What are you reading?

[angelo]

Will only read non fiction on my kindle. ATM I'm reading a book about political islam. " Analysis shows that islam is both a religion and a political system. The political system is the greatest part of islamic doctrine." Sharia doctrine is more political than religious for example. This and many other reasons are shown to be why in many cases integration is near on impossible.

 

[bigfield]

Will only read non fiction on my kindle. ATM I'm reading a book about political islam. " Analysis shows that islam is both a religion and a political system. The political system is the greatest part of islamic doctrine." Sharia doctrine is more political than religious for example. This and many other reasons are shown to be why in many cases integration is near on impossible.

Probably written by some crank like Bill French, who has no qualifications in any relevant field and yet presents himself as an expert.

Some people will believe anyone in a bowtie as long as that individual reinforces their preconceived biases.

 

[bilby]

There is a VERY wide gulf between 'non-fiction' and 'fact'.

Sheesh, most bookstores and publishers classify The Bible as 'non-fiction'.

 

[rousseau]

Taking a break from my History of Christianity and checking out a book called 'Everyday Life in Colonial Canada'.

I'd been looking for a social history of Canada covering the 19th century for over a year, and found one a bit better at a bookstore in a nearby town last weekend, that dates back to our country's origins.

It's more of a sketch of our social history than an in depth look, but still better than anything I've found to date. Most Canadian history I can find usually focuses on politics.

 

[GenesisNemesis]

The Believing Brain and The Ego Tunnel.

 

[angelo]

Will only read non fiction on my kindle. ATM I'm reading a book about political islam. " Analysis shows that islam is both a religion and a political system. The political system is the greatest part of islamic doctrine." Sharia doctrine is more political than religious for example. This and many other reasons are shown to be why in many cases integration is near on impossible.

Probably written by some crank like Bill French, who has no qualifications in any relevant field and yet presents himself as an expert.

Some people will believe anyone in a bowtie as long as that individual reinforces their preconceived biases.

Have you ever read the koran? Anyone can as it's available in any library, or book store. You're wishing/attempting to shoot, or at best silence the messenger is old hat to any rational thinker!

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There is a VERY wide gulf between 'non-fiction' and 'fact'.

Sheesh, most bookstores and publishers classify The Bible as 'non-fiction'.

Then why is criticism of xtianity and especially islam seen as a phobia?

 

[bigfield]

Probably written by some crank like Bill French, who has no qualifications in any relevant field and yet presents himself as an expert.

Some people will believe anyone in a bowtie as long as that individual reinforces their preconceived biases.

Have you ever read the koran? Anyone can as it's available in any library, or book store. You're wishing/attempting to shoot, or at best silence the messenger is old hat to any rational thinker!

So it is a book by Bill French! :laughing-smiley-014

French has no qualifications in the social sciences. He simply doesn't know how to do the science, and therefore his claims about the integration of Muslims are utterly worthless.

This on par with referencing Bjorn Lomborg or Christopher Monckton on climate change. You can't claim to be a rational thinker while simultaneously demonstrating such a failure in critical thinking.

Don't demand other people read the Qu'ran when you have not read it yourself. Comments like "Anyone can as it's available in any library, or book store" are frankly bizarre, considering that I can visit the Sceptics Annotated Qu'ran online. I'm still not going to read it, just as I am not going to read any other holy book.

As always, your claims of 'shooting the messenger' are completely misguided. You aren't anyone's messenger; you are 100% responsible for the garbage that you post on this forum and people will continue to call you on it.

 

[bradw]

The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch by Philip K. Dick

I think this'll be the last PKD novel for awhile.

 

[MarkW]

My current reading includes American-Made: The Enduring Legacy of the WPA, by Nick Taylor, Dynasty: The Rise and Fall of the house of Caesar, by Tom Holland, The Watchdog that Didn't Bark, by Dean Starkman, and Skinwalkers, by Tony Hillerman.

 

[IanSYK]

Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy

 

[Wiploc]

Who's afraid of Beowulf? I'm still in the Kindle sample, but it's making me laugh. I assume I'll buy the book.

 

[DBT]

An American Tragedy. Theodore Dreiser (1925)

''On one level, An American Tragedy is the story of the corruption and destruction of one man, Clyde Griffiths, who forfeits his life in desperate pursuit of success. On a deeper, more profound level, the novel represents a massive portrayal of the society whose values both shape Clyde's tawdry ambitions and seal his fate: It is an unsurpassed depiction of the harsh realities of American life and of the dark side of the American Dream.''

 

[rousseau]

Re: Canadian Social History I picked up a book again I bought about a year ago for some brief reading recently, called 'The Eldon House Diaries'.

In the early 19th century the 'Harris' family moved into the township of London (where I live) and became one of the prominent families here. They built a pretty big estate that was donated to the city in the 60's and became a museum. When the city inherited the house they found a collection of diaries from the women who had lived at the house dating back to around 1850. Historians at the university here in town compiled the diaries into a publication that had a limited release, and I managed to get my hands on a copy.

Pretty cool reading getting a direct look at social history in my area, but during a completely different time period.

 

[DrZoidberg]

Have you ever read the koran? Anyone can as it's available in any library, or book store. You're wishing/attempting to shoot, or at best silence the messenger is old hat to any rational thinker!

So it is a book by Bill French! :laughing-smiley-014

French has no qualifications in the social sciences. He simply doesn't know how to do the science, and therefore his claims about the integration of Muslims are utterly worthless.

This on par with referencing Bjorn Lomborg or Christopher Monckton on climate change. You can't claim to be a rational thinker while simultaneously demonstrating such a failure in critical thinking.

Don't demand other people read the Qu'ran when you have not read it yourself. Comments like "Anyone can as it's available in any library, or book store" are frankly bizarre, considering that I can visit the Sceptics Annotated Qu'ran online. I'm still not going to read it, just as I am not going to read any other holy book.

As always, your claims of 'shooting the messenger' are completely misguided. You aren't anyone's messenger; you are 100% responsible for the garbage that you post on this forum and people will continue to call you on it.

The biggest problem with the Quran is that it's written in verse. Words were chosen for their rhythm and sound rather than legal precision. Vague metaphors are used heavily. If you want to read it in English I suggest getting one of those where each sura is has several translations side by side. The first two Quran translations I read might as well have been different books. And then the third was completely different again. Seeing them like this side by side really helped. In hindsight I should have read it like that to begin with. When Muslims say you have to read the Quran in the Arabic original to understand it, it's not because Arabic is a magical language, it's because of it's poetic style. You got to hear it spoken as it was written in the original to get it. Anybody who says "look what the Quran says. Interpreting any other way is wrong" I just laugh. Vaguest fucking book ever written. It's all over the place. Open to interpretation like a mother fucker. When people go "Islam only has fundamentalism. There is no liberal Islam"... also, have clearly no fucking clue.

Here's a resource with 114 English translations side-by-side. That may be overkill

http://www.islamawakened.com/index.php/qur-an

edit: Isn't this a bit of a derail from this thread?

 

[angelo]

The main problem in trying to read this extremely confusing book is that vin reality there are two qurans. The Medina koran and the mecca one. One is more peaceful and religious, the other later on when Muhammad was all powerful, more political and violant. And it's this quran that supersedes the religious Medina one.

 

[angelo]

The main problem in trying to read this extremely confusing book is that in reality there are two qurans. The Medina koran and the Meccan one. One is more peaceful and religious, then mo learned that he was getting nowhere by preaching. The other later on when Muhammad was all powerful, more political and violant. And it's this quran that supersedes the religious Medina peaceful one.

He realised that the only way to grow his cult was by force. Exactly what extremists are trying to do today.
They're only following the footsteps bof their paedophile prophet.

 

[DBT]

Cell by Stephen King.

''Witness Stephen King's triumphant, blood-spattered return to the genre that made him famous. Cell, the king of horror's homage to zombie films (the book is dedicated in part to George A. Romero) is his goriest, most horrific novel in years, not to mention the most intensely paced.''

Zombie apocalypse by cell/mobile phone. Nice twist, but then, anyone can see cell phone zombies in every town and shopping mall, head down, gazing raptly and lovingly into their little screens on a crowded street while they shuffle and bump into everyone around them. Which must have been the inspiration for the book, I'd say.

 

[James Brown]

This

I know a married man and father of two who bought a twenty-one-room motel near Denver many years ago in order to become its resident voyeur. With the assistance of his wife, he cut rectangular holes measuring six by fourteen inches in the ceilings of more than a dozen rooms. Then he covered the openings with louvred aluminum screens that looked like ventilation grilles but were actually observation vents that allowed him, while he knelt in the attic, to see his guests in the rooms below. He watched them for decades, while keeping an exhaustive written record of what he saw and heard. Never once, during all those years, was he caught.

 

[AthenaAwakened]

Listen Liberal

by

Thomas Frank

 

[Angry Floof]

Don't Believe Everything You Think: The 6 Basic Mistakes We Make in Thinking by Thomas Kida

I read it about ten years ago, but am reading again because our washer is not working and needing something to read at the laundrymat, this was in a box in my car. Great read.