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Ask HN: What are the most eye-opening textbooks you have ever read?

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Re: Ask HN: What are the most eye-opening textbooks you have ever read?

#161

Post by arisbe__ »

bdavisx wrote: post #126
nrclark wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FWIW, the modern Catholic church's official stance is that Genesis should not be taken literally, and Catholics make up about half of the world's Christians. I think biblical literalism is mostly an American Evangelical thing.

Even better, well, take everything literally except for the parts that are provably wrong. If one part is not true, then any or all parts may not be true. And since there's almost no evidence for anything miraculous in the Bible then AFAIK it's all untrue until proven otherwise. I should mention I was a deacon when I was in my 20s, so it's not like I was raised atheist.

It's not about scientific truth. I would avoid the word truth altogether in the context of religion. You are so out in left field that you are playing a whole different game. That is your interpretation is "not even wrong" due to your pressupposing that the style and purpose of the mode of communication is one of precision and truth.

Evangelicals tend to see things in a similarly anachronistic (seeing traditional communication through a modern lens) way and it seems to have become near-ubiqitous. The mistake is only recently becoming understood. Ultimately it was a necessary mistake to make.

Re: Ask HN: What are the most eye-opening textbooks you have ever read?

#162

Post by bdavisx »

memling wrote: post #155
bdavisx wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even better, well, take everything literally except for the parts that are provably wrong. If one part is not true, then any or all parts may not be true. And since there's almost no evidence for anything miraculous in the Bible then AFAIK it's all untrue until proven otherwise. I should mention I was a deacon when I was in my 20s, so it's not like I was raised atheist.

> I should mention I was a deacon when I was in my 20s, so it's not like I was raised atheist. Interesting, thanks for the explanation. Were you a deacon before you started reading Genesis more skeptically or how did that happen for you? Feel free not to respond, of course. I'm interested in stories of de/conversion; I don't mean to probe where you'd rather not say.

Yeah, when I became a deacon I started reading the bible way more, with the thought that I could provide helpful/supportive quotes to people like some others can. I really don't understand how anyone can read it and not become skeptical.

Re: Ask HN: What are the most eye-opening textbooks you have ever read?

#164

Post by jiriro »

The Pattern on the Stone by W. Daniel Hillis [1]

This book shocked me with the idea of a universal computer:-)

"..there is really only one kind of computer .. all kinds of computers are alike in what they can and cannot do"

".. any computing device, whether it’s built of transistors, sticks and strings, or neurons, can be simulated by a universal computer."

".. making a computer think like a brain is just a matter of programming it correctly."

[1] https://www.amazon.com/Pattern-Stone-Computers-Science-Maste...

Re: Ask HN: What are the most eye-opening textbooks you have ever read?

#165

Post by kortilla »

darkwater wrote: post #154
kortilla wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s not what I asked. I asked about why it was labeled that, not why there are two different expected behaviors.

You asked > How is helping someone with a solution “status and confrontation”? I answered with an example > "I just discovered my spouse cheated on me" "oh, leave that asshole now!". This would be giving a solution but it would just be a display of status.

Giving a solution is not a display of status unless you make it about yourself.

Re: Ask HN: What are the most eye-opening textbooks you have ever read?

#166

Post by kortilla »

sfpotter wrote: post #125
kortilla wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, I fully understand when it is appropriate to offer solutions vs empathy. Re-read what I wrote and take a serious attempt at engaging.

No offense, but if you do understand all that, the answer to your question is obvious and you’re perfectly capable of figuring it out yourself. Whether or not those labels is warranted is another thing, but you can definitely do the legwork on your own. I’d be more interested in engaging with you if your own responses to me and my sibling comments were less, well, confrontational.

If you’re incapable of expressing why it’s related to status and confrontation, it sounds like you don’t really know why they are labeled that way.

I am being confrontational right now because you are spreading bullshit and I have little tolerance for that in online conversations. That doesn’t have any correlation with offering a solution to someone’s issue being “status and confrontation”.

Either provide some justification for why offering someone an advil for a headache when they really wanted you to just commiserate is “status and confrontation”, or just admit that it’s another bullshit social psychology label not based on any logical or scientific rigor.

Re: Ask HN: What are the most eye-opening textbooks you have ever read?

#167

Post by rgoulter »

kortilla wrote: post #165
darkwater wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You asked > How is helping someone with a solution “status and confrontation”? I answered with an example > "I just discovered my spouse cheated on me" "oh, leave that asshole now!". This would be giving a solution but it would just be a display of status.

Giving a solution is not a display of status unless you make it about yourself.

'Suggesting a solution' somewhat indicates that the person receiving the suggestion didn't think of it (or wouldn't have thought of it, or couldn't have thought of it). -- Giving a solution is kinda like "see how helpful I am".

Re: Ask HN: What are the most eye-opening textbooks you have ever read?

#168

Post by throw0101b »

nrclark wrote: post #109
bdavisx wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LOL, Genesis had enough bullshit in it that I was questioning things immediately. Somewhere in there it says that the stars were created after earth. And then there's Noah and the flood with the completely impossible repopulating the earth with a single family and a single pair of each animal. Exactly how did 2 buffalo's get to the middle east? Of course, the answer would be that god magicked them there - but then I…

FWIW, the modern Catholic church's official stance is that Genesis should not be taken literally, and Catholics make up about half of the world's Christians. I think biblical literalism is mostly an American Evangelical thing.

> FWIW, the modern Catholic church's official stance is that Genesis should not be taken literally

The non-literal interpretation of the Bible is not modern: (Saint) Augustine of Hippo (354-430 AD) wrote about not taking it literally.

* https://spectrummagazine.org/article/news/2010/01/30/augusti...

* https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/243740

Re: Ask HN: What are the most eye-opening textbooks you have ever read?

#169

Post by dragonwriter »

nrclark wrote: post #109
bdavisx wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LOL, Genesis had enough bullshit in it that I was questioning things immediately. Somewhere in there it says that the stars were created after earth. And then there's Noah and the flood with the completely impossible repopulating the earth with a single family and a single pair of each animal. Exactly how did 2 buffalo's get to the middle east? Of course, the answer would be that god magicked them there - but then I…

FWIW, the modern Catholic church's official stance is that Genesis should not be taken literally, and Catholics make up about half of the world's Christians. I think biblical literalism is mostly an American Evangelical thing.

Literalism is actually emerged as a significant thing in the 18th Century; its not specifically American or Fundamentalist/Evangelical, but it is definitely a fairly recent Protestant thing that is most prominent in the Fundamentalist/Evangelical space.
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