Ishmael

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Summary: To date I have only read it three times. It never gets old.
Review: Other than ILLUSIONS by Bach, this is the only other book I have a desire to read ever so often. ISHMAEL is like an old friend that you visit every now and then to re-establish your value and belief system. There are enough lessons to be learned within the pages to last a lifetime. I have given away at least a half dozen copies as the ultimates gift. After seeing the movie INSTINCT with Anthony Hopkins and Cuba Gooding, Jr., I will become the student once again. Daniel has provided us with valuable quest: It is not always important to find the answer but it is always important to study the question.

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Summary: AN ATTACK ON ORGANIZED RELIGION!! MODERN SOCIETY'S PROBLEM!!
Review: I would have never chosen to read this book on my own. The only reason I read this book was because it was an assignment for class. The author presented his liberal ideas as fact instead of as a theory, which it is. The author's only evidence is hypothetical situations and distantly related examples. THERE WERE NO FACTS! Aside from being completely untruthful, the authors anaolgies were often too random and too off-topic to make any clear points. What's more, this book is AN ATTACK ON ORGANIZED RELIGION! I was deeply offended as all my values and ideals were treated like a hokey, senseless rubbish. THIS BOOK IS NOT WORTH READING!

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Summary: Gensis account given are absurd notions!
Review: Forgive me please. In the new world of supposed intellectual fundalmentalist these types of arguments against sound logic and reason will come unto them a terrible fate. This man is unable at any point in his incoherent rambling to see Quinn's notions of pre-creation myths of the split before the accounts of Genesis were given. If this person would so happen to notice that the the Genesis's account coinincided with the first written documents of man. Of course though if he is unable to to embrace something other then the genesis account of creation(which he seems to be oblivious to) then his argument is pointless. I need not tell that to Ishmael readers. His way of point for point goes something like this. It just boggles my mind that he can argue in this way. I am only 19 and I can see this. His stern reluctance to give up these inane ideas will come unto him and his type a painful death of falling away into oblivion. I had to say something here these types of debates really irk me.

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Summary: an attempt to bring about awareness of the mistakes to peopl
Review: The novel Ishmael by Daniel Quinn is an attempt to bring about awareness of the mistakes that people have made and have continued to repeat through the course of human history. Ishmael is a very powerful book that I would recommend to almost everyone. At times the plot line moves slowly and repeats itself but the theme is important and worth the slow process of getting to the point of the story.

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Summary: More Insparational than the Holy Bible
Review: Nuff said, just give it a try you won't be sorry

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Summary: A message to those who gave this book a zero.....
Review: You obviously have no idea what Mr. Quinn is trying to do with his sharing of information. I feel sorry that you are so deafened by Mother Culture that you cannot hear someone else's words of warning and encouragment. Do you not feel that SOMETHING isn't right about the way we are living? Where did all our "morals" come from? Why do we have to work so hard for what we need to survive as a species?(And don't kid yourself...we ARE a SPECIES, just like the birds, the turtles, the jellyfish, and gorillas!)If you could just come to the realization that there is no "one right way to live" and look beyond what you've been told so far, you would not be so critical and frustrated with other's optimism. Danial's message is one of hope; a message that we have all been waiting for and ARE READY!!

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Summary: Unproven Assertions Based on Predisposed Theology
Review: Quinn says "the gods." Genesis 1:1 says"God."

Quinn says that man's dominion is the curse. InGenesis 1:28, God gave man dominion. It was God's will that man have dominion, saying, "Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion..." If Genesis is truly 'leaver' truth, then the truth is that man was given dominion by God.

Quinn says that increased multiplication is cursed 'taker' philosophy. In the same verse, Genesis 1:28, God says, "Be fruitful, and multiply."

Quinn says that filling the earth is cursed 'taker' philosophy. Again, the same verse says, 'replenish the earth,' literally, 'fill the earth.'

Quinn says that Genesis 2 through 4 represents human settlement in the fertile crescent. Settlement in the fertile crescent was after the flood of Genesis 6 through 9. Pre flood civilization was entirely different than post flood civilization. Quinn completely ignores the world-wide catastrophe of the flood.

Quinn explains the tree of knowledge of good and evil to be a tree that would give man the knowledge to have dominion. Ishmael asserts that there has been no good explanation of this tree up to this point. That is false. The explanation has been well-understood by those who care to understand. It is people like the pupil in the story that look for truth subjectively, rather than through faith in the Bible, that do not understand (cf. 1 Corinthians 1:18-25). Man knew good experientially, but he did not know evil, and eating of this tree would give him a knowledge of which God forbade. It was a prohibition of God as a test of faith and obedience. Man was to put faith in God for what is good and what is evil would be manifested by ongoing obedience. The temptation from Satan in the Garden was to look at life on our terms, to interpret life based on knowledge. This reveals the real problem, disregard the punishment of disobedience, death, and the deification of man. The basic tenets of this sin are found in every false religion under which this world is suppressed, humanistic and materialistic. The problem was not functional but one of nature. Man's sin displeases God (Psalm 51:5; Romans 5:12; Habakkuk 1:13). A truth that Quinn mixes in here is that man wanted to be a god. This is true, but Quinn connotes this with man's rebellion against the gods natural laws of evolution. There is no law of evolution. This is a theory that is in rebellion against God on the most fundamental level.

Quinn repudiates technology and agriculture. God told man in Genesis 1:28 to subdue and have dominion, literally conquer and rule, and in a different realm, science and technology, that is, understand and use (also study and practice, theory and application). This was foundational to George Washington Carver's discoveries at the Tuskegee Institute for the use of the peanut and new farming techniques that saved Southern farming after the Civil War.

Quinn says that the curse is man destroying himself and the world. Scriptures promise that Jesus Christ will return before man has completely destroyed the world (Revelation 19). Regarding destructive overpopulation. God made the earth with a great capacity for population, part of the message of Genesis 1:29,30. God made everything to reproduce exponentially, fish, fruit, vegetables. When man labors sufficiently, there is plenty of food for everyone. Overcrowding is certainly a concern, as it does not fit with God's command to spread out. That is a major reason why He confused the languages at the tower of Babel later in Genesis 11. Quinn explicitly teaches that overpopulation is what will lead to man's destruction. Even from a scientific viewpoint, this is false. Professor Henry Morris writes, "....there is quite a bit of evidence in the studies of animal populations that, when a given group increases in numbers to the optimum number for its own ecological niche, the population stabilizes-not because of a struggle-for-existence conflict, but by virtue of a built-in psychological or physiological mechanism which somehow slows down the reproduction activity of the population."

Quinn says that Cain's fundamental problem was that he was an agriculturalist. This is not fitting with God's instruction for them to be agriculturalists (Genesis 1:29-31). Cain's problem in Genesis 4 was his humanistic worship. He worshiped God his way through his works. God wanted a sacrifice. He killed Abel, not because he wanted to stop the shepherding lifestyle, but because he was envious of God's respect for Abel's offering. This is extremely clear from looking at the text. It is also backed up by a parallel passage in Hebrews 11:4. Animals at this time were only raised for sacrifice, and at best for other products. Animals were not authorized for food by God until after the flood (Genesis 1:29; 2:16; 3;19; 9:3).

Quinn says that the curse is man's working with the soil. No. The curse was more difficult labor with the soil (see Genesis 3:17-19, cf. Romans 8:21,22). There are certain simple truths that Quinn mixes in, like not wasting and being content with having needs met (1 Timothy 6:6-10). These teachings are no basis for accepting his whole paradigm. He fallaciously teaches that the teaching of Jesus Christ in Matthew 6 in His Sermon on the Mount, regarding taking care of the sparrows, etc. was to teach men that they were to allow God to take care of them like the sparrow. In the context, this is incredible, as the Lord is teaching man, the greater creation, and in the image of God (Genesis 1:26), should trust the Lord in the meeting of his needs. If God would take care of the sparrows, then He would surely take care of us. The sparrow works to eat, and man works to eat (2 Thessalonians 3:10), just how God intended, but things do not grow if not for the Lord.

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Summary: What this book is and is not.
Review: I had read Ishmael about three years ago and I have been in debate about it with other people who discuss only the idea that the Taker culture was bound to happen eventually and the psychology of human consciouness at the time of the Taker split. Upon reading the reviews here I am not surprised in the least to many high ratings and those to don't get the intended premise.

1.)Ishmael is not a literary masterpiece and was not meant to be. Quinn peferably would rather write nonfiction but he realizes that a novel form for presenting the ideas is the best way to reach the intended audience.

2.)Ishmael is repetitive only to lay the ground work for further discussion. In the Story of B Quinn explains in detail the necessity to repeat the structure in order to form colage where pieces fall thogether at different times.

.3) Ishmael,B, My Ishamel, and Providence when read in that order give the reader the full tools to decipher Quinns arguments. Alan in Ishamel is supposed to play the role of limited inquisitor in order for the ground work to be laid. Those three novels are needed in full to lay out the premise. The questions are supposed play the role to support that objective.

.4) We aren't Humanity. I am dumbfounded that people still didn't see Quinn's point. This is not a nature good versus humanity bad scenario

.5)By the way if it is written like it was intended for third graders as some of the critics say I am glad because frankly Mother culture hasn't drifted their minds to sleep! Ishamel Rules! Rock on read Beyond Civilization it is the answer to your, but now what questions.

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Summary: If you only plan on reading one book, this should be the one
Review: I've read it twice, and I'm re-reading it, I own two copies and lend them to everyone I know, the word must be spread, cause like the narrarator I have always know something to be fundamentally wrong, and now I have a better idea what that is. This book was the best book I've ever read, and I've read on hell of alot of books, and I need to say EVERYONE READ THIS BOOK...and maybe we'll have achance. Till then I'm moving to the woods and living of the game. Down with the "Takers"!

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Summary: I enjoyed this book so much, it was very enlightening
Review: I am not a psycology student, I didn't even know if I would understand or could read this book. I read it, I loved it, and am trying to get my daughter and friends to read it. When it was given to me I had no idea what it was about, my friend from Texas said it was a book from her psycology class. Thanks Mr. Quinn