Harley Hahn Newsletter #52

Harley Hahn Newsletter
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  HARLEY HAHN NEWSLETTER
           #52

    February 21, 2006

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"The more important a question is, the
 fewer people you should ask for advice."

 -- Harley Hahn


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Interesting People: Jesus and Muhammad
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Who is not intrigued by extraordinary, interesting
people?

In our lifetime, we meet very few such people: the
best we can do is read about them.  Learning about
fascinating people, however, can be difficult
because the myth surrounding the actual man or
woman has a life of its own, obscuring the
distinction between is real and what was invented
after the fact.

How do we know whether we accept an idea because
it seems plausible, or because we were taught to
believe it?  How do we guard against accepting the
unbelievable based on our own inner convictions?

I have recently added two new pages to the
Interesting People section of my Web site,
discussing two people whose lives are obscured
with myths, legends, and strongly held beliefs.
The two people are the most well-known religious
figures in history: Jesus, the founder of
Christianity, and Muhammad, the founder of Islam.

An important question to ask is, what do scholars
really know about the lives of Jesus and Muhammad?
What do you find when you look at the facts of
their lives, aside from their teachings and the
beliefs of the religions they founded.

Are you intrigued?  Take a look at the...

Interesting People home page

To jump directly to the specific pages:

Jesus
Muhammad

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The essays in these pages is based on material
I wrote for Harley Hahn's Internet Yellow Pages.
If you would like to explore what the Yellow Pages
has regarding interesting people, see:

People in Harley Hahn's Internet Yellow Pages

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Reading: Frank Zappa and Starbucks
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Frank Zappa (1940-1993) was an extremely creative,
iconoclastic musician whose innovative work as a
composer and performer opened strange musical
doorways for a relatively small number of fans
around the world.

Howard Schultz (1952-) is the fabulously
successful entrepreneur who built Starbucks from a
tiny, three-store company into a huge, multi-
national corporation, one that sells coffee
and other products in well over 10,000 outlets
around the world.

Zappa was the epitome of counter culture; Schultz
is an uber-capitalist.  Zappa was a very strange
man who invented his own musical world; Schultz is
a typical optimistic, hard-driving salesman, who
thrives within the popular culture.  So what could
Zappa and Schultz possibly have in common?

The answer: they both hired ghostwriters to write
their autobiography.

The results?  My guess is you will be surprised.
Take a look for yourself by reading my reviews of
the two books:

What is Harley Reading?

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By the way, the book reviews I write are part of a
larger project, Harley Hahn's Guide to Reading.
If you like reading, I know you will enjoy this
guide:

Harley Hahn's Guide to Reading

-- Harley Hahn