111–120 of 179 posts
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I think we could apply the principle to programming languages - which old languages are still used? C comes to mind, as does Lisp.
Fortran and Lisp are the oldest still in use.
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What's so bad about Mere Christianity? It ranks among my top 5.
It's completely idiotic. Lord, Liar, or Lunatic? Um, lunatic, obviously. He dismisses atheism with a single sentence, and exhibits an astonishing level of ignorance. If you read it as a Christian, you might not notice the idiocy, but if you aren't a Christian, it's really really bad, so many assumptions, so many times something is glossed over as if "obviously so", when it's so not. Fucking terrible, and obviously so…
In the realm of Christian theology (and perhaps other areas too), I think there's a related pitfall which is to assume that by reading the Bible exclusively, you can understand what the writers meant when they wrote it without confusing the issues with all the various modern debates about interpretation. The problem with that is that many passages could have several interpretations, and by default the average Bible r…
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Many (probably most) books today suck too. Not to say there aren't a lot of modern, quality books out there, but I think there's a boundless amount of new, bad books.
And unlike those old publications, there are digital copies now so they won't die the death they deserve. I say it with sarcism, but there's some amount of seriousness in there...
Don't know why anyone pays any attention to C.S. Lewis. The books he's most famous for, (e.g. "Mere Christianity") are laughably bad.
What's so bad about Mere Christianity? It ranks among my top 5.
The book is well-written in the sense that in the hands of a believing Christian who is not likely to approach it critically, it can become an influential source that helps the Christian justify their beliefs to themselves.
I can entirely relate to what Lewis writes about reading Plato. I was interested in philosophy but found myself gravitating to reading and listening to podcasts about philosophy rather than reading it directly. Once I actually picked up a volume of Plato's works I was surprised how approachable it was to me, a complete layman of philosophy.
Got any recommendations for philosophy podcasts?
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What's so bad about Mere Christianity? It ranks among my top 5.
I agree with another commenter who said that C.S. Lewis is likely more well-known for the Chronicles of Narnia, at least in the broader secular sense. He was a talented writer. That being said, Mere Christianity is pretty clearly preaching to the choir. It is a Christian apologetics book, and the arguments put forward are all problematic. Some of the more notable arguments are so bad that they don't typically get bro…
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This is exactly how I look at it. To quote Orwell: "Ultimately there is no test of literary merit except survival".
There's a lot of survivor bias there, however. A lot of works that were under-appreciated during their time had their extemporaneous advocates and promoters that had their own motivations that often had little to do with appreciation for the work. If Kafka's editor had listened to Kafka and burned his works instead of making sure they got on as many bookshelves as possible, or if Van Gogh didn't have the close relati…
>Ernest Hemingway was deeply impressed with Markham's writing, saying "she has written so well, and marvelously well, that I was completely ashamed of myself as a writer. I felt that I was simply a carpenter with words, picking up whatever was furnished on the job and nailing them together and sometimes making an okay pig pen. But [she] can write rings around all of us who consider ourselves as writers ... it really is a bloody wonderful book."
In the realm of Christian theology (and perhaps other areas too), I think there's a related pitfall which is to assume that by reading the Bible exclusively, you can understand what the writers meant when they wrote it without confusing the issues with all the various modern debates about interpretation. The problem with that is that many passages could have several interpretations, and by default the average Bible r…
My favorite Bible interpreters are all 19th century English, Scottish, and Irish writers. They all knew Greek and Hebrew, and some of them studied the ancient manuscripts themselves. Their writing is clear and cogent and their interpretations are still very much relevant. Sadly, I've little use for most contemporary writers on the same subjects. They just aren't up to the same standard.
Instead of requiring years of study of ancient manuscripts in Hebrew and Greek, why not just deliver the message in clear, modern, unambiguous language that the reader understands?
I believe that Tolkien is one of the folks he read Old Books with.
Probably, Tolkien and Lewis are often noted as being friends. Tolkien regularly gave friendly criticism of Lewis's frequent use of obvious allegory. The main character in the Out of the Silent Planet series is noted as being based on Tolkien.