Books

[jeremyp]

I've always thought that "Brave New World" should be required reading for everybody, we my wife and I were only talking about this yesterday.

I had to read that at school.  I remember thinking that the society Huxley described doesn't sound too bad, especially as I would naturally have been an Alpha.

[jeremyp]

Gödel Escher Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid.

Also Copper Silver Gold: an Indestructible Metallic Alloy

[BashfulAnthony]

Do we know it's the case that these 5,000,000 Bibles are actually sold, as opposed to handed out/given away?


How do you know that they're pretending?

I had to study the OT as part of my course at college, and it was excruciatingly ponderous and difficult.  It is fine if you are Jewish, but otherwise it is hard going - I am talking in particular of the Books of Leviticus, Numbers  and Deuteronomy, in fact the Pentateuch as a whole; and anyone, other than Jews, who says they have read them by choice, and finished reading them, and found them appropriate to any other religion, is a liar.  People say they have read the Bible, including those Books, because it makes them appear knowledgeable.

As to the numbers of Bibles sold  - five billion, not million  -  it matters not whether they were bought or given, the number is still the same. 

[jeremyp]

Though, as we know, there are many atheists who may have bought one, but have never read it, though they pretend they have.

Since you're still banging on about that, I put it to you that more atheists who own Bibles have actually read it (or a significant proportion of it) than Christians who own Bibles.  The only reason why an atheist would buy a Bible is to read it whereas Christians buy them because they are expected to own them.

I suspect more people have read all seven volumes of Harry Potter than have read the Bible.

[BashfulAnthony]

Though, as we know, there are many atheists who may have bought one, but have never read it, though they pretend they have.

Since you're still banging on about that, I put it to you that more atheists who own Bibles have actually read it (or a significant proportion of it) than Christians who own Bibles.  The only reason why an atheist would buy a Bible is to read it whereas Christians buy them because they are expected to own them.

I suspect more people have read all seven volumes of Harry Potter than have read the Bible.

Any evidence to support anything you said above  -  or just the usual atheist spin, and wishful thinking.

Checking:  Harry Potter book sales were up to 450 million at July, 2013.  A bit short of the 5 billion Bibles   Check your facts.

[Nearly Sane]

I read Dostoevsky when I was younger.  It is pretty dark stuff really, not very easy reading.

It can be difficult to get in to, yeah. I chose those particular books because they describe the dangers of nihilism and liberalism.

I love reading historical novels, as history is an interest of mine.  Too many to mention, but often, when picked at random, they can be poor reading.  But I very much like Phillippa Gregory, Bernard Cornwall, Elizabeth Chadwick, Edwin Thomas, Georgette Heyer - the list goes on and on!

Have you read the Colleen McCullough Masters of Rome series?

[jeremyp]

I put it to you that more atheists who own Bibles have actually read it (or a significant proportion of it) than Christians who own Bibles.  The only reason why an atheist would buy a Bible is to read it whereas Christians buy them because they are expected to own them.

I suspect more people have read all seven volumes of Harry Potter than have read the Bible.

Any evidence to support anything you said above  -  or just the usual atheist spin, and wishful thinking.

Exactly the same amount of evidence as you have that the atheists who have bought Bibles don't read them.

[Nearly Sane]

 

Dear Sane,

Who is this Tyson bloke, long lost cousin of the boxer guy.

His description of the Bible is very thought provoking, very Dawkinish

I think I read that Art of War book, I am set for life if I ever decide to invade China.

Gonnagle.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neil_deGrasse_Tyson

[Nearly Sane]

How do you know that they're pretending?

Well it's quite evident from what they post.  I defy any atheist to say, in honesty, that they have read the whole OT!

I have, even the very boring bits. I have done it cover to cover three times. To be honest the bit I find hardest is Revelation as it's nuts and makes me laugh too hsrd

Why would you read, say, chapters 12 to 30 of Deuteronomy once, let alone three time?  Are you Jewish, and need to be aware of Judaic Law and customs?

Because when I set out to read something, I read it. Context across the board is important.

[Gonnagle]

Dear Sane,

Bugger me! You are a bigger Bible thumper than me.

Okay let's all settle down, we study the Bible, it is not a novel, it is a work of art, it inspires.

Gonnagle.

[Rhiannon]

The Bible isn't a book. It's a collection of books in one canon.

[jeremyp]

Have you read the OT?  Have you read Deuteronomy?  Funnily enough, atheists always say they have, but can never say what the Book is about, let alone why they would read it.

I'm not claiming to be an atheist who has bought a Bible.  I don't own a Bible.  When I need one, I use an online version.

[jeremyp]

They speak of him, point to him, in figures and shadows, as if under a veil: the tabernacle, the various laws regarding cleanliness, the sacrifices etc. Our Lord himself confirms this, as does the Apostle.

By which you mean they don't speak of him, but you have found a way to pretend that they do.

[ad_orientem]

They speak of him, point to him, in figures and shadows, as if under a veil: the tabernacle, the various laws regarding cleanliness, the sacrifices etc. Our Lord himself confirms this, as does the Apostle.

By which you mean they don't speak of him, but you have found a way to pretend that they do.

Only in your mind. As I said, our Lord himself says so. And so the Apostles, the fathers and the whole Church give witness to this.

[floo]

The only book I read these days in paper format is the Bible, which I read right through before starting again. It takes me a couple of years to read from start to finish, as I do it slowly, just to see if I am missing anything. All other books I read on my Kindle. I prefer modern novels.

[Sassy]

The link is to Neil DeGrasse Tyson' s list of the 8 books any intelligent person should read. Comments, disagreements, additions?

http://www.brainpickings.org/2014/12/29/neil-degrasse-tyson-reading-list/?utm_content=buffer45269&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

If you need to read books to learn those things then surely your intelligence regarding the way of the world is lacking....

I read the list, knew the books and the teachings are rather obvious except for what was missing from the Exegesis of the bible.

The bible contains the teachings of God on the matter at hand and even the examples of the things each book refers to. What was clear by just reading his answer is that he never left room for the answers or even gave credence that the bible itself was the correct way to think and learn from these things....

He speaks about things that have driven the western world. 

to learn that it’s easier to be told by others what to think and believe than it is to think for yourself

Isn't the books he is suggesting and his reasons the perfect example of being told what to think rather than thinking for yourself?

What it suggests is that no on who reads those books has the intelligence to know or even reach those conclusions without them.

I personally think some people are too full of themselves to realise that Human Beings do not require books to tell them somethings. They can look at the world and make their own decisions. Knowing human nature and the results of history is a good teacher alone.
Religion a personal choice but the wisdom of God is not open to all.
By that... I am talking about those who believe and trust him not those who have never found him.

[Nearly Sane]

It should be pointed out that Tyson was responding to a question and choose to frame the answer in the light of the subtitle. I don't think there is anything of a suggestion that you have to have read these books to be intelligent or that you should necessarily be looking to understand the western mind as the sole pursuit of someone intelligent.

To be honest I think the question is a bit fatuous and it is only Tyson' s answer that gives it the dignity that it has by framing it with the subtitle. I think a more sensible question and I think what some have interpreted it on the threads are what are the books you go to, or have stayed with you, or give a flavour of you. In that spirit here are 8 of mine


1 Confessions of a Justified Sinner by James Hogg, a book that haunts so much of Scottish literature and is a musing on the supernatural, logic, and free will, all of them pet subjects

2 The Deptford Trilogy by Robertson Davies, a set of books which in one part is a homage to Justified Sinner and takes it into the world of Jung, magic and the mix of Scottish presbyterianism through a Canadian prism


3 An Enquiry on Human Understanding by David Hume - like a philosophical companion piece to Justified Sinner, and for philosophy beautifully, elegantly clear.

4. Catch 22 by Joseph Heller - the first book I ever read that screamed about the absurdity of humanity quite so clearly working in that genre which most defines our absurdity, war


5. Death of a Hero by Richard Aldington - an earlier war novel that works on a much less raucous level than Catch 22, but also ties in with the ideas in Justified Sinner about how perceptions of internal and external create an irreconcilable duality

6.  The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman - exposes the ease by which madness can arise by cloying cruelty and the treatment of someone for whatever reason as lesser

7. Paper Money by Adam Smith (note not the Adam Smith but a financial journalist and money manager called George Goodman writing under a pseudonym) - a brilliant and clear book on the mystery that is money, although written in the late 60s / early 70s, it covers a lot of the difficulties and problems we have today particularly in its coverage of the development of eurodollars.

8. A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole, as with many of the books tinged by a hint of madness and depression, covering the absurdity of existence with a picaresque joy

[Rhiannon]

I'd need to have two children's books on my list, Toms Midnight Garden by Phillippa A Pearce, and The Little White Horse by Elizabeth Goudge.

The former is a brilliant story about loss, change, ageing and how we stay the same inside. I howl every time I read the end. The latter intricately described gardens, rooms, clothes and food in such detail that the Cornish world of Maria Merryweather became more real to me than my bedroom where I first read it. It's not surprising that JK Rowling was heavily influenced by Goudge in the way she uses detail to paint scenes.

Geoff Hamilton has been a huge influence on me. Everything I know about gardening I picked up from his books and TV shows, and I've always gardened organically because of him. 'Cottage gardens' influenced both the style of how I garden, and also how I like to reuse and recycle things into other uses, and try to make things myself.

Agatha Christie has given me so much pleasure throughout the years. I can't imagine life without her books. The Killings at Badgers Drift is a near perfect village murder mystery, although you do have to forgive its author for spawning Midsomer Murders as a result.

I'd also need to throw in The Whole Woman by Germaine Greer and Kissing the Hag by Emma Restall Orr. And definitely Women Who Run With The Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estes.

[ad_orientem]

Musn't miss my favourite book A Tale Of Two Cities.

[Rhiannon]

Wuthering Heights

Adam Bede

[Samuel]

tough to do but here are mine

1. Lord of the flies - William Golding
2. Dawn Wind - Rosemary Sutcliff
3. The Wizard of Earthsea - Ursula Le Guin
4. Pilgrims Progress (but a very particular children's version I read when young with fantastic engravings)
5. A Land - Jacquetta Hawkes
6. The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
7. Brave new world - Aldous Huxley
8. The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald

[jeremyp]

Only in your mind. As I said, our Lord himself says so. And so the Apostles, the fathers and the whole Church give witness to this.

Anybody can claim that the Bible talks about them.  I myself even wrote four of the books.  See how easy it is.

Show me a passage in the Old Testament that clearly talks about Jesus.  You can't, because there isn't one. 

[ad_orientem]

Only in your mind. As I said, our Lord himself says so. And so the Apostles, the fathers and the whole Church give witness to this.

Anybody can claim that the Bible talks about them.  I myself even wrote four of the books.  See how easy it is.

Show me a passage in the Old Testament that clearly talks about Jesus.  You can't, because there isn't one.

You've convinced yourself that there isn't. It wouldn't matter if I wrote page after page, in your stiffneckedness you still would not acknowledgeit it. You have a veil upon your heart.

http://www.pravmir.com/article_1224.html

[floo]

Only in your mind. As I said, our Lord himself says so. And so the Apostles, the fathers and the whole Church give witness to this.

Anybody can claim that the Bible talks about them.  I myself even wrote four of the books.  See how easy it is.

Show me a passage in the Old Testament that clearly talks about Jesus.  You can't, because there isn't one.

You are right.

[Sebastian Toe]

I personally think some people are too full of themselves to realise that Human Beings do not require books to tell them somethings. They can look at the world and make their own decisions. Knowing human nature and the results of history is a good teacher alone.

No need to read the bible then?