What Book Are You Currently Reading?

[alzo zero]

Hmmm, Google seems to have interesting things to say about this book. Any good?

Yes. Although it's long I've never met anyone who thought it was boring and dropped it. Quite an achievement for a 1000+ pages long novel! I recommend it, especially if you are into India and its culture (I'm not) it offers very good descriptions of Bombay and its people. Furthermore it's partially based on the author's biography which makes it even more interesting in my opinion.

[Ivanushka-supertzar]

Re-reading Richard Brautigan for a dozen time. My favourite favorite favourtei favourtie

One morning the tigers came in while we were eating breakfast and before my father could grab a weapon they killed him and they killed my mother. My parents didn’t even have time to say anything before they were dead. I was still holding the spoon from the mush I was eating.
“Don’t be afraid,” one of the tigers said. “We’re not going to hurt you. We don’t hurt children. Just sit where you are and we’ll tell you a story.”
One of the tigers was eating my mother. He bit her arm off and started chewing on it. “What kind of story would you like to hear? I know a good story about a rabbit.”
“I don’t want to hear a story,” I said.
“OK,” the tiger said, and he took a bite out of my father. I sat there for a long time with the spoon in my hand, and then I put it down.
“Those were my folks,” I said, finally.
“We’re sorry,” one of the tigers said. “We wouldn’t do this if we didn’t have to, if we weren’t absolutely forced to. But this is the only way we can keep alive.”
“We’re just like you,” the other tiger said. “We speak the same language you do. We think the same thoughts, but we’re tigers.”
“You could help me with my arithmetic,” I said.
“What’s that?” one of the tigers said.
“My arithmetic.”
“Oh, your arithmetic.”
“Yeah.”
“What do you want to know?” one of the tigers said.
“What’s nine times nine?”
“Eighty-one,” a tiger said.

[Winged Hussar]

Decision Points or President Bush's memoirs. I think he is underrated, especially compared to the black comedian who is in the White House now. I've watched some of President Bush's speeches on You Tube and he seems to be a very genuine and honest person. Now when I see the black comedian giving a speech he oozes dishonesty like pus oozing out from a sore.

[Max]

I am about 70 pages in and its a pretty interesting book so far.

[Magister Eckhart]

I am about 70 pages in and its a pretty interesting book so far.

I'm highly suspicious of anyone who conflates drug-induced hallucinations with spirituality. You'll have an easier time finding God at the bottom of a bottle of Jim Beam.

[Psychonaut]

I'm highly suspicious of anyone who conflates drug-induced hallucinations with spirituality. You'll have an easier time finding God at the bottom of a bottle of Jim Beam.

That only applies if you assume that theophanies achieved by means of drugs are caused, rather than facilitated, by the substance. We know a good bit now, thanks to the emerging discipline of neurotheology, about what kinds of brain activity accompany theurgic activities like prayer, meditation, etc. We also know that certain psychedelics, like DMT, produce nearly identical changes in brain activity. How then do we reconcile this data? Is it logical to assume that a change in status affected by unassisted means is fundamentally different than one achieved by means of some mechanism? I don't really think that's the case. If my goal is to get to the top of a building, what difference does it have upon the end result if I take the stairs or the elevator? For the purposes of self development, etc. I can certainly see the benefit of unassisted methods of inducing hierophanies over the assisted ones. Yet, that doesn't really make the door opened by the latter any more or less hallucinogenic than the former.

[Magister Eckhart]

That only applies if you assume that theophanies achieved by means of drugs are caused, rather than facilitated, by the substance. We know a good bit now, thanks to the emerging discipline of neurotheology, about what kinds of brain activity accompany theurgic activities like prayer, meditation, etc. We also know that certain psychedelics, like DMT, produce nearly identical changes in brain activity. How then do we reconcile this data? Is it logical to assume that a change in status affected by unassisted means is fundamentally different than one achieved by means of some mechanism? I don't really think that's the case. If my goal is to get to the top of a building, what difference does it have upon the end result if I take the stairs or the elevator? For the purposes of self development, etc. I can certainly see the benefit of unassisted methods of inducing hierophanies over the assisted ones. Yet, that doesn't really make the door opened by the latter any more or less hallucinogenic than the former.

The activities of the spirit do not reside in the chemical and electrical discharges of the brain. Looking for God in physical phenomena fundamentally misses the point of a spiritual experience. So yes, the two are fundamentally different, regardless of what happens in the brain.

[Psychonaut]

The activities of the spirit do not reside in the chemical and electrical discharges of the brain.

Nor do the object perceived by our eyes exist within them. Neurotheological studies of the accompanying brain changes no more reduce the objects of theophanies to neural phenomena than do investigations of ocular mechanisms reduce visual phenomena to optical illusions.

[Magister Eckhart]

Es lebe geheimes Deutschland.

[Efim45]

I just bought three books on Amazon:

Born Fighting: How the Scots-Irish shaped America

Jimmy Fallon's Thank you Notes and...

A book on the Federalist Papers.