Ask HN: Which books you have read till now that were worth investing time in?

I also found Seneca's "On the Shortness of Life" completely recalibrated my thinking about the passage of time and how I spend the time allotted me.

But I would still argue that The Bible (or to be more specific in this context, Genesis and NT. I will continue to use The Bible as a term for the sake of brevity.), have significant contribution to the contemporary ideas in Western Civilization. Or at least, the thoughts that is derived from it. [1] argues that the Western idea of identity is born out of Luther and [2-3] has an extensive chronology about how The Bible influences Western thinking. For starter, directly quoting from [3], "The Greco-Romans despised the feeble, the poor, the sick, and the disabled; Christianity glorified the weak, the downtrodden, and the untouchable; and does that all the way to the top of the pecking order". I think Nietzsche also share the same sentiment about how the ideas started in The Bible caused the West to become 'weaker' compared to the original, dominant Greco-Romans values.

[1-3], and of course Nietzche, are secular source that does not rely on the claim that The Bible is divinely inspired. I also would not claim that The Bible itself is not influenced by outside thinking, especially Greek philosophy. [2] directly writes that in the Paul labors, there is a fusion between Jewish morality and Greek philosophy. As a matter of fact, these external influences is probably why the NT canon is so successful.

I also have to note that I do not claim that The Bible is 'the' contributor to the current thinking in the West, my main arguments is that it is 'a major contributor' to the current Western thought, without diminishing other texts. For bad and good, The Bible is indeed a major contributor. Diminishing the influence and contribution of The Bible to the current Western discourses seems like a forced attempt to understate the contribution of the Christianity.

And re: "jingoistic innuendo that people without a Christian-inspired culture are not capable of democracy". This is a different question for another day, and to discuss about that claim etc is outside of my circle of (semi) competence.

[1] https://www.amazon.com/Identity-Demand-Dignity-Politics-Rese... [2] https://www.amazon.com/Dominion-Christian-Revolution-Remade-... [3] https://medium.com/incerto/on-christianity-b7fecde866ec

[2] and [3] are about the impact of Christianity on the modern world. I have never argued that this is not significant. My point is that reading the Bible is a terrible way to learn about this.

Firstly, most of the Bible is not about Christianity at all, since it was written before the birth of Christ. Secondly, large parts of it are not about anything interesting at all. Thirdly, most of the parts that are about Christianity, are not particularly useful for someone seeking to understand Christian ideas or culture.

[1] is about the ideas of Luther. Again, these are certainly important. Do you think that it was necessary for Max Weber to read the Bible in order to write the key sociological text on European Protestantism? For that matter, do you think that Francis Fukuyama had to read it in order to write that book? What about Nietzsche? If they didn't need to read the Bible in order to reason about the ideas and the mythos of Christianity, why should we?

The logical step from "Christianity (and/or Judaism) have profoundly influenced us, and should be examined and understood", to "one should read the Bible" is completely flawed, and only made because of the lingering Christian superstition that doing so is 'good for one' or leads to some nebulous form of well-being.