Okay i was gonna save my rant for the final review but now that I’m getting to parts where I have knowledge I’m starting to realize maybe he wasn’t being vague earlier he just researched this very very poorly.

I have a casual interest in religious studies and even I can see how much misinformation there is. I am going to be honest this man is just flat out lying. There is 0 nuance throughout his Christianity chapters and the way he talks about the differences in theology is so vague that it’s obvious he didn’t really understand much of anything. But I am very new to understanding Christian theology myself so I wasn’t sure despite it feeling wrong. But I do know Islamic theology and history and the Islam chapters have so much misinformation that it’s just SILLY at how wrong it is. Like he says Islam preaches that if you follow it you will have plentiful crops and how that gave people an economic incentive. I looked at his source. It’s a verse from the Quran and the context from previous verses is how people are asking how can we possibly be resurrected to which God replies that a is it not a sign how grain is grown from previously dead earth, asking the reader to reflect on the seasons and the cycle of death and life. Completely unrelated to if you believe you get good crops. He then says the treaty of Hudaybiyah helped the Muslims when it is common knowledge that it was notoriously unfair for Muslims with one prominent companion having been recorded as saying “oh Messenger of God, are we not in the right in our belief? Why must we agree to such terms?” There was even a clause where if Mecca had converts and they escaped to Medina, the Muslims in Medina had to return them and could not provide them refuge. He then says on the next page that Islam had the support of the Quraysh and that’s why it spread but that’s just blatantly false. The Quraysh elite did not accept Islam until the conquest of Mecca which is very very late into the Prophet’s life. And all of this was within 3 pages. There were so many other things in the last few pages but I would have to write my own book to refute every piece of misinformation.

Also I was very annoyed that he skipped over pretty much all of India and the Indian religions, mentioned Zoroastrianism only as it pertains to Christianity and the struggle between Rome and Persia, and Buddhism got the barest of mentions???

I was promised a different look at history but it’s all just Rome and Persia and occasionally we will talk about China. I am tired of him and I’m not even half way through.

I had always thought that visas and the current immigration system was a result of modern colonialism (and it surely is to a certain extent) but even back in the early days of the silk roads, China had a system to keep track of all of the foreign merchants that were coming and going and even had a customs department. Sometimes I forget that globalization is a far older concept than just the modern era of globalization.

So, last night I was reading and there was a line that flawed me for a hot second. Then it made me think. The line was: "N, E, S, W. Or Never Eat Soggy Waffles, as her tutor use to say." I was stunned! I live I Australia, and we learnt a similar expression, except it's weet-bix. Never Eat Soggy Weet-bix. For those of you playing at home, Weet-bix are a type of breakfast food, they're a bar of wheat and other such foods, that you serve with milk, honey, fruit, sugar or yoghurt. I'm wondering if anywhere else in the world has another version of this, because, of course they do! I just never thought about it 😂 So, please tell me where you are from and how you say it, or if this is just weird you y'all just say North East South & West.

EDIT! I just remembered, all the kids would say "never entertain sexy women" once they were "old enough" (over 10)