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Ask HN: Which books have made you introspect?

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Re: Ask HN: Which books have made you introspect?

#341

Post by pc2g4d »

dmschaab wrote: post #273
react_burger38 wrote: post #220

I recommend the Book of Mormon as it is one of the most introspective books you can find. It comes across much clearer than many other religious books like the Bible (even though the Bible I recommend as well) because it has a common narrator who fills in the gaps for you and helps you understand the links between stories. It also is fairly scientific in its premise-- if you do an experiment by reading some of it and…

I'm going to take a page from Bezos and "disagree and upvote". I think the Book of Mormon (which I will hereafter abbreviate as BoM) is worth reading once, even if you are just curious about its contents. But I would not elevate it beyond elaborate fiction as its adherents do. I have been meeting with Mormons from our local ward for several months now, and these are my conclusions after long hours of research into bo…

As a mostly non-practicing, lifelong Mormon, I find most of your conclusions here reasonable. And I commend you for the open-mindedness required to look into a widely-maligned minority religion like Mormonism.

I would say, though, that the idea that more manuscripts necessarily implies a more reliable textual history is incorrect. The textual history of the Book of Mormon is incredibly simple, substantial parts of the original manuscript and the entirety of the printer's manuscript (a copy made of the original for purposes of printing it) both exist. For the New Testament there are no "autograph" manuscripts (original manuscripts) and the earliest manuscripts are at best a century after the originals. Reconstruction based on all of the numerous NT manuscripts really only serves to get you back to the point the the BoM text is already at, and not even quite there. See Royal Skousen's Book of Mormon Critical Text Project for more on this.

It took hundreds of years for trinitarianism to be adopted as a consensus, and prior to (and also after) the great creeds there was substantial disagreement about the nature of God. I wouldn't put too much stock in them as a doctrinal buttress. See "Voting About God" by Ramsey MacMullen.

Again, kudos for all your research into Mormonism, which I find to be a fascinating tradition, even if I now seriously question its truth claims.

Re: Ask HN: Which books have made you introspect?

#345

Post by bichiliad »

I recently read "Outline" by Rachel Cusk, and it made me think a lot about the importance of listening, and how much you can learn about another person (and, through them, yourself). "Listening" isn't really something that'll change your worldview, but it's definitely a tool to enable you to do so.

That aside, the book is just very well written and really quite enjoyable to read, which is never something that hurts.

Re: Ask HN: Which books have made you introspect?

#346

Post by lostcolony »

emodendroket wrote: post #294
lostcolony wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And the Genesis message with sin bringing death into the world, too. But I'm not sure what your point is?

Maybe I misread you, but I thought you were suggesting something to the effect of Paul telling people that sinners, as judged by humans, should be put to death.

Ah, no. I was saying that, basically, any punishment proscribed for a sin in Talmudic law was specifically to create a -legal- framework, for the time, and has to be viewed that way. From a moral standpoint, the punishment for every sin, in God's eyes, is death, but that that's a punishment that only has meaning in a person's relationship to and/or with God. It has no bearing on how man interacts with man (and in fact would run very much counter to what God says -should- dictate our interactions with one another).

It was basically in response to the above poster saying the Old Testament proscribed stoning for adultery; yes, but that isn't a moral statement that that -should- be, forevermore, the punishment for it, and being a Christian doesn't mean you have to believe adulterers should be stoned. Rather, it was a legal statement for that time, that that was the punishment to be carried out.

Re: Ask HN: Which books have made you introspect?

#347

Post by JamesLeonis »

swagtricker wrote: post #152
Zaheer wrote: post #141

The Autobiography of Malcolm X - Especially interesting read in today's political climate - pivotal nonetheless

I tried. Twice. As a privileged white man in America trying to understand the black experience. However, I could only get about 2/3 of the way through before giving up. I empathized with his early agony and injustice, but the fact that he turned it into a hate for white people and a religious fixation was way too much for me. In the end I saw the only difference between his view and the views of the Klan was his brou…

MAN you need to get through that last third! He eventually rejects this worldview after his disillusionment and departure from Nation of Islam. After converting to Islam proper, during his pilgrimage to Mecca, he completely alters his old views.

If there's a quote to sum up the final third, it's this:

"Brother," he said finally, "remember the time that white college girl came into the restaurant -- the one who wanted to help the Muslims and the whites get together -- and I told her there wasn't a ghost of a chance and she went away crying?"

"Yes."

"Well, I've lived to regret that incident. In many parts of the African continent I saw white students helping Black people. Something like this kills a lot of argument. I did many things as a [Black] Muslim that I'm sorry for now. I was a zombie then -- like all [Black] Muslims -- I was hypnotized, pointed in a certain direction and told to march. Well, I guess a man's entitled to make a fool of himself if he's ready to pay the cost. It cost me twelve years." [0]

[0]: http://malcolm-x.org/docs/int_parks.htm

Re: Ask HN: Which books have made you introspect?

#349

Post by emodendroket »

pc2g4d wrote: post #341
dmschaab wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm going to take a page from Bezos and "disagree and upvote". I think the Book of Mormon (which I will hereafter abbreviate as BoM) is worth reading once, even if you are just curious about its contents. But I would not elevate it beyond elaborate fiction as its adherents do. I have been meeting with Mormons from our local ward for several months now, and these are my conclusions after long hours of research into bo…

As a mostly non-practicing, lifelong Mormon, I find most of your conclusions here reasonable. And I commend you for the open-mindedness required to look into a widely-maligned minority religion like Mormonism. I would say, though, that the idea that more manuscripts necessarily implies a more reliable textual history is incorrect. The textual history of the Book of Mormon is incredibly simple, substantial parts of th…

> It took hundreds of years for trinitarianism to be adopted as a consensus

For anyone wondering the specifics, the Council of Nicea settled the details in 325 AD.

Re: Ask HN: Which books have made you introspect?

#350

Post by emodendroket »

lambdaphagy wrote: post #326
sarabande wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This book was not worth the hype for me; I read the whole thing, but regret purchasing it. - It sorely needed an editor. Echoing other's sentiments, it could have been - It used a gratuitous amount of Bible quotes, which 1. weren't necessary to make his point, 2. were often referenced as if they were data, and how people actually behave, rather than anecdotes/fiction I got suckered into to buying the book because the…

The Bible is data. It's a collection of texts with its own [secular] field of study. Peterson's thesis is something like the following: that the early biblical stories constitute a kind of dominant eigenvector of human cognition and experience, what you get when you iteratively retell a story over a hundred generations. To dismiss this as anecdotes or fiction is very much to miss the point of what Peterson is trying…

It's hard for me to see why this logic points to the Bible and not the Odyssey or the Iliad, about which we could say much the same things (especially the Iliad, which shows clear marks of some parts of the story being much older than others). Or frankly any very old text with pre-literary roots.

I am certainly pro-Bible, but in the terms you're putting it here it doesn't seem especially compelling.

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