I got tagged by Ollysk2, over at 10,000 Reasons To Doubt the Fish. In this particular version of tag, you are supposed to replicate the post and answer the questions that are put forth to you. Unfortunately, being a bit addled last night when I posted my responses, I put it into his comment’s section. Oh well. For now, I will replicate the post (Replicator! Gah, I just reminded myself that SG-1 is in its final season on Sci-Fi right now 😦 ) with two responses. One response will be serious, the other one will delve into my extensive reading of pulp Fantasy and Science Fiction novels.
A Book That Changed Your Life – The serious response would still have to include two books. Those would be the King James Version of the Bible, and the other would be Atheism, the Case Against God by Smith. The first book I grew up reading, memorizing, and breathing every single day up until I was the age of sixteen. The next book I read when I was eighteen, and completely changed the way that I viewed philosophy, epistemology, metaphysics, and rationality. While the extant of my progression away from the fundie camp will not be delved into here, I will say that for awhile there were thoughts and reasons that were floating around in my head that I hadn’t a framework to conceptualize yet. The latter book did that for me. Now, the smart aleck response to this would be Green Eggs and Ham by the venerable Dr. Suess. That book, and One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish are still on my bookshelf. (What? You don’t have the books you learned to read still?)
A Book That You’ve Read More Than Once – Most definitely The Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien. I still read those books every single spring. Love them! Of course, the other books that I’ve read more than once would be the Wheel of Time by Jordan. Yep, I’m one of those people who re-read the entire series every time a new book comes out.
A Book You’d Want On A Desert Island – I’d like something along the lines of How To Get Rescued From A Desert Island For Dummies, so I guess my old Army Handbook that I still have from Basic. Everything you need to know in order to survive in the wild…
A Book That Made You Giddy – Here, both the serious and the smart response would be Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman. Also, you should check out the Discworld Series by Pratchett. Nothing, and no one, can stand up to Granny Weatherwax! And that’s just the way it should be.
A Book That You Wished Had Been Written – This would definitely be something along the lines of a combination of a thesis on the Human Genome Project and the Human Brain Mapping Project. By combining both of these into a holistic whole, and by understanding thoroughly what is going on, we would understand so much more about human consciousness, the mind, and how and why we think. Perhaps, after this is done, most of those pesky questions about ‘free will’ and ‘internal morality’ can be put to rest, as philosophy can only get you so far without solid premises to base your reasoning on.
A Book That Made You Sob – There are several. Then again, I’m a softie when it comes to animals. Any book where an animal dies will have me reduced to tears like a crying three year old little girl. That being said, the one that had the most impact on me was Les Miserables by Victor Hugo. I read it the first time, and bawled my eyes out at several stages of the plot-line.
A Book That You Wished Had Never Been Written – Like I said in the comment’s section of Olly’s Blog, generally I do not approve of censorship. The only cases where I actually like censorship is where someone has been hurt, or coerced. Other than that, if I could erase one book from history, it definitely would be the Revelations of St. John. This book has caused more irrationality, fear, and fear-mongering than any other book written in the west for the past, oh, three thousand years or so. Most of the theologies that the fundies adhere to in the present day and age can be attributed to Millenial Dispensationalism, which is a direct result of this one book. Not to mention the irrational and improper types of interpretation that fundies have to go through in order to tie this book to the Book of Daniel, and you can see why I say this. If only Left Behind could really be left behind.
A Book That You Are Currently Reading – This changed since last night. Now, I’m reading Why Darwin Matters: The Case Against Intelligent Design by Michael Shermer. Nick should be posting an article on why he does not believe in evolution any day now, and I thought it would be best to brush up on current ID arguments, and why they are not as scientific as the Discovery Institute (alas, based here in Seattle) would like to purport them to be.
A Book You Have Been Meaning To Read – This is still Bleak House by Dickens. One of these days…
And now, I think I will tag Matt from Matt’s Notepad, and Ben from Welcome. Oh, and Nick, from the Christian Right, since he’s so cool. Well, that, and the fact that he didn’t slap me for giving his wife some several naughty admonitions on how to handle him… 🙂
The Cathedral Arctic 