What kinds of books would you like to discuss?

[vivico1]

Yeah, but you don't know Joseph how often in other B&N clubs I have tried to go beyond the safe in discussions and I was not being rude or anything, just sincere, only to be warned I was going to offend someone, or even have my comments removed when they were not an attack or anything just me sharing my thoughts on a matter or asking some questions.  It is very depressing to try to get into a good discussion and even a good debate  about something, when a lot of people in here equate debate with arguing or attacking. I have, at times been most surprised to come on to see about  a question or thought i posted and was excited to come back later to see about discussing only to have a pm from a mod telling me to cool it (or even worse), or removing my post because someone didn't like it. That's why for me, what is "safe" is what is going to be allowed to talk about in here. I have often had to really change how I discuss a book in here vs an in person book clubs because of that. It has cut how much I interact in here too. But I do hope you all have a good club. I guess my brain is too fried this time of year too for theoretical discourses. So I probably won't be joining you. I am reading right now for sheer entertainment,(even tho I do so miss the old BNU ) so I probably would have nothing to add to a more learning kind of read and discuss but I know you will all enjoy it. I have never thought of myself as one to play it safe, but I also do not want to get the boot from the clubs just because I was more than "safe", even when I had still been courteous. Please understand, that is what I mean by safe in here. Good reading guys and have a good discussion. I may linger around but better bow out vocally.

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Joseph_F wrote:
Thanks for your suggestion vivico1, but in addition to the reasons Nadine mentioned (I did, after all, pick the two most suggested books in this thread), I feel that it would defeat the purpose of these kinds of guided readings if we always went for the "safest" choice. I don't expect any of you to compromise your beliefs, but I do expect people choosing to read along to do so with an open mind and a willingness to learn about viewpoints other than your own. That was the purpose of choosing two books: to allow the discussion of perhaps a harder or "less safe" book without losing those looking for less of a commitment.

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[IBIS]

What I find appealing of the current clubs at B&N is the concerted effort of moderators to open up discussions on a couple of books per month... having options is wonderful... it's liberating.

If "The Shack" had been the ONLY option for May, I would have elected not to participate. And would wait to see what was offered for next month's discussion.

However, the alternate option of "The History of God" made it much more attractive for me to join in.  I've started reading it and am very glad for the opportunity to share insights with others. 

Message Edited by IBIS on 04-10-2009 02:45 PM

[utopian]

I hesitate to offer my preferences because I doubt that I'll have much time to participate and will probably enjoy this board as a lurker.  For what it's worth, I prefer reading primary sources and I think with the heterogeneous group we have here it would be absolutely fascina†ing to read, for example, Genesis, and discuss the various religious interpreta†ions. 

Personally, I do not care for The History of Gd or her POV.  I am very curious about  how the POV's of the Jews, Protestants, Catholics, Moslems, Mormons, Quakers on this site might differ.   This is just my opinion and I'm sure I'll enjoy reading all the posts, regardless.  Enjoy!

[Choisya]

Peppermill wrote

Joseph -- please share with us how you chose between the History of God and The Great Transformation. 

Perhaps Joseph thinks the timeline will be easier for the 3 monotheistic religions, rather than delving into Buddha, Socrates, Confucious and Jeremiah, P?

I like Joseph's choice overall and am looking forward to the discussion, although I won't be buying The Shack - my budget has been overstretched this month with family birthdays!  I find Armstrong very readable and she is excellent at giving her sources - there are 21 pages of Notes/Sources and 12 giving Suggestions for Further Reading in my 1993 paperback edition of HoG!  Have you read her Autobiography - I really must get around to that.  I also admire her commitment to the importance of Compassion and the promoting of The Golden Rule through the world's religions, for which she was awarded the TED prize.

[Peppermill]

Choisya -- I have a 3/29/09 post on this thread where I respond to a post from Nadine about reading Armstrong's autobiographical works (2).

I have mixed reactions to Armstrong's message of compassion -- one is an enthusiastic "YES," another is tempered by the input of a friend who has been a clergyman's wife, and it is more along the lines of "Give me a break," i.e., is it simplistic and naive?  But, in some ways, profound messages may be such.

Did you see the interview with Bill Moyers?  I did think it was quite insightful.  (I think I mentioned it in a post to Laurel somewhere, anyway, a Google search should find it quickly if you are interested.)

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Choisya wrote:

Peppermill wrote

Joseph -- please share with us how you chose between the History of God and The Great Transformation. 

Perhaps Joseph thinks the timeline will be easier for the 3 monotheistic religions, rather than delving into Buddha, Socrates, Confucious and Jeremiah, P?

I like Joseph's choice overall and am looking forward to the discussion, although I won't be buying The Shack - my budget has been overstretched this month with family birthdays!  I find Armstrong very readable and she is excellent at giving her sources - there are 21 pages of Notes/Sources and 12 giving Suggestions for Further Reading in my 1993 paperback edition of HoG! 

Have you read her Autobiography - I really must get around to that.  I also admire her commitment to the importance of Compassion and the promoting of The Golden Rule through the world's religions, for which she was awarded the TED prize.   

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Message Edited by Peppermill on 04-14-2009 03:30 PM

[Choisya]

I think you will find it amongst the 131 reviews on the website of B&N's competitor P -  the one by someone called 'zeenoofelia' alias 'victor of new york'. There is only a brief reference to Philo's explanation of Plato's forms in HoG (qv The Wisdom of Solomon) but there is quite a lot more on them in The Great Transformation, where several scholastic references are quoted in the Notes.

Folks here may like to see this interview in The Guardian where she accuses Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens of 'setting up a caricature of religion' and says that although she is no longer a Christian she is a 'person of faith'. 

Peppermill wrote:

"If one review I read is accurate, she badly misrepresents most Platonic scholarship on his view of the nature of the Forms."

Everyman -- if that review is available on the web, would you share its address?  If not, the author and where published?

Thanks!

Pepper

[adopted1]

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Joseph_F wrote:

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Raven_Lunatic wrote:

Can we discuss religious-themed fiction, too?

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Absolutely

Anything religion or spirituality related is fair game, as far as I'm concerned.

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That's good to hear!!! I love books in series.  Currently I'm reading the A.D. Chronicles "FIRST LIGHT" by Bodie and Brock Thoene.  What captured my attention are the titles of the subsequent books... Second Touch, Third Watch, Fourth Dawn Fifth Seal, Sixth Covenant, Seventh Day, etc... 

Of course the Left Behind series was a fav also.  It's so interesting how different things are pointed out that actually cause me to go to the Word and search for myself.  As with any type of reading, it should help you to grow.

Message Edited by adopted1 on 04-15-2009 04:13 PM

[adopted1]

Good Day,

I really enjoy doing "First Look".  Are we going to have an opportunity to participate in something like that?  I understand that this genre is just getting off the ground (well deserved too I might add), but I would like to explore some 'new' reading as well.

[DoctorRita]

Hi Joseph,

I'm interested in hearing other people's opinions on weight loss and health issues as they interface with Christianity.

I'm a medical doctor and am the author of a weight loss book that is on Barnes&Noble.com (my book is called The Eden Diet). I'm interested in this subject because I lost 75 pounds and kept it off for 26 years and studied nutrition and obesity psychology at Cornell (and got NIH and one other research award to study nutrition and digestive diseases). Also, I am interested in the subject because I have to find ways to help my overweight patients lose weight. So many of them have complications of obesity like diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, and bad backs, knees, and hips.

I'll share my opinions in hopes of stimulating conversation. I believe one reason why we fail at weight control in most cases is that when we diet we have a deprivation mentality that makes us want "forbidden" food even more. And we impose so many rules and regulations on how we eat (don't eat this, must eat that, measure everything, eat at precisely noon, eat ten small meals, yada, yada, yada). Who can keep up with all those rules and regulations and accomplish anything else in life? It takes too much time and mental energy to be a reasonable weight loss strategy for most people. I know that b/c I see my patients fail time and time again when they try to diet in the face of all those cumbersome rules.

In the beginning, God did not give us all those rules about what, when, where, or how to eat. He just gave us food and hunger pangs. I believe weight control is supposed to be easier than we've made it. Just wait until you're hungry and then eat. In other words, don't eat for non-physical reasons like emotions, boredom, the time on the clock, because the food is free or looks good, etc. Eat less, enjoy what you eat (even allowing yourself treats occasionally), and move around.

Another mistake is that we don't involve God in our weight loss efforts. Typically, we would be quick to pray if the doctor told us we had a tumor. But, why don't we pray for strength to lose weight? We seem to forget that God wants to be involved in all facets of our lives.

Anyway, I'd love to hear what others think about this subject.

[Peppermill]

Dr. Rita -- if you put the tags on your post, know that you need something like this to create a single tag:  Christian_and_weight_loss.

I say this because see tags like "and."  I know because I did a similar thing the first time I tagged. 

You can access your own tags on a post and change them if you like.  I'm not certain that I remember exactly how to do that, but it is something like clicking on them until you get a display that can be modified.

Your weight control concepts sound interesting and mirror aspects that I have encountered elsewhere, including the ones about moving eating to some different relationships within our lives.

After being extremely thin until well into my twenties and always being told to eat more, it is frustrating now to struggle with weight control.

Pepper

[DoctorRita]

Thanks, Pepper. I'll try to do that right now!

[DoctorRita]

Okay changing those tags was pretty easy. Thanks so much for your attention to detail in that way. That's pretty impressive. I'm not sure I would have looked at somebody else's tags like that......

So, Pepper, I can sympathize with your struggles. I, personally, have never been in a situation where I was trying to GAIN weight, but nonetheless, I probably felt very much the same as you did when I was trying to LOSE weight and was doing it unsuccessfully. It hasn't always been easy for me. At one point, back in college, after I had lost all that weight and went off to Cornell to study nutrition, obesity, and weight control, I got so bogged down in what the scientific community (nutritionists) were preaching, that it messed me up even more and I ate compulsively (bingeing or dieting, but never eating "normally." )

Deep down, I believe most all of the eating or body-image related disorders are fundamentally the same. 1. We feel bad about how we look. 2. We try to over-control or fixate on how or what or when we eat to fix the problem. 3. Our attempts to over-control generally don't work so we feel worse. 4. From a spiritual point of view, fixating our thoughts on food and body image distracts us from God. 5. All of this is done with a frame of mind that excludes or fails to invite God into the mix. 6. Satan wins because he distracts us from God and therefore we cannot achieve our greater purpose in life--the purpose that God intended when He created us.

I believe the key is to stop THINKING so much and just learn to FEEL the physical signals that our body is trying to send us. In other words, we must attune to our hunger pangs and honor them by eating when we're hungry---but to eat smaller portions--of normal, not-necessarily "diet" food. Even some junk in moderation.

[Peppermill]

It's the sort of thing those of us who have been posting for awhile like being able to share with newcomers!

I am finding your posts interesting.  Thanks for them.

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DoctorRita wrote (excerpt):

Okay changing those tags was pretty easy. Thanks so much for your attention to detail in that way. That's pretty impressive. I'm not sure I would have looked at somebody else's tags like that......

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[ler2009]

Books fromthe following authors:

Dante, C.S.Lewis, Fulton Sheen, Dan Brown, Richard Stearns, Paulo Coelho, Timothy Keller, Bart D, Ehrman, Steven K. Scott, Perry Stone, Wayne Grudem, Jerry Bridges,  jus to name a few.

Anik

[Peppermill]

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ler2009 wrote:

Books fromthe following authors:

Dante, C.S.Lewis, Fulton Sheen, Dan Brown, Richard Stearns, Paulo Coelho, Timothy Keller, Bart D, Ehrman, Steven K. Scott, Perry Stone, Wayne Grudem, Jerry Bridges,  jus to name a few.

Anik

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For Dante, perhaps you would be interested in joining the discussion now on the Epics, Etc. board?

[ler2009]

Thanks Peppermill for the tip. But I really can only concentrate on one book at a time. I just started reading "A History of God" and hope to participate soon.

[steelers64]

I would like us to talk about a book that I think is very interesting its called "WHY CHRISTIANS SHOULD UNDERSTAND THE JEWISH ROOTS OF THEIR FAITH" I believe this is a subject that most people do not understand, The Author is Pastor Angelo McCutchen 

[Joseph_F]

 Hi there steelers64. Feel free to join in on the discussions, but B&N.com asks that you keep all promotion of your own book within the appropriate thread in the Community Room. Thanks!

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steelers64 wrote:
I would like us to talk about a book that I think is very interesting its called "WHY CHRISTIANS SHOULD UNDERSTAND THE JEWISH ROOTS OF THEIR FAITH" I believe this is a subject that most people do not understand, The Author is Pastor Angelo McCutchen 

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[sharee1823]

I  wanna talk about the missing books of the bible like enoch and noah

Message Edited by sharee1823 on 05-14-2009 03:03 PM

[EcclecticReader]

I finished reading He Came To Set The Captives Free.  It was...confusing.  I don't know how to interpret the book.  Has anyone else read it?  What are your views and opinions?  I don't want to critisize, I am honestly curious.  Maybe if someone could tell me what they thought, I could put the book into a less confusing perspective.