Books that have changed your view on the world...

[BrownTown]

Originally posted by: leingod86
I find the fact that the majority of books presented in this thread are related to politics or religion rather than critical thinking or reasoning telling regarding the priorities of the average (American) person.

I'm gonna go ahead and agree with that one. Really maybe we should also look back further than what we read in high school or college, and look at what we read in elementry school as to what REALLY influenced us. I know I have always been an "engineer" type person since I was a little kid. In fact almost all my interests (except women ) are the same sorts of things I read books about in elementary school, so even a 4th grade reader might be as influential to a person as the most famous novels.

Its the same problem I have when someone says that "Atlas Shrugged" influenced them so much, well what if you had read the Communist Manifesto instead? OR if instead of reading the bible you had read the Quaran. Really before you make any descisions on something I think you pretty much HAVE to read the counter-argument. If you say you have read "Atlas Shrugged" and have never read a communist or socialist work then how can you really think you are so smart? Its easy to have an opinion when you only even looked at one side. The communist Manifesto for example is a very good book imo, and is much better written than Atlas Shrugged and presents the counter arguments which I labeled as "obvious" before. Most notably the famous Rousseau quote:

"Man is born free yet we see him everywhere in chains mean"

is my argument against Atlas Shrugged. In a social Darwinist structure you have two classes. The 1% of the people who are ultra wealth (and who will forever more be born into said wealth), and the 99% of people who are dirt poor and yet have to depend on the wealthy for everything because the wealth own all means of production. Kind of hard to be a Dagny Taggart if you are born into a family where you have no education and get sent off to work at age 10 (like happened IN REAL LIFE) during the robber baron days that Atlas Shrugged seeks to glorify.

 

[Madwand1]

None of the above. "We the Living" was to me a far more poignant expression of her art and its context than the others. It gave me some small view of that world, but that world is gone, except for some embers.

 

[Orsorum]

I'm a deeply analytical person, yet you can see by my book choices that most of my influential works relate to religious philosophy or belief. I'm a CPA by trade, and I can assure you that I've had a lifetime's worth of practical training and logic courses, mathematics, science, etc. That is all a foundation for my life as it is now but none of those studies were really life-changing. The Bible, Fear and Trembling, etc., were books that took that foundation of logic and reason and helped me reconcile that to my concept of my Creator.

Never read Atlas Shrugged, don't intend to. I have too many other books to read in my life.

 

[deathstorm78]

Beyond Good and Evil- Friedrich Nietzsche

This one really made me think about everything I was "taught" as a "Christian."
Up until this book I was ok with being told what to believe instead of figuring it out for myself through research and study.

 

[RichardE]

I picked up a number of books in this thread so far and am working my way through them. One I have begun reading that is amazing so far is called "So you don't want to go to Church anymore" Wayne Jacobsen and Dave Coleman. Awsome book if you have ever wondered about why you bother going to religious events when they seem so superficial.

 

[Dissipate]

Originally posted by: Orsorum
I'm a deeply analytical person, yet you can see by my book choices that most of my influential works relate to religious philosophy or belief. I'm a CPA by trade, and I can assure you that I've had a lifetime's worth of practical training and logic courses, mathematics, science, etc. That is all a foundation for my life as it is now but none of those studies were really life-changing. The Bible, Fear and Trembling, etc., were books that took that foundation of logic and reason and helped me reconcile that to my concept of my Creator.

Never read Atlas Shrugged, don't intend to. I have too many other books to read in my life.

The fact that you believe in a 'Creator' means you didn't learn much in those classes, or they were taught poorly.

 

[Drako]

Liberalism is a mental disorder

 

[zinfamous]

Everybody Poops.

Seriously, I had no idea before reading this.

 

[zinfamous]

Originally posted by: Drako
Liberalism is a mental disorder

Good to know that those who founded this country (who defined themselves as liberals) were retarded.

 

[Drako]

Originally posted by: zinfamous

Originally posted by: Drako
Liberalism is a mental disorder

Good to know that those who founded this country (who defined themselves as liberals) were retarded.

LOL, obviously you have not read the book.

 

[BrownTown]

Originally posted by: Drako

Originally posted by: zinfamous

Originally posted by: Drako
Liberalism is a mental disorder

Good to know that those who founded this country (who defined themselves as liberals) were retarded.

LOL, obviously you have not read the book.

well I've never read the book either, but I really can't see how a book with a title like that is going to be any benefit to this world.

Originally posted by: deathstorm78
Beyond Good and Evil- Friedrich Nietzsche

This one really made me think about everything I was "taught" as a "Christian."
Up until this book I was ok with being told what to believe instead of figuring it out for myself through research and study.

yay, someone else picked the same books as me

 

[m1ldslide1]

Originally posted by: Rockinacoustic

Originally posted by: TheRedUnderURBed
Vonnegut

Cat's Cradle for me :thumbsup:

'Another Roadside Attraction' by Tom Robbins

Some of Nietzsche works are very provocative to me as well.

Just finished Cat's Cradle. It was pretty good, but to me not in the same league as Gibson, Adams, Herbert, Dick, and others. He's more of a pop-scifi guy in my opinion.


For me the recent view-changing books are A People's History of the US, What Orwell Didn't Know, and Ishmael. These are within the last year anyway.

 

[zinfamous]

Originally posted by: Drako

Originally posted by: zinfamous

Originally posted by: Drako
Liberalism is a mental disorder

Good to know that those who founded this country (who defined themselves as liberals) were retarded.

LOL, obviously you have not read the book.

Yes. I prefer historical credibility and fact-based journalism to sensationalist and unfounded assumptions breathed from the type of kook that endorses homeopathy.

 

[piasabird]

I like a series of books by Marrion Zimmer Bradley about Darkover. I dont know that they changed my life or anything.

One of my favorite books is the Book of Mormon. Read it with an open mind and I think you will believe it. It talks about a lot of problems we have today. Judges perverting the law, Secret societies, groups of thieves and murderers, Men who want to be kings and overthrow the government.

Another book I like is "He Walked The Americas", by L Taylor Hansen. The author researched and wrote the book after years of research in academia and field research. Her father co-authored the Tectonic Plate Theory. She was among other things an Anthropology Major while holding some other degrees. The book was first published in 1964. She had access to books that no longer exist or are hidden in private collections. There is not any real religion discussed in her book unless you choose to believe in the old stories and legends of the natives of the American continent that were here long before the white man. This is a good book to read for people wanting to know a little bit more about American (continents (north and south)). This is the kind of history that is not commonly known.

http://www.wovoca.com/he-walked-the-americas/

 

[Vic]

Originally posted by: sandorski

Originally posted by: Atreus21

Originally posted by: sandorski

Originally posted by: Atreus21

Originally posted by: leingod86

Why? How does one deduce the nature of God?

We can't deduce the true nature of God, but I think we can deduce part of proof of his existence.

If one does somehow assess it, how does it affect the logical processes that were required to discover it?

If God doesn't exist, then nothing is meaningful. What's the point of anything, including logic, if there isn't a universal truth of some kind that we strive to understand?

We create "Meaning". Long before "God" existed, "gods" gave "Meaning" to Egyptians and numerous other cultures. Somehow "Meaning' survived the massive culling of countless "gods".

I don't see how. Whether or not God exists seems to me to make quite a difference in how many of us would conduct our lives if we knew for certain one way or another.

As Dawkins has said, it's rather unnerving to think some feel that way.

"I prefer rationalism to atheism. The question of God and other objects-of-faith are outside reason and play no part in rationalism, thus you don't have to waste your time in either attacking or defending." -- Isaac Asimov

 

[Vic]

Originally posted by: Drako

Originally posted by: zinfamous

Originally posted by: Drako
Liberalism is a mental disorder

Good to know that those who founded this country (who defined themselves as liberals) were retarded.

LOL, obviously you have not read the book.

The founders of this country called themselves liberals. The foremost thinker among them, Thomas Jefferson, credited the founder of the liberal enlightenment, John Locke, for his philosophies.
Think about it for a minute... if they were conservatives, they would never have rebelled against the king.

All you've shown us here is how badly you've been brainwashed by the propaganda of neoconservatism.

 

[Dissipate]

Originally posted by: Vic

"I prefer rationalism to atheism. The question of God and other objects-of-faith are outside reason and play no part in rationalism, thus you don't have to waste your time in either attacking or defending." -- Isaac Asimov

Agnostic atheism is rational. It takes the default position of laying no positive claim about the unknown.

 

[Dissipate]

Originally posted by: Vic

The founders of this country called themselves liberals. The foremost thinker among them, Thomas Jefferson, credited the founder of the liberal enlightenment, John Locke, for his philosophies.
Think about it for a minute... if they were conservatives, they would never have rebelled against the king.

All you've shown us here is how badly you've been brainwashed by the propaganda of neoconservatism.

You have revealed that you are neck deep in the Cult of the Founders.

 

[RichardE]

Originally posted by: Dissipate

Originally posted by: Vic

The founders of this country called themselves liberals. The foremost thinker among them, Thomas Jefferson, credited the founder of the liberal enlightenment, John Locke, for his philosophies.
Think about it for a minute... if they were conservatives, they would never have rebelled against the king.

All you've shown us here is how badly you've been brainwashed by the propaganda of neoconservatism.

You have revealed that you are neck deep in the Cult of the Founders.

How goes the pursuit of Anarchy? For someone who believes in a unsustainable ideology you sure do find a lot of fault with other people.

Do you have any suggestions for this thread? Or did you come here to do nothing but troll the reading choices of others?

 

[Vic]

Originally posted by: Dissipate

Originally posted by: Vic

The founders of this country called themselves liberals. The foremost thinker among them, Thomas Jefferson, credited the founder of the liberal enlightenment, John Locke, for his philosophies.
Think about it for a minute... if they were conservatives, they would never have rebelled against the king.

All you've shown us here is how badly you've been brainwashed by the propaganda of neoconservatism.

You have revealed that you are neck deep in the Cult of the Founders.

I've never denied it.

 

[Vic]

On topic, the books I decided on are:
- The Gospel of Matthew
- Ain't Nobody's Business if You Do by Peter McWilliams
- Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein
- Capitalism: the Unknown Ideal by Any Rand

Note: only one of them is fiction.

 

[Dissipate]

Originally posted by: RichardE
How goes the pursuit of Anarchy?

Going pretty well actually. I'm involved with The Seasteading Institute.

For someone who believes in a unsustainable ideology you sure do find a lot of fault with other people.

i·de·ol·o·gy
Pronunciation
?noun, plural -gies.
1. the body of doctrine, myth, belief, etc., that guides an individual, social movement, institution, class, or large group.
2. such a body of doctrine, myth, etc., with reference to some political and social plan, as that of fascism, along with the devices for putting it into operation.
3. Philosophy.
a. the study of the nature and origin of ideas.
b. a system that derives ideas exclusively from sensation.
4. theorizing of a visionary or impractical nature.

I am anti-doctrine, anti-myth, anti-social plan. I am anti-ideology as I am anti-religion, for the same reasons: ideologies and religions are based on ad hoc mythologies and narratives. They reject all empirical evidence or testing and claim to find truth. Take the Cult of the Founders for instance. The Cult of the Founders says that the Founders were wise, and because they were wise and they wrote the Constitution, we should obey the Constitution and create a government accordingly. But it is there that they stop searching, and the reason why is because it is an unscientific cult. Ordered anarchy (or as I call it, a polycentric legal order) allows you to experiment with radically different social arrangements, finding what works and what doesn't. It also rejects the idea that law is objective and universal. Saying that the Founders discovered the greatest system of government that could ever be discovered because they were wise is like saying that no one should have ever explored other branches of physics other than Newtonian physics because Newton was wise.

Atheism and ordered anarchy both tie directly into existentialism. You are not a 'child of god,' you are not a 'citizen,' there is no objective truth in the Constitution or the Bible. Essentially, what atheism, ordered anarchy and existentialism say is: you exist first and foremost, and other than that you get to write your own story.

Do you have any suggestions for this thread? Or did you come here to do nothing but troll the reading choices of others?

Yep, I suggest Machinery of Freedom

 

[Vic]

Because I'm in an Asmiov mood right now:

Don't you believe in flying saucers, they ask me? Don't you believe in telepathy? ? in ancient astronauts? ? in the Bermuda triangle? ? in life after death?
No, I reply. No, no, no, no, and again no.
One person recently, goaded into desperation by the litany of unrelieved negation, burst out "Don't you believe in anything?"
"Yes", I said. "I believe in evidence. I believe in observation, measurement, and reasoning, confirmed by independent observers. I'll believe anything, no matter how wild and ridiculous, if there is evidence for it. The wilder and more ridiculous something is, however, the firmer and more solid the evidence will have to be."

 

[RichardE]

Originally posted by: Dissipate

Originally posted by: RichardE
How goes the pursuit of Anarchy?

Going pretty well actually. I'm involved with The Seasteading Institute.

For someone who believes in a unsustainable ideology you sure do find a lot of fault with other people.

i·de·ol·o·gy
Pronunciation
?noun, plural -gies.
1. the body of doctrine, myth, belief, etc., that guides an individual, social movement, institution, class, or large group.
2. such a body of doctrine, myth, etc., with reference to some political and social plan, as that of fascism, along with the devices for putting it into operation.
3. Philosophy.
a. the study of the nature and origin of ideas.
b. a system that derives ideas exclusively from sensation.
4. theorizing of a visionary or impractical nature.

I am anti-doctrine, anti-myth, anti-social plan. I am anti-ideology as I am anti-religion, for the same reasons: ideologies and religions are based on ad hoc mythologies and narratives. They reject all empirical evidence or testing and claim to find truth. Take the Cult of the Founders for instance. The Cult of the Founders says that the Founders were wise, and because they were wise and they wrote the Constitution, we should obey the Constitution and create a government accordingly. But it is there that they stop searching, and the reason why is because it is an unscientific cult. Ordered anarchy (or as I call it, a polycentric legal order) allows you to experiment with radically different social arrangements, finding what works and what doesn't. It also rejects the idea that law is objective and universal. Saying that the Founders discovered the greatest system of government that could ever be discovered because they were wise is like saying that no one should have ever explored other branches of physics other than Newtonian physics because Newton was wise.

Atheism and ordered anarchy both tie directly into existentialism. You are not a 'child of god,' you are not a 'citizen,' there is no objective truth in the Constitution or the Bible. Essentially, what atheism, ordered anarchy and existentialism say is: you exist first and foremost, and other than that you get to write your own story.

Do you have any suggestions for this thread? Or did you come here to do nothing but troll the reading choices of others?

Yep, I suggest Machinery of Freedom

At least you said an answer that made sense

Interesting institute and book selection, I'll look into both :beer:

 

[Oceandevi]

The book adaptation of diehard 3. It really taught me about morals.