The Fountainhead. Full stop. Purple prose by a Soviet hack writer with a serious r*pe kink, in praise of dog-eat-dog social Darwinism.
Classical Dynamics of Particles and Systems
I can’t remember the name of the book nor do I care to. Some knob slobberer wrote a biography about Elon Musk before most people figured out he fucking sucks. I picked it up and was so disgusted by the half way mark that I became an early hater.
Not recommended for me but I started looking at books that won the Nobel for literature. I tried reading Gunter Grass’ “The Tin Drum”. I’d seen a tv adaption of it previously and didn’t follow what was going on. When I tried reading it the entire first chapter was about a woman with her son roasting a potato in a field. Then the 2nd chapter went on about his uncle’s job. I couldn’t keep going. Maybe I’ll give it a 2nd chance.
I have a hard time following books that go on about huge family structures with endless aunts, uncles, siblings, etc. I feel like I need a chart next to me.
Friend and I were joking about 120 Days of Sodom so I decided I should pick it up to see what the fuss was about… Huge mistake! It is more deviant than I possibly imagined a book that old being (and I was aware the first draft was written on toilet paper lol)
Snow Falling on Cedars by David Guterson
Shadow Moon, the sequel to the movie Willow, written by Chris Claremont and George Lucas was hot shit. I couldn’t finish the 2nd book in the trilogy.
Endymion was bad. And then came Rise of Endymion which made Endymion feel like masterpiece.
We read The Room by Jonas Karlsson for my works book club. I’m so glad it was only a 3-hour audiobook. I was done after the first hour. It was labeled as “magical realism” and a " dark comedy" but it was just some guy with mental issues trying to adjust and fail in an office setting. The main character is just an asshole so it makes it hard to relate to them, because of that you can’t take their side when people start to question his Room. It just ends with a whole lot of nothing and I thought it was a total waste of time.
I’m going to say “The prince” by Machiavelli. The modern title would be “How to play power games and hold onto power” or something. The content is nice and solid but it’s clear he should have hired an editor. His sentences are longer than most paragraphs.
The Da Vinci Code. It was laughably awful. This includes the premise as well as the writing. Dan Brown is probably sleeping on top of a pile of money with many beautiful ladies, though.
What, exactly, do you find unbelievable about the best linguists of the last 400 years being unable to solve a 10-letter anagram? Anagrams are really hard.
The funny thing about the premise is, it’s not even that original:
Holy Blood and the Holy Grail - 1982
Preacher (comic book) - 1995-2000
The Da Vinci Code - 2003
Sword of Truth, not sure how terry goodkind got 11 something books published
Rich Dad, Poor Dad. The author is over a billion in debt. Just constantly leveraging assets in a never-ending chain of debt.
The Bible
I skimmed it but all I ever saw was just a bunch of begat this and begat that with some quotations sprinkled in between.
And this fucking thing is partly responsible for why numerous things are going wrong with humans today and humans of history.
And this fucking thing is partly responsible for why numerous things are going wrong with humans today and humans of history.
No no no no. It’s the gays that are responsible. THE GAYS!!!
No no no no. It’s the gays that are responsible. THE GAYS!!!
That’s not even what it says. The Bible doesn’t really mention homosexuality too much.
But what it says about it is really horrible.
By what standard?
Ok, you just told on yourself. There is no standard by which Leviticus 20:13 is not really horrible. It was really horrible when it was conceptualized, it was really horrible when King James edited it, it was really horrible when Gutenberg printed it, and it’s really horrible now. I attend a UCC church and my pastors do not defend what the Bible says about homosexuality the way you just did. God is still speaking, I encourage you to listen.
How do you define “really horrible”?
Also, it’s universally accepted that Leviticus 20:13 is not a command for today. It was a law for Israel to show that even earthly means and men cannot keep Israel’s purity. Christ set us free from the law. We don’t need to kill each other for sinning. Because we cannot be pure. So Christ died to make us pure.
I attend a UCC church and my pastors do not defend what the Bible says about homosexuality the way you just did.
UCC has been known to be rapidly spiralling down into heresy. They say vague things like “God is still speaking” and that god for whatever reason always affirms what the white cultures believe is right. Convenient that your god changes his mind just to placate the culture about what white people living in the west think, huh. Once again like Israel of old, man thinks he stands in judgement over God.
How do you define “really horrible”?
Once again, telling on yourself. What’s not horrible about saying people should be put to death for their private consensual bedroom behavior?
UCC has been known to be rapidly spiralling down into heresy
Oh give me a break. “No true Christian” much?
for whatever reason always affirms what the white cultures believe is right.
I assume that by this you’re trying to paint homosexuality and the acceptance of it as exclusive to white cultures. This is complete and total bullshit.
There’s plenty of history of non-white cultures that were fully accepting of homosexuality. Japan is a clear example. Samurai wrote so many gay love poems to each other that they had established literary conventions about it.
What happened, around the world, is that colonizers and missionaries went around the world destroying indigenous traditions and customs and instilling bigotry regarding homosexuality. At the same time, suffering under the yoke of colonialism stifled social progress and the potential for the sort of organic social movements that happened in the West.
Even then, we are seeing in the US a rollback of LGBT rights that we only recently managed to achieve. I don’t think it’s fair to generalize “white cultures” as believing LGBT people have rights, just as it’s not fair to generalize non-white cultures as not believing that.
If you can get hold if it, look out for Thomas Jefferson’s The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth. It’s the New Testament with all the spirituality, supernatural, etc edited out. Instead you’ve just got a book about morals and ethics as taught by some guy.
I assume he also edited out the slavery bits 🙄
"but Jesus never actually talked about slaves
Yeah, and that’s a major fucking problem
And this fucking thing is partly responsible for why numerous things are going wrong with humans today and humans of history.
That’s like blaming a doctor’s diagnosis of cancer for someone’s death. The Bible is just a diagnosis of humanity’s problems with a crapton of examples, as well as the solution/hope (although it also makes it clear that people will never try and solve it because of the aforementioned problems)
Except the Bible is less a diagnosis and more a treatment plan. And people definitely have been killed by bad treatment plans before.
The treatment plan is “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved”. It’s more like being killed by misunderstanding or misinterpreting the treatment plan. Which can be deadly
In that case it’s more like having a curable form of cancer and eating fruit and studying homeopathy instead, and then dying and having to spin in your grave watching your company make year after year of shit that people still buy for some reason, knowing you put way too much effort into making things high quality while you were alive when you could have clearly just sold rose gold feces and it wouldnt have made a lick of difference to the people following your cult.
Okay then. What’s the cure?
This was a joke about Steve jobs
That’s mostly the first chapter, genesis, the begat this stuff.
R crumb, the comics artist, has a fantastic graphic novel of Genesis where he communicates the emotions through his drawings of what the words are trying to communicate. This made genesis, the most boring and pedantic part of the Bible, more interesting.
The Bible has undoubtedly led to incalculable suffering as a cult, but just as a book, it’s nowhere near the worst piece of literature I’ve ever read.
The begat stuff is Matthew, it’s the genealogy of Jesus. This was important within Judaism and also for the prophecy that Jesus was in the line of David, so He was an eligible Messiah.
It’s definitely not just the first chapter of Genesis. Like the entirety of First Chronicle is genealogy.
That’s mostly the first chapter, genesis, the begat this stuff.
But then, don’t discount the chapter where the twelve Jewish tribes send their gifts to Moses (iirc), and the full account of the lavish gifts is given, per each tribe. I’ve read through the whole thing to confirm the madness that the list is identical for each tribe, and is repeated twelve times.
I’d like someone in a US church choose that chapter for their Sunday reading of the Bible, and then see the faces of the congregation sitting through it.
Whoever wrote those books, didn’t have much consideration for the reader.
graphic novel of Genesis where he communicates the emotions through his drawings of what the words are trying to communicate
I have a long-standing dream of someone just adapting the Bible to the screen exactly as it’s written — at least the first parts up to and including Moses’ wanderings. I have a feeling that a direct retelling would cause more than a few butts to be hurt.
Pasolini, an atheist and communist, came close in the approach with ‘The Gospel According to St. Matthew’, but the result is a rather romantic vision of the life of Jesus, perhaps dictated by both the chosen source material and Pasolini’s ‘nostalgia for belief’.
Pasolini, an atheist and communist, came close in the approach with ‘The Gospel According to St. Matthew’, but the result is a rather romantic vision of the life of Jesus, perhaps dictated by both the chosen source material and Pasolini’s ‘nostalgia for belief’.
As a former Christian and current socialist, it makes sense for socialists/communists to have a romantic view of the life of Jesus. It’s the one part of my old beliefs that I can’t let go of, since it shaped the values that I have now. The values that Jesus preached are often the same values that lead people to socialism/communism.
Whoever wrote those books, didn’t have much consideration for the reader.
Sizable chunks of the Old Testament were documentation, rather than formatted with the intent of being engaging. It’s like how a family bible often has genealogy hand-written inside it, except it’s the contents of the book itself.
That’s cool and dandy, but I still think that writing “every tribe brought exact same shit” would work swimmingly.
A direct retelling wouldn’t be allowed to air. Murdering your wife in Christ’s name for not cooking you dinner, divinely owning slaves as an entitled Christian, lobster sending you to christian hell; the production wouldn’t get very far.
What are you on about?
Whats that?
When did someone murder their wife in Christ’s name for not cooking you dinner
Love that you’re like “we all know shrimp sends you to christian hell, but wife discipline? Seems farfetched!”
Corinthians, ephesians, most books of the Bible reiterate that women must submit to their husbands:
“Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.”
And to not submit to their husbands is to go against God.
“But I want you to understand that the head of every man is Christ, the head of a wife is her husband, and the head of Christ is God.”
And guess what happens if your husband asks you for dinner and you say no?
“So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. She also gave to her husband with her, and he ate.”
Eve’s decision to prioritize her own desires over God’s instructions led to disastrous consequence including physical death and eternal obeisance.
“Your desire shall be for your husband, And he shall rule over you.”
“Genesis 2:18-24 “And the lord god said, “It is not good that man should be alone; I will make him a helper comparable to him”
Christian women are servants to men, and if they defy men, they defy god. Through all of every version of the bible, the Christian punishment for defiance is death.
Why?
“For the wages of sin is death”.
I’d like someone in a US church choose that chapter for their Sunday reading of the Bible, and then see the faces of the congregation sitting through it.
Not in the USA, but I’ve heard some pretty interesting sermons on the topic. Generally about prophecies and how the ancient Israelites viewed certain numbers
what’s wild to me is the people who swear by it as the answer to all lifes questions and yet…they’ve never read it.
if i thought and all knowing all powerful being put answers to all lifes questions into a book i’d be reading the shit out of it
Anything that glorifies “isms”.
