I think the historical context also has value just because I think, in our modern age, there's a tendency to dismiss the intellectual achievements of our forebearers. To think that humanity in the past made mistakes just because they were dumb. Which is dangerous, because these mistakes tend to repeat themselves. I think reading these older books can give you an appreciation for not just what's changed with humanity, but what's stayed the same too and I think that can be very valuable indeed.

So ponderous maybe, but I don't think it's a pretentious list. I think there's real value there.

Not a bad selection imo, though I would have thrown in the Torah/Koran as well as the bible to inform you of all the major religions and differences. And maybe remove Art of War for a maths primer like Euclid's Elements or somthing.

-Richard Feynman Lectures on Physics - religion

-Donald Knuth Art of Computer Programming - I can fuck around with manuals, other text books, but when I come to read the explanation of a particular concept in TAOCP, I always realise "this is the path of least resistance to understanding X" & then that scares me, because there is so much to know & it's really hard to understand anything well.

-William James The Varieties of Religious Experience For those that deny the possibility of spiritual experience within a naturalistic world view. A lot of atheism that is public today misses empathy with religious experience.

-Martin Gardner's articles

-Douglas Hofstadter - Godel, Escher, Bach & Le Ton Beau De Marot - for those that enjoy spending all day thinking about logic & languages (hello programmers) these two books are romantic pulp - you know you shouldn't be reading them, they are so hopelessly impractical, lofty & philosophical.

-Friedrich Nietzsche - The Gay Science - because it will infuriate people who are adverse to the sort of thinking you see in the humanities and they deserve to be enraged by this book. If you have an ethical system, think you can tell good from bad, right from wrong, read this book. Acid for the normative.

- C.S.Peirce's notebooks - This hasn't been published in its completeness but deserves to be (I just hope saying this here doesn't mean I'll never be able to find a copy of some of his notes again). Another tragic of history that has been looked over in much the same manner as Tesla. Peirce figured out electrical gates could be used to implement boolean logic 50 years before Shannon, axiomatised the natural numbers before Peano, made the distinction of cardinal and ordinal before Cantor & nobody knows who he fucking was because he was a chemist. What else is in his books that we haven't managed to recognise the significance of yet?

The 1769 Authorized Version (what you'll surely get if you just buy a KJV Bible) is very readable, the language is beautiful (and, in my opinion, enjoyable) and you'll appreciate your books much more.

Even the first words of the Bible "In the beginning" are a mistranslation (though that mistranslation occurred thousands of years before the KJV and was a result of written Hebrew omitting vowels or something).

However, like it or not, all of the KJV's mistranslations are much more influential than the original - and most influential of all is its phrasing and choice of vocabulary.

I suppose what you focus on depends on what you want to get from it. If you're interested in understanding how the Bible's influenced our language and literature, I'd go KJV all the way. If you want to grapple with spiritual and theological issues, that's a different story.

I'll bump your Feynman Lectures (watch the videos), and add everything else (his books). Even laypersons can understand him.

Feynman wrote some lectures on computation too which has some gems in it. http://books.google.com/books/about/Feynman_Lectures_On_Comp...

I will try your William James The Varieties of Religious Experience. I feel it is one of the problems that works against a wider adoption or acceptance of atheism that there is no "community"

I keep trying to finish Pepy's Diary, but so far I've failed. http://www.pepysdiary.com/

With regard to The Prince, I was advised that there are many translations and most are not done well. YMMV. Unfortunately, I can't remember which one my philosopher friend recommended.

The sub-books that involve lists of Jewish laws can be a little dull too, though some of the laws I'll admit are pretty funny.

It's like reading a Shakespearean play for me. The stories might be interesting, but a lot of the time it's hard to understand what is actually going on, and what's going through the actors' heads.

In particular, I think that every single American should have to read Common Sense first in high school, and then annually as a part of registration process for voting (Along with the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights.)

I also happen to think that the Age of Reason is one of the most brilliant pieces of writing the world has ever seen.

I can +1 GEB the stories sections are just brilliant (entire content is great of course)

Aldous Huxley, "The doors of perception". Warning: it's debunking the experience. Just as modern science starts to explain (and reproduce) why/how people are seeing "the light at the end of a dark tunnel" when they have near-death experience.

Let say it puts many things into perspective.

Btw I'm not an atheist, I'm more of a militant agnostic in the: "I don't know, and you don't either" style ; )

Regarding atheists lacking empathy: for centuries atheists have been tracked down and exterminated and there are still religious people, today, calling them atheists "disciples of Satan" and calling for their extermination.

So at least give them some credit if they lack "empathy" with those that have relentlessly been purchasing them.

What an odd statement. Confidence levels are nearly never 100%. Taking the position that because one can never make a 100% claim, that all possibilities are of equal probability - that's sort of a useless position to have as it can apply to nearly any statement. See also: Russell's teapot, invisible pink unicorns.

1: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russells_teapot 2: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invisible_Pink_Unicorn

The squabbling about non-theistic definitions is stupidly pointless. Come on guys, we're all not theists here!

> So at least give them some credit if they lack "empathy" with those that have relentlessly been purchasing them.

For me, lack of empathy stems always from ignorance and a lack of understanding: it is literally when we look at somebody else and remain unaware that their life, their choices, their feelings, are exactly equally human to our own. For a long, long time, it was assumed that God was the only way to reach empathy or grace, and that atheists were directly rejecting humanity's only means of salvation. That was a gross failure on the part of the religious. Most religions teach humility and doubt as the fundamental values of humanity (and damn are those good values), so it's always funny when religious people seem incapable of doubting their own virtue.

So yeah. Atheistic criticisms of religious people come from a logical place. But I think what critics of the anti-theist movements point out is that to deny religion any value, to reduce it to something as simple as "invisible sky people" and "an excuse not to think for yourself" and then to assume that all religious people are brainwashed morons, is itself a gross misunderstanding of the origins of faith, of how deep a religion's teachings can go, of the purpose of theology in the first place.

It's well-known that many brilliant scientists and mathematicians in history were religious. Coincidence? Accident of religion being dominant at the times? Well, no; there have always been atheists, and a surprising number of them too if you've only heard modern rhetoric. Rather, religion (and theology) is the practice of understanding our place within something vast and enormous and, yes, uncaring. We are specks of dust within specks of dust – does this mean our lives have no value? Does this mean there is no such thing as morality, as kindness, as working at something greater? Every religion values an individual as important, tells you that yes, you do matter, even if only to yourself and your extended community, and then it tries to help you understand what it means that you're so small in such a large, chaotic world.

In researching the project I've been working on for the past two years, I found that at some point simply studying the subject matter directly wasn't yielding me very good results. I turned to a number of other fields to help me understand my material, but theological books were, surprisingly to me, among the most helpful. They spoke directly of the ways in which we relate to each other, and the reasons why our connecting to one another is more important when the world is so vast and enormous. It was a way of looking at the world that not even philosophers address quite so directly. So for that, I am incredibly grateful.

Plenty of religious people are hells of confused about what they believe. There's a lot of shit out there masquerading as holy. But the good parts of religion still remain, and people who find they need religion in their lives, or that they do believe in some kind of God, are not weak, are not fools. Some of the smartest people I know are religious, and their religion makes them more insightful. And seeing as you can hate religious ignorance or bigotry without hating religion as an institution, there's no reason to conflate the one with the other. Most of the atheists I know who truly think religion has no purpose whatsoever simply don't understand religion, and know they don't understand it, and are proud of not understanding it. That's a stupid way to be, and no amount of "atheists are persecuted" excuses such a lack of empathy.

I would wager that most atheists are not that extreme. They were brought up and now live in a world seeped with religion. Those that live in areas where religion is repressive learn to hide it while those in the developed world (especially the US) usually have to adapt. Likewise much of the people in the US have no problem with atheists. Many will be confused or question your decision, maybe be a bit condescending, but few will be spiteful. Atheists make up 14% of the population. They may be concentrated in the West and East but they are nonetheless everywhere. I know many Christian families that grew when one of their family members came out as an atheist and they had to deal with an entirely different world view (and often a different view on knowledge and faith), even if it was in the teen rebellion stage of atheism.

I know many extreme atheists and even they dont lack empathy for the religious or their religion. They're extremist because (this is my hypothesis based on nothing more than self reflection) atheists see the possibility for the same fulfillment, morality, and answers in a different world view, one that is largely naturalistic and does not come with the "moral baggage" of ancient (and largely static) religions and philosophies. This view, however, is shared by relatively few people, seemingly in growing numbers, and the few have to be vocal.

Additionally the classics carry context, which may or may not be obvious. Here the most obvious example from the list is Adam Smith, who did not write about abstract global markets, as the term is used today, but he did write about a collection of market stalls. Similarly, his thought about government and regulation was informed by his times, the first edition appeared in 1776, the same year as the declaration of independence and thirteen years before the French revolution. So Adam Smith did never write about a modern nation, with formal representation and a process for the transition of power, but he did write about a late feudal society, in which the political power was held by an unchecked former warrior elite.

[ The above does not mean that I am against reading classics, in fact quite the opposite. The problem is just, that trying to get an important idea x, then you should probably read "A modern introduction to x," not the classical book where it first appeared, in an convoluted way embedded into some discussion at that time.]

Take Wealth Of Nations' insidious creation myth of markets, downplaying government policy in favor of barter myths. To someone like Neal Degrasse Tyson, raised in that mythology, it seems plausible that such a human social arrangement is in fact a force of nature. But if you read Graeber's Debt: the First 5000 Years, or maybe even Chomsky's Understanding Power, the myths get deflated. (http://www.zcommunications.org/debt-slavery-and-our-idea-of-...)

(Though I suppose with capitalism's negative externalities which threaten to turn the Earth into another Venus, maybe there is no significant distinction between it and a force of nature...)

On the one hand, there's a view that history and the world we live in is a monstrous construct, the brilliant triumph of an elaborate, ruthless and flawlessly clandestine scheme orchestrated by generation upon generation of secret master minds.

The alternative is that history is just one damn thing after the other. A complex system for which "it was caused by Secret Masters!" is a pisspoor explanation. Whether you blame it on the capitalist class, Ascended Masters or Jews, it's all the same. It's weak.

I take Chomsky about as seriously as I take any other species of conspiratard (Illuminutties, birthers, truthers, Adam Curtis ... all the same to me).

Good luck fighting the good fight, comrade. Workers of all countries, unite to read this tedious sophomoric drivel and march in pointless rent-a-crowd parades against vague notions!

Yes, saying this is likely to rile up some Dawkins defenders, but then I've proven my point, the issues it discusses are not dry the way that pages and pages of evidence presented for an argument you already accept the conclusion of is.

But I shouldn't really speak, I barely read these days.

If your reaction to reading The Prince, for example, is to go off and read other historical analysis of the many obscure conflicts he references, and discussions of the extent to which certain comments may have been intended as satire, then it might make a stimulating starting point for study. If you're simply looking to gain insight into the motivations of people in power, then you'd be better off reading an article-length summary of his key points and prioritising on to short-form content about Westphalian states and the limitations of democratic processes. Ultimately, you'll learn more relevant lessons from that than you would from Machiavellian observations on the castle of Milan causing more trouble for the Sforzas than it saves or the susceptibility of the Spaniards to cavalry and the Switzers to close combat.

If you want to learn about markets, capitalism and pricing, then economists of all stripes will agree that the Wealth of Nations is commendably broad and readable but very outdated in its examples; many of the features of modern capitalism and the entire theories behind modern anticapitalism simply hadn't been invented then. If you want to learn that "capitalism is an economy of greed, a force of nature unto itself", it's a strange, rather agrarian-focused introduction that won't give you any insight into modern debates about welfare or Wall Street.

Capitalism is fueled by the inclination of people to reduce uncertainty about the future by owning a lot privately. This inclination is so strong it can be compared to a force of nature. This has important consequences for how to deal with capitalism. See my more extensive comment here: http://www.giantfreakinrobot.com/sci/neil-degrasse-tyson-sug...

An obtuse comment considering he's a leading scientist.

To call capitalism an 'economy of greed' isn't without merit. After all raw capitalism is about survival of the fittest where only the strong survive and the weak perish, if it were not for the philanthropy of others.

I think the great thing about reading Adam Smith is how seriously misunderstood his works are. For example, people cite Adam Smith as one who believed in no social safety net, taxes and zero regulation.

This is simply not true and if you think it is you should go back and read the book that you clearly have not read.

While he recommended the necessity of basic state institutions, I think would be a reach to say that he would justify the whole of the modern state, as some people nowadays try to imply. He'd probably be considered thoroughly minimalist by today's standards.

Smith's most important contribution was popularising the observation that greed can lead to positive outcomes, so long as it is hedged with some carefully chosen rules. It's inevitable, so there's no much point getting upset about it. Why not turn it to largely positive ends?

He wasn't first. Bernard de Mandeville was well ahead of him with The Fable of the Bees.

I found Hayek enlightening to read: http://chester.id.au/2012/12/07/review-the-essence-of-hayek-...

> An obtuse comment considering he's a leading scientist.

So what? Since when being recognized in one field makes you competent in another? A widespread fallacy.

And meanwhile, it has systematized the misery and starvation of millions and billions of people itself, while – cruelly – being so opportunistic, so seemingly advantageous to the resourceful individual, that it teaches us to despise those who suffer, to see them as somehow beneath us. The contempt that was once the property of those few at the very, very top has become democratized, so that we may all join in in feeling it.

I'm not purely anti-capitalist, but your dismissal of the possibility that capitalism could have possibly done anything as horribly wrong to the world as its critics claim is pretty one-dimensional itself. There's a good argument to be made that capitalism hand-in-hand with the mass-production mindset of the Industrial Revolution led to a society in which the value of individuals is reduced rather than enhanced, and that this is one of the central crises of the 20th and early 21st centuries. Your abrupt dismissal of that possibility doesn't make it go away; it just makes you seem like you don't know what you're talking about.

Yet you write this on a computer, a smartphone or a tablet, which has been provided to you at a very low, affordable price thanks to this capitalistic model you seem to despise. And you are the one who is accusing me of not knowing what I am talking about.

Yeah, my computer's a result of that capitalistic model. That computer was made in a factory that attracted a lot of controversy for having working conditions so poor that employees literally killed themselves. That factory is the result of a line of thinking that dates back to Henry Ford, which is: let's find exactly the price that we can pay people to get them doing monotonous, soul-deadening work for eight to sixteen hours a day without them walking out. And the more these factories become the norm, the less we'll have to pay, because the fewer other places they can go.

What amuses me about this is that I am not a radical critic of capitalism. As far as people who think capitalism's less than perfect goes, I am so far along being okay with capitalism that my radical friends make fun of me for it. Your treating me like I'm some idiot who doesn't know the first thing about history suggests you haven't had many conversations about this, because trust me, nothing I'm saying is controversial in the least.

The way I see it, capitalism is a very sensible model for creating new things, for innovating, for encouraging systematic change in the directions of optimization and consumer satisfaction. But this model is only as effective, basically, as the freedoms which you're given within it – same as any system, right? In capitalism, the biggest threat is basically that those with the means of production and wealth hold all the reins, and they can inflict horrible suffering upon lots of people without punishment. I'm not just talking about paying people cruel wages to work at factories – I'm talking TV networks producing terrible bottom-of-the-rung shows, and opposing competition from cable networks who'd like to offer quality programming. Or a music industry that is so determined to squeeze as much money as possible out of super-celebrity bands that it's hurt the ability of smaller, local bands to support themselves. The scale at which mass production operates is literally inhuman: that is, it is so large that we are mentally incapable of processing it without a whole lot of effort. And because of that, it's led to a lot of nastiness that's hurt a bunch of people, not even because the people inflicting the pain are evil, but because they can't comprehend the extent of their actions. And, of course, they have incentives to look only at the good their actions create, and not at all at the bad – much like you with your silly "YOU USE COMPUTERS TOO" argument.

Now, the reason I'm not a radical anarchist like some of my friends is that I feel people attempting to revise capitalism can still achieve something from within the system. I also think that capitalism is better enough than the old alternatives that its shittiness can be, not forgiven, but understood within the greater historical context. My radical friends would disagree with this: they'd argue that enough freedom was lost in the 20th century that we're worse off now than ever before. I suspect they're wrong. They'd also argue that capitalism cannot be fixed without outright revolution – I disagree with that too. But I think it's pretty obvious that "capitalism unto itself" is an outdated economic model with some blatant flaws, and that we'll see the world slowly adopting more humane systems. And again, this is not a controversial thought except among those who've rationalized the deaths and sufferings of all the people who go into making this comfortable system for we lucky few.

I'm conflicted about how stuck I am with the system that currently exists, about how little alternative I have. I hope that tech manufacturers figure out a way to offer me good products with much less human suffering behind their manufacturing; I'd pay a premium for that, in fact. And capitalism allows for that too, so I can criticize the state of our capitalist world today without rejecting capitalism outright and going to live in the woods. I like civilization. I just happen to think that capitalism is not quite so civilized as you'd like to believe it is for convenience's sake.

To me, economics is purely a system of wealth creation and the regulation, or lack there of, of that wealth. I see it as an amoral system. I don't see a society of capitalism and a society of everybody making sure that everybody else is taken care of as mutually exclusive.

Morality is influenced by a wide wide wide variety of isms, movements, culture, media, technology, population size, and famous people. The economic model of a society is certainly one of them but by no means the only issue that matters. I think this can be proven by tracing the moral compasses of various societies whose economic model has stayed roughly the same over a period of say 100 years but morality of the society has drastically changed.

I wish I could say that technology start-ups are exempt from this, that we enlightened bunch are nice enough and smart enough that we do capitalism right, and there are a bunch of tech companies that really do some great things for employees and charity and that try to minimize suffering. Unfortunately, even among start-ups you have some instances of awful jackassery, and even among the tech legends there is some less-than-good stuff happening. Amazon in particular has notoriously bad warehouse policies, and I've heard reports that even the higher-up employees are routinely treated like shit. There is a culture wherein we expect start-up people to undergo excruciating hours and a lot of stress for even the hope of success, and while I understand why that culture exists, I also think it's not especially healthy that we consider this process to be the norm. There are some people who truly do thrive under such pressure, but there are plenty others who are smart and hard-working and have good ideas who are either crushed by that process, or who are too intimidated by it to try working within it, and that's less than good.

Some things capitalism does are great, and I suspect that they'll remain great as we slowly reform society. But the system as-is is too problematic in too many ways for me to excuse them all, or to forgive capitalism's flaws which allowed this.

So has Stalin!!![1]

I am not sure you are aware of the precious, precious ambiguity in your use of the idiom "putting someone out of their misery"...

http://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/put+out+of+misery

[1]: Tell me, is what I wrote positive or negative? Either way, I'm sure Capitalism did!

To me, the root cause is ... us. As Pogo (Walt Kelly) famously said, "We have met the enemy... and he is us":

http://www.igopogo.com/we_have_met.htm

So let me ask you this: What are the top 10 essential reads of today for helping one develop a critical mind and a better understanding of the world around them?

V.S. Naipaul - Among the Believers. A collection of vignettes about Islam in non-Arab countries.

Reza Aslan - No God But God, Beyond Fundamentalism. A non boring history of Islam. An explanation of the difference between jihadic and nationalistic movements in Islam.

Deer Hunting With Jesus - Joe Bageant. Why poor white Americans vote Republican.

Robert D. Kaplan - Imperial Grunts, Hog Pilots, Monsoon, Revenge of Geography. First two are a look into the current state of deployed US Military. Monsoon is about the importance of the Indian Ocean area, and Revenge of Geography is about the importance of geography in shaping geopolitics.

John McPhee - Annals of the Former World. History of North America from a geological perspective.

I personally like to read books from people who predicted things before they happened and try to understand their mindset.

Understanding finance...

One may not like its writing style but Nicolas Nassim Taleb's "The Black Swan" helped me understand how finance was indeed the crumbs of capitalism that Buffet hates.

Understanding economy...

Another one I love --but it's in french-- is Charles Gave. That economist (definitely not mainstream) did write, in 1999, that the introduction of the common currency in Europe (the Euro) would lead to: "Too many houses in Spain, too many industries in Germany and too many public servants in France. That Spain was going to state default, followed by Greece".

So he got the order wrong about Greece (which already default a first time and which is going to default again) and Spain, but besides that he was spot on.

And you cannot say: "If you take enough economists, one of them is going to predict the future". Because here the prediction was way too precise to be sheer luck. He did explain the precise mechanisms that would lead to that situation (and he did bet his money accordingly and made millions).

Basically after reading that you understand how wrong the Keynes school is and how Krugman totally lost it (yeah, let's mill a $1 trillion coin... Why not mill 26 of them and be done with the public debt right!?).

There are going to be more state defaults in Europe (it's not even opened up for debate), starting with Greece which is going to default again. There's going to either severe inflation or partial state default in the U.S. too unless public spendings are dramatically brought down. No way out.

I'd suggest not to read from people explaining the past or the present. It's not interesting. It's more interesting to take out older writings explaining what's going to happen in the future and why. People able to do that are the most critical thinkers ever.

These writers often use an aggressive tone but you have to bear with it: these people are right and they know it and hardly anyone is listening to them.

I would suggest you read some Krugman ( or Keynes), the entire point of the $1 trillion as opposed to $26 trillion is, that the government owes roughly $1 trillion to itself. So you do not change anything, the coin is just to get around a law that is there to pretend that money is essentially the same stuff for a government as it is for a private citizen.

Love him or hate him Bernanke is a real student of that era and here is a quote (from wikipedia, didn't do a background check on accuracy) "On September 2, 2010, Chairman of the Federal Reserve Ben Bernanke was asked by the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission what books or academic papers he would recommend to understand the financial crisis of 2007–2010. The only book that Bernanke recommended was Lords of Finance."

And the $1 trillion coin was a legal hack, nothing more.

[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Prince#Interpretation_of_Th...

I have to say that surprisingly, I have lost all respect for Plato after reading Crito (It's Plato's take on what Socrates' reasons for not escaping his execution.) It contains the most illogical, oversimplified, flat-out erroneous thought processes I've ever encountered. If Crito is an accurate representation of Socrates' philosophy, I have to question the intelligence of anyone who felt that he was "wise."

I was pretty dissapointed by this, because I enjoyed some of Plato's other writings.

I do happen to agree that the Iliad is far superior to the quality of writing found in the bible.

Tens of Thousands of top notch literary critics, philosophers and intellectuals beg to differ...

If we want to talk about importance then that is another story, but merely on the quality of writing there is hardly a comparison between the two.

"The Bible" is a curated though disorganized collection of confused and contradictory prose and poetry, many of which were evolved rather than written, filled with massive sections of irrelevant tedium (Have you read Numbers? I mean honestly...). Together it only forms a cohesive work with logic-defying "interpretation".

The King James translation has literary importance for it's influence on the English language, and the collection in general obviously has immense historic importance, but other than that? Yeah... no.

On the other-hand the Iliad is a masterpiece of epic poetry and a fine example of writing by all standards. No excuses need to be made for it, and that really is the most telling thing to realize.

But honestly, yeah, the Bible is the poorest written fiction I've ever not finished reading. It's not even worth the paper as a religious reference, surprisingly. Maybe reading something like Norman Cohn's "The Pursuit of the Millenium" would be more useful for someone wanting to understand (more deeper) christianity, though it's quite a heavyweight. And I understand Feuerbach's "Essence of Christianity" is a classic, though I'm yet to read it.

I think my favorite anecdote about the importance of translation comes from Jack Miles and is about the Book of Job. Translated the King James way, at the end of Job God reveals himself and Job says something like, "I know that you can do all things, and that I am an ignorant muddler before you. Now that I can see you truly, I despise myself and repent." So the story ends, basically, with Job saying that God is too big and awesome for him to comprehend, and that he is not worthy, he is not worthy!

But Miles argues that the original passage is cleverer and more word-play-y than the popular translation gives it credit for. He puts forth a far more fascinating translation, which paraphrased is something like: "You know you can do anything. Nobody can stop you. You think I'm ignorant, and scold me for talking of things beyond my comprehension. But now that I have seen you for myself, I shudder in sorrow for mortal clay." He judges God and finds him wanting. And God restores his money and good health, and then for the rest of the Old Testament, he falls silent. Nobody else speaks with God throughout that chronological narrative.

When God does show up again, it's as Jesus – a vessel through which God can experience human suffering for himself and try to redeem it, rather than merely judging it. And as Christ he allows himself to undergo even worse pain than he inflicted upon Job, in the hopes that mankind might one day rise above that suffering.

The Bible is a much smarter and better book than it's given credit for, both by atheists and Christians alike. In the hands of somebody insightful and informed, it is wise as fuck, and thought-provoking as anything. (It's no Bhagavad Gita, but then nothing's as wonderful as the Bhagavad Gita.) In the hands of somebody either trying to read it as a narrative that will somehow explain the existence of God, or, worse, as a series of rules for living that God gave us, it's dull and ponderous, but don't let the yahoos ruin a good thing. The day we respect the Bible as the slippery and subtle book that it is is the day religious fundamentalism will no longer have an excuse for being.

I'm a little biased here, but if you want to explore the religious content of the Bible, just chuck out the Bible and go to Jewish commentaries on the Torah and Tanakh. Plaut's 'The Torah: A Modern Commentary' and Lieber's 'Etz Hayim' are good places to start.

So it comes down to, read your favorite author and believe what you want. Which is not going to go down well with a lot of people.

It's like watching Futurama without a pop science level of familiarity with physics, maths and so on.

Though it's a tangent: I'm curious about why it has received this many upvotes?

Sometimes this is good, and allows controversial opinions to hit the top of HN; other times we get the Reddit effect, and short, fluffy pieces rise to the top instead of longer posts that might take longer to read, assess, and upvote.

I find the set-up kind of ironic, because when I first joined HN I was a college freshman who posted some fairly fluff things I'd written in the hopes that people would read it and get to know me. Now that I'm working on more interesting things, I don't think I'll be bothering to submit them here, simply because I doubt they're quite easy enough to receive votes. All in all, I don't think it's that the system's broken – like I said, this allows controversial pieces to still hit the top – but it's a downside to the way HN handles voting that cannot easily be avoided.

It also is on http://books.google.nl/books/about/The_Mathematical_Principl..., but 'not yet available in your country' for me, so I don't know whether that is good.

There is a free ePub on the iBookstore in the original Latin (also a paid one in English)

If you read anything by Newton, I would advise Opticks, by the way, to learn that, even for geniuses, it is all hard work to get there (TL;DR version: he did not order his lenses on the Internet and needed the sun (in England) for lots of his experiments)

A human's relationship to being a yahoo is like a car's relationship to running off the road. Right now, deliberate steering is required. Also, it seems that one day soon, this will be automated.

I have a history degree and that list more or less represents some of the required reading for an undergraduate history program.

Voltaire's Bastards: The Dictatorship of Reason in the West by John Ralston Saul a critical essay of how the age of reason was distorted to trample all over modern democracy