The bible
American? I haven’t seen a bookstore selling a bible in ages, if ever
I was going to contradict you, that bookstores always carry bibles…but then I realized the memory I was thinking of was from the 90s.
I’d say this is just a good excuse for me to go to the bookstore and check…but they’ve all become so small and sad that I kind of don’t want to. I just get depressed.
I know ebooks and audiobooks have massively taken off so people are reading/listening still…I just miss my childhood refuge being stuffed chock-full of treasures.
Sucker play, it’s trivial to get a bible for free. For instance, one could find it on libgen or something idk
They’re really lousy for critical reading, though. I like the ones from United Biblical Society, with maps and appendices. They’re good for linguistic reference, and they add titles and illustrations.
I just take the complimentary ones from hotels
Yeah, haha I was hoping the joke would land
I don’t even need to buy them. They just pile up unread. One of them has nice art in it.
I don’t even need to buy them. They just pile up unread
How? I’ve read this many times, but I never understood it. Do people just hand them out on the street or is it customary to give bibles as a gift?
When I was in college, once or twice a year there were people from some religious group who would come and stand at the most busy intersections for foot traffic and literally hand them out on the street, yes. They were quite pushy about it
You missed the chance to push back in your refusal. You had plenty of justification to be nasty.
Why refuse free toilet paper?
Look, the people who hand out Bibles are usually from a specific sect of Christianity.
I get it, they’re just as shitty as most Christians, in most ways, but…
The reason they give the Bibles away is because they figure that knowledge is power and they don’t want to force people to have to spend money they don’t have to be able to read the Bible.
I hate to say it, but I agree with their attitudes regarding freedom and access to information. They may not be distributing information I care for, but I can’t fault the attitude. Information and access to it shouldn’t be limited, because knowledge is power.
Right attitude, wrong values otherwise.
The reason they give the Bibles away is because they figure that knowledge is power and they don’t want to force people to have to spend money they don’t have to be able to read the Bible.
I want to choose when (and if) I read bullshit, thank you very much.
I mean they are giving them away freely and not forcing the book on people. They accept “no” as an answer if you don’t want a copy. You are really free to ignore them.
I have pretty bad social and general anxiety, it is extremely difficult for me to be pushy with anyone, at least in person. At the time I think I mostly avoided them or lied and told them I already had a copy at home, which seemed to placate them.
In any case, I think all they really achieved was wasting a lot of paper and ink, because the trash cans around campus and especially the outdoor ones near those intersections were absolutely filled with bibles by the end of the day whenever those people came around. Once or twice I saw some student accept one and then two steps later toss it in a bin that was right next to the guys handing them out.
Sadly, they thrive on the social mandate to be polite even to abusers.
When you celebrate a life event in church you go home with a new Bible.
Really? I’ve been to weddings and funerals and baptisms in churches and never have I been offered a bible. Maybe it’s a local thing?
Count yourself lucky. If you want one, any church would be happy to provide.
I inherited a ton of books from my father, who was a minister & a Jungian psychologist. Lots of old interesting bibles, in a handful of languages. (Plus a Koran, and some Crowley, and of shelf full of Trotsky… ha ha. Lotta books.)
Definitely the bible for most christians.
Non christians, probably To Kill a Mockingbird.
I read it in school, but honestly did not find it to be all that special. Its a good book, but its message was pretty simple and i think modern audiences would agree with the premise immediately.
I found “The Catcher in the Rye” to be the most thought-provoking of high schools books. However, i dont think it really would improve society if more people read it.
If i could think of a book everyone should read to improve humanity, it would have to be something akin to either statistics for dummies, moral philosophy for dummies, or wealth management for dummies.
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Oh phew. I studied English Lit at university and had to wade through bits of both. I used to feel like I was some sort of uncultured swine for not “getting” them. But honestly, I just don’t think they work as novels. As a piece of art, I guess, sure. Fine and modern art can look like nonsense without context, but often make sense when seen as part of a conversation with other artists and movements. If taken like that, fine, you do you, Joycey-boy, and write incomprehensibly. I’ll be over here with my Iain Banks and Ned Beauman, enjoying them.
Any biography about some liberal political leader, like that Obama one. I think people buy them just because they trend on the top 10 books to read list. But everyone I’ve met who has it just keeps it on their coffee table to make it seem like they’re into reading now. The only one I know who finishes those biographies is my grandpa who is a little senile and bored now.
Most of friedrich nietzsche’s books
Dictionaries or lexicons. Who reads those from start to finish?
To be honest. I did.
I found another of my kin.
I had a dictionary of etymology that I truly loved. Can’t say I’d read it from start to finish like a novel, it’s not meant to be used that way, but I did spend time jumping from word to word learning about their histories.
But I’m a writer so I’m one of the few that would genuinely be into that.
What was it called?
For certain sets of people:
Das Capital by Marx
A Critique of Pure Reason by Kant
Ulysses by James Joyce
A Brief History of Time was the classic one amongst self-described sapiosexuals
harry potter mabye
I came to answer “the Bible”, but it seems that was already taken. Multiple times.
It would seem that the people complaining about Christians not studying their scripture, commented without reading the comments … that’s somehow very meta
This is just for me perhaps, but pretty much everything Dostoyevsky.
Thinking Fast and Slow
Sapiens
Among my friend group it’s House of Leaves.
“Wow, it’s such an eerie unsettling journey. I really love it.” “you started it last year, did you finish it?” “well …”
I saw another lemmy user claim they had to take a 17 year break from it.
I read it, and while it’s something different, it was more confusing than anything else. Definitely something I never read before though.
infinite jest
Loving that is quick proof that I’m a lib :(
I’m currently reading it. I can see why so many people just leave it in the bookshelf.
It’s not a bad book, but God damn does it feel like running a marathon.
It frustrated me, I’ve been pretty depressed in the past and I felt like I detected all the same thought patterns in it. Not a badly written book but I didn’t enjoy what felt like a book written as a sort of self-flagellation
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I hate this like neckbeard pseudointellectual misogynistic popular opinion of this book, because it is truly a tender and empathetic and beautiful work
highschool textbooks
