Book Thread

[Nabubrush]

I found a signed first edition of Anansi Boys on our vacation.

[lprkn]

Sweet book. Neil Gaiman is pretty much the best guy.

[Nabubrush]

I'm pretty jazzed. I like getting signed shit. I like actually getting it signed, but I don't much meet authors. Wombles hooked me up, though.

[jaydub]

I'm reading Wombat's book.  I'll report when I have finished.  So far, I like it.

Me too - the Animals Behaving Badly one.  I'm going to write a dissertation on Amazon once I'm done.  Perhaps under the "Segmental Phonology in Optimality Theory" section though, to be puckish.

[jaydub]

Also, I just finished Hunger Games, which I note parenthetically (is there any other way) has been previously referenced on TOUAMB exactly twice - once by Toaster expressing glee in 2009 over getting a Hunger Games pin; again by Miles in 2010, and my impression of the book is decidedly mixed.  Were I still a teenager I would love it unreservedly.  As a grownup with kids there is a serious squick factor to a storyline that pits 24 children between 12 & 18 years of age to lethal combat with one another.  Get ready, anyway, Hollywood got ahold of the story and is set to crank out a successor to Harry Potter.  I'm eagerly anticipating/ awaiting in horror the product tie ins with Burger King, Disney and Trapper Keeper.

[KeithHernandez]

I've mentioned this here (maybe twice), but watching Battle Royal is the best thing anyone coming down off of cocaine at 4 in the morning can do.

Actually now that I think about it, that only happened in OK.  Maybe cut with meth or something there?  Whatever it was I just needed to see those kids battling.

[Nabubrush]

Zombo-thread alert.

I don't know where to put this, so here it goes. I'm in the midst of reading Robert B. Parker's Cold Service (I think that's the right one), and here's the little blurb on the back:

When his closest ally, Hawk, is beaten and left for dead while protecting a bookie, Spenser embarks on an epic journey to rehabilitate his best pal, body and soul.

Great! Except what actually happens, in the first few pages of the book, is that Hawk gets three slugs in the back from a rifle. Why would that happen? Carelessness? Maybe he edited the beating out? If you've read the series you can't really imagine anyone beating Hawk up, so I guess I figure it's the latter, but it just struck me as odd.

[dejavroom]

I'm nibbling around the edges of the "Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology". It's an unforgiving hard-ass of a book, but it's been one of the most rewarding reads I've had in a long time (it was a surprise for me to learn that apparently theism has progressively become respectable again in the academic community).

The book is a summation of the current state of affairs in the field, with all major arguments for theism being expounded on and defended against possible refutations by leading contemporary theist philosophers. It begins by laying out the five general objections to theism, and then it proceeds to refute them. Then it discusses at length the arguments for theism (cosmological arguments, argument from consciousness, argument from reason etc) against their possible refutations.

It puts your mind in a place so high you're likely to get dizzy trying to make sense of heady stuff like whether there's an end to the past or whether is it possible for something to happen without something causing it. Of course, I can't even begin to understand it when it gets really into the meat of the matter (at least for the arguments that depend of heavy logic, since my knowledge of the subject is nil; arguments such as the problem of evil, on the other hand, yield a lot more), but there's such an overabundance of ideas and concepts that's impossible not to learn something here and there.

[Jaded Tersk]

After you punish yourself thoroughly with trying to get your head around the ontological arguments for the existence of God and the ideas of The Goldilocks Principle of cosmological constants, etc., if you would like something in the vein of light relief, try The Case for God by Karen Armstrong.  It's rare to say that a book will really make you see things in a different light, but Karen Armstrong is one of the few who really did that for me.

There will be no great classic theological arguments for the existence of God here - Armstrong argues that these are poison to religion.  It's very hard for me to sum up her view, even though I've basically adopted it myself, and so now consider myself some sort of atheist who feels positively towards many religious traditions (a demographic of which I think I have seen some evidence for it's growth over the last few years in the positioning of some atheists distinguishing themselves apart from the Dawkins brigade).  I actually feel after reading her that I could retain my atheism and practice a religious tradition at the same time, with all the benefits that accrue.  I don't, but I may some day.

Anyways, if religion still interests you after old-skool theology, her book is at least a different take on what it's all about, and how often do you really get something different?  Never mind one that can change your mind.

[pmcd9]

That sounds like an idea i've been espousing for awhile; secular Christianity.  Basically, the problem with Christianity is if you don't believe in God you can't be a Christian.  The Jews got it right.  Don't kick people out if they don't believe.

There's a lot of good that could come of that.  And the Church might not be so fuck*ng crazy if there were a few doubters around to keep them sane.

[Jaded Tersk]

That sounds like an idea i've been espousing for awhile; secular Christianity.  Basically, the problem with Christianity is if you don't believe in God you can't be a Christian.  The Jews got it right.  Don't kick people out if they don't believe.

There's a lot of good that could come of that.  And the Church might not be so fuck*ng crazy if there were a few doubters around to keep them sane.

My exact thoughts.  Why should one have to accept any beliefs about the origin of humanity or the universe in order to claim that they are going to follow a moral code based on the principles espoused by Christ (or whomever)?

If religion is not something you believe (which Armstrong says is a surprisingly recent emphasis, and a reactionary one), but something you practice, there is huge scope for the radical and revolutionary ethical ideas of Christ (or whomever) to act as a catalyst for positive social change again, just like they did in the past.

[Nabubrush]

My exact thoughts.  Why should one have to accept any beliefs about the origin of humanity or the universe in order to claim that they are going to follow a moral code based on the principles espoused by Christ (or whomever)?

If religion is not something you believe (which Armstrong says is a surprisingly recent emphasis, and a reactionary one), but something you practice, there is huge scope for the radical and revolutionary ethical ideas of Christ (or whomever) to act as a catalyst for positive social change again, just like they did in the past.

I think you might be raising the level of discourse around here a bit abruptly.

[wombat]

That sounds like an idea i've been espousing for awhile; secular Christianity.  Basically, the problem with Christianity is if you don't believe in God you can't be a Christian.  The Jews got it right.  Don't kick people out if they don't believe.

I thought this was exactly what Unitarianism was for.

[Jaded Tersk]

I think you might be raising the level of discourse around here a bit abruptly.

This is why I'm so much fun at parties.

Also, I blame dejavroom.

[dejavroom]

Thanks for the recommendation, Jaded, I just wish-listed the shit out of it.

If religion is not something you believe (which Armstrong says is a surprisingly recent emphasis, and a reactionary one), but something you practice (...).

I concur, the distinction between mere belief and action is crucial, especially when the former is emphasized to compensate for want of the latter. As for the possibility of a "secular Christianity", the jury is still out. Christ himself seemed to be wary of this idea when he said in Mark 10:18:

“Why do you call me good? No one is good—except God alone.".

So far I'm working with the model that: One's moral choices (which make up a large part of life) stem from one's conviction of whether this spatio-temporal world is the only that exists or not (the Existentialist stance that man must live "as if" his actions have meaning, although not aesthetically unpleasant, turns out to be an unnecessary act of exasperation, as there's really no rational impediment to conceive of a God).