What are you reading?

Torin said:
What are you reading? :)

I'm hoping people will respond to this thread more than once over time as they read different books. The Books subforum here moves very slowly, so ideally this thread will serve as one place for "water cooler discussion" between members of the forum community.

I'll reply below to kick off the thread.
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I just finished reading through the MacArthur Daily Bible where you commit to reading a portion of it each day: 2 chapters from the Old Testament, part of the Psalms & Proverbs, and 1 chapter of the New Testament. Now, I am reading about end times, and Christian books arguing against evolution.
 
BornAgainRN said:
I just finished reading through the MacArthur Daily Bible where you commit to reading a portion of it each day: 2 chapters from the Old Testament, part of the Psalms & Proverbs, and 1 chapter of the New Testament. Now, I am reading about end times, and Christian books arguing against evolution.
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That is kind of cool. I had a study Bible like that in middle school (I attended a Christian school). I'm not longer religious, but I've thought about going through a reading plan like you describe.
 
Torin said:
What are you reading? :)

I'm hoping people will respond to this thread more than once over time as they read different books. The Books subforum here moves very slowly, so ideally this thread will serve as one place for "water cooler discussion" between members of the forum community.

I'll reply below to kick off the thread.
Click to expand...
I have a couple of books going.

1. Thoughts For Young Men - J.C. Ryle

I'm working with a group of at risk boys and we're going through this book. It should be given to all young men.


2. "Modern Fascism" - Gene Edward Veith


3. "Red Right Return" - John H. Cunningham

I met John and fellow author Chip Bell about six years ago and always keep their books on my shelf for "beach reads".
 
Torin said:
That is kind of cool. I had a study Bible like that in middle school (I attended a Christian school). I'm not longer religious, but I've thought about going through a reading plan like you describe.
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If you want to read a really good book on the end-times, I highly recommend "The Second Coming" by John MacArthur (same author as the Daily Bible I mentioned before). His reading plan is really good too. It's amazing how much you forget, even if you have read the Bible before. Going through a reading plan like this keeps you committed & you learn (or relearn) so much in a relatively short period of time. The year just flies by!
 
Update:

I have completed Our Oriental Heritage by Will Durant. The book gave me more of a sense of the variety of cultures that have existed in Asia, as well as the varieties that have existed within each of those cultures. It also gave me a sense of how sophisticated ancient civilizations were. I had the sense, before reading this book, that the ancient world was far more monolithic, primitive, and superstitious than it actually was. I also had no appreciation of all the science, technology, and culture that the West has taken over from these Asian civilizations, which is what Durant calls "our Oriental heritage." I would strongly recommend this book if you have the stamina for 900+ pages of history.

I've moved on to Fossil Future by Alex Epstein, which is a defense of using even more fossil fuels than we currently are. (Yes, you read that correctly.)

I am not sure whether I agree with Epstein's overall thesis or not, at present. That said, one point he makes that I think is correct is that the benefits of fossil fuels are usually overlooked in the current discussion. Nearly all of the discussion is about the supposed catastrophic downsides of fossil fuels - the catastrophic fires, storms, temperature increases, etc., that may result.

However, Epstein makes a very plausible case that there is no currently practical way of providing food, clothing, shelter, transportation, etc., etc., for the billions of people on earth without using a lot of fossil fuels. As he lays out in detail, our modern standard of living is provided by the operation of many machines. Those machines require energy, and the only way to get that energy right now is to burn fossil fuels.

If we do have to stop using fossil fuels (or start using a lot less of them), that is an immense tragedy. I don't see that discussed much today.
 
I'm currently reading Can Science explain every thing? by John Lennox. It's written as an "introduction to the question of science and the Christian faith..." I'm halfway through and for the most part I understand his arguments. There is one section, Mythbusters I: Religion depends on faith, but science doesn't, with which I am struggling to follow his reasoning and will be going over it again and again until I understand it. I recommend this book to Christian and atheist alike.

Lennox writes on the inside jacket his hope that this book "...stimulates you to approach this question (of science and the Christian faith) in a scientific way: that is, open to what the outcome may be and prepared to follow the evidence where it leads."
 
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Caroljeen said:
I'm currently reading Can Science explain every thing? by John Lennox. It's written as an "introduction to the question of science and the Christian faith..." I'm halfway through and for the most part I understand his arguments. There is one section, Mythbusters I: Religion depends on faith, but science doesn't, with which I am struggling to follow his reasoning and will be going over it again and again until I understand it. I recommend this book to Christian and atheist alike.

Lennox writes on the inside jacket his hope that this book "...stimulates you to approach this question (of science and the Christian faith) in a scientific way: that is, open to what the outcome may be and prepared to follow the evidence where it leads."
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Is this a new book? I've seen several people in a Facebook group I'm in reference this book lately.
 
Mike McK said:
Is this a new book? I've seen several people in a Facebook group I'm in reference this book lately.
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The initial printing-2019. Not brand new ... I found out about it after watching a debate he had with Richard Dawkins. I thought he made good points and searched Amazon for books that he authored. This book is well worth the money if you are interested in the subject matter.

 
Update:

I have finished up a couple of books over the last few days.

(1) I finished up the last couple of chapters of Fossil Future by Alex Epstein. These were predominantly about why there's so much resistance to fossil fuel use and how to persuade people that fossil fuel use is good. Epstein made the insightful observation that people although do not usually change views that they embrace explicitly as a part of their identity, opposition to fossil fuels is based on philosophical premises that people do not usually embrace explicitly and do not usually hold as a part of their identity. This makes it more likely, but not certain, that Epstein's persuasive efforts will succeed.

(2) I finished a very short, but very enjoyable, book about 19th and 20th century art by Hans Jaffe. The book started out with an essay explaining that, for Jaffe, the central problem of 19th and 20th century art was the problem of reality. The rest of the book presented 200 or so pictures of paintings by various artists with about a paragraph of commentary for each painting. Basically, the development was from artists who were not sure what the essence of reality was, to artists who denied that reality exists or ought to be represented. The paintings reminded me of how much I dislike certain streams of contemporary art (I have never been able to "get" Pollock), but it also gave me some appreciation of the variety of types of modern art and some sense of why people enjoy certain strains of it.

I am now reading the Classics Club edition of Francis Bacon's Essays and New Atlantis.
 
Update:

I quickly abandoned the Francis Bacon book, sadly. I decided it was too much parsing of old timey English.

In the meantime, I've read a book on the nature of heroism by the Objectivist philosopher Andrew Bernstein, which I found really inspiring.

I am now reading a biography of George Washington entitled Washington: The Indispensable Man.
 
Update:

I have finished the Washington biography. I was up for another Presidential biography, so now I'm reading Abe: Abraham Lincoln in His Times by David S. Reynolds.
 
Caroljeen said:
I'm currently reading Can Science explain every thing? by John Lennox. It's written as an "introduction to the question of science and the Christian faith..." I'm halfway through and for the most part I understand his arguments. There is one section, Mythbusters I: Religion depends on faith, but science doesn't, with which I am struggling to follow his reasoning and will be going over it again and again until I understand it. I recommend this book to Christian and atheist alike.

Lennox writes on the inside jacket his hope that this book "...stimulates you to approach this question (of science and the Christian faith) in a scientific way: that is, open to what the outcome may be and prepared to follow the evidence where it leads."
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Here's a secret.... Or... perhaps..... the punchline.

Religion depends on "faith", as science depends on "faith" for non-practitioners.

The description given of faith, by such "non-practitioners" is not biblically defined faith.

Biblical faith isn't one of those--- blindly groping about, in a dark room.
It's more like--- Instrument flight rules, used by pilots.

I encourage you to do some reading on instrument flight rules to better understand it.
 
I've just finished "Otherlands" by Thomas Halliday. It's an easy to read description of various landscapes going back through time. Each chapter is based on a well researched area with extensive footnotes and references. The descriptions of fauna and flora are beautifully written and the geology and ecology of the areas covered in detail. I found it an excellent description both of how evolution works but also of why we know so much about it. More engaging than "The Ancestors Tale" by Dawkins, which I would also recommend.
 
Torin said:
Do you have any thoughts on that book you'd like to share? It sounds interesting!

Are you an anarchist?
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Honestly, I downloaded it, read the first chapter and got distracted. Will let you know more when I finish it. It's free on Kindle Unlimited, if you have that.

I'm not an anarchist. I just believe the people can manage their own affairs better than the government can, and the less government interference in our day to day lives, the better.
 
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Mike McK said:
Honestly, I downloaded it, read the first chapter and got distracted. Will let you know more when I finish it. It's free on Kindle Unlimited, if you have that.
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I do, but I have other reading goals right now. I'm currently reading a rather long Lincoln biography which I've mentioned previously in this thread, and after that I plan to read Empire of Pain, about the Sacklers' role in the opioid crisis.

Thanks for the recommendation, though! Please do post some thoughts about the book once you finish it. :)

Mike McK said:
I'm not an anarchist. I just believe the people can manage their own affairs better than the government can, and the less government interference in our day to day lives, the better.
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Hmm. Is there something that makes anarchism plausible to you? Why did you choose that book?

I agree about government needing to stay out of people's lives. For me that's primarily a moral issue though, not an economic issue.

Have you read any of Ayn Rand's novels or nonfiction writings about politics?
 
Torin said:
Do you have any thoughts on that book you'd like to share? It sounds interesting!
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Finished the book. Really interesting. It goes case by case through several different areas of government control. It's interesting. It's not really much you couldn't get in some other books, like Murray Rothbard's books.

But, still, a good book and has some thought provoking things.
 
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