10 Books That Made Me Think

As you will see, I'm much more into non-fiction than fiction but I do like fiction as well. These are books that have influenced my thinking over the past several years. But only 10? How could I??? Well, here goes nothing...

1. The Underground History of American Education - John Taylor Gatto (1/2004)
When I went to college (I didn't want to! Despite the fact that my non-graduate Dad insisted it was a good idea, both he and my non-graduate homeschool Mom seemed - to me at the time - good examples of why it was wholly unnecessary. Not to mention that my own graduation, at 17, as a National Merit Scholar, seemed a total exaoneration of my sofar non-institutional education.), I kept reading this over and over to myself. In some ways, it may have given justification for me to have my anti-intellectual attitude last longer than it would have otherwise. However, it also got me thinking about what does it really mean to be educated and how can I take the driver's seat for my own education? (I always used to say that I was an independent thinker because I was homeschooled. Ergo, I never was brought up to just follow a teacher or a peer group. But, as an adult, I reflected on why I believed that this was true? Well, quite simply, because that's what my parents told me. Hopefully I'm not the only one to see the irony in that?)

"Why are you so gullible? Why do you believe my lies? Is it because I wear clothing you associate with men of God? I despair you are so easy to fool. What will happen to you if you let others do your thinking for you?"

You see, like a great magician he had shifted that commonplace school lesson we would have forgotten by the next morning into a formidable challenge to the entire contents of our private minds, raising the important question, Who can we believe? At the age of eight, while public school children were reading stories about talking animals, we had been escorted to the eggshell-thin foundation upon which authoritarian vanity rests and asked to inspect it.

Later I told the nun in charge of my dorm what had happened because my head was swimming and I needed a second opinion from someone older. "Jesuits!" she snapped, shaking her head, but would say no more.

"Fundamentally, there is no right education except growing up into a worthwhile world. Indeed, our excessive concern with problems of education at present simply means that the grown-ups do not have such a world." - Paul Goodman

2. Flatland/Sphereland - Edwin A Abbott (11/5/1999)
Helps with geometrical thinking, and the idea of an expanding universe.

3. The Great Divorce - CS Lewis (9/25/2009)
Got me to stop thinking of Heaven & Hell as physical places, and realize the power of personal, subjective mindsets. You don't have to die to go to hell, many people are already there. It was cool to see a Christian authority who dared to deviate from literal, scriptural specifics. "For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he." - Proverbs 23:7a.

"You didn't get a second opinion on something called a brain cloud? I mean what are you, a hypochondriac?" - Joe vs the Volcano

4. The Divine Conspiracy - Dallas Williard (7/15/2009)
A "Happy" Christian book written by a UCLA philosophy professor. Again, nice to see a Christian authority who does not feel confined to Biblical literalism.

"They're not ALL 'historical documents.'" - Galaxy Quest

5. Incompleteness: The Proof and Paradox of Kurt Gödel - Rebecca Newberger Goldstein (12/22/2005)
A philosophy professor (who was raised in Orthodox Judaism, but now seems an atheist) takes on the case of an odd, theistic mathematical genius who "does not believe in natural science" (his reply to the question of what he thought of Darwinism), and then manages to bring to light mathematical theorems that forever undermine the sense of certainty and absoluteness with which people view mathematics. Throughout his life he was increasingly paranoid and eventually this led him to self-starvation. This book started me on a journey to begin to probe some of the depths of logic, and also to get some important philosophical vocabulary under my belt.

“Just because an idea is true doesn't mean it can be proved. And just because an idea can be proved doesn't mean it's true.” ― Jonah Lehrer

6. Ender's Game Series (the first 4, anyway) - Orson Scott Card (4/8/2011 - first book)
I'm still not sure I can quite say why these books touched me so. An isolated child who struggles prematurely with weighty adult topics such as life, death, purpose, responsibility, empathy, compassion, and forgiveness. Orson Scott Card is a devout Mormon by all appearances, and yet his protagonist is a humanist. How odd.

“Well, we all like things to be predictable, don't we? We expect things to be safe and to keep on happening just the way they always have. We expect the sun to rise in the morning. We expect to get up, survive the day and finish up back in bed at the end of it, ready to start all over again the next day. But maybe that's just a trick we play on ourselves, our way of making life seem ordinary. Because the truth is, life is so extraordinary that for most of the time we can't bring ourselves to look at it. It's too bright and it hurts our eyes. The fact of the matter is that nothing is ever certain. But most people never find that out until the ground suddenly disappears from beneath their feet.” ― Steve Voake

7. Steve Pavlina blog (5/9/2012 - Date I finished Personal Development for Smart People)
Ok, ok. Not a book. But it SHOULD be! Actually, Pavlina has written a few books but the one I read wasn't nearly as good as the blog posts. I think I found this blog while searching the web for entrepreneurial-motivation type stuff about why you should be self-employed and not just an employee. What I discovered was so much more... he scared me at times. I was a Christian when I first started reading his stuff. How dare I get advice about my life's purpose from someone who... abandoned religion and subsequently earned himself a criminal record? Was married to a professional psychic? And, now, is into SM-play open relationships? I don't agree with everything he says but he always made me think.

“Life is full of strange absurdities, which, strangely enough, do not even need to appear plausible, since they are true.” ― Luigi Pirandello

8. The Existentialist Primer (11/12/2013 - Date I finished Man's Search for Ultimate Meaning)
Another website. When I was working at a helpdesk, and HATING it, I was befriended by an older co-worker with a degree in philosophy. He kept mentioning existentialism. I figured I needed to do some of my own reading and try to figure out what that was all about? Though existentialism is generally associated with atheists, and rightly so, the man widely considered to be "The Father of Existentialism," Søren Kierkegaard, was one of the few theistic existentialists. He does not, however, strike me as any kind of Biblical literalist.

Adam: "It was the woman you gave me who gave me the fruit, and I ate it."
Eve: "The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat."
(Genesis 3)
"Bad Faith!" cries the existentialist. (Now... say you are a codfish.)
“Alas, after a certain age every man is responsible for his face.” ― Albert Camus
"The Buck Stops Here." - President Harry S. Truman (or rather, his desk sign)


(Now that's what I call "Codfish Cake." I can hear people now, saying "The Cake Mix Made Me Do It!")

9. The Greatest Show On Earth - Richard Dawkins (3/14/2013)
I finally decided it was time for me to investigate a topic I had long been avoiding, that is, from the point of view of someone who really believed it. Now all the Creationist books I used to read really just seem like a mix of ad hominen attacks (calling all the evolutionists frauds and liars), and re-definition games. The only reason they used to work on me is because I never really understood clearly what the theory of evolution was actually all about. I have read several more books about evolution since, and they might make a better starting point (Example: Why Evolution Is True - Jerry Coyne) for anybody who is not ready for Dawkins complete dismissal of religion, but this is where I chose to start.

“He who knows only his own side of the case knows little of that. His reasons may be good, and no one may have been able to refute them. But if he is equally unable to refute the reasons on the opposite side, if he does not so much as know what they are, he has no ground for preferring either opinion... Nor is it enough that he should hear the opinions of adversaries from his own teachers, presented as they state them, and accompanied by what they offer as refutations. He must be able to hear them from persons who actually believe them...he must know them in their most plausible and persuasive form.” ― John Stuart Mill

10. 50 Question For Every Christian - Guy P. Harrison (12/12/2013)
Well worded doubts. I would recommend this to anyone who is questioning their faith. Actually, I think the people who really need this book are those who DON'T question their faith, but of course they are the ones who would never take the suggestion. "Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have." -1 Peter 3:15, 2nd of 3 sentences. How can you give an answer if you don't even know the questions?

And Jacob was left alone; and there wrestled a man with him until the breaking of the day. And when he saw that he prevailed not against him, he touched the hollow of his thigh; and the hollow of Jacob's thigh was out of joint, as he wrestled with him. And he said, Let me go, for the day breaketh. And he said, I will not let thee go, except thou bless me. (Genesis 32:24-26)

" Hegel believed when battle cannon roared, it was God talking to himself, working out his own nature dialectically." - The Underground History of American Education

“The man who does not read has no advantage over the man who cannot read.” ― Mark Twain