NationStates

Surkiea wrote:The bible and the pink swastika.

The latter is just homophobic propaganda, not truth.

One thick enough so I can beat some sense into them.

"Logic for dummies"

Edward E. Baptist, The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism. The definitive history of how taking land from natives and putting enslaved Africans to work on it created the foundation of the USA's current power and prosperity.

Ooh, a book recommendation thread! Hmm... off the top of my head, I'll name five-ish of some of my favorite non-fiction works and five-ish of some of my favorite fiction works, in no particular order for either category.

Non-Fiction
The Republic, by Plato
Leviathan, by Thomas Hobbes
Ethics, by Baruch Spinoza
Meditations, by Marcus Aurelius
Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, by Immanuel Kant

Fiction
Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley
Flatland, by Edwin Abbott Abbott
The War of the Worlds, by H.G. Wells
The Thrawn Trilogy, by Timothy Zahn
The Discworld series of novels, by the late Sir Terry Pratchett

The Bible - anyone who actually reads it has to know it's stuffed with bullshit.

Battlefield Earth

Because I don't like people who disagree with me.

Bombadil wrote:The Bible - anyone who actually reads it has to know it's stuffed with bullshit.

There's a lot of people who read the Bible and believe it.

Jonathan Haidt — The Righteous Mind

Geneviev wrote:

Bombadil wrote:The Bible - anyone who actually reads it has to know it's stuffed with bullshit.

There's a lot of people who read the Bible and believe it.

It’s a win-win. Either you think it’s bullshit or you spend the rest of your life begatting or some shit.

Geneviev wrote:

Bombadil wrote:The Bible - anyone who actually reads it has to know it's stuffed with bullshit.

There's a lot of people who read the Bible and believe it.

There's a lot of people who don't read the bible and believe it.

For any religious person I recommend Testament: Memoir of the Thoughts and Sentiments of Jean Meslier. I will say it is targeted more towards Christians but it is a book about how religion is bad in general, it does talk about a few other things. It also has has pretty good ratings. on Amazon it's rated 5 out of 5 stars and on good reads it's rated 4.21 out of 5 stars.

Pacomia wrote:

Geneviev wrote:There's a lot of people who read the Bible and believe it.

It’s a win-win. Either you think it’s bullshit or you spend the rest of your life begatting or some shit.

If you see it that way.

Bombadil wrote:

Geneviev wrote:There's a lot of people who read the Bible and believe it.

There's a lot of people who don't read the bible and believe it.

That's true. But in a lot of cases, reading the Bible won't change someone's mind.

Communist Manifesto or Das Kapital.

The Supreme Magnificent High Swaglord wrote:
Snip
The discworld series of the late Sir Terry Pratchett

And work by Mira Grant, Neil Gaiman , Douglas N. Adams, Diana Rowland, Haruki Murakami, Seanan McGuire and so on and so on

Finnegans Wake.

An Alan Smithee Nation wrote:Finnegans Wake.

I looked it up, seems like an awesome book.

Introduction to Christianity by Joseph Ratzinger. This is where I started and where you should probably start too. If you’re looking to understand how I conceive of my Faith, how I conceive of the Church, sin, man and redemption for the most part. I don’t agree with everything, of course, especially with regards to political theology and Schmitt, but I think it’d go a long way in correcting many distorted depictions of the those key concepts above and the Historical Jesus, as it is an orthodox work. Similarly, you can gather better understanding of Catholicism by delving into its history, it’s doctrines, it’s theology and it’s Saints. Summa Theologiae, commentary’s and glosses, the Bible, encyclicals, prayerbooks, etc. The Heart of Newman, an anthology compiled by Erich Przywara, and Parochial and Plain Sermons by John Henry Newman are good for similar reasons as above, and though they contain works and are works he composed as an Anglican, they’re for the most part undeniably Catholic (the Heart of Newman contains only that which is in concord with the Catholic Church and the second book, though orthodox, does contain some passages that are contradictory to the Catholic religion).

Bombadil wrote:The Bible - anyone who actually reads it has to know it's stuffed with bullshit.

Don’t do this, this is wrong, it won’t help you understand or engage whatsoever what is taught by any form of apostolic or historical (for example, Catholicism, Orthodoxy, High Church Lutheranism or High Church Anglicanism, etc.) Christianity. It will, in fact, make you all the more ignorant because you’re interpreting things willy-nilly.

A very heavy one so when I invade their house I know there's something there I can clobber them over the head with.

Dumb Ideologies wrote:A very heavy one so when I invade their house I know there's something there I can clobber them over the head with.

What about civil discourse?

Caliphate of Harlem wrote:On liberalism, women's and LGBTQ rights I choose Joseph Massad's book Islam In Liberalism. It's a pretty scathing analysis of how Western Liberals tend to view the rest of the world, the ways in which they think their social and legal norms ought to govern everybody and how they project everything negative onto the Islam and the Third World. Massad argues that Liberalism has become a kind of intolerant missionizing religion, pretty scathing but very interesting.

On development and economics I'm going with Arturo Escobar's Against Development. He criticises the idea of development, poverty and progress, busts a lot of myths we just assume are true. Difficult read but a pretty good one.

Saba Mahmood's Religious Difference in a Secular Age: A Minority Report. A lot of people assume that religious violence is caused by the existence of religions themselves and that secularism is the solution to the problem, Mahmood looks at the ways in which secularist policies in the Middle East worsened religious tensions more often than they've solved them.

If the social and legal norms to which you're referring are gender equality, LGBT rights and religious freedom, then yes. Those "norms" ought to be in place everywhere.

The Xenopolis Confederation wrote:

Dumb Ideologies wrote:A very heavy one so when I invade their house I know there's something there I can clobber them over the head with.

What about civil discourse?

I've not read that one. How thicc is it?

Dumb Ideologies wrote:

The Xenopolis Confederation wrote:What about civil discourse?

I've not read that one. How thicc is it?

Not thick enough these days.

Dumb Ideologies wrote:A very heavy one so when I invade their house I know there's something there I can clobber them over the head with.

That's pure Fascism in action!

I would give him or her an encyclopedia enough to take over one entire row of your shelf. Another one would be 'How To Live A Life That's Not Boring' by John Reynolds. They really need to learn that staying in their circle of knowledge isn't the way to be smart.