what books are you reading?

[SWM]

what are you reading at present?  what books are you planning to read? or what have you just finished?

[Shell]

I tend to read multiple books at the same time.  Right now I am reading The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara (a novel about the civil war), Developing the Leader Within You by John Maxwell, and of course my Life Application Study Bible - I'll be reading this one forever LOL.

What are you reading, Stan?

[corwin137]

"Reinventing the Sacred: A New Vision of Science, Reason, and Religion" by Stewart Kaufman.  Here's the shorty:
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Kauffman, a complexity theorist at the University of Calgary, sets a huge task for himself in this provocative but difficult book: to find common ground between religion and science by redefining God as not a supernatural Creator but as the natural creativity in the universe. That creativity, says Kauffman, defies scientific assumptions that the biosphere's evolution and human activity can be reduced to physics and are fully governed by natural laws. Kauffman (At Home in the Universe) espouses emergence, the theory of how complex systems self-organize into entities that are far more than the sum of their parts. To bolster the idea of this ceaselessly creative and unpredictable nature, Kauffman draws examples from the biosphere, neurobiology and economics. His definition of God as the fully natural, awesome, creativity that surrounds us is unlikely to convince those with a more traditional take on religion. Similarly, Kauffman's detailed discussions of quantum mechanics to explain emergence are apt to lose all but the most technically inclined readers. Nonetheless, Kauffman raises important questions about the self-organizing potential of natural systems that deserve serious consideration. (May)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Product Description
Consider the woven integrated complexity of a living cell after 3.8 billion years of evolution. Is it more awe-inspiring to suppose that a transcendent God fashioned the cell, or to consider that the living organism was created by the evolving biosphere? As the eminent complexity theorist Stuart Kauffman explains in this ambitious and groundbreaking new book, people who do not believe in God have largely lost their sense of the sacred and the deep human legitimacy of our inherited spirituality. For those who believe in a Creator God, no science will ever disprove that belief. In Reinventing the Sacred, Kauffman argues that the science of complexity provides a way to move beyond reductionist science to something new: a unified culture where we see God in the creativity of the universe, biosphere, and humanity. Kauffman explains that the ceaseless natural creativity of the world can be a profound source of meaning, wonder, and further grounding of our place in the universe. His theory carries with it a new ethic for an emerging civilization and a reinterpretation of the divine. He asserts that we are impelled by the imperative of life itself to live with faith and courage-and the fact that we do so is indeed sublime. Reinventing the Sacred will change the way we all think about the evolution of humanity, the universe, faith, and reason.

Linky:
http://www.amazon.com/Reinventing-Sacred-Science-Reason-Religion/dp/0465003001/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1222448584&sr=8-1

[SWM]

i have terrible reading habits. i start too many books that i dont finish. and i collect books from everywhere that i dont start.

i recently started a book called "essential psychology" by R.B.Burns the book is a basic introduction to psychology for health care professionals. i picked up from our bookshelf in work as i wanted to brush up on my psychology. so far the book has proved to be well thought out but it is not intellectually stimulating.

i picked up a book on tuesday this week from oxfam (i get loads of my books from oxfam and other charity shops) i have read the introduction and it looks much more interesting than the book above.

it is called "essential papers on psychosis" by a selection of authors edited by Peter Buckley, M.D.

here is a quote from the introduction which is quote from Daniel Schreber "memoirs of my nervous illness"

In consequence of my ever increasing nervousness and the resulting increasing power of attraction, an ever growing number of departed souls felt attracted to me - primarily those who may have retained some special interest in me because of personal contacts with me during their life - and then dissolved on my head or in my body. This process frequently ended with the souls concerned finally leading a short existence on my head in the form of  “little men” - tiny figures in human form, perhaps only a few millimetres in height - before finally vanishing … I suppose that these souls, when they first approached me, still possessed some a fairly strong awareness of their identity. Each time they approached me they lost part of their nerves in favour of my body through the power of attraction; finally they consisted of only one single nerve, which for some mysterious reason not further explicable assumed the form of a “little man” in the above sense. This was the form of existence of these souls before they vanished completely…….

Connected with these phenomena, very early on there predominated in recurrent nightly visions the notion of an approaching end of the world, as a consequence of the indissoluble connection between God and myself. Bad news came in from all sides that even this or that group of stars had to be “given up”; at one time it was said that even Venus had been “flooded”, a t another that the whole solar system would now have to be “disconnected”, that the Cassiopeia (the whole of group of stars) had had to be drawn together into a single sun, that perhaps only the Pleiades  could still be saved, etc., etc. While I had these visions at night, in daytime I thought I could notice the sun following my movements; when I moved to and fro in the single windowed room I inhabited at the time, I saw the sunlight now on the right now on the left wall (as seen from the door) depending on my movements…

From the sum total of my recollections, the impression gained hold of me that the period in question, which, according to human calculation, stretched over only three to four months, had covered an immensely long period; it was as if single nights had the duration of centuries, so that within that time the most profound alterations in the whole of mankind, in the earth itself and the whole solar system could very well have taken place.

since reading this i have decided i would like to read the book that this quote was taken from.

i am being shouted at now for spending too much time here.... i'll come back soon

[S. Earl Martin]

Can I cheat? I am rereading a book I wrote. It is called Logical Man by S. Earl Martin. It is a science Fiction/ furturistic story about the current and near future. I started it back in the mid 70's and am suprised how reality became very similar to how I wrote about it in the book. I wrote about PC's and computers controlling more of peoples lives and other things that at the time were just ideas. I didn't realize they would actually become a part of life as much as they have. It is avalible on Amazon. If this is out of line?  Sorry. Earl