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Opinions on Richard Dawkin's books and writing style? (Avoid The God Delusion, as that's probably one of his worst books.)
In addition: How many supreme court justices does it take to be on the wrong side of history?
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He's not a writer, and it shows.
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>>7434949
I do think he's a pretty good teacher on the other hand. He simplified evolutionary biology very well in "The Greatest Show on Earth".
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>>7434960
Oh, definitely. His passion is commendable as well, especially at his age. His writings need only be eloquent enough to be easily understood, which I think they are.
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What's the dumbest opinion you've ever seen someone post on /lit/?
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>>7434164
"Muh spooks etc"
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>>7434164
time doesn't exist.
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>>7434194
prove time exists
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>Recommendations:
>Fantasy
http://vignette4.wikia.nocookie.net/4chanlit/images/a/a8/1307836551252.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20110612005642
>Sci-Fi
http://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/4chanlit/images/a/a6/Scifilit.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20100710233344
http://imgur.com/r55ODlL
>What you readin?
>What's your favorite religion from SF and Fantasy?
>What's your favorite work in these genres dealing with religion?
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>>7401096
nice try faggot i saw you post this on /mu/ you'll carry that shame with you for the rest of your life
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>>7401096
I just started Dune. All's good so far the pose isn't great. I struggle to take Sci-Fi seriously, but it still has my interest.
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>>7401096
Again with these shit lists
I have finished, just this dawn, Abercrombie's Half a War, and it's his usual fare - characterization through endless grimacing and posturing of characters, ansamble cast large enough so you can play several 'who dies next' games, stronk womyn, blackhearted rogues etc. Funny thing is, it seems he's trying to avoid stereotypes with small predictable tweaks.
Not the worst he's written, but far cry from good. Better than Martin's take on the Vikings that's for sure.
...
Again with those grimaces. Everyone pouts, winks, nods, scrubs beard, nods respectfully towards you... it's like watching R-rated Dreamworks flick, you constantly think about everyone making stupid faces.Still, those sketches are better characters than China Mieville could ever write.
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What the fuck is social ecology? Help me understand Bookchin's ideology please, I really don't know where to start here. His works are unclear and I don't understand them. Maybe because I am retarded but everything is so convoluted and quite frankly, boring.
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>>7442109
notice the guy in the back doing the same thing but twice, i wonder if it spread like a yawn.
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>social
1.relating to society or its organization.
2.needing companionship and therefore best suited to living in communities.
>ecology
Ecology (from Greek: οἶkος, "house"; -λογία, "study of") is the scientific analysis and study of interactions among organisms and their environment. It is an interdisciplinary field that includes biology and Earth science.
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>>7442122
It's not that simple. I'm talking about the political ideology.
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Was Candide a revolutionary work for the time that it was published in? It seems to me that the whole notion of ending up in the Garden doing labour to sustain yourself is the antithesis to the story of Adam and Eve, where God revoked them from the Garden, a place where they didn't have to work and everything was handed to them on a silver platter like the privileged degenerates they were.
Help me develop my thoughts /lit/
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Candide was a troll book written to prove how stupid a popular (philosophical?) theory at the time was.
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>>7442079
Nice bait
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>>7442081
>Candide is characterised by its sarcastic tone as well as by its erratic, fantastical and fast-moving plot. A picaresque novel with a story similar to that of a more serious Bildungsroman, it parodies many adventure and romance clichés, the struggles of which are caricatured in a tone that is mordantly matter-of-fact. Still, the events discussed are often based on historical happenings, such as the Seven Years' War and the 1755 Lisbon earthquake.[8] As philosophers of Voltaire's day contended with the problem of evil, so too does Candide in this short novel, albeit more directly and humorously. Voltaire ridicules religion, theologians, governments, armies, philosophies, and philosophers through allegory; most conspicuously, he assaults Leibniz and his optimism.
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Why is every popular science / philosophy figure a neuroscientist? Are they just gobbling up the easy pickings before the physicists and mathematicians put the subject out of reach forever?
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>>7442020
they're not
Dawkins is an evolutionary biologist
Hawking is a theoretical physicist
Tyson is a cosmologist
Prof Steve Jones is a geneticist
Al-Khalili is a theoretical physicist
Cox is a physicist
the only one who is a neuroscientist is Sam Harris. given this board's obsession with him, there's no surprise he's the only one you can think of to include in "every". but you really need to read more.
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OP: Mention at least 3 neuroscientists. Fuck it, mention 1 other then Sam Harris
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>>7442083
Dan Dennett.
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Hi /lit/. What's on your Christmas list. What should I get an aspiring writer?
>seasons greetings from /fit/
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>>7441982
Mine is:
>The Divine Comedy
>Kafka short stories
>Paradise Lost
>Ulysses
>The Recognitions
>Some Pynchon novels I don't already own
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Bump. Help me out guys.
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Tristam Shandy, a backup hard-drive, and some records.
Best things for a writer are good pens and a good notebook. It's crucial to write down any observations or thought that may pop into your head before they lose their original wording or quality. Also, if you're into this sort of thing, a typewriter is a neat thing to have. I know that they're a hipster meme, but as long as you don't lug one to the nearest cafe they're fun to use and (in my experience) are an enjoyable alternative to handwriting or typing into Word and staring at a screen.
Happy Holidays, senpai.
Anonymous
Joyce’s ‘Finnegans Wake’ Takes Off in China 2015-12-09 12:34:43 Post No.7441670
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Joyce’s ‘Finnegans Wake’ Takes Off in China 2015-12-09 12:34:43 Post No.7441670
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Joyce’s ‘Finnegans Wake’ Takes Off in China
Anonymous
2015-12-09 12:34:43
Post No. 7441670
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>The first, iconic sentence (“riverrun, past Eve and Adam’s, from swerve of shore to bend of bay, brings us by a commodius vicus of recirculation back to Howth Castle and Environs”) takes up three lines in Chinese but requires 17 lines of footnotes. The challenge began with the very first word: “riverrun.”
>“I have to explain every word, as well as the cultural background and the alternative meanings,” she said.
>“For example ‘riverrun’ could be ‘the river ran,’ and ‘reverend,’ and the German word ‘Erinnerung,’ ” or memory. “Because this book is about the meaning of memory and time, and why. So even the first word in the book you have to explain.”
>“About 8 out of 10 of the words I have to write footnotes,” she said.
>But the book’s mind-boggling complexity — native English speakers struggle with it and many have wondered if it was Joyce’s joke — doesn’t explain its popularity in China, where the first print run of 8,000 copies sold out within two months. Some have pointed to the way Joyce exploded hierarchy and meaning by tearing up language itself in the text when it was first published in 1939. It took 73 years to reach China in Chinese, but its message has appeal here today.
>At the end of March, the private publisher, Ni Weiguo, who has previously published Plato in Chinese, issued another 5,000 copies.
>“They’ve all gone to bookshops,” said Mr. Ni in a telephone interview. “I didn’t publish this to make money. It’s exceeded my expectations.” Why did he publish it? “I published it to give people a great book.”
>Who is buying it? “Professors, people who love modern literature and writers, all kinds of well-known writers. Translators,” he said. Many love the way it lacks a coherent narrative and plot; that shocks readers here.
>“Chinese readers are used to story and plot,” Ms. Dai said. “They want to know why this book is so important, so they try to understand it. But it’s difficult and challenging.”
http://rendezvous.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/06/14/joyces-finnegans-wake-takes-off-in-china/
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It's nice that I now understand the first word of the book, doubt I'll ever understand the rest.
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Finnegans Wake in Chinese
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>the first print run of 8,000 copies sold out within two months.
>they fell for the meme
>this guy got more pussy than you
Where do I start, with him?
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>this guy got more pussy than you
false and irrelevant, also the greeks
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It was all unconfident pussy so I don't know if it's worth it. However for prose, Ham on Rye. Poetry, The Roominghouse Madrigals.
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>>7441653
>Ham on Rye
>Post Office
>Factotum
>Women
>Hollywood
>Pulp
The sequence is not important, but this way is better, is a really good timeline.
Just don't start with Pulp or Hollywood, because it is more like resolutions of his life.
>>7441668
>false and irrelevant
Yea, he didn't get so much pussy as people think, but...
>the greeks
Surely much more than you. People like you make me sick.
There is literally no reason not to change the n-w-ord in Huckleberry Finn
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It would ruin the fun of read out loud sessions in high school classrooms
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I think the shoah shouldn't be taught in history class because it's offensive to Jews.
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>>7441480
You do realize that the use of roodypoo is to give a cultural backdrop and that the novel is anti-racist?
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>jesus' miracle birth was a result of an affair which was never proven
Which bible stories can /lit/ prove wrong with modern day knowledge
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>>7441466
Isn't the bible science fiction?
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It means Jesus' dad was a kuck.
Why is this guy considered a literary genius, exactly? It's true he had good prose, but I'd say Raymond Chandler's prose was at least equal, and he's not considered a literary genius.
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>I'd say Raymond Chandler's prose was at least equal
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>>7441193
>he's never read Raymond Chandler
Chandler's prose was patrician af desu
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i hope you meant raymond carver. and even then im pretty rustled. 10/10
>You are alone in a empty room you only have 1 item .
tell me your story
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I went into the room to play with my "item" ;)
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>>7441076
its my decency, i have come here to bury her.
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>>7441101
>decency
>female
hahaha :)
Anonymous
Define the word "God" as you see it 2015-12-09 05:19:27 Post No.7440818
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Define the word "God" as you see it
Anonymous
2015-12-09 05:19:27
Post No. 7440818
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I see God as everything that is, has been, and will be.
I don't believe in him though.
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>>7440818
the biggest meme of all
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it's dog backwards
>reminder that the western canon is the literary equivalent of the people who use "It's popular for a reason" to defend boy bands.
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yah bro i was just coming out of ap english and these tweens wouldn't shut the fuck up about finnegans wake fml
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reminder that if that were true you would recognize a lot more names in this list
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Publishers_Weekly_list_of_bestselling_novels_in_the_United_States_in_the_1910s
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De gustibus non est disputandum.
2000 years later people still argue about what people like and why.