What book are you reading?

[Keep]

Yeah, 'cos it's totally stupid to hate a system that discriminates against The People Of The Day (or, if there's no-one around, the Jews) and breeds hatred.

Oh no it's appropriate to hate that aspect of religion. But equating that aspect with all religion, especially when for most people it exists primarily on a communal or personal scale, it just isn't even-handed of him.

I'm not going to defend religion here, and I don't want to derail this thread. But the God Delusion really rubbed me up the wrong way. Read Dawkins' The Greatest Show On Earth, or Russell's Why I Am Not A Christian, or William James' Varieties Of Religious Experience. Much more value in them.

[Nalano]

I say this as an atheist, but urrrgh The God Delusion. This is my summary of that book:
Part 1. Undergraduate arguments as to why God doesn't exist.
Part 2. Religion is bad on a societal scale so let's hate it. Hate! Haaate.

Part 1: He's only been writing the same general themes since the 70s. It's undergraduate now because it's pretty well-known now.
Part 2: Shit, we've have treatises on how religions in general (and Abrahamic religions in specific) have been destructive on a societal scale for a very long time now. Hell, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire was also written in the 70s. the 1770s.

And tolerance towards intolerance is untenable.

[luckystriker]

Eisenhorn by Dan Abnett, a trilogy I can recommend with confidence. Christ I wish all the Warhammer 40k books were written by him. I tried reading the Horus Heresy line of books but couldn't stand the prose of other authors.

[Althea]

Hello! Just thought I'd point out that we're not actually all the same. Much as with atheists, apatheists, agnostics, et cetera, there are nice religious people and nasty religious people. Take away the religion and you're left with nice people and nasty people.

(Enough ranting now, I have a laboratory report to write and only seven hours in which to write it.)

Hate the religion, not the people. That's the way I see it. I know members of various churches and I'm fine with them but not their religion, or at least the potential impact of their religions.

I'm completely for secularism. Religion is a personal thing, it cannot be 'allowed' to interfere with civic matters.

[Voon]

I admit, there aren't many books that could make me go on reading it for hours end and I'm pleasantly surprised that Howl's Moving Castle managed to get me hooked. I've already finished half the book and it keeps getting better and better.

[Keep]

Part 1: He's only been writing the same general themes since the 70s. It's undergraduate now because it's pretty well-known now.
Part 2: Shit, we've have treatises on how religions in general (and Abrahamic religions in specific) have been destructive on a societal scale for a very long time now. Hell, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire was also written in the 70s. the 1770s.

And tolerance towards intolerance is untenable.

Nooo I don't want to reply I don't want to reply shit I really want to reply. We're gonna derail this thread something awful if we get started man. I'm up for the debate though, if you wanna start a new thread I'll join you there. Pistols at noon.

[Theblazeuk]

Keep I'd be interested to hear your stunning elaboration. Start a new thread.

I really agree with the idea that the most harmless acceptance of a ludicrous concept indirectly supports the most harmful applications/expressions of said concept. The exact same amount of evidence is available for the material existence of both interpretations after all.

[Rakysh]

I too am up for an old fashioned, knock-down drag-out religion thread, because I hate myself, the world and everything in it.

Seriously though make that thread.

[Nalano]

I too am up for an old fashioned, knock-down drag-out religion thread, because I hate myself, the world and everything in it.

Seriously though make that thread.

Pre-emptive IBTL.

[squareking]

Eisenhorn by Dan Abnett, a trilogy I can recommend with confidence. Christ I wish all the Warhammer 40k books were written by him. I tried reading the Horus Heresy line of books but couldn't stand the prose of other authors.

It is so good.

[dsch]

Zizek, The Sublime Object of Ideology​

[mrpier]

Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson. a bit impressed by this I got to say. 1300 pages, and there doesn't seem to be anything superfluous to the story. Not many books of this length one can say that about. Very readable, if he can keep it up in the (rumored) next ten installments I'll be even more impressed.

[Ravelle]

Started reading the first A song of Ice and Fire book and man, it's the opposite from the show when it comes to namedropping.

[Rii]

Arabian Nights
Hey wot is all this misogyny doing here?

The Decline of the West - Spengler
The edition that I'm reading is inexplicably possessed of five -- five -- prefaces.

Robots and Empire - Asimov
A few pages here and there, when I have the time.

Hate the religion, not the people. That's the way I see it. I know members of various churches and I'm fine with them but not their religion, or at least the potential impact of their religions.

Christians have their "hate the sin, not the sinner" thing too.

Religion is a personal thing, it cannot be 'allowed' to interfere with civic matters.

"Those who say that religion has nothing to do with politics do not know what religion means." - Gandhi.

[DeathPig]

Got the two Dan Brown titles I haven't read yet, Deception Point and Digital Fortress. Finished Digital Fortress, was kinda okay. Not on par with his other titles though. I'm like 30% through Deception Point, and I don't think this is going to any other locales other than Washington and the Arctic Circle.

Started reading Discworld recently, as I got the whole set from a friend. Kinda wierd, like Narnia and Middle Earth had a kid, and the aforementioned kid is on some really good weed...

[Coodu]

Currently reading the Steve Jobs bio that I got for Christmas 2011 ;) I've just started it, pretty good so far.
I'm also reading a book called "Steal this computer book" about phone phreakers, hackers etc on my iPhone when I'm out and about.

[Althea]

"Those who say that religion has nothing to do with politics do not know what religion means." - Gandhi.

Um... nice way to misuse that quote? He's saying religion is rooted in politics, not that politics is supposed to be influenced by religion.

You can't push towards equality and human rights if religion is standing in the way.

[Rii]

Um... nice way to misuse that quote? He's saying religion is rooted in politics, not that politics is supposed to be influenced by religion.

Umm, no?

"To see the universal and all-pervading Spirit of Truth face to face one must be able to love the meanest of creation as oneself. And a man who aspires after that cannot afford to keep out of any field of life. That is why my devotion to Truth has drawn me into the field of politics and I can say without the slightest hesitation, and yet in all humility, that those who say that religion has nothing to do with politics do not know what religion means."

"Thus it will be seen that for me there are no politics devoid of religion. They subserve religion. Politics bereft of religion are a death-trap because they kill the soul."

You can't push towards equality and human rights if religion is standing in the way.

And when it is via one's religion that one is inspired towards "equality and human rights" as in the case of Gandhi or Tolstoy or MLK, or any number of Christians and contemporary social justice movements, or anti-slavery movements in Britain and the United States, or Las Casas in excoriating Spain's conduct in the Americas, or any number of other examples?

Religion is the lens through which most of humanity investigates and defines their values. Remove those values from the social structure and what remains is a monstrosity of one form or another. One can't divorce religion from politics, and nor would one want to.

[Nalano]

Religion is the lens through which most of humanity investigates and defines their values. Remove those values from the social structure and what remains is a monstrosity of one form or another.

With all due respect, fuck no.

If your only sense of moral value is through the lens of religion, you are a poor, tiny man indeed.

[Althea]

One can't divorce religion from politics, and nor would one want to.

No, but you can divorce politics from religion.

If religion of any kind is influencing policy beyond secularist equality (e.g. all religions are seen equally but one has no importance over the other), then you're not pushing towards equality/human rights. Religions by their nature tend to be exclusive, not inclusive, but then you have the thing of "why is this religion seen as more important than that one?" or "why should their religion be influencing the laws but not mine?" and, as such, no equality there.

Religion's a personal choice. It's between you, the church/temples and your god(s) (as well as the more spiritual ones like Buddhism, it's still personal), not between you and the state. It should always be a personal thing - which the law does allow for the practice of - but it should not be allowed to interfere or influence civil policy.

And, oddly enough, I'm reading a Warhammer 40k novel - The Emperor's Finest by Sandy Mitchell. More Cain FTW.