02.04
I remember the year right before I stopped going to church. It seemed like every month, the bishop would issue a ‘new challenge’ to the congregation. Ok, so it wasn’t so much a new challenge, as the same challenge over and over again.
“Ok, ward, this year, we’re going to read the Book of Mormon straight through!”
“But I just barely finished it….”
“Don’t care! Read it again!”
So, in the vein of my old bishop, I am going to issue all of you a challenge. Hopefully this will be a little more enlightening, and exciting, than reading the BoM. (Chloroform in print, as Mark Twain put it.) I challenge all of you to read a book this year that you disagree with. All the way through, no skipping the boring parts. If your ideas and beliefs are solid, then you should have no problems with this. If your ideas need some tweaking, that’s okay. You will have learned something.
Personally, I think I will be reading either Atlas Shrugged or The Fountainhead. I despise Ayn Rand. *ducks to avoid flung tomato* I don’t care if you guys like her, I don’t, so feel free to tell me what ideas/authors you disagree with.
What are you guys going to read?
I’m going to read A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court.
Time travel just makes me so mad.
“Like”
Oh, and the idea for this challenge isn’t mine. I was inspired by another blog I read a while back. I have searched through all my feeds, but I can’t find who came up with the idea. If anyone comes across a similar challenge, let me know. I want to give credit to whoever came up with this.
What if I read an entire EULA when installing software for the lab?
Totally counts. I’m sure you vehemently disagree with the EULAs in question.
I’m going to read Micheal Crichton’s “State of Fear”
Glenn Beck’s Common Sense
Great idea for a post, Kimi.
I think it’d be too easy to read Beck or Crichton. Reading them wouldn’t challenge me, because they just frankly aren’t challenging thinkers. It’d actually be fun and amusing to read either Beck or Crichton. Reading a dumb book you disagree with is essentially the same as reading a book you agree with.
That said, I don’t know yet what I’ll read. Probably some conservative economic thinker, like Hayek. I trust (and hope), though, that Prof. Kleiner will recommend a theist book or two. He’s fond of Machuga’s “In Defense of the Soul,” so maybe I’ll check that out.
Hmmm. In a backwards sort of way, are you challenging me to read “The Book of Mormon”?
As a (mostly) unaligned monotheist, I request a few suggestions by the atheists of SHAFT. Please, I prefer to read books by dead people.
Anything by Carl Sagan or Bertrand Russel. Maybe try Russel’s Why I am Not a Christian.
> “Personally, I think I will be reading either Atlas Shrugged or The Fountainhead. ”
it might be more approachable if you read it while taking the same drugs she was on when she wrote it…
http://www.life.com/image/50334065/in-gallery/38742/famous-literary-drunks–addicts
I might read something by Aristotle, myself – the Sigmund Freud of Physics if you will whose reputation put physics in the dark ages for 2000 years (Psychology was only marred by Freud for a handful of decades by comparison). Why detest contemporaries when you can hate the classics…
I would also request a few suggestions from the SHAFTers. I offer up enough dish on this site I should have to be served some myself.
Machuga’s In Defense of the Soul is a great little book, accessible and thoughtful. It is basically an argument against materialism and for a teleological understanding of the world. Before you dismiss classical metaphysics (Aristotle), you should read a book like this.
That book is all head. If you want a “heart” book, read Richard John Neuhaus’ ‘Death on a Friday Afternoon’. One of my favorite contemporary books. It is a very penetrating meditation on the ‘seven last words’ of Jesus. As he says: “If what Christians say about Good Friday is true, then it is, quite simply, the truth about everything. I have written this for people who are convinced of that truth, for people who are open to thinking about whether it may be true and for people who are just curious about why so much of the world thinks Good Friday is the key to understanding what Dante called ‘the love that moves the sun and all the other stars’.
A great book, I read it every Lent (which begins on Ash Wednesday which is Feb 17) so it is a timely suggestion too.
A considerably larger undertaking (around 775 pages) but one everyone ought to read is Fyodor Dostoevsky’s ‘The Brothers Karamozov’. Many argue (myself included) that it is the greatest novel ever written. And I will tell you that no atheist I have ever read makes as powerful of an argument for atheist as does Ivan in that book. But it is still a book that you will challenge you, because Ivan is not the hero – Alyosha is.
Oh, I love Dostoevsky. I may have to tackle that afterwards.
I’m thinking I should read the King James Bible. I’ve never read it all the way through.
James, I will try something by Carl Sagan. I prefer a “Why I am” book rather than a “Why I am not” book. Too often they only beat straw men.
I do agree that Brothers was wonderful. I liked Dostoevsky’s “The Idiot” as well.
I’m looking into getting a copy of The Brothers Karamazov but there are multiple translations. Is any one better than the others?
Also, if you haven’t gotten around to it, this challenge would be a good time for anybody to read “He Is There and He Is Not Silent” by Francis A. Schaeffer. It’s the book that Eli the preacher gave us at one of the SHAFT meetings last semester
Ahh, thanks for recommending that, David. If anyone still wants a copy, I have a few.
People debate which translation is the best and I don’t have an informed view (not knowing Russian). A friend of mine who is more informed – and more passionate about this translation debate – tells me that the Peaver/Volokhonsky translation is best.
http://www.amazon.com/Brothers-Karamazov-Vintage-Classics/dp/0679729259/ref=sr_1_25?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1265412446&sr=8-25
Another suggestion for atheists looking for a challenge: “The Drama of Atheistic Humanism” by Henri de Lubac. Not an easy or short read, but very powerful.
One of the things I enjoy about reading any political or philosophical work is that I never fully disagree or agree with everything in the book. I may hate the overall work, but there are still certain truths that the author may point out that resonate with me. For example, Marx had some great ideas floating around in his Manifesto, and some arguments he makes appear totally and completely desirable. However, his foundation is fatally flawed and I disagree with communism as he laid it out. The read was worthwhile either way.
So I approve of this challenge.
This is an old thread but an interesting challenge. I wonder if “Mein Kampf” would fit the bill for me.
know your enemy…