drifting towards less orthodox/more relativist religion to continue doing so—but I give him credit for taking a gentle touch to the absurdity and approaching everything with at least some reverence.
