151–160 of 365 posts
Starting Strength by Rippletoe Meditations by Marcus Aurelius
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Then there are issues about how it was written by man, in the literal sense. Female testaments were left out. Does the gender of a books author really matter?
It does when those books were purposely excluded because the author was female. It also matters a lot when one of the books excluded was written by the person who was actually closest to Jesus too. Thus her accounts should surely matter at least as much as the mens (probably more so in reality). The New Testament was collated in an era when organised religion was used as a tool for man to retain control. To that end,…
The bible is not just any other book though, and I understand why you'd have political, moral or religious ideas against anyone reading it. I do not think it was being recommended for any of those reasons though. Looked at as just a book, its very much worth reading regardless of what was edited out or translated out.
The idea is to read it as a book, and not some 100% accurate 100% inclusive 100% politically correct collection of books.
To have or to be - Erich Fromm Erich Fromm is a great author and in this book he looks at the difference of having (owning stuff) vs. being (enjoying experiences). He argues that too many people are focused on "having", and that our whole society and even language is built around that. For example, you would say "I have a relationship". He argues that it's a weird choice of words, since you don't own the relationship…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Then there are issues about how it was written by man, in the literal sense. Female testaments were left out. Does the gender of a books author really matter?
It does when those books were purposely excluded because the author was female. It also matters a lot when one of the books excluded was written by the person who was actually closest to Jesus too. Thus her accounts should surely matter at least as much as the mens (probably more so in reality). The New Testament was collated in an era when organised religion was used as a tool for man to retain control. To that end,…
Maybe not for all but, Bhagavad Gita: As it is. Do not read the explanation which are biased to god and religion. But you can definitely read the stanzas. The idea that we are actor whose duty is to act is a powerful concept, especially when you are feeling low. The book also has some egoistic stuff like "I am god, obey me." But once you filter some of these, you see bigger picture.
For its potential impact on humanity...
> Refuse, Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Rot (and only in that order) is my method to > reducing my family’s annual trash to a jar since 2008 -- Bea Johnson
Medicine Stories by Aurora Morales. Refuses to accept the narrative of the colonizers, oppressors, slavers, winners of wars, and rewrites it, calling things and events by their real names. Pulls the veil of lies and delusions. Gives voice to the people who survived and endured. Exposes the methodologies of propaganda and oppression and offers roadmaps of healing from the normalized violence of poverty, racism, coloni…
According to wikipedia Aurora Morales is a "radical jewish writer" ... in other words instead you'll just consume another subjective narrative by someone who has a stake in pushing it for their own ideological aims. Thanks but no thanks. I'd rather read the actual sources (eg Seutonius etc) and make up my mind also weighting the facts of who wrote it (winner/loser/hack like Jordanes) in. Everyone knows history is wri…
Much of the way we interpret the world is colored with a qualitative human experience. World War 2 is given to us with a bunch of numbers and statistics is meaningless. Unfortunately this "qualitative" is inevitably colored with bias.
So in short I'm saying, the author of that book isn't disguising his book with a false sense of subjectivity. He is presenting his view point as a human narrative that is inevitably colored with his bias; and that is not always a bad thing.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Then there are issues about how it was written by man, in the literal sense. Female testaments were left out. Does the gender of a books author really matter?
I think it's a valid political complaint considering the role of the book in the world but I don't think it's a valid literary complaint because men (and groups of men) write some books and women (and groups of women) write other books and neither are bad for the reason that they are written by only one gender. If the latter were true, then all books written by groups of women are also bad, which is absurd.
Secondly, come on. You can listen to around 200 audiobooks per year while commuting, doing chores, excercising etc.
Lastly: if you only ever want to read a couple of few books, these should be the dictionary and thesaurus.