10 Books Everyone Should Read

Pet_Sounds · 05-20-2017, 05:41 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Batlord

Plenty of fiction has philosophy. But it's fiction cause it makes up stories.

Those books were intended as works of fiction, however. The Bible is intended as history (most of the Old Testament, some of the New) and philosophy (most of the New, some of the Old). Sure, its veracity is questionable, but an inaccurate history is still non-fiction.

We now know that much of On the Origin of Species is incorrect. Should it be classified as fiction?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Trollheart

Well I've never read it and I know enough about history by reading, you know, history, not some (as Batty says) made-up half-fairytale crap. Stuff like that poisons the perception, I feel. I certainly wouldn't want someone to read that and think "Gee! There really was a Garden of Eden?"

As close to fiction as it gets.

It the whole Bible was a carbon copy of the first chapter of Genesis, you'd be right.

To quote Hilaire Belloc: "The whole story of Europe, her various realms and states and general bodies during the last sixteen centuries has mainly turned upon the successive heresies arising in the Christian world." In my mind, one needs to understand Christian philosophy in order to appreciate that story. Whether you read the Bible itself or some scholar's interpretation doesn't really matter, but I included the original source.

EDIT: Should add that similar reasoning could be used to justify the Quran's placement on my list.

Trollheart · 05-21-2017, 02:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pet_Sounds

In my mind, one needs to understand Christian philosophy in order to appreciate that story. Whether you read the Bible itself or some scholar's interpretation doesn't really matter, but I included the original source.

You really don't. There's enough information about Christianity around from movies, other books, novels, and of course the Church themselves that I imagine the percentage of people who have actually read the Bible - as in, read it all the way through, not just a few passages - other than the clergy obviously - would be exceptionally small. And yet we all know about Christianity and the Crusades and Jesus and Pilate and the Crucifixion and all that stuff.

Absolutely not essential reading. Do you need to read Mein Kampf to learn about Hitler? Or The Origin of Species to know about Darwin? This stuff is readily available from other sources, multiple sources. By all means, read the Bible if you want, or feel you need to, but don't quote it as a book everyone should or needs to read, cos that just is not true.