"Sanity in Numbers...and "Plausibility Frameworks" of All Worldview by Canadian theologian Randal Rauser

Traveling Through Other Minds

Reading is "our consciousness in someone else's mind,"* whether in the literary sense of being within a fictional character or an actual biographical individual, or in the seemingly unending raveling mind of a book's writer.
-verbal image by journalist and novelist Anna Quindlen

“Books are love letters (or apologies) passed between us, adding a layer of conversation beyond our spoken words.”
-Donalyn Miller, The Book Whisperer: Awakening the Inner Reader...

"In books, I have traveled not only to other worlds, but into my own. I learned who I was and who I wanted to be, what I might aspire to...the difference between good and evil, right and wrong."

“Part of the great wonder of reading is that it has the ability to make human beings feel more connected to one another, which is a great good...”
-Anna Quindlen, How Reading Changed My Life

Of course, it can have the opposite effect, depending upon who is doing the reading. Some of the most evil-acting humans in history have been avid readers. Napoleon was a voracious reader, as was Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili (birth name of the Georgian leader who adopted the noms de guerre of Stalin)
The latter amassed a library of 25,000 books! And he was a poet.

(Side Note: And that's another humanistic fallacy--that poets are somehow more sensitive and more humane than the average human, than business leaders and engineers, and other non-literary types. Yet not only was Soso a published poet, so was the murderous Ho Chi Minh, etc.)

Since, I mentioned Stalin and Napoleon, maybe that is a strong place to start listing powerful books which have dynamically affected me:

BIOGRAPHIES:

NAPOLEON by Alan Schom

YOUNG STALIN by Simon Sebag Montefiore

LOST PROPHET: THE LIFE AND TIMES OF BAYARD RUSTIN by John D'Emilio

THE OUTPOST: JOHN MCLOUGHLIN AND THE FAR NORTHWEST by Dorothy Nafus Morrison

STEPHEN F. AUSTIN by Gregg Cantrell

THE IMMORTAL LIFE OF HENRIETTA LACKS by Rebecca Skloot

THE PASSION OF AYN RAND by Barbara Branden

WADE HAMILTON by Rod Andrew Jr.

FOUNDING BROTHERS by Joseph J. Ellis

FOOLS GOLD: CAPTAIN JOHN SUTTER by Richard Dillion

THOMAS PAINE: APOSTLE OF FREEDOM by Jack Fruchtman

CITIZEN THOMAS PAINE by Howard Fast

NO ONE GETS OUTSIDE by Jerry Hopkins and Danny Sugerman

STEVEN JOBS AND EINSTEIN by Walter Isaacson

THOMAS JEFFERSON by Fawn Brodie

THE FIRST MUSLIM by Lesley Hazelton

MACHIAVELLI by Ross King

ONCE UPON A COUNTRY by Sari Nusseibeh

FREEDOM AT MIDNIGHT by Larry and Dominique Lapierre

FRANCO by Paul Preston

CARL SAGAN: A LIFE IN THE COSMOS by William Poundstone

SUBTERRANEAN KEROUAC by Ellis Amburn

ERASMUS OF CHRISTENDOM by Roland Bainton

MICHAEL COLLINS by James Mackay


NOVELS:

THE BONESETTER'S DAUGHTER by Amy Tan

ALASKA by James Michener

11/22/63 by Stephen King

DARK MATTER by Blake Crouch

SPEAKER FOR THE DEAD by Orson Scott Card

THE FOUNTAINHEAD by Ayn Rand

OPEN SEASON by C.J. Box

THE COLONIALISTS: HISTORICAL NOVEL OF AUSTRALIA by William Stuart Long

ST-NG: GHOST SHIP by Diane Carey

THE CHILDREN OF HAMLIN by Carmen Carter

THE ALTAR OF EDEN by James Rollins

FACE TO FACE by Karleen Koen

THE ORIGIN by Irving Stone

BLUEHEART by Alison Sinclair

WEST OF EDEN by Harry Harrison

FAILURE TO APPEAR by J.A. Jance

BIRTHRIGHT by Nora Roberts

ILL WIND by Nevada Barr

MIST by Miguel de Unamuno

GONE WITH THE WIND by Margaret Mitchell

FLOWERS FOR ALGERNON by Daniel Keyes

FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS by Ernest Hemingway

LISTENING WOMAN by Tony Hillerman

HYPERION by Dan Simmons

MIDNIGHT by Dean Koontz

HISTORIES:


ALBION'S SEED by David Hackett Fischer

BEAR FLAG RISING by Dale L. Walker

GOD'S ALMOST CHOSEN PEOPLES by George C. Rable

THE PRINCE OF THE MARSHES by Rory Stewart

JESUS WARS by Philip Jenkins

TEXAS AND TEXANS IN THE CIVIL WAR by Ralph A. Wooster

AMERICAN NATIONS by Colin Woodward

A HISTORY OF KANE COUNTY by Martha Sonntag Bradley

POLK by Walter R. Borneman

ZEPHANIAH KINGSLEY JR. AND THE ATLANTIC WORLD by Daniel L. Schafer

A GLORIOUS DEFEAT: MEXICO IN AND ITS WAR WITH THE U.S. by Timothy J. Henderson

RINGSIDE SEAT TO A REVOLUTION by David Dorado Romo

TO END ALL WARS by Adam Hochschild

THE FIRST WORLD WAR by John Keating

LONDON: A HISTORY by A.N. Wilson

TEAM OF RIVALS by Doris Kearns Goodwin

THE ISLAND AT THE CENTER OF THE WORLD by Russell Shorto

MAYFLOWER by Nathaniel Philbrick

THE LIVES OF THE KINGS AND QUEENS OF ENGLAND by Antonia Frazer

HEAVENLY SERBIA: FROM MYTH TO GENOCIDE by Branimir Anzulovic



PHILOSOPHY, RELIGION and ETHICS:

AMONG THE DEAD CITIES by A.C. Grayling

GOD AND THE REACH OF REASON by Erik J. Wielenberg

INVENTING HUMAN RIGHTS by Lynn Hunt

50 VOICES OF DISBELIEF Edited by Blackford and Schuklenk

HOW JESUS BECAME GOD by Bart Ehrman

UNDERSTANDING THE APOCALYPSE by Wilfrid J. Harrington

A SHORT HISTORY OF MYTH by Karen Armstrong

WHEN GOD TALKS BACK by T.M. Luhrmann

ADAM, EVE, AND THE SERPENT by Elaine Pagels

FEELING GOOD by David Burns

SCALING THE SECULAR CITY by J.P. Moreland

A REFUTATION OF MORAL RELATIVISM by Peter Kreeft

SOPHIE'S WORLD by Justein Gaarder

WHAT THE BUDDHA TAUGHT ME by Walpola Rahula

THE MIND'S I by Douglas Hofstadter and Daniel C. Dennett

WHY PEOPLE BELIEVE WEIRD THINGS by Michael Shermer

LEAVING THE FOLD by Edward Babinski

THE TRUE BELIEVER by Eric Hoffer

PROTESTANT CHRISTIANITY by John Dillenberger and Claude Welch

THE HABITS OF HIGHLY EFFECTIVE PEOPLE by Stephen R. Covey

DYNAMICS OF FAITH by Paul Tillich


SCIENCE:

HOW IT BEGAN and HOW IT ENDS by Chris Impey

THE ANCESTOR'S TALE by Richard Dawkins

FAITH VERSUS FACT by Jerry A. Coyne

WHY EVOLUTION IS TRUE by Jerry A. Coyne

FINDING DARWIN'S GOD by Kenneth R. Miller

THE BIG QUESTIONS IN SCIENCE AND RELIGION by Keith Ward

THE ROCKS DON'T LIE by David R. Montgomery

DARWIN'S DANGEROUS IDEA by Daniel C. Dennett








In the Light,

Daniel Wilcox

Am I Weird or Deluded or What? And being a pinball...

Am I weird or deluded or what? Or just still a very naive Nebraska village kid? For some reason I yet think most humans I meet are--underneath their vocalized differences and doctrinal tags--basically of similar spiritual faith and inner devotion and ethical concern.

But again this weekend, I discover for the umpteenth time--It AIN'T So.

Years ago, I became of the Friend's persuasion, leaving Evangelical Christianity partially because so much of the latter represents that which is most abhorrent in religion.

And I am a Friend because I love the centrality and experience of open worship where God is present right now in deep biblical "knowing."

Yet more and more I am finding there are many Friends who don't think God is. I keep trying to understand their view (such as the dialogues I've had with the bloggers on Nontheist Friends.org and elsewhere).

But I admit Untheism baffles me. If the God whose essence is love (of the NT and Friends for 360 years)
ISN'T,
then why are we meeting for worship? Are we not truly deluded as Richard Dawkins claims?

And in my dialogue with Evangelical Christians again this week, I realize to an abyssed degree that not only do I disagree with their central beliefs, but I don't really have faith in the same God as them. We use many of the same biblical terms but mean very opposite values.

I do live in a totally different cosmos from such humans.

Where is there a window where I can go and scream...

And last night, I was invited over to a couple of my friends and we had a great talk fest for four hours! At least we are in the same cosmos:-) but their views also seem so contrary to everything I trust and think true.

So I am like the small pinball in one of those classic game machines that bounces from other worldview to other worldview, all so incredibly different from my own faith and wondering where all of this is leading.

I am too much of an intellectual doubter to think everyone else must be bonkers;-) and only my group--Theistic Friends--understands Reality. So I struggle.

On my more despairing days--for instance yesterday, the day for worship--I wonder if maybe Friends, and indeed all religion, is delusion.

Maybe only Existentialism is true.
Maybe this is an absurd world like Albert Camus said and where The Plague wrecks havoc and we are brief consciousnesses for no reason and then the abyss...

Thank God, today I have renewed hope. I may be hanging in emptiness or am pre-damned, etc.,
but today I experience God's love
and am
in God's
Presence.