(Part 3) Reddit mentions: The best religion & spirituality books

Just to start off, its shabbos in much of the world so you won't get so many responses for a bit.

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Lots and lots of people grew up with some Jewish identity, didn't do much, and later became religious. Seriously, its a whole movement. Of course everyone's situation is unique, but you aren't the first to struggle with this kinda thing. Thankfully, that has meant a ton of books and resources for people in your shoes, who want to learn more and do more but didn't grow up with it. Some of the biggest resources online are Aish and Chabad, I just found NJOP but it doesn't have as much on the site.

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Now, as you know, the first step is to find a synagogue. I'd recommend looking for a Chabad or a young adults organization like a Young Jewish Professionals type of thing. They will have lots of classes for people from all sorts of backgrounds and will be super happy to help you find good resources, to teach you, etc. Chabad especially is everywhere, the joke is that only Coca-Cola and Chabad are worldwide. Next weekend is actually The Shabbos Project, which brings together people from all sorts of background to do a shabbos in a community. Actually one of these helped me really finalize my decision to become religious. And there are people here from all over who can recommend places.

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So there are lots of basic books out there. One thing I would definitely recommend is to get a Chumash, I'd recommend the Stone Edition since its the most common but the Steinsaltz one also came out recently. A Chumash has the whole Torah and the Haftorot (the section from the Prophets read in synagogues every shabbos) with commentaries. Both the ones I linked have stuff from all sorts of commentators that help explain the text. One section of Torah is read every week on shabbos, so it makes for a great reading guide.

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A good beginner book is To Be a Jew by Rabbi Hayim HeLevy Dovin. That one is absolutely classic. He also has another one, To Pray as a Jew, that's also excellent. Rabbi Joseph Telushkin also has a great one, Jewish Literacy, that goes through everything from Bible stories and characters to Jewish historical figures and writings. R' Teluskhin has tons of good stuff, I also have his A Code of Jewish Ethics, Jewish Wisdom, and a daily study book The Book of Jewish Values, they are all great learning resources. I'd also recommend Exploring Jewish Tradition, it really gets to the basics of Jewish practices. The 'Jewish Book of Why' set is also good, there are two volumes. There's no need to dive full on into halacha (Jewish law) and like books on Talmud right away, take the basics and then explore what is interesting to you. People sometimes burn out if they try too much too quick, but others love to just jump in full on and learn a bunch really quick (I'm the second but know people in the first category, both are totally ok ways to be).

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If there is any specific thing you would like to read more about, I can recommend more stuff after shabbos. Its only been a year since I decided to become religious so I know the position you are in. And if you have any questions, there are lots of great resources online and lots of knowledgeable people here. Of course, as I'm sure your mother can attest, there are unhealthy Jewish communities. But I firmly believe for every bad one there are far more great ones. I'm pretty new to it but the couple places I have been are both very welcoming and I have made friends from most of the major areas. It does not have to be suffocating, and there's nothing wrong with learning and doing more at your own pace. If its ever too much, slow down and reassess before jumping in further. If you listen to what your neshama (soul) is saying it'll guide you right!

I've been studying Tarot and western mysticism for over 2 decades. My recommendation is that you ignore all the fancy decks out there and pick up some version of the Rider-Waite. It isn't the prettiest, but it's the one that almost EVERY deck for the past 100 years has been based on. If you can read a Rider-Waite, then you can read anything. Someone suggested the Marseille deck (of which there were a few from the 18th c. onwards), but I wouldn't recommend starting out with an older style deck like that. Older decks (Marseille, JJ Swiss, Visconti-Sforza etc.) were designed for Game Play - NOT divination. They don't have handy titles or pictures on the minor arcana (number/suit/pip cards).

Some decks you might consider:

Standard Rider-Waite. Can't get any easier than this.

Quick and Easy Tarot. This one has the meanings printed right on the cards! Easy to learn from, and based on Rider-Waite.

Golden Dawn tarot. This one was my favorite for a while. The colors are nicer than Rider-Waite, but it's still a traditional deck, and all the cards have titles and additional symbolism (Astrological/Qabalistic) so they're easier to read and remember.

B.O.T.A. deck. This one comes in black-and-white. You're supposed to color your own cards! I've used the link that includes the book with coloring instructions/descriptions. You can buy the cards by themselves here. Following the traditional (Qabalistic) color scheme and coloring your own (with markers, colored pencils, or maybe watercolors) will help you learn and remember them better.

Regarding the influence of Qabalah on modern decks, it's VERY hard to find a modern deck without it. A.E. Waite was a member of the Golden Dawn (19th c. Hermetic order), and they're largely responsible for the popular appeal of modern Qabalah-influenced decks. They drew on several 18th-19th c. sources (Levi, Etteilla, Court de Gebelin etc.) and put it all together into the tarot we know and use today.

Some books that may be helpful:

Mystical Origins of the Tarot. This is a very good book that talks about the history of the cards, all the way back to the 14th c. Extremely insightful. You can read this on Scribd, btw.

Qabalistic Tarot. The best book on how modern tarot fits onto the Tree of Life, and how the symbolism describes states of consciousness and aspects of Qabalah. When you're ready to scratch below the surface and use your cards for meditation, this book will help you.

This may be a good book to help you get started. I haven't read it, but it gets good reviews.

Related-topic: if you enjoy playing cards, I highly recommend trying out the traditional Tarot games that make use of either modern French or German style decks (which look like modified normal playing cards with extra cards) or older decks such as the JJ Swiss, Marseille, or even Lo Scarabeo's Ancient Italian Deck. Tarot games are quite fun! You can't use a divination deck for them, though. European or Italian folk games such as Scopa and Briscola are also quite fun, and they make use of decks that are distant cousins to Tarot. This link will explain other tarot type games if you're interested.

Anyway, I hope that helps you make sense of the Tarot. Go with Rider-Waite to start, and take your time. There's a lot to learn!

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_____INTRODUCTION TO ISLAM__

• [Web] Islam Explained - brief 1-page explanation of Islam and other Islam-related topics.
  
  
• [Video] The DeenShow - a talk show that introduces many of the basic teachings of Islam and addresses common misconceptions. Their website here.
  
  
• [Book] The Complete Idiot's Guide to Islam - Yahiya Emerick, Ignore the title, it's a decent clear-English guide to explaining what Islam is about and it's practices.
  
  
• [Video] The Purpose of Life - Khalid Yasin, gives a comprehensive lecture on the fundamental question that every human being must ask: "What is the purpose of life?"
  
  
• [Video] Foundations of Islam -Hamza Yusuf, discusses Quran compilation & preservation, articles of faith, ihsan, and the signs of the Last Day.
  
  
• [Web] Al-Aqidah at-Tahawiyyah - Islamic Creed written by the popular, 10th century scholar: at-Ṭaḥāwī
  
  
  
• [Book] Islam and the Destiny of Man - Charles Le Gai Eaton, introduction to Islam aimed at the Westerner.
  
  
• [Web] What is Islam? - Jamaal Zarabozo, if you're looking for a more concise introduction to the fundamental beliefs and practices of the Islamic faith, then try this free ebook.
  
  
  
  
• [Video] Understanding Islam Video Series - Abdal Hakim Murad, discusses the Qur'anic view of Christianity & Jesus, historical Muslim tolerance of Jews, free will vs. determinism, the problem of evil, etc.
  
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  ___QURAN____
  
  
• [Web] Quran - The Noble Quran in various translations.
  
  
• [Book] The Message of the Qur'an - Muhammad Asad, if you're looking for the Quran in book form, this has helpful commentary to provide a thorough understanding.
  
  
• [Book] Quran - Abdel Haleem, another Quran in book form, this one is written in extremely clear modern English that makes it easy and pleasurable to read.
  
  
  
• [Web] English Tafsir -Sayyid Abul Ala Maududi, English commentary of each chapter of the Quran in clear English. Extra link
  
  
• [Audio] Bayyinah Quran Commentary Podcast -Nouman Ali Khan, highly recommended audio commentary of the last 37 chapters of the Quran. Entire Quran commentary with BayyinahTV purchase.
  
  
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  ____LIFE OF PROPHET MUHAMMAD___
  
  
• [Book] Muhammad: His Life Based on the Earliest Sources - Martin Lings, very detailed and thorough biography based on the earliest sources. Recommended by many, (but relies on a few unauthentic sources).
  
  
• [Book] Muhammad Man and Prophet - Adil Salahi, a Complete Study of the Life of the Prophet, from birth in the Arabian desert to the triumph of Islam and its gaining a permanent hold on Arabia.
  
  
  
• [Video] Biography of Muhammad (pbuh) Video Series - Yasir Qadhi, detailed, very lengthy biography video series. Condensed video series here, Mufti Menk
  
  
• [Book] In the Footsteps of the Prophet: Lessons from the Life of Muhammad - Tariq Ramadan, presents the main events of the Prophet's life in a way that highlights his spiritual and ethical teachings.
  
  
• [Audio] The Life of the Prophet Muhammad - Hamza Yusuf, brilliant narration that was originally presented in a twelve week course based on the above book by Martin Lings.
  
  
• [Book] Muhammad (Critical Lives) - Yahiya Emerick, a simple concise, informative biography.
  
  
  
  
• [Web] The Sealed Nectar - Saifur Rahman al-Mubarakpuri, Popular and accurate account of the life of Muhammad (pbuh). Alternative link.
  
  
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  ____CHRISTIANITY, JUDAISM AND ISLAM___
  
  
• [Video] How the Bible Led Me to Islam - Joshua Evans, former Christian youth minister conveys his journey to Islam.
  
  
• [Book] The Cross & The Crescent - Jerald Dirks, former minister (deacon) of the United Methodist Church explains how coherent Islam is with the roots of Christianity, provided with verifiable proofs.
  
  
• [Video] Early Christianity From Jesus to Muhammad - Jerald Dirks, discusses the roots of Christianity and the transition to the emergence of Muslims.
  
  
• [Book] MisGod'ed: A Roadmap of Guidance and Misguidance in the Abrahamic Religions - Laurence Brown, examines Judaism, Christianity, and Islam for truth in revelation, and trace the chain of revelation to its logical conclusion.
  
  
  
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  ____ATHEISM AND ISLAM____
  
  
• [Video] The Purpose of Life - Jeffrey Lang explains how he came to Islam after being an Atheist.
  
  
• [Book] The Divine Reality: God, Islam & The Mirage Of Atheism - Hamza Tzortzis, Islamic arguments for God's existence, oneness and worship, while thoroughly addressing popular and academic objections.
  
  
• [Book] Even Angels Ask: A Journey to Islam in America - Jeffery Lang, a former atheist takes the reader along the path by discussing conflicts between faith and reason.
  
  
• [Book] Struggling To Surrender : Some Impressions of an American Convert to Islam - Former atheist, Jeffery Lang, gives a personal account of his search for God when he found out that his inherited religious beliefs could no longer answer his questions.
  
  
• [Video] From Strong Atheist To Islam - Tim, a former atheist used to debate religious people and tried to convince them that there is no God, until he met a Muslim.
  
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  ____LEARN TO PRAY (SALAH)____
  
  
  
• [Web] Prayer Booklet - Easy and concise guide that explain the prerequisites and actions of prayer. Goes well with prayer videos below.
  
  
• [Video] Step by Step Guide to Prayer - Video explains the necessary steps needed to pray.
  
  
• [Video] How to perform all 5 prayers - Demonstration of all 5 mandatory prayers.
  
  
• [Web] How Do I Pray? - Interactive tutorial of all 5 prayers. Includes English transliteration.
  
  
• [Web] Prayer Mat - Contains all the necessary Arabic sayings that are needed for prayer. Print it out and place in front of you for ease. Convenient!
  
  
• [Web] Prayer Times - Online tool for calculating prayer times based on your exact GPS location
  
  
• [Web] Mosque-Finder - helpful tool that lets you locate your closest mosque.
  
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  ____HADITH/SUNNAH____
  
  
• [Video] An Introduction to Hadith - Jonathan Brown, 1 hour introduction to the narrations of Muhammad (pbuh). Some questions about hadith answered.
  
  
• [Web] Imam Nawawi's Forty Hadith - Learn and study 42 popular hadith compiled by the famous al-Nawawi with audio commentary. Notes on al-Nawawi and his compilations for more clarity.
  
  
• [Book] Riyad-us-Saliheen - Imam Al-Nawawi, A popular and useful compilation of authentic hadith, covering every aspect of Islamic belief and moral conduct. Read it online or listen to audio.
  
  Full list here
  
  

This is a good list. Quick suggestions...

As others are saying, Athanasius' On the Incarnation is a must-read if you're looking at the great theological works of the tradition. I have the edition from the Popular Patristics series sitting on my shelf. It's a good translation. You can also find it here online.

For Augustine, read his Confessions. It's the first autobiography in the West. That's pretty wild. I read the Oxford edition; that's what I usually see people point to. His City of God is also very important.

For Aquinas, his great work is the Summa. It's massive. And in order to really understand Aquinas, you should understand Aristotle first. Your reading list is getting quite long now—but there are abridgments and reading guides to Aquinas out there if you're interested. Peter Kreeft's Summa of the Summa has often been recommended to me.

John Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion should be added. It's hard to overstate the significance of this work. Many would call this the greatest theological work that came out of the Reformation. The Battles edition of the Institutes is more expensive but far more readable than the older Beveridge edition.

Jonathan Edwards is one of the greatest minds in American history. He's certainly not as important as Calvin, but his End for which God Created the World and his Religious Affections are both very good works by, like I said, one of America's greatest minds.

God bless you if you can make it through 14 volumes of Barth's Church Dogmatics. They say Barth's exceedingly important, and I believe them—but frankly I'd put him at a much lower priority than anyone else here. Because Barth stands in the Reformed tradition, I doubt one is able to fully appreciate him without first reading Calvin anyway.

When someone asks about the greatest theological works, some will always recommend works by contemporary writers. Some very good stuff has been written by folks who are still alive; N. T. Wright comes to mind, though I think he's too verbose for his own good. But I'm of the opinion that we don't yet have the historical distance to discern whether works by contemporary authors ought to be placed among the undisputed greats of the tradition.

I wish I could tell you that all you need to do is to stop believing in God and suddenly things will become much clearer. Unfortunately, this is not really the case.

Think of the God idea as a piece of malware, which is running on the computer of your brain. It's malware because it takes up your resources to do something that isn't beneficial to you. Once upon a time you installed the Loving Parents And Social Circle software, and it asked you to install the God program as part of it. You clicked OK at the time, but now you've figured out it's malware, and you need to find a way to get rid of the malware, but you don't want to uninstall the Loving Parents And Social Circle software too.

This is a very touchy process and I can't guarantee you'll be successful. Some people give up and simply decide to go without the Loving Parents And Social Circle software, because the licensing requirements are just too restrictive. I don't recommend this path. Even if the requirements are pretty rough, it's good software.

But here's the kick that no one tells you: by getting rid of the malware, you don't just suddenly have an awesome computer you can use for anything. You have to find and download lots of other software now. Getting rid of the malware was just the beginning, and now the real work begins. You're already way behind people who got rid of their malware ages ago, or maybe never had it to begin with. You need to play catch-up.

Here's the good news: most people, once they've finally gotten rid of the malware, wake up the next day and get really excited about all the new things their computer can potentially do, and they find themselves staying up all night downloading and running new stuff. There's a burst of energy that comes with suddenly finding all these free resources.

Maybe there's some old software sitting there that you never really used, and now you can run it much better than you did before. That was the case with me, and this was the software I ran. Then I started downloading more and more and more. Now I feel like my speeds are better than most and about as fast as the people I find interesting to talk to.

I would say yes, but with a few caveats. I myself am a bit of an autodidact, and I study philosophy as a hobby in my free time. I am currently a university student who works part time, so I sympathize with your concerns about limited time and energy. Some things I think you should be aware of:

• Studying on your own will be slower and generally less efficient than getting a degree. You won’t have the same obligations or motivators that university students have.

• You will lack access to resources that university students have. This includes both academic material (journals, essays, books) but also an environment with instructors and fellow students to consult when you’re confused.

• You will not have the benefit of writing essays and having them graded by an instructor.

Despite this, I still think there is a lot to be gained from self study. You have the freedom to pursue whatever you want, and you can go at a pace that’s comfortable to you. Plus there’s something to be said about challenging yourself and doing constructive things in your free time.

It may be best to start with introductory texts like Copleston’s history to get a general idea for each philosopher and to find what interests you. If you are still interested in the thinkers you mentioned, you should move on to primary sources. I’d recommend the following reading plan which should cover some of the “essentials” and has a sort of progression from one thinker to the next:

1. Readings in Ancient Greek Philosophy: From Thales to Aristotle
   
2. Descartes: Selected Philosophical Writings by Descartes
   
3. Enquiries Concerning Human Understanding and Concerning the Principles of Morals by Hume
   
4. Critique of Pure Reason by Kant
   
   These four books will give you a solid foundation in western philosophy. You have the fundamental ideas and questions from the Pre-Socratics, Plato, and Aristotle, rationalism from Descartes, empiricism from Hume, and the synthesis of the two in Kant. Moving on:
   
   
5. Logical Investigations by Husserl
   
   
6. Being and Time by Heidegger
   
   
7. Being and Nothingness by Sartre
   
   These three cover your interests in phenomenology, from its foundations in Husserl, to Heidegger’s magnum opus, to Sartre’s interpretation and his development of existentialism. Finally we have:
   
   
8. Dialectic of Enlightenment by Horkheimer & Adorno
   
   
9. Speech and Phenomenon by Derrida
   
   These two cover Horkheimer & Adorno’s critical take on enlightenment rationality and Derrida’s deconstruction of Husserlian phenomenology.
   
   None of these books are particularly easy (especially Husserl and Heidegger), but I encourage you to try! Take it one book at a time, read slow and take notes, and consult the IEP and SEP if you’re confused, watch YouTube lectures, or ask on this subreddit.
   
   Good luck!

You can most certainly think of some prayers on your own— after all the Gods do want to hear from YOU. I use a few different books to help me out with set prayers. They are these books:

1. https://www.amazon.com/Hellenic-Polytheism-Household-Worship-1/dp/1503121887/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?keywords=hellenic+polytheism+household+worship&qid=1565962177&s=gateway&sprefix=hellenic+pol&sr=8-1 (a wonderful book to help get you started. Lists prayers, how to make offerings, etc.)
   
   
2. https://www.amazon.com/Orphic-Hymns-Translation-Occult-Practitioner/dp/0738753440/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?keywords=orphic+hymns&qid=1565962224&s=gateway&sprefix=orphic+h&sr=8-1
   
   
3. https://www.amazon.com/Praise-Olympus-Prayers-Greek-Gods/dp/1105553272/ref=mp_s_a_1_4?keywords=hellenic+prayer&qid=1565962244&s=gateway&sr=8-4
   
   The last two list hymns and prayers to different Gods and they’re just wonderful. My prayer routine at night for example consists of praying some of the prayers in these books to the Gods Im closest too, then I i pray this prayer (https://pieandhotdogs.tumblr.com/post/129529920089/daily-hellenic-polytheist-prayer-evening) and then I say different prayers to the different Gods—I talk to them personally, thank them for all the blessings, ask them to protect me, any special petitions, etc. Usually I pray with a candle lit and some incense burning. Offerings can consist of different things—food, coins, wine, etc. I use sea shells and rocks for Venus since she came from the sea, plastic little dolphins for Neptune since he’s the King of the Sea, olives for Athena. Basically, things that mean something to the Gods. Doesn’t have to be too elaborate :)
   
   Your last question is a really good one and one I can’t immediately explain. Sometimes you just feel it— i always feel sooo calm when praying to Hestia and Venus. And sometimes you see manifestations of things you pray for under the realms of certain Gods. I ask Apollo for help with writing at times and when the inspiration comes I feel very connected to him. I’m sorry I can’t be more helpful on that question—although it is a good one!

This is exactly why I decided not to go into the sciences. They're just so devoid of meaning in most areas unless you get really lucky. Otherwise you're stuck with a 9-5 working for some corporation that isn't doing any kind of meaningful work, or even work with a big payoff waiting at the end like curing a disease you're passionate about eliminating, or creating a wonderful piece of technology. I wouldn't work with spirits, personally, if by that you mean angels and demons or ghosts.

There is a place for the essence of consciousness in things, for example m1thr0s once told me that he would not been able to divine the secrets of the I Ching so readily if he did not, on some level also love and respect Fu Hsi or King Wen, as there is a kind of consciousness link going on there that lives in infinity.

Some deities have been very helpful to me, not so much with finding a very lucrative career, but in aiding me financially so I had the time and energy to both manage a household and an occult business (The Abrahadabra Institute) the goddess of happy households, Hestia. She is helpful in a way that is not time consuming or intrusive and her presence is only asserted when she thinks it is very important, for example, getting married to the right person or calling attention to things to refocus on the happiness of the family, like making a special dinner or freshening up the decor. Anyone who has been to my house knows I'm basically Suzie homemaker and most of this I would attribute to her influence and my natural Yin inclinations. I sort of invoked her on a whim one day and she has stuck with me ever since then, much to my surprise. So yeah I would recommend Hestia since it doesn't sound like you're in need of anything "occult" right now, and she deals with the basic desires and happiness of earth-bound life.

With Hestia, in the traditional way which can be acquired from the LABRYS Polytheistic Community in Hellas:
https://www.amazon.com/Hellenic-Polytheism-Household-Worship-1/dp/1503121887

You want to always have a flame going in the house, somewhere. If that is a gas stove, great, that is also her traditional location, the cooking fire. If not, you can use those cheap mexican candles they sell for witchcraft at the grocery store in the glass vials, unless you have a cat they will burn for a week and not go out.

While it's good to spend that time alone learning about your self, ridding your self of negativity, etc. that time alone means nothing if you cannot find how it translates in a group setting.

>>Its not that I don't want to engage with people, but the way most people engage in conversation, constantly adjusting their facial muscles, making appropriate noises "Ohh!", these things make it difficult for me to really appreciate the content of a conversation. I would rather listen dispassionately to a message someone has to deliver and then respond consciously. I do not care for non-conscious interacti

There are times for both. What you will learn is to eventually meld into either situation. It's not about what you think is better. It's about being contextually aware. You can do things like put your self in more situations where certain conversations happen but even if you, say moved to a commune in the middle of nowhere, eventually people would want to PLAY and do something other than talk deeply about things.

>>If I refuse to turn off my conscious mind and allow my unconscious to run amok then I cannot "merge" or "mesh" into the group. Then I sit back and analyze. I analyze the group that forms. What they talk about, what they value, or more importantly what they don't talk about. Most conversation has nothing to do with communicating. Most conversation seems to be about bolstering our own ego's. Talking up our own achievements and talking down on other peoples achievements. From the perspective of increased awareness all of this just feels Alien to me, or maybe I'm the Alien.

But see, those are forms of communication. Everything is communication. Communication isn't reserved to certain forms of conversation. Silly faces are a form of communication. While talking up achievements, your peers are communicating their insecurities. An equanimous person will know how to be on their level while not compromising their sense of self like it seems you're fearing. You feeling alien, or starting from where you are, is just acknowledging unnecessary distance. You are right there with them and that's the perfect place to be. From where they are, as you describe them, they may need to have their hand held so as to be guided to where you are. Maybe it's not going to be you that does that for them so for your own sanity it might be best to find a group of friends that gets it. But just understand what is really happening.

>>I can either interact with people the way they want me to (down on their level) which depresses me just being down on that level. Or I can not interact with people and remain on my pedestal of expanded consciousness, which makes me feel conflicted.

Here's another thing.. You feel like you're above others because you feel like you have discovered something above and beyond them with your journeying as a psychonaut. This is not true. Being a psychonaut we must eventually learn to see spirit in everything. Everything you witness on a mushroom trip or while seated in meditation is just a reminder of what can be seen at any moment in time.

>>Which always brings me back, why do other people matter at all?

Other people matter simply because they exist. To matter is to materialize.

>>My whole universe of experience is only experienced by me. If I can achieve optimal happiness being completely secluded then that is what I should work towards achieving. I see now why people become hermits.

And why is that?

I think you would do good reading the book "Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism" -> http://www.amazon.com/Cutting-Through-Spiritual-Materialism-Chogyam/dp/1570629579

The necessary step to rejoining the Church in a juridical sense is to make a good confession. Start by reflecting on how you've lived since your teenage years with the aid of an examination of conscience. There is a good one published as a pamphlet by the Fathers of Mercy. When you are ready, do not feel limited to the regularly scheduled hours for confession. You can always call the rectory and ask for a priest to meet you in the confessional at a certain time.

A good reintroduction to the content of the faith is Father John Hardon's book The Catholic Catechism. It should refresh your memory of any important tenets of the faith you have forgotten, or were never taught. On the other hand, if you pretty well remember all the fundamentals of the faith and are asking how to learn more in a deeper sense, I recommend diving into the ancient writings of the Church Fathers. Two good books to start with are Augustine's Confessions and Athanasius' On the Incarnation.

For rekindling personal spiritual practice, Met. Anthony Bloom's book Beginning to Pray is a great book. And St Louis de Montfort's book The Secret of the Rosary is a good one on how to get the most out of a devotion commended to us by many great saints.

>I didn't know continental vs analytical terms are outdated.

Dated perhaps isn't the right term, but just know that they do have certain limits.

As for post-WWII philosophy, there's a lot, but I'm going to let you know that much of it can't be well-understood without a basic understanding of Heidegger, much of whose thought was pre-WWII. His best known work is Being and Time, but it's one of the most challenging texts in the western canon. For an easier introduction to prep you for it, I'd recommend some of his early lecture material, such as The Hermeneutics of Facticity and The History of the Concept of Time. This could just be me, but I've found his lectures to be generally easier than his primary texts. If you want to trace the development of his thought, much of which was post-WWII, the Basic Writings anthology has a number of essays by him. While nothing really eclipsed Being and Time, much of his later thought is still studied. I'd say the most significant work of his later career was his Contributions to Philosophy, which took the form of briefer aphorisms and anecdotes, more similar to Nietzsche in style, but still grounded in much of his own thought and terminology.

If you want to move away from Heidegger, some of the big texts would be Gadamer's Truth and Method (Gadamer was a student of Heidegger's, so the former's thought is very deeply influenced by the latter), Sartre's two texts Being and Nothingness and Existentialism is a Humanism (note the similarity to Sartre's title with Heidegger's Being and Time, and also note that Heidegger would respond rather critically to Sartre's Existentialism with an essay in the Basic Writings), and Simone de Beauvoir's The Second Sex (a key feminist work heavily influenced by Sartre and Heidegger).

Beyond this my knowledge is a bit scattered, as I've only just completed undergrad. I really would recommend David West's text as a decent overview that will guide you in what the key texts are, as well as good secondary sources. I've not brought up Derrida, who was also huge, as well as Alain Badiou, Slavoj Zizek, Michel Foucault and Charles Taylor just to name a few. On top of those, there's a ton of pre-WWII stuff that's hugely important for understanding these thinkers, such as the ideas of Kant, Hegel, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Husserl, and the whole field of psychoanalysis (Freud, Jung and Lacan). Then there's postmodernism, postcolonialism, the various strands of feminism, and tons more. The more I type, the more I'm just reminding myself how little I know about this area (even though it's the area I'm most interested in).

Let me know if there's anything more you need to know or if you want to know a decent secondary source.

In a sense, enlightenment is not in your hands at all. In another, equally true sense, you really can beckon the solution.

The best advice I have found for people trying to beckon the solution is to work in cycles. You need to know spiritual truths - that desire breeds anger, that life without attachment to worldly things is better than life bound to the ups and downs of the world - in every cell of your body. You need to know them with your heart, with your stomach, with your intellect, with your emotions. This means, read spiritual works and meditate like it was the last thing on earth you could do. But then go out and live them, get your hands dirty on life, let those ideas really digest, let them sink in deeply. Figure things out through experience, through seeing things as they really are. Then go back and meditate more, read more, see what new truths are uncovered through this cyclical learning process.

Clearing your mind of these false notions of salvation/happiness creates an incredible amount of space. In this space of non-grasping, of not-doing, clarity is born. Clarity is the means and the end of the spiritual path. You see life as it really is. With true clarity, there is no hope or fear at all. Clarity turns into transcendent knowledge; knowledge without words, without the limits of language, without reason. Silent knowledge composed of pure certainties. One day you will feel a click.


If you want to study some beautiful, simple, universal (as in, it isn't dogma) eastern philosophy, check out the Bhagavad Gita. It is as close to perfection of the path to self-knowledge as I have found.

We see Arjuna on the battlefield, this impressive warrior, bent, burdened, eyes glistening, pleading for the meaning of life.


Krishna, totally calm, responds in effect, "Oh, you really want to know?"


http://www.amazon.com/The-Bhagavad-Gita-Walkthrough-Westerners/dp/1608680142



Another good book at the beginning/middle of the path is The Power of Now, by Eckhart Tolle. He frames the awake state in a very persuasive, intuitive manner: as an alternative to the mind's insistence of living in the past or the future. It shows you the power of clarity, of living fully in the present moment.

If you are far on the path already, then I suggest these two books to help fine-tune your search:

http://www.amazon.com/The-End-Your-World-Enlightenment/dp/1591797799

http://www.amazon.com/Cutting-Spiritual-Materialism-Shambhala-Classics/dp/1570629579/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1412001113&sr=1-1&keywords=cutting+through+spiritual+materialism+by+chogyam+trungpa

Good luck/shoot me a PM if you have questions

ps: tripping can be a tool, but it is limited. any realizations you have under the influence of psychedelics, you will have to re-realize while sober. sometimes this is incredibly easy, but sometimes not so much. if you depend too much on them, the realizations while on drugs will never be there when you really need them. think of psychedelics as "advance scouts" into your consciousness - showing you what level of clarity is possible if you keep on this path, showing you what silent knowledge feels like. they don't give you that level of clarity, but they show you that it is possible, and give you faith and determination to see it become your natural state.

I will answer, but first let me address this:

> Every time I ask an atheist this question I never get a simple answer.

Two problems:

1. Atheism and evolution are different things. Many atheists believe in evolution, but not all. For example, there are atheists who believe we were seeded on the planet by aliens. Many people who believe in evolution are atheists, but very definitely not all. Some of the most prominent proponents of evolution are Christians. Evolution IS NOT in conflict with Christian views, it is ONLY in conflict with certain, specific interpretations of the bible. This Christian website does a good job of explaining how they are compatible.
   
2. Trying to justify a very complex theory with literally millions of pieces of evidence supporting it with just a single piece of evidence is a fool's errand. No single piece of evidence, in isolation, is enough to justify believing in evolution. But when you look at the overwhelming evidence contained in the entire body of evidence, it suddenly becomes extremely hard to deny.
   
   So I won't try to cite a single piece of evidence. What I will do is cite a particular field that is often overlooked in the discussion: Biogeography.
   
   Note: Simple isn't one sentence. I will simplify as much as possible, but complex topics can't necessarily be stripped down to far.
   
   Biogeography is the study of the distribution of life on the planet. It asks questions like:
   
   

• Why do we find certain types of species-- plants, birds, insects-- native to oceanic island (islands that were never connected to another land mass), but not other species (land mammals, reptiles, amphibians, freshwater fish)? This is the discovery that first led Darwin to develop his theory. Creationism cannot offer a reasonable explanation for this.
  
• Why are there two types of mammals, marsupials and placentals, but marsupials are exclusively native to Australia (where they make up nearly all native mammals) and the Americas? Why are there are no native marsupials species anywhere in Europe or Asia? (And fwiw, this question is pretty concrete disproof of at least the Noah's flood story)
  
• Why do plants in similar environments tend to have similar traits, yet they can be completely distinct species? For example cacti in the deserts of the Americas and the succulents of the deserts of asia have very similar traits-- a fleshy stem to store water, spines to deter predators, small or non-existent leaves to reduce water loss-- yet the actual plants are biologically very different.
  
  These are just a few sample questions raised by biogeography, but they give you a sense of what is going on. These questions are trivially answered by evolution (plus plate tectonics for #2). For creation, they tend to take some rationalizing. Sure you can just say "god works in mysterious ways", but you can't come up with a good explanation for why an intelligent designer would do these things.
  
  Anyway, this is a super brief explanation of a big (but not difficult) topic. Biogeography as a whole I think is a pretty devastating argument against creationism and for evolution. To really understand it, I highly recommend the book Why Evolution is True by Jerry Coyne. It covers the topic thoroughly, plus pretty much all the other evidence supporting the topic. It is highly readable, easily accessible, and absolutely fascinating.
  
  And I want to repeat this because it is so important: Evolution is not in contradiction with Christianity. You do not have to give up your core beliefs to accept evolution as true. It is ONLY in contradiction with certain readings of the bible, most of which are not based on anything that is clearly stated in the bible.
  
  
  

Rupert Gethin's Foundations of Buddhism is a thorough introduction to Buddhism. For starting reading the Pāli discourses, there's Bhikkhu Bodhi's In the Buddha's Words - this is a selection of discourses serving as an entry point.

Then you can start with the discourses directly: start with the Majjima Nikāya and then you can also go through The Dīgha Nikāya and the Samyutta Nikāya. And then the last but not least: Aṇguttara Nikāya and the Khuddhaka Nikāya (search on Amazon). These texts would be important references for the rest of your life if you seriously pursue Buddhism.

Regarding insight meditation, Bhikkhu Anālayo's Satipaṭṭāna book is the best modern day commentary available. Highly recommend it. His "Excursions into the Pāli Discourses" Part 1 and Part 2 are also very useful since they summarize many of the topics discusses in the discourses.

Books by Shaila Catherine or Ajāhn Brahmavaṃso would be good texts regarding samatha meditation.

There are the various texts written by the Ledi Sayādaw and Mahāsi Sayadaw - two Burmese scholar-practitioners who popularized insight meditation in the last century. You can go through Ven. Ledi Sayādaw's Vipassanā Dīpani (Manual of Insight) and you can find Ven. Mahāsi Sayadaw's books here.

Bhikkhu K. Ñānānanda has many books discussing deep questions about dependent arising, the nature of nirvāna, and so forth. You can find them here.

I'll let others recommend Mahāyāna, Vajrayāna and Zen material. In general, Reginald Rays books on Tibetan Buddhism are great entry points to Tibetan Buddhism, and then there's Gampopa's Jewel Ornament Of Liberation. There's also Shantidēva's Bodhisattvacaryāvatāra, useful for any Mahāyāna practitioner. With Zen there's always Dōgen Zenji's Shōbōgenzō.

You should be able to find all of the above by googling if it's available for free or on Amazon (or a University library) otherwise.

Yes. I became interested in Viking culture not long before I heard of the show, but the show has definitely helped keep my curiosity going. My interest in Norse history goes like this:

• Interest spiked after realizing Immigrant Song by Led Zepplin is about Vikings (around mid 2012-ish)
  
  
• Started looking into the culture, discovered Wardruna
  
  
• Bought a book about runes, the myths, etc
  
  
• Vikings comes out on History channel (I remember thinking, "Man, Wardruna should do music for this show!" And then mfw)
  
  
• Recently started looking into Asatru and stuff that is still going on in this age that can be tied to Vikings
  
  My interest in the Vikings isn't necessarily about the specific dates, locations, etc. It's more about the lifestyle, the myths, the attitude they had. And Vikings does a great job, IMO, of keeping that interest going. It's inspiring me to get in touch with nature again, learn how to do things I've never done, etc. Plus it's entertaining!
  
  EDIT: Here's the two books I've bought (so far) regarding Viking history. You'll note that they're basically children's books. The first one deals with the myths on a children's story level, the second has more in depth analysis on the myths, but without the pictures. I think simply reading about the things the Vikings may have lived by is better than just learning what date Bjorn raided "whatever-land". Anyways, here's the two books I have:
  
  Book of Norse Myths: Kid's book with pictures, walking you through the myths on an introductory level
  
  The Norse Myths: A much more comprehensive book about the myths
  
  I also have two other books related to Norse history or culture:
  
  Practical Guide to the Runes
  
  Practical Heathen's Guide to Asatru: For learning about the way a heathen's mind works and how he lives his life. I don't follow the stuff in the book, but I'm putting some of it into practice as I explore my ancestral connections

Much like you, I've also recently developed a strong interest in Levinas. I've yet to read him, though, so please take that into account when considering my recommendations.

I recently asked some of my professors and a friend of mine who wrote his master's thesis on Levinas to help me out with getting started. This is what they recommended:

• This introductory book by Colin Davis has been the most recommended to me. Davis succeeds in the difficult task of executing a clear exposition of Levinas' difficult prose without sacrificing too much of its nuance.
  
• Regarding Levinas' own writing, begin with On Escape. This work develops Levinas' fundamental ideas on Being and alterity, demonstrates how he does phenomenology, and reveals his engagement with Heidegger and Husserl
  
• The two next best works to read are Existence and Existents and Time and the Other.
  
  I'm not too knowledgeable of Husserl, so all I can really recommend from him is the Cartesian Meditations, which sort of serves as an introduction to Husserl's own method of phenomenology.
  
  For Heidegger, the most important work in this regard is certainly Being and Time. If you have the time, I recommend picking up the Basic Writings and reading through most of it.
  
  On a final note, Levinas was steeped within the Jewish intellectual tradition. Jewish philosophers often emphasize the role of community and social contextuality in general. It might serve you well to read works such as Martin Buber's I and Thou and Gabriel Marcel's Being and Having.
  
  EDIT: Another good compliment to Levinas is Maurice Merleau-Ponty's Phenomenology of Perception.

I respect what you’re doing despite being an atheist. There’s a saying of the Prophet Muhammad peace be him which says

“None of you will believe until you love for your brother what you love for yourself." So honestly the greatest thing we possess as Muslims is this religion of ours. Therefore we want to invite others to it. There’s a lot of great contemporary speakers out there who focus on atheism like :

Mohammed Hijab - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHDFNoOk8WOXtHo8DIc8efQ

Abdullah Andalusi

Hamza Tzortzis

Hamza in particular has a book called “ Divine Reality” I would really recommend you give it a read .

The Divine Reality: God, Islam and the Mirage of Atheism https://www.amazon.com/dp/0996545387/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_gU5sDb0ZR486R

If you want, you can dm me and I’ll buy the book for you.

I wouldn't worry about college; you'll be studying things more attuned to your interests, and you'll be surrounded by similar sorts of people. College is actually great for figuring yourself out for this very reason, since you'll be exposed not just to all sorts of different types of content and perspectives, but you'll also get some chances to go more in-depth on particular topics of interest, especially once you start taking upper-level courses that expect specialization. My favorite college memories are actually of afternoons in the library reading, taking notes and putting papers together. I loved this so much I've even started writing my own stuff post-college.

As for getting to know yourself, I'd recommend reading. Since this is the INTJ-sub, I know everyone here prefers things to be a bit more direct, and while I certainly read more nonfiction, I've found things like art, music, poetry, film and fiction are great ways to understand yourself better than any nonfiction work could tap into. I got into fiction via Joseph Campbell, a literary critic who himself was heavily influenced by Jung, and from there it was writers like Hermann Hesse, James Joyce, George Saunders and Olga Grushin that taught me things about myself that I doubt any nonfiction work could. This isn't to downplay the importance of nonfiction (Heidegger, Marion and Kierkegaard have all been huge for me as well), but since fiction and the arts in general don't seem as valued throughout reddit, I thought I'd throw that out there. Read.

I appreciate the OP's original post as well as your R.D. Laing recommendation. I also 100% agree with the idea of a "predisposition towards realization and compassionate output" when it comes to certain mental illnesses (Specifically, those involving extremely heightened senses of perception).

I've been undertaking a similar "process" as you've (OP) described for about two years now. I had somewhat of an existential crisis as I was finishing out my last semester of college a couple years ago. Not really in the aspect of "how can I face this impending 40 hour work week with no end in sight?," but more of "how can I possibly be happy in this modern society in general when the standard goals are not desired?"

It led me into a deep, later clinically treated, depression that bottomed out for a good month's time as the winter settled in. As things began to become increasingly unstable in my mental state, the voices started becoming distinct and clearer. They never were commanding or provoking, but typically simple commentary or strange basic conversations. Most of the time they were harshly critical of my own life, though at other times they tended to drift off into random dialogue (there were usually two). The fact that they were occurring ended up leading me down a long, long winding spiritual path as I searched for some sort of understanding to them.

I had a new understanding of mental illness, as I was experiencing it myself, but specifically of certain schizophrenic-type aspects. The voices I heard were as real to my consciousness as any other aspect of perception that is picked up by the senses. It sounded as if they were talking in the room adjacent to mine, or at least muffled by a thin wall- usually. I found that at certain frequencies, they were more apparent and distinct. While they varied in clarity, they were undoubtedly occurring and for whatever reason I was hearing them. I was withdrawn and fascinated by this phenomena and was able to successfully communicate through thoughts, though only in what I could describe as a deep meditative state (which wasn't too difficult as I sat in a helpless bout of catatonic depression). This went on for about at week or so before I returned home, saw a doctor and got clinical assistance for my depression. Still, my idea of those with schizophrenic-type mental illnesses had changed from "people experiencing delusions" to "people experiencing reality differently."

I kept a journal during those few weeks of delusion, because I was experiencing things that I couldn't comprehend. The spiritual/knowledge path soon began as I was recovering over the next few months. I began to research ideas that had popped into my head during that time. Now, in hindsight, these revelations really aren't that mind blowing and had I been more educated on the subjects or just more of a true academic in general, I probably would've come across what I ended up with at an earlier time.

My primary empirical conclusion, was that, yes these voices do indeed exist. They hold some sort of reality in some aspect, because my consciousness is experiencing them. I also know that others experience similar instances of phenomena. This led to an idea of there being a higher/alternate dimension that conscious thought can reside in. A place that holds no truth in objectivity to the world in general, yet still a place in the mind of the beholder.

So, that's how I became acquainted with quantum theory and it's possible application to consciousness. I'm not saying that I directly subscribe to all that's laid out in a quantum consciousness theory, but it did open a whole slew of new doors of thinking and understanding quantum physics in general.

Another aspect that I derived from my experience with the voices was the idea of the duality of consciousness and matter. And that's how I began reading more into Buddhism, which I had read about before but seemingly never understood quite as fully as I did after the experience.

Just as all of this was taking place (a few months after the breakdown), I had a moment of synchronicity when I ran into an old friend during happy hour who was in the city for a day before heading back home up north. Without me even mentioning much about my experience or new found ideas, he offered me a book for borrowing (that he just happened to have on hand). It was The Quantum and the Lotus (Ricard, Thuan). It may have been the perfect combination of my two newest obsessions in one book. Reading it finally put my mind at ease and gave me a truly new perspective on life that I've been building off of ever since then.

My views have evolved and adapted with time over the last couple years, but I still haven't lost this unquenchable thirst for learning that began during those darker times. I truly think that the Buddhist perspective on life has fueled this passion while keeping me at peace with my own thoughts. I can still hear the voices, though only through a means of deep meditation, and they hardly interfere with my everyday life.

Sorry for any typos, the sun's yet to rise where I am right now.

TL;DR - Got severely depressed, heard voices that led to a more innate understanding of both quantum physics and Buddhism (neither of which I had extensive knowledge of) that has improved my outlook on life, my empathy towards others and has greatly increased my desire for knowledge than it had ever been previously.

> "I've heard this argument before, and it does not hold water."

Nice. A bold but completely empty assertion.

> "It's merely an attempt to shackle the psuedoscience of evolution to many more well-known and proven sciences."

Ohhhh.. and from there you spring to another, completely unsupported, empty assertion.

> "If you're going to make the audacious claim that all sciences must be abandoned if evolution is not embraced,..."

It's not remotely audacious. The fact you can pretend it is only indicated both the depth of your own lack of knowledge about the sciences in general and the equal lack of such knowledge by most in Christian culture.

> "... I'd like to see your proof."

Nice try. You have made a series of empty assertions in order to hand wave away an entire section of science, (evolutionary theory). The evidence for evolution is as strong, as robust, and as complete as it is for any of the other theories I have listed and is often dependent upon them.

The simplest such example is based upon the fact that those who reject evolution are nearly universally Young Earth Creationist, (I am not saying all, but the vast majority). Evolution demands more time than Young Earth dogma allows for. In order to weasel around Geological dating of fossil records, most Young Earth proponents will put forth hypothesis, (they call them 'theories'... it's actually kindof cute in a 'child playing at scientist' sort of way), that tend to do all of the following: fail to account for most of the factual evidence on hand in the geological sciences, demand that we completely throw out all methods of dating used in modern geological sciences, chuck out everything we know in general about geology.

Well, there goes one of the sciences on my list - thrown out for nothing but ideological reasons.

Lets look closer though. Lets look at all of those objections that young earth proponents have about things like carbon dating and potassium dating methods, (etc...). Others, in many other places, have done a much more complete job of disassembling the standard arguments against these dating methods than I have space for here but the short version is that those dating methods are the result of fundamental aspects of everything we know about physics. If those dating methods are wrong, (which, though possible, would require the presentation of something other than assertion and unfounded hypothesis to establish), then pretty much all of physics is wrong. Admittedly, that would be really cool. I doubt you have any idea how exciting that would actually be to most of the physicist I know. However, as cool as it would be, it is not only terribly unlikely there is absolutely no reason to suspect it, (unless, once again, we count the empty assertions of people with ideological positions and no evidence to suggest that they may be remotely correct).

But wait... there goes a second, entire field, of science. Thrown out the window because people don't like the time scales associated with evolutionary theory.

Really, this just goes on and on. It's also not hard to educate yourself about the scientific reality of this topic either. All you have to do is get out of the echo chamber of people committed to rejecting evolution and an old earth and look around at what the 'other side' is actually saying.

Here, I'll even make it easy for you.

Here's a great book, by a Christian, explaining the in's and outs of why Evolution has to be true based upon what we know.

Here is a brilliant book talking about the fossil record, how we know what we know about it, and what that actually tells us.

Here is a fantastic book about geology as taught and explained through the disasters that we, as humans, experience from it's actions on occasion.

Finally, I give you a link to the Science Based Medicine website through their search tool. You will find there several, researching, practicing, medical doctors; all of whom are highly respected in their fields. This is their blog about medicine, science, and all things that impinge upon those fields. I have taken the liberty of entering 'evolution' into their search bar for you. The resulting page of articles is what comes up. If nothing else, it should provide a good place for you to springboard from in the search for whatever you want to know past that in the several books I have pointed you at.

Lastly, I want to make one final point. if you read the books I have pointed you at, if you start reading the articles on the site I pointed you at, if you from there start reading the articles and books and studies available all through the world of science publication and science blogging you will find something pretty quickly. Each of those books has different information in them. Any real study of evolution exposes you to not one, or two, but many lines of evidence, (from almost all of the sciences), showing that it is true. Every single book I have ever read trying to argue against evolution, on the other hand, always ended up attempting to make the same unsupportable arguments, (irreducible complexity, gaps in the fossil records, efforts to deny various dating methods), that have been addressed by proponents of evolution a million times if once. If you can't understand all that, if you can't even take the time to educate yourself about some of it before dismissing the position counter to yours out of hand, then you are showing yourself as having no interest in truth. Instead you are saying that you are only interested in trying to make the world believe that you are right.

The fact that people get their moral feelings from the culture in which they're raise does not imply that all cultures have the best possible moral code. Just the opposite, human moral codes have often been based on ignorance, superstition, a natural inclination to distrust those who are different, and indoctrination at the hands of the rich and powerful.

Despite this, humans do have natural evolutionary feelings of empathy and compassion which were and are necessary for our species to cooperate and persist. We are a communal species and we survive by working together and by caring both for our young and for one another. You can see the same thing in any herd animal species. We've learned to see a wide range of emotions and empathetic reactions in animals which 50 years ago most people would have considered preposterous because they were "just animals".

The great thing about humans is that with the advance of scientific knowledge we can learn that under our skin we are all the same. We can build on our collective knowledge and improve our philosophy of ethics and morality because we are learning creatures and not simply base, instinctual creatures with no capacity for higher thought.

Here are some other people's ideas on the matter.
Sam Harris
This is a lecture about his new book, which you can get on Amazon for about $3.50. If you're really interested, I think $3-$6 is a pretty cheap price for a book on the subject by a renowned and respected mind.
Here's the link to his lecture about the book.
Science Can Answer Moral Questions

Here's a discussion between Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins titled, Who Says Science has Nothing to Say About Morality?

Here's a wiki page about secular ethics.



It's very, very interesting stuff and there's always more to learn.

Great questions! I'm a bit of a noob myself, but I would recommend avoiding paying too much attention to some of the more superficial aspects of Buddhism: monastic life, positions, temples, ceremonies, etc.

I would suggest reading about and studying basic Buddhist principles: 4 noble truths, 8 fold path, non-attachment, impermanence, etc.

Through your study of the Dharma you'll encounter many cultural variations of Buddishm, which like any other religion / philosophy can be deeply rooted in and absorb local culture and tradition. Buddhism in the West is a relatively new concept and only in the past 60 years are North Americans creating their own definition of what it means to be a Buddhist when it comes to ritual, dress, and salutations. Different sanghas (communities) appropriate from Eastern practice what they like, amalgamating it with more modern secular traditions, and leave the rest behind. However, the underlying principles and the Dharma continue to hold true as they're pitted against science, psychology, and philosophy.

Also, be sure to check-out "Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism". http://www.amazon.com/dp/1570629579
This might help you avoid a lot of pitfalls of any spiritual path.

I think looking at monks, ritual, dress, temples, and ceremonies when starting to learn about Buddhism is like taking a tour of the Vatican as an introduction to Christianity. It's one interpretation of the teachings with lots of sociological-economic-political-cultural-historical layers heaved on top.

Strip all the superficialities away and you'll get to the heart of the matter - the inner workings of the mind.

Dont feel bad about not knowing. I spent more than a year doing research before I even first approached a Rabbi. For us learning is a life long process.

Books:

• Jews, God and History will give you a good understanding of our history as a people. Many major empires have tried to destroy us, by all rights we should not be here any more but our oppressors end up consigned to museums and history books.
  
  
• Basic Judaism seems to be good
  
  
• To Be a Jew is highly recommend by many.
  
  
• Becoming A Jew also popular regarding Orthodox conversion.
  
  
• Essential Judaism seems to be Reform oriented but may contain a more broad oversight than just that viewpoint.
  
  
• Being Jewish was one I read that I thought offered lots of good information overall.
  
  Possibly most importantly I'd say you need a Jewish bible with commentary. I'd recommend the Stone Chumash. I also keep a JPS Hebrew/English Tanakh on my desk. The "chumash" (AKA the Torah) is the five books of Moses. The "Tanakh" is the Torah, Prophets and Writings, the entire Hebrew bible .I say a "Jewish Bible" because 1) the translation is more direct from Hebrew, without the distortions of the KJV/NIV/etc. 2) you also get commentary on the text from key Jewish scholars throughout the ages to help you understand the meaning of the text, this part is very important.
  
  All above book links are to Amazon but I am not an affiliate and do not gain in any way. You can probably find all those and more at a specialty Judaica shop like http://www.judaism.com or another similar site.
  
  BTW you probably want to go over this site entirely http://www.jewfaq.org/ It is written by an Orthodox guy so is slanted that way but the information is all good.

I, mean, the, book, itself is, utterly, amazing but this is the best review of True Light: A, superior, take, unto, the, premier, haloing, of, tenuation. Readily, available, True Light, provides, resource, into, time's, motifed, and, vestuved, authenticate, revelation.
By Lark Voorhies (Lisa Turtle)


http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/review/1450243541/R10ZG1TJNW0020/ref=mw_dp_cr?cursor=2&sort=rd
Short, sweet, and, to, the, point.

The other reviews are pretty great, too.

🙏

>Thanks for sharing your wisdom

You as well.

By the way, perhaps you may find benefit in learning the word kenshō, and as one last suggestion, perhaps you might enjoy someone like Huangbo, perhaps something like this.

Whereas this sub might perhaps tend towards a sort of rational, perhaps masculine, analysis based approach, some of the Zen adepts such as Huangbo might tend towards a more ... poetic or heart based, pithy approach, and maybe you would delight in it, if you’re inclined to check it out.

If you’re put off by too much dogma, he might be perfect ;)

Best wishes, as always.

"The Study Qur'an" cites multiple tafsir, which I quite like.



The problem is that many of the more readily available tafsir are more conservative, or have a wahabi bend to them, which can give you a false impression that all Muslims agree with certain statements. The Hilali-Khan translation/tafsir is just a summarized version of Ibn Kathir, which is a Salafist interpretation. (Again, I urge that anyone study tafsir from multiple schools of thought, and I am not bashing any one sect, it's just that there are many, many, many interpretations of the text and a knowledge of more than one is beneficial.)



Yusuf Ali's commentary is good, and in fact his Qur'an was the gold standard for the last 100 years in English. It's probably a bit old fashioned for most, though.



Muhammad Assad's is very good. Extremely good, and the one 90% of people would reccomend, and one you should just get anyway. Though some of his commentary is not inline with Islamic thought (his views on Jesus, for example, are controversial in general), but you should read any tafsir with a grain of salt.


Ma'ariful Qur'an is an excellent modern tafsir. Usmani was a Hanbali or Hanafi, I believe, but manages to be neutral and quite moderate in his commentary. The cost of the full 8 volume set is a bit much, but you can get a cheap version from India for a low price if you don't mind imperfect binding (I found all 8 volumes in a local shop for around 60$ CAD, which is awesome.).



If you want to read an AMAZING Shi'a commentary (you likely are not Shi'a, but still.....people should understand multiple views on any topic whether or not you agree), then Tafsir al-Mizan is incredible. It's not 100% translated into English yet, but it is available for free online. Whether Shi'a or Sunni, I think it can be agreed that Muhammad Husayn at-Tabataba'i was a great scholar.


The only work in English which includes multiple tafsir from multiple schools and multiple writers is the Study Qur'an, and it is insanely exhaustive, listing all of the sources and even telling the reader where to go and read most of the tafsir cited on the internet. It's amazing. Spend the money and also buy some "Bible highlighters" (the kind that work on thin pages). (I have been using a regular Staples brand "Hype!" highlighter and it doesn't bleed through, though, so the pages are quite tough despite being thin. Pen doesn't go through either, as I have been underlining quite a lot and have had no problems, but I would still recommend a .005 fine line marker just in case.]


If you are a cheapskate, go to altafsir.org, which is what "The Study Qur'an" advises also. You can either search for individual verses and pull up different classical tafsir for that verse, or just download/read a PDF of an entire tafsir if you prefer. Tafsir al-Jalalayn is, as I understand, the most universally used in teaching Qur'an because it is short, and only provides the context of revelation for verses. You may want more in-depth tafsir, but al-Jalalayn has been the jumping off point for Muslims for 500 years. And is available on altafsir.


tl;dr - "The Study Qur'an"

Do a person's ideas matter?

>Examples are scarcely needed to show that, whatever else we think of as affecting practical affairs, we do not think it matters whether a man is a pessimist or an optimist, a Certesian or a Hegelian, a materialist or a spiritualist. Let me, however, take a random instance. At any innocent tea-table we may easily hear a man say, "Life is not worth living." We regard it as we regard the statement that it is a fine day; nobody thinks that it can possibly have any serious effect on the man or on the world. And yet if that utterance were really believed, the world would stand on its head. Murderers would be given medals for saving men from life; firemen would be denounced for keeping men from death; poisons would be used as medicines; doctors would be called in when people were well; the Royal Humane Society would be rooted out like a horde of assassins. Yet we never speculate as to whether the conversational pessimist will strengthen or disorganize society; for we are convinced that theories do not matter.
>
>---G.K. Chesterton's Heretics, 1905


You cannot separate a person from their ideas. The girl you want to marry is a Muslim woman- her identity is intrinsically tied to her faith. You cannot make the claim you would still want to marry her if she was not raised Muslim.

This is more than enough reason for a rational person to explore Islam with a genuine interest. Explore it seriously and question the presuppositions you've formed that have led you to an atheistic worldview.

The Shahadah is a declaration of two beliefs: The existence of Allah (swt), and the Prophethood of Muhammad (pbuh). Don't get distracted with details or apparent ethical dilemmas that are inaccessible without forming the right assumptions- focus on the two fundamental questions. You don't have to be absolutely convinced before taking your Shahadah, but you must be open to the belief, and you must be committed to living as Muslims do and fostering a relationship with your Lord. So once your ready, take the leap of faith, trust in the One Creator of everything, and live as a Muslim does, in submission to this All Powerful Creator. If you do so sincerely and ask Him for guidance, He will show you the truth.


The Divine Reality: God, Islam & The Mirage Of Atheism | Hamza Tzortzis | Amazon.com

Proofs of Prophethood Series | Yaqeen Institute

• The Accomplishments of the Prophet ﷺ: The Proofs Of Prophethood Series
  
  
• The Message of the Prophet ﷺ: The Proofs of Prophethood Series
  
  
  
• The Character of The Prophet ﷺ: The Proofs of Prophethood Series
  
  
  
• An Ethical and Historical Necessity: The Proofs of Prophethood Series
  
  
  Jonathan Brown - Abiding Stereotypes About the Prophet Muhammad in the Medieval and Modern West
  
  

I can't say one single piece of evidence (or a single study) convinced me, but I can summarize the various pieces of evidence as biogeography - the fact that we see similar (related) creatures living in the same geographic area and even some creatures on different continents with similar features in places where plate tectonics would lead us to expect similarities - and genetics, most notably the human vitamin c gene, which is defective.


The evidence for evolution is not measured in single studies, but in the weight of the collective evidence. For an overview of the collective evidence across many fields, this book by Jerry Coyne lays out the general case for the factuality of evolution. If you read it you do need to be ready for some Dawkins-esque posturing - he wrote a book on why faith and science are incompatible, but the information in the book is very good. For a basic summary, this Khan Academy page does a good job.

Finally, institutions like the Biologos institute convinced me that it's Biblically okay to believe in Theistic Evolution (Evolutionary Creation? Whichever one posits God's active involvement in creation via evolution.). The final "nail in the coffin" was The Lost World of Genesis One by John Walton.

I don't want to add extra reading to your life, but here goes ;-)

You may find "The Four Foundations of Mindfulness" to be of help off the cushion. I found this is of great benefit for dealing with what you're speaking about as well.

Awareness of form, feeling, perceptions, mental formations and consciousness (the five aggregates model) -- powerful stuff.

This is the [book] (https://www.amazon.ca/Satipatthana-Direct-Realization-Bhikkhu-Analayo/dp/1899579540/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1502836095&sr=8-1&keywords=the+direct+path+to+realization) I found of great help.

There's probably a few ways you could go about expanding your knowledge base. The two that seem most fruitful are

1. Reading for a deeper understanding of the topics that you're already familiar with.
   
   
2. Ranging more broadly into other areas that may interest you.
   
   If (1), then I'd probably suggest one of two courses. Either, (a) read the stuff that influenced the existential thinkers that you've listed, or (b) read some literature dealing with issues related to the thinkers you've listed.
   
   For (a) I'd suggest the following:
   
   

• Anything by Kant
  
• (In the case of Kierkegaard) Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit or his Aesthetics
  
• (For Nietzsche) Emerson's essays, Schopenhauer's World as Will and Representation, or Spinoza's Ethics
  
• Maybe some Freud for the later thinkers? Civilization and its Discontents is really good.
  
  For (b) it's really a mixed bag. I'd suggest going through the SEP articles on the thinkers you've listed and looking into some good secondary literature on them. If you're super interested in Nietzsche, I'd definitely suggest reading Leiter's Nietzsche on Morality. I really couldn't tell you more unless you told me something more specific about your interests.
  
  If (2), then I suppose I'd suggest one of the following:
  
  
• Readings in Classical Chinese Philosophy for a good, broad introduction to Chinese Thought
  
• The Analects of Confucius. This translation is excellent
  
• A Short History of Chinese Philosophy
  
• Heidegger's Being and Time
  
• Merleau-Ponty's Phenomenology of Perception
  
• Some of Rilke's work
  
• Unamuno's Tragic Sense of Life
  
  Again, it's hard to give you better directions without more information on what you're actually interested in. I've just thrown a bunch of stuff at you, and you couldn't possibly be expected to read, say, Schopenhauer's World as Will and Representation over break and be expected to really understand it.

>What should I do?

Relax, I understand that your mind is spinning and you might be jittery, but being calm, collected, and rational is important here. Let's look at these one by one.

>and said that she doesn’t understand why God allows suffering in this world, and that she has many doubts.

>My younger brother also recently admitted to me that he doesn’t believe in God.

Read and share these articles with them:

Why Do People Suffer? God’s Existence & the Problem of Evil

The Case for Allah’s Existence in the Quran and Sunnah

>How can I convince them that Islam is the truth?

The above article regarding the existence of God could be enough, if it isn't see some of the others here: Resource List: Refuting Atheists.

Regarding convincing Islam is true, see:

The Prophetic Truth: Proving Prophet Muhammad ﷺ's Prophethood

I'd recommend you and the rest of your family (including your father) read the book, The Divine Reality and the material at Yaqeen Institute. Sometimes it is a matter of the heart which takes time.

Consider joining the Durkastan Discord Server: https://discord.gg/GxJJ5T2 as well because there are some experts on there who are not on here who may be able to answer your questions much faster.

Creation and evolution can co-exist. Be careful not to force her into a false dichotomy.

To quote another person:

> I think your statement about the compatibility of orthodox Christian belief and the embrace of evolutionary theory is correct. So far as I can see, no contradiction between them obtains. I have Catholic friends who are both devout with respect to Church doctrine and fully supportive of modern evolutionary theory, and I find the theodicy and theology that proceed from that more elegant and robust than special-creationist alternatives. If one is going to proceed under the irrational assumptions of Christian theism in the first place, that seems to be a fairly rational way of proceeding from there. In any case, it doesn't place those Christians in the mental ditch so many drive themselves into with the anti-evolutionary bent, denying reason and evidence in abundance for evolutionary theory.

> Even so, I think you are dismissing the problem in a very simplistic fashion. While I just affirmed that evolution and orthodox Christian doctrine are compatible, evolution is nevertheless quite toxic in many cases to support for Christian belief. Many Catholics, for instance, have maintained a kind of faithful theistic evolution throughout their lives, but for many others, evolution seriously undermines faith in God because it in a significant sense makes God superfluous, an afterthought, an unnecessary part of the explanation.

> I think that explains why so many Catholics here militate against the evidence and the facts on the ground concerning evolution. The objection is NOT that evolution cannot be harmonized with Catholic doctrine -- manifestly, it can be -- but rather that evolution betrays a basic conceit many believers have about their status as humans. Christian theology exalts mankind in an ontological sense -- only man is imprinted with the imago dei, only man has the reasoning faculties to apprehend natural law and the noetic facilities for knowing God in a spiritual sense.

> Man is fallen, but that "fallenness" itself is proof of man's ontological primacy in the world; there is hubris in supposing man had somewhere to fall from in the first place.

> As Christian, I know I was guilty of this conceit. And while evolution does not and cannot discredit the idea that God made the universe, and utlimately designed the world so that man would be man, in such form that he might enventually be invested with a soul, fashioned in some dualistic way in God's image, evolution as a mechanical, natural process really takes the pride out of human exceptionalism. Darwin's dangerous idea was that we are animals in the most thoroughgoing sense, cousins of the chimpanzee and relatives of the lowly cabbage, or even the most virulent bacteria, if we are to trace our lineage back far enough.

> I suggest to you that some of the draw of Christian faith -- not all of it, but some -- obtains from this intuitive desire to classify oneself, one's kind as "special". Not just special in some parochial sense, but "cosmically special". Catholicism can still cater to this innate inclination, but it's a lot harder to cater to through the filter of evolutionary theory. Evolution places man as an ordinary leaf, like all the other leaves, or a very large and ancient tree. Many have a conceit grounded in the idea that man was "formed from the dust" in some special, hands-on way -- a custom job, or as they would say in the UK, "bespoke".

> Evolution works right against this conceit, and while doctrine and faith can be maintained in embracing it, evolution just kills a lot of the joy of the "specialness" many believers are enamored of. If evolution is true, God may still be the Creator, the one forming man with the imago dei, somehow, but it sure does look more remote and mechanistic than it used to. And of course, it continually provides the idea that this is just how things would look if God were imaginary, and that's something many believers understand, and resist strongly on those grounds.

The point of course is that they are compatible, but that one must be humble about it. As Pope John Paul II said when he was accepting evolution, "Truth cannot contradict truth". In other words, if you look at the evidence for evolution, it's very clear that it's correct in at least the broad sense even if some of the specifics are still being researched. From this, you have to ask how this applies to your world view - do you think it's a work of the devil or God is trying to test you or some other nonsense, or will you take it as another building block of truth and apply it where appropriate understanding that even if the entire body is evolved, without help, from a single celled organism that this says nothing about anything regarding souls or spirits or whatever they want to believe. Christians believe we leave the physical world behind when we die, so why fight over it being so special?

Edit:

I also recommend this if she has problems believing dating methods... it's a "Christian perspective" but it's accurate and explains it pretty well.

http://www.asa3.org/ASA/RESOURCES/WIENS.html

And also a Christian biologist talking for 2 hours (with evidence!) about why evolution is true and ID is BS:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JVRsWAjvQSg

And here is a book written about evolution from the Christian perspective (recommended by Dawkins in a video once), starting at $2.61 used paperback. Just buy her a copy and have it shipped to her.

http://www.amazon.com/Finding-Darwins-God-Scientists-Evolution/dp/0060930497

(courtesy of /u/lightnlng):


Check what you like from this list of Resources. I recommend starting with the Quran and a biography of prophet Muhammad (pbuh). If you want books, these ones are popular:

• [Book] The Message of the Qur'an - Muhammad Asad, if you're looking for the Quran in book form, this has helpful commentary to provide a thorough understanding.
  
  
• [Book] Quran - Abdel Haleem, another Quran in book form, this one is written in extremely clear modern English that makes it easy and pleasurable to read.
  
  
• [Book] Muhammad Man and Prophet - Adil Salahi, a Complete Study of the Life of the Prophet, from birth in the Arabian desert to the triumph of Islam and its gaining a permanent hold on Arabia.
  
  
• [Book] In the Footsteps of the Prophet: Lessons from the Life of Muhammad - Tariq Ramadan, presents the main events of the Prophet's life in a way that highlights his spiritual and ethical teachings.
  
  ----
  
  Introduction book to Islam:
  
  
• [Book] Islam and the Destiny of Man - Charles Le Gai Eaton, introduction to Islam aimed at the Westerner. Online PDF
  
  -----
  
  Some popular videos on YouTube:
  
  
• [Video] How the Bible Led Me to Islam - Joshua Evans, former Christian youth minister conveys his journey to Islam.
  
  
• [Video] The DeenShow - a talk show that introduces many of the basic teachings of Islam and addresses common misconceptions. Their website here.
  
  
  
• [Video] The Purpose of Life - Khalid Yasin, gives a comprehensive lecture on the fundamental question that every human being must ask: "What is the purpose of life?"

Other posters are correct, feel free to read the book front to back. A Muslim friend of mine recommended to me The Message of the Qur'an it's a very good modern translation into English and has an extensive scholarly apparatus and footnotes. It is not a "readers" copy, it's intended for serious academic study. I also bought The Book of Hadith at the same time.

A few points worth keeping in mind:

1. From the point of view of Islam, "translation" of the Quran is not technically possible. All translations are, functionally considered something akin to paraphrases or commentaries on the original classical Arabic.
   
2. Although the Quran is perfectly approachable read front to back, your suspicions are correct, the text is not chronological. This is important because some passages have the function of abrogating other passages in chronological manner.
   
3. There text, in a way, assumes knowledge on the part of the reader that you won't have. All religious texts and many historical texts do this too. So, I suggest getting used to reading haditha and various events in the Quran. These are legends surrounding Muhammad. Be advised there is a "sorting system" that hadith have that rank their credibility. Roughly, someone who claims to be an eye witness to an event is given more weight than an individual asserting a fact writing 200 years after said event, and so-forth.
   
4. I may be getting confused here, but if memory serves, there is a sacred (or quasi-sacred) biography of Muhammad that might help you wrap your mind around the historical goings on in the text of the Quran as well. I can't recall the Arabic name of this commentary off the top of my head. Perhaps /u/Comrox or /u/TheOneFreeEngineer would do me the kindness of supplying the name of that text or clearing up my confusion. This text is distinct from a source critical biography in the modern scholarly sense, which surely would also help you, but bear in mind it is a religious document and contains its own religious bias.
   
   I hope this helps. Good luck wrapping your mind around the texts.

I'd reccomend that you ask that question over at r/Orthodoxchristianity.

I'm a pretty recent convert to Orthodoxy and Christanity so you'd get better responses from more well read people than myself.

On the Incarnation by st. Athanasius is one I would reccomend to think about the incarnated Christ, but that isn't necessarily focused on that specific part of his work and ministry.

https://www.amazon.com/Incarnation-Saint-Athanasius-Popular-Patristics/dp/0881414271/ref=asc_df_0881414271/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=312025907670&hvpos=1o2&hvnetw=g&hvrand=8053380684652781832&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=m&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9019552&hvtargid=pla-494160369835&psc=1

The best thing that comes to my mind specifically with regards to your question is the Divine Liturgy of st. Basil the Great written for Great and Holy Saturday (The Lord's Sabbath). Here is a portion of it.


https://imgur.com/a/O1RnMnB

https://imgur.com/a/iAGOarn

https://imgur.com/a/YVw7rVz

https://svspress.com/great-and-holy-saturday/

I watched an interview of the Dalai Lama once by Larry King. Having very little knowledge of Buddhism, Larry King asked him what he does when mosquitoes land on him to suck his blood.

The Dalai Lama replied that it depends entirely upon his mood at the moment. If he's in a good mood, he said, he blows on it to send it away. If he's not in a good mood, he smashes it to bits!

And then he laughed and laughed the way he does. I love Tenzin Gyatso.

Writing this just reminded me of a very helpful book by Tibetan Buddhist, Chogzam Trungpa that I hope to god OP will read, called "Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism".

This is a great book for everyone interested in Buddhism or religion in general. It's well written and very easy to read and understand. If I knew OP's address, I'd buy one and send it.

>Could you kindly point me to any content which I have copied and pasted from anti-Islamic websites please.

Here
and here

If you did the research yourself, then you didn't do a very good job of it and it would be quite obvious that you were looking for something to hate about Islam. Probably because you think all religions are the same, and Islam MUST be exactly like Christianity. Your lack of knowledge in Islam shows that. All of those "arguments" you posted are EASILY findable in Google, probably within the first page of results. It's the same arguments over and over again and it's become cliche to the internet Muslims. We just roll our eyes, like how you roll your eyes when a Christian comes to you preaching about Jesus. These so called "issues" have been refuted over and over again, and many of them can simply be refuted with just a basic understanding in Islam.

>If your holy book makes you look silly, why not pick a new one?

Looks silly to who? Someone who isn't Muslim? Why should I listen to them for?

>Please point me to better translations so I can learn.

Here is a good translation, with some commentary. If you want to go all out on commentary then get this. And this is the abridged version. It's translated from 11th century Arabic, but at least its 400 years newer than the Qur'an. You might be able to borrow a volume or two from your local mosque. However, do not make the claim that just because you read a couple of books on Islam, you are some sort of scholar. If I read "A Brief History of Time", it does not make me an astrophysicist.

>If pointing out what it says in your holy book is so irritating to you, what does that tell you about your holy book?

It tells me that the Qur'an was correct about non-Muslims after all. But since you read the entire Qur'an, you already know what I mean.

>further comment on your remark on the fairness of the Qu'ran's translations and scientific accuracy: why is it that the salt and fresh water thing and creationism are still taught in modern Islamic schools even in Europe?

I can't access youtube since I'm at work. Creationism in Islam is different than creationism in Christianity. Read this if you're interested.

As for the fresh water/salt water thing, this thread does a pretty good job explaining it.

Open mind, remember.

Easily the most outstanding translation of them all is the Muhammad Asad (Leopold Weiss) translation of the Quran. It can be found here

After that I'd have to say Allamah Noorruddin's translation here. Excellent translation. And as a book itself, probably the best. Leather bound. It's something to pass on to children and read many times.

After that I prefer Arberry's translation. He was a Cambridge linguist. He was non-muslim, but he had excellent command of the language.

Following that I prefer Mohammad Marmaduke Pickthall's translation. He was one of the first English muslims. Converted, learnt the language, translated it.

After that I'd go with Yusuf Ali, an Indian-born muslim with a western education. For some odd reason, his translation and Shakir's translation are the 2 most common ones, although easily out done by Muhammad Asad's. Asad was born Leopold Weiss, a Polish Jew. He moved to the middle east, spent time with the bedouin, learnt the language, and created an utterly brilliant translation that I've linked to.


EDIT: Just a note on myself. I've read about 5 english translations. I would avoid the Sahih International, as well as the Shakir one. They are influenced too much by the Saudi authorities. I've skimmed through Haleem's version, which others have mentioned here. It seemed really good. But go with Asad, you won't regret it.

If you haven't already checked out Culadasa's dharma treasure audio archives there are some great talks on there about some of these topics. The Teaching Retreats page especially. Meditation & Insight is a great series to start with, but several of them check off the boxes on your interests.

Secondly, I'd recommend Satipatthana: The Direct Path to Realization by Analayo. It's a very in good analysis of this sutta, which ends up covering a lot of ground including in-depth exploration of some of these concepts (The Aggregates, The Sense-spheres, Four Noble Truths, The Awakening Factors,etc), and how they play a role in Awakening. Can't recommend enough.

The book Why Evolution is True by Jerry Coyne goes over these questions in detail. It talks about the evidence available to Darwin, and the evidence that we have discovered since then.

I listened to the audio book, but it seemed like a nice, accessible book, and I highly recommend it to anyone with an interest in the subject.

Edit: One of the things that the book covered that I found most compelling was the geographic evidence of evolution, a topic I was not really familiar with previously.

To give one specific example, Marsupials are naturally occuring in only two areas, Australia and the Americas, especially South America. Darwin predicted that when we explore Antarctica, we would find fossil evidence of marsupials there, which was later determined to be true. At some point in history, ice bridges connected these three bodies, and allowed marsupials who naturally evolved in S. America to migrate to Australia (or was it the other way around?). Once the two populations split, they continued to evolve, so the two populations are now distinct species, but dna testing proves that they are very closely related.

I am badly paraphrasing the idea, but that is just one of several very strong arguments that the anti-evolution crowd tends to ignore. You really have to stretch to come up with a explanation for these distributions outside of evolution, so it is easier to just pretend the whole line of evidence doesn't exist.

(Unrelated: Marsupial distribution is also strong evidence against the Noah myth. If Marsupials had been on the Ark, how is it that they were able to travel from the middle east to S. America and Australia without leaving any fossil evidence anywhere along the way?)

Desire for truly positive, transformative results is called aspiration. It is still desire, but a different category of desire. One uses it until one overcomes other attachments. Then the dualistic spiritual desire can be let go as well.

Letting go is, of course, also put into practice during meditation. Your aspiration brings you to practice; but when you're actually applying choiceless awareness, you can let go of all thoughts of where you're going to or coming from. Only return to the method, only return to application of the awareness. Then, outside of meditation, when self and attachment habitually arise, you can again apply your positive aspiration to cut them off.

~

One of the all-time classics of Dharma and dharmic practice is Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism, by Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche. I highly recommend this book if you're into reading.

This is a HUGE , HUGE, concept to talk about and neither of us are going to get to far on it in this thread.

Sam Harris' excellent book "The moral landscape" does a wonderful job of laying out the foundations of human morality without a supernatural bent: (http://www.amazon.com/The-Moral-Landscape-Science-Determine/dp/B006W3YQTK/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1335301465&sr=1-1)

>That doesn't seem right. Why do we then cause suffering for conscious creatures and call it moral? For example, the imprisonment of criminals. That causes suffering to them. Actually we would say it is immoral not to imprison them

It is true that sometime the most moral actions require suffering of others. (Self defense is but one example.) Actually in Harris' book, he also takes on seemingly problematic topics like sado-maschosism. (People deriving personal pleasure from hurting others.) At first glance, it seems as if someone who doesn't believe in god could NOT say "It is objectively wrong to do this."

However, harris lays out a wonderful case of why that isn't true, and he does a MUCH better job than I ever can here. Actually, for a great example of a debate on this matter, there is a 10 part youtube debate with Christian apologist William lane Craig and Yale philosophy professor Shelly Kagan:

(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vqZ5azg8mlg)

I HIGHLY, HIGHLY recommend watching this debate as both men are very skilled in their respective positions and both sides are laid out beautifully.

It is called "Is god necessary for morality?"

Handfasting and Wedding Rituals has some Greek weddings, and some specifically gay Pagan weddings. Hellenic Polytheism: Household Worship also contains a wedding ritual as well.

Are there deities you feel exceptionally close to? They should be a part of it. If not, Hera, Aphrodite, Eros and Hymen are certainly important, as they are deities of love, and you may also wish to call upon gods of gay love (Aphrodite again, Dionysus, Antinous).

As a gay man who also hopes to one day get married (At the theatre of Dionysus, if it works), please feel free to share your ideas!

The psychedelic experience is by Timothy Leary, and is a manual based on the Tibetan Book of the Dead. On amazon here.
The pyshcedelic explorer's guide is by James Fadiman, found here.

The power of now is good too, it will certainly prime you for ego death. I definitely recommend reading Be here now too, the illustrated middle part that I used during the come-up are just fantastic, you see people mention it all the time here. So many great things to meditate on in there. Opening the doors of perception, I have not read this one, but I have had it recommended often. The joyous cosmology by Alan Watts is short but great too. He describes his experiences with LSD, and the world that you enter. He is amazing with language.

I was a Jehovah's Witness for the first 24 years of my life. Very devout.

It's hard for me to know what these particular folks' motivation for being in the JWs is.

Here is what helped me:

Problems With a Global Flood, 2nd Edition: Witnesses are very literal about their interpretation of the bible. If they actually read this page it will go a long way toward dislodging the cornerstones of their faith.

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-noahs-ark.html

Finding Darwin's God by Ken Miller: A book about evolution that is not directly threatening to religion. It's written by the head of biology at Brown University. The science is solid. The theology is unsurprisingly weak. This book changed my life.

http://www.amazon.com/Finding-Darwins-God-Scientists-Evolution/dp/0060930497

If they make it that far, give them this one: Letter to a Christian Nation by Sam Harris. Not all of it applies to witnesses directly (they're not young-earth creationists, for example), but a lot of it still applies. This will supply many final nails for the coffin.

http://www.amazon.com/Letter-Christian-Nation-Vintage-Harris/dp/0307278778/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1291101892&sr=1-1

One thing to keep in mind is that they're very unlikely to seek any of this out on their own. They'll view it as a sin. Your best bet is to print these texts out or buy them. Both books can be purchased on Amazon in used condition for almost nothing. Tell them you'll read their books if they read yours and hold them to it. That culture has a very strong intellectual conscience. Most witnesses are really decent people. They're just stuck in a totally stupid mind-trap.

Good luck! You're doing a great thing by trying to help these people.

Hello mate, I would recommend you this order: First of all, The Norse Myths:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0394748468/ref=pd_lpo_sbs_dp_ss_1?pf_rd_p=1944687622&pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe-1&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=B002HLAF32&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=5ST3KMPDJ47HVWWV2AW4

The who´s who in nordic pantheon. Has the most known myths plus a superb introduction to cosmology. Myths are in chronological order, from Ginnungagap to Ragnarok. The writing is very good, adult-oriented with some touches of dry humor.

After it go for the 2 Eddas. Why is important to know about the myths or the gods? Because all the books you are going to read name or make references to the gods or to myths or both. You will want to know what on Midgard are they talking about.

After that, if you want to know more about Asatru specifically, read in this order:
The Asatru Edda
https://www.amazon.com/%C3%81satr%C3%BA-Edda-Sacred-Lore-North/dp/1440131783/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1473832369&sr=1-1&keywords=asatru+edda

The Norroena Society made a superb job publishing this Edda taking away all the christian influence. Really great job. They made with the Eddas what Dr. Viktor Rydberg did with the teutonic myths.

Next in line:
A Practical Heathen's Guide to Asatru

https://www.amazon.com/Practical-Heathens-Guide-Asatru/dp/0738733873/ref=pd_sim_14_1?ie=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=8M3GCMHG28EVGP5090FX

Exactly what it says.

Now, if later on your path you feel the itch to learn more about teutonic myths, their social construct, history etc etc let me know that I can recommend more books depending on your needs.

I know it's a bit of pop psychology, but I can't help but think that you'd enjoy the works of Malcolm Gladwell, particularly Blink and Outliers. Blink brings forward a lot of the issues about conscious rationalization of unconscious behavior and cognition. The metaphor is that there is a locked door in our mind, behind which a huge series of unconscious processes occur. These processes evolved for specific tasks and have thus evolved, as a necessity, a specifically high accuracy in certain areas.

Described in the book is a particularly interesting psychological case study was done with gamblers. Gamblers were sat at a table with 4 decks of cards, 2 red and 2 blue. They would draw cards that would either net them money or lose them money. The decks were rigged, of course, with the red decks providing a few high payouts with a net loss, and the blue decks providing minor gains and an average positive net. By the 80th draw, on average, the gamblers knew to avoid the red decks and could consciously explain their behavior. At the 40th draw they had a hesitancy to draw from the red deck, but could not explain their behaviors beyond "suspicion". However, by as early as the 20 draw, the subjects demonstrated increased heart rate and sweaty palms when drawing from red that they were not even consciously aware of!

The book Religion Explained takes a lot of these evolved subconscious cognization theories and very convincingly applies them to the realm of religious evolution. It's dryer than Gladwell, but a valuable read nonetheless!

If you're interested in the practice as it was done in early Buddhism, check out this reading list:.

Satipaṭṭhāna: The Direct Path to Realization by Bhikkhu Analayo.
A Swift Pair of Messengers by Bhikkhu Sujato.
Right Mindfulness: Memory & Ardency on the Buddhist Path by Ṭhānissaro Bhikkhu.

Those are the best 3 to start with...what you're going to want to look for is early Theravada Buddhist practice which is called Satipattana. Analayos book is generally considered the best, but all 3 are excellent, especially Thanissaros book which is free. All 3 have correspondencing audio lectures which I'll post if you want. You can also contact me via Pm anytime. Hope that helps!

Most pagan religions — reconstructionism, Shinto, Shenjiao, Hinduism — have much the same approach: you share food and drink and make symbolic offerings like fire and incense. Actions can also be offerings, like song, music, and dance. A bunch of flowers is always nice. Then there are gifts like statues, paintings, or just nice objects. Ancient Greeks offered everything from pottery animals to sea-shells. Of course votives like that do tend to build up: temples used to bury them eventually! Gifts to charity can be vowed as offerings to appropriate gods — I give annually to a hospice in honour of Hades and Persephone and to a veterans' charity for Ares.

A good book is

Hellenic polytheism: household worship

and you can find more advice on specific gods at

https://neosalexandria.org/the-pantheon/

I study evolutionary biology as a hobby and have read many books on the subject, several of which actually argue in favor of a designer (a position I disagree with based on the evidence). The facts and evidence overwhelmingly support the history of the eye's development as I have described it whether you agree with it or not. If you are interested in the subject, I highly recommend checking out "Finding Darwin's God" by Kenneth R. Miller and "Hen's Teeth and Horse's Toes" by Stephen Jay Gould, both of which are very informative and excellent reads.

If you are a blind, ocean-dwelling creature who's food tends to hang out near the surface, a mutation that allows a cell to detect light would make it easier to find food, thus increasing the likelihood that you would survive and pass on that mutation. Furthermore, if another mutation multiplied the number of those light detecting cells, you might be able to better determine your distance to the surface and more precisely hone in on your meal without getting too close to the surface and putting yourself in potential danger. If a further mutation granted you enough of the light-detecting cells that you determine movement, you would be in a much better position to both find food and evade predators.

It is small mutations like this that have selective advantages that result in the development of things like eyes and the rest of our organs. It's not that the creatures "knew what they wanted to see"; it's that mutations provided sensory inputs that increased the likelihood of those creatures surviving. It is the survivors that pass on their genes and spawn the next generation. This is happening constantly in all living things, humans included, and that is an indisputable fact. It can be and has been observed.

The Zen Teaching of Huang Po is short and very straightforward unlike some Zen books. It has been the single most important book I've read without a doubt.

I've read a couple books by Shunryu Suzuki and found them very helpful. "Zen Mind Beginners Mind" is a book I read and reread many times, each time getting a bit more out of it.

I honestly don't know anything about Seung Sahn or Sawaki or other contemporary teachers. My teacher was Joshu Sasaki Roshi.

When I first started looking into Zen, I was a bit paranoid. Having been raised by very strict atheists who put down all things religions or spiritual, I wanted to be sure I was on the right track of authentic Zen and not in danger of ending up in a cult.

I decided very early on that reading books that have been tested by centuries of time was the safest and so I avoided most modern authors for the first 2 years.

If you enjoy ancient literature, I highly recommend reading a couple of the old sutras. They are often easier to read than some modern shit and they are AMAZING considering how long ago they were written.

My favorites so far as the Surangama Sutra and the Lankavatara Sutra.

SO MANY!

["Lies my Teacher Told Me"] (http://www.amazon.com/Lies-My-Teacher-Told-Everything/dp/0743296281) by James Loewen. This is about how the world really works, basically. It's all about history and politics and economics and how world powers interact with each other and their own population. It's incredibly eye-opening and will make you understand why everything is the way it is today! It's also ridiculously fun to read :D

["The Quantum and the Lotus by"] (http://www.amazon.com/Quantum-Lotus-Journey-Frontiers-Buddhism/dp/1400080797/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1383171898&sr=1-1&keywords=the+quantum+and+the+lotus) by Matthieu Ricard and Trinh Xuan Thuan. This is a super fascinating read! It's actually a transcribed conversation between a Buddhist who became a quantum physicist and a physicist who left science and became a Buddhist! It's this AMAZING look into complicated science and it's explained in such simple terms anyone can understand it. But beyond that, it's this really fascinating glimpse into a world where science and spirituality can co-exist. It's like science explaining spirituality, or spirituality giving a wholesome quality to science. It's just so unique and amazing!

["The Power of Myth"] (http://www.amazon.com/Power-Myth-Joseph-Campbell/dp/0385418868/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1383172215&sr=1-3&keywords=joseph+campbell) by Joseph Campbell. If you can, read EVERYTHING by this guy that you can get your hands on! This book is especially poignant because it's addressing all of the aspects of our modern day society, from religion to gangs to marriage, even education. It is incredibly powerful and eye-opening and explains so much about the way we work as humans and the way the individual interacts with society. Plus, you'll learn a shit ton about mythology that you never knew before! And you'll be looking at mythology from a ridiculously profound perspective that I've never seen anyone else address before.

I can give you more if you tell me what you're interested in learning more about :)

EDIT: Typos.

Although there are a lot of people recommending Ibn Kathir, the best translation with a complete set of footnotes that works for myself and a lot of non-Muslims are by Muhammad Asad. Here's are some very helpful reviews on the book: link

Here's a link to the copy at Amazon: link

That's just my opinion if you want as much historical information and context of revelation and related footnotes as possible, this book does an amazing job. Also, as a graphic designer I have to commend the publisher on their artwork and organization as well :)

Perhaps I should have said "the way the mind works". True they may not have made direct statements about the biology of the brain, but many sutra's were written about the way the mind functions for sure. As for how it relates to modern science a good start is the book Zen and the Brain by James Austin http://www.amazon.com/Zen-Brain-Understanding-Meditation-Consciousness/dp/0262511096. Theres also the Center for Investigating Healthy Minds http://www.investigatinghealthyminds.org/ which has some very useful info. Another good example is this book http://www.amazon.com/Quantum-Lotus-Journey-Frontiers-Buddhism/dp/1400080797/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1382480784&sr=1-1&keywords=quantum+lotus

I linked a paper that debunked the argument that human beings and chimps share a common ancestor because of genetic similarity. I have not engaged in any fallacy whatsoever, you, however, engaged in two in your comment. The first is a straw man because you misrepresented what I said, I specifically said that it debunks genetic similarity. Your second fallacy committed here is called the vested interest fallacy which is as follow:

>The Vested Interest Fallacy occurs when a person argues that someone’s claim or recommended action is incorrect because the person is motivated by their interest in gaining something by it, with the implication that were it not for this vested interest then the person wouldn’t make the claim or recommend the action. Because this reasoning attacks the reasoner rather than the reasoning itself, it is a kind of Ad Hominem fallacy.

http://www.iep.utm.edu/fallacy/#VestedInterest

By saying that the paper is on an Islamic website in no way whatsoever degrades the quality of the research or the arguments presented. Indeed, to say that homo sapiens and chimps share a common ancestor due to genetic similarity has, in fact, been debunked. As for evolution in general see my previous comment. I won't repeat myself.

>How do you know that Islam is true? What is the reason you believe Islam is true?

There are plenty of reasons, I recommend checking out Hamza Tzortzis book, The Divine Reality.

>And your claim that Islam is true is unsubstantiated.

Your claim that the 7 year old who memorized the Quran is being abused and indoctrinated is unsubstantiated. Moreover, your substantiation requires scientism and naturalism which cannot be substantiated itself, because, they are, of course, self refuting and conflicting with one another.

Edit: Fixed an error.

For your case I recommend a great book. It’s called “the divine reality” by Hamza Tzortis. It selves into the philosophy of existence, purpose, and god, not only from an Islamic POV but from an atheist POV as well. It’s a very good read as well. Highly recommend reading it.
https://www.amazon.com/Divine-Reality-Islam-Mirage-Atheism/dp/0996545387

Sounds like what you're looking for is traditional polytheism or Reconstructionism, Dodekatheism/Hellenismos in particular given what you've already studied and heritage. As such, you're not likely to find much of that in most pagan groups as the majority tend to be Neopagan, often heavily borrowing from Wicca.

Though based in Greece, I think YSEE has an active chapter in NYC. Another group to look into online is Elaion which has members in North America and parts of Europe. I don't think there are local gatherings per se but likely members who are in NY and perhaps people could arrange to meet up. The group does have what they call PAT rituals (Practicing Apart Together) so that members worldwide engage in the same festival at the same time.

Another group to look into (but is based in Greece) is Labrys. They also offer a wealth of information and they've published a very accessible primer in modern Hellenic practice which has been translated into English, Hellenic Polytheism: Household Worship.

Edited to add: also, a subreddit of interest r/HellenicPolytheism

Finding Darwin's God by Kenneth Miller is THE book to read on this topic. In the first half of the book, he talks about how all creationism versions (young earth, old earth and irreducible complexity) are not only bunk, but actually bad theology. Then in the second half he goes on the explain how evolution makes perfect sense given a God who gives us free will. In the end, I felt like evolution was actually proof for God, not against. Really, anyone with an interest in this topic should read this book. Amazon Link

Here are a few of the resources that have helped me:

https://biologos.org/
https://www.amazon.com/Creation-Evolution-Do-Have-Choose/dp/0857215787
https://www.amazon.com/Gunning-God-Atheists-Missing-Target/dp/0745953220/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=gunning+for+god&qid=1555348576&s=books&sr=1-1
https://www.amazon.com/Gods-Undertaker-Has-Science-Buried/dp/0745953719/ref=sr_1_2?keywords=gunning+for+god&qid=1555348605&s=books&sr=1-2
https://www.amazon.com/Jesus-Eyewitnesses-Gospels-Eyewitness-Testimony/dp/0802831621
Also, I've visited a lot of different churches and have plenty of friends that are Christians. Seeing that Christians are so very different from JW's- many are well educated, intelligent, thinking people- with a faith that is extremely different from the JW belief system. They have this passion, sincerity and relationship with God that is the opposite of the legalistic JW cult.

I need to go mow my lawn unfortunately, but for start Ken Miller, an evolutionary biologist at Brown University is wonderfully smart and wrote a book on evolution and god. Was decent. But yeah, he would count as a brilliant guy I think. Google is your aid if you want more.

I would suggest the Rider-Waite-Smith deck, which you can buy for pretty cheap on Amazon. Most other decks are based on this system and almost all books and websites for learning the cards use this deck. When you start to learn, the LearnTarot website is free and very helpful. Have fun! Exploring Tarot is one of the best decisions I have ever made.

thank you again for your replies; very well articulated, very helpful to me

I would like to ask you for your favorite resources on how to enhance mindfulness/awareness.

Mine are E Tolle's The Power Of Now and Stillness Speaks.

I listened to Alan Watts Out Of Your Mind and Do You Do It or Does It Do You?: How to Let the Universe Meditate You, and read his The Way Of Zen. I liked the book very much, did not enjoy much the audios. I went right back to listening to E Tolle audiobooks, mainly his TPON.

Also, I am reading the The Zen Teaching of Huang Po

What about you? What do you definitely think I should listen to or read?

> The academic study of Judaism/Christianity is just one part of a larger project: of revealing the naturalistic origins of religion itself. Of course, we've yet to fully flesh out a..."psychology" of ancient religion.

One book I'm still reading, but have found very enlightening, is Religion Explained: The Evolutionary Origins of Religious Thought by cognitive anthropologist Pascal Boyer.

I was quite interested to see K.L. Noll (Brandon University) applying Boyer's anthropological findings on how religion "works" to the study of historical Judaism in "Was There Doctrinal Dissemination in Early Yahweh Religion?" (BI 16, 2008, 295-427). This seems like a useful approach to take.

Here's some relevant advice from Chogyam Trungpa.

http://www.amazon.com/Cutting-Spiritual-Materialism-Shambhala-Classics/dp/1570629579

From the Amazon summary:

In this modern spiritual classic, the Tibetan meditation master Chögyam Trungpa highlights the commonest pitfall to which every aspirant on the spiritual path falls prey: what he calls spiritual materialism. The universal tendency, he shows, is to see spirituality as a process of self-improvement—the impulse to develop and refine the ego when the ego is, by nature, essentially empty. "The problem is that ego can convert anything to its own use," he said, "even spirituality." His incisive, compassionate teachings serve to wake us up from this trick we all play on ourselves, and to offer us a far brighter reality: the true and joyous liberation that inevitably involves letting go of the self rather than working to improve it. It is a message that has resonated with students for nearly thirty years, and remains fresh as ever today.

Here are the books I started with that have been very helpful...

I did not start with the Eddas, I started with this book...

[The Norse Myths by Kevin Crossley-Holland](
http://www.amazon.com/Norse-Myths-Pantheon-Folklore-Library/dp/0394748468)

It is a modern launguage retelling of the Lore in an easier to follow format. I read this book first so I have an understanding of the specific myth then I dive into the Eddas.

I also purchased a few Asatru specific books that give an overview of the Gods and Goddesses, give a brief history lesson, and discuss some of the rituals of Asatru like Blots, holidays, toasts, ect.

Essential Asatru: Walking the Path of Norse Paganism

A Practical Heathens Guide to Asatru

and

Heathenry: A Study of Asatru in the Modern World This one I have not read yet so I have no idea how good it is.

I also purchased The Prose Edda: Norse Mythology

I have a really hard time reading the Eddas since I have always had a hard time with that type of poetry so I have only purchased the one Edda and I am slowly making my way through it. There are a few different Eddas out there so read reviews of them on Amazon before buying to see what everyone is saying about it.

I didnt do this with the Asatru Edda and after I bought it found out they tend to fill in holes in the myths with their own assumptions. Im not educated enough to give examples but most of the reviews mention it. I was advised not to read that version until I become more familiar with the Lore as it was written first. Also, this book is as physically large as a school text book. It is soft cover but very awkward to hold and read.

Good luck. I am very much a beginner but have found the above resources helpful.

> what do you mean that a few weeks of research is not enough?

I believe OP is alluding that people 'studying' the effects of LSD (and it's pharmacology etc) for weeks is STILL insufficient in preparing them for the actual experience.

It's the difference between reading a book about swimming and getting in the pool.

It's an entirely different ballgame.

With that said, OP, for a newbie it is FAR MORE important that they trust you and you are patient with them than their 'knowledge' about a substance.

Take a look at James Fadiman's book for some ideas on how to communicate the importance of set/setting/mindset etc. and always start small.

I've introduced many newbies to psychedelics and I always take it super slow and step through their (irrational) objections together and explore their fears etc...

Most of the time their response is: "oh man! I had no idea" and overwhelmingly positive.

My advice would be to ask about their life goals, challenges, intentions, and motivations for exploring psychedelics etc. and reverse engineer those so you could easily connect them with the benefits of psychedelics.

At least, that's my approach.

Congratulations! I know what a big step that is, as I've been in the same boat. Books are the best way to become informed. Check out books by:

• Christopher Hitchens - God Is Not Great & The Portable Atheist
  
  
• Stephen Hawking - The Grand Design & A Briefer History of Time
  
  
• Richard Dawkins - The Greatest Show on Earth
  
  
• Carl Sagan - The Demon Haunted World
  
  
• Sam Harris - The Moral Landscape & The End of Faith
  
  
• Richard Panek - The 4 Percent Universe
  
  
• Robert Ingersoll - Some Mistakes of Moses
  
  
• Viktor Frankl - Man's Search for Meaning
  
  
• Sean Caroll - The Making of the Fittest
  
  
• Spencer Wells - Deep Ancestry
  
  
• Ayaan Hirsi Ali - Infidel
  
  
• Alan Watts - The Way of Zen
  
  Also check out the video series Why I am no longer a creationist.
  
  The more you know, the more confident you will be.

>I am mad at myself for not being this analytic about this earlier in my life

I had this exact feeling.

So one thing to realize is that this process takes time I mean for FSM sake u lived a lot with this Idea.keep reading whatever you do keep reading.

some sources or ideas that were helpful to me:

• parables of Jesus
  
• the history of hell
  
• history before ur religion.
  
• the Christ myth theory (However I do believe he existed but it lowered my certainty) and how exodus never happened look for the exodus myth
  
• Commonsense atheism and proving the negative
  
• talk origin and talk design are also very good sources.
  
• read some books on cognitive sciences and psychology of religion , search for recommended atheism books. (understand what cognitive bias is)
  
• this is the phone line u're looking for
  
• read an introductory account on atheism this is one of the best books on atheism
  
• find a way to express u're doubts or else u'll go crazy (at least if u're anything like me) ,blog about it or write about it , talk to s1, ask others questions.
  
• listen to debates about religions.
  
• think about the fact that u finally could emancipate urself from this.
  
• learn a little more about other religions it helps A LOT .
  
• read books by Xbelievers like John Luftus or Dan barker
  
• read more I mean Way more on cosmology and physics. just search for top books on Cosmology
  
• read comparative books like Karen Armstrong books and read the evolution of god
  
• read Religion Explained
  
  

  keep fear away and ...good luck !

Okay, I will tell you some things about me.

First, I ghosted everyone that knew me as a Blue Pill guy. Now, an inherent part of ghosting is being alone. When most people tell you they are independent, it's fucking bullshit. Emerson wrote a great deal on self-reliance.

Here is an essay by Emerson on the subject of self-reliance. It is both a great introduction to his views and how beautifully he writes.
http://www.emersoncentral.com/selfreliance.htm

Here is a collection of Emerson's essays. Ignore the 1 star review, which is for the Kindle version of the book, but heed it and buy the physical book instead of the Kindle version.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1598530844/

Emerson was friend and mentor to Thoreau, who wrote the following account of his two-year stay in a cabin near Walden Pond. One of Thoreau's goals was self-sufficiency.
http://www.amazon.com/Walden-A-Fully-Annotated-Edition/dp/0300104669

Here is some further reading.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0762415339/
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1492777862/
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0199291152/
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0802150926/

You mention you are going to be a radiographer soon. Now, I have seen said on TRP that some here do not see the point in film, but I fucking love film. Now, there is one film in particular that I think relates to your situation incredibly. That is Ikiru by Akira Kurosawa.

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/ikiru/
Ikiru is about a Japanese man who, near the end of his life, learns he has a terminal disease. He has, up to that point, wasted his whole life at his government job. Learning of his illness inspires in the main character a will to change, and seeing him undergo that inspires change in those around him. But, and this is another lesson to be learned from the film, we see that the main character's transformation has no lasting effect on those around him. Change has to come from within.

Another film seriously worth watching is Whiplash. I saw it mentioned in this subreddit in passing and am glad I did.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7d_jQycdQGo

If you want me to elaborate on the things that I didn't, ask. I have a lot more film recommendations, but cannot recommend any more books, as I do not read that much. I don't recommend any music as I would consider most of what I listen to to be blue pill.

I'm not sure. I guess the first step would be basic Jewish thought (theology, ethics, and basic principles), so I would recommend the same basic books I would recommend most Jewish adult beginning students:

• The Aryeh Kaplan Anthology, vol. 1 (volume 2 gets into material that is specifically Jewish practice)
  
  
• With Perfect Faith by J. David Bleich
  
  
• A Maimonides Reader by Isadore Twersky
  
  
• The Nineteen Letters by Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch.
  
  
• Sayings of the Fathers by Joseph H. Hertz (a translation of the Talmudic tractate Avos, which deals with ethics and thought, with a basic commentary).
  
  I would also recommend a good basic, one volume translation and commentary on the Torah (i.e. the five books of Moses). My personal recommendation for you would be the the Hertz Pentateuch. However the the Artscroll Stone Chumash, and the Hirsch Pentateuch are also very good.
  
  These ought to get you off to a solid start.

There's entire books written on how to take psychedelics responsibly to maximize the benefit. People shouldn't expect to just take psychedelics and conquer their anxiety without knowing what they're doing. It takes a bit of knowledge about how to navigate your own consciousness to "transcend" the anxiety and attain a state of complete inner peace. Basically lay down with calming music, eye shades preferred, look within your mind. Accept and surrender to everything you experience: even to the point where you think you're dying and you just let it happen. It sounds scary, but when you come out the other end of that, you feel fantastic because you conquered life's greatest fear. Anxiety is normally gone for the rest of the trip at that point. Many people experience jaw tightness while on a psychedelic, but that goes away too along with the anxiety.

There's other pitfalls you have to watch out for too. A main one is that you shouldn't put any expectations on the experience. Just be fine with whatever is happening in your mind and let it all happen on its own.

Reading The Psychedelic Explorer's Guide is what helped me go from having anxious trips to beautiful spiritual experiences:

https://www.amazon.com/Psychedelic-Explorers-Guide-Therapeutic-Journeys-ebook/dp/B0051OHLVG

These are many of the same things that therapists conducting studies into psychedelics have their patients do. It's really decades of illegal personal experience that has determined the more effective ways to take psychedelics, not the recent scientific studies. The studies are just trying to prove the efficacy.

I always recommend engaging with primary source works (translated, naturally...), but some people are not ready to grapple with Yuanwu's collection of koans or with Linji yet.

Some initial works to start out:

• The Way of Zen, by Alan Watts
  
• Buddhism is Not What You Think, by Steve Hagen
  
• The Taoteching (the Taoist classic - Taoism is the mother of Zen)
  
• What the Buddha Taught (a primer on classic Buddhism - Buddhism is the father of Zen)
  
• Headless experiments inspired by Douglas Harding
  
  If you've worked through (one or more of) those and want more, some primary works I recommend:
  
  
• The Zen Teaching of Bodhidharma
  
• The Platform Sutra, by Huineng the 6th Patriarch of Zen
  
• The Zen Teaching of Huang-Po
  
  That will get you to a good level.

Read "The Psychedelic Explorer's Guide: Safe, Therapeutic, and Sacred Journeys" by James Fadiman. It is an outstanding guide to tripping and trip sitting and is essential reading for anyone interested in being well prepared for using psychedelics effectively.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0051OHLVG/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_dp_T1_83LDzb2FNQPV4

To take a step back, how do you see this dialogue going? If you give them resources or make arguments, do you expect them to listen, say "good point," and accept that your position is valid?

Said another way, stuff that's convincing to you won't be convincing to them, and vice versa. After a few long conversations, I couldn't even get my family to admit the possibility that they may be wrong about their faith, or even that believers of other religions feel their religion to be true in the same way they do (and aren't deluded by Satan). Might be useful to start there rather than diving into the deep end with God Doesn't Exist.

It's a tough road ahead. Getting that first crack in the "the bible is 100% perfect" armor is a huge deal. For me it came in OT history (specifically the nonexistence of the Exodus and the book of Daniel, for which even N.T. Wright accepts a late date), which is easier to debunk than the NT stuff. Good luck.

Here's one though: check out works by former pastors and missionaries, like this book or this blog (the author of which has unfortunately passed away). When I was still on my journey I was basically immune to arguments from atheists, but these guys could get through.

Yes! There are quite a few (at least as far as pagan groups go). There's a large hellenic polytheist community on tumblr (just search tags like hellenic polytheism, hellenismos, or different deities). Here is the wiki article. There have been various groups slowly gaining popularity since the late '90s in and outside of Greece. This book describes what day to day Hellenic worship looks like.

Zen is super confusing at times, which might frustrate the inquirer. Also, there's a lot of seemingly contradictory information, and a lot of the zen masters actually admonished meditation. Without context it's a little unclear as to why, aside from the fact that they didn't want their disciples to meditate for the sake of blissing out. That said, I'd wholly recommend this book, since it's very lucid:

http://www.amazon.com/Zen-Essence-Shambhala-Dragon-Editions/dp/1570625883/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1464891954&sr=8-1&keywords=zen+science+of+freedom

Foyan is featured in it, and his book is fantastic as well:

http://www.amazon.com/Instant-Zen-Waking-Up-Present/dp/1556431937/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1464892102&sr=8-1&keywords=instant+zen

For something a little more challenging but great, go with:

http://www.amazon.com/Zen-Teaching-Huang-Po-Transmission/dp/0802150926/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1464892139&sr=8-1&keywords=zen+teachings+of+huang+po

Have fun!

The Artscroll Chumash (first 5 books of the Tanakh, a.k.a. the written Torah) /u/PM_ME_YOUR_TZITZIS mentioned is the gold standard of the Orthodox world. If you want a translation, and more importantly, a commentary with a traditional perspective get Artscroll.

On the other hand if you're looking for a more liberal / academic view check out Richard Elliot Friedman's Chumash. There might be better liberal / academic chumashim out there though, I'm really not sure.. maybe wait and see what others recommend in the way of liberal commentaries if that's what you're looking for.

Just want to emphasize that to understand Judaism you'll be infinitely better off with a Chumash (first 5 books with a commentary) than a Tanakh (first 5 + 19 additional books for a total of 24) without commentary.

I initially heard that idea from the Psychedelic Explorer's Guide which has a lot of great tips on tripping if you are wanting to do a bit more in depth reading. It's written by a guy named James Fadiman you was a psychologist that basically had a job of trip sitting people back in the 60's when he was working on his PhD. Anyways, I wish you the best of luck with whatever you decide.

I like Why I believed: Reflections of a Former Missionary. It's written from the point of view of an extremely commited Christian, and how they gradually lost their faith. It's available for free if you don't mind reading it on the web.

I like it as a "first course" because, though I really like Dawkins/Harris/Loftus/Carrier/etc, they all have lost such respect for Christianity over the years of being apologists (if they ever had any) that it sometimes leaks through in the writing. A sense of "what kind of idiot would think..." Because Ken Daniels is writing as someone who was really in it to win it, it's far more sympathetic to the position of a current believer.

No offense taken. :) Sure, It's not something I'd rely on for a doctoral dissertation, and the heady conclusions of a new paradigm caused my cynical alarm to go off, but took it as entertaining. I would not consider any parallels he draws as neat or clean by any stretch.

I'm also aware of books like the Tao of Physics and The Quantum and The Lotus...

Indigenous polytheism is typically a-doctrinal, and pretty much any reconstructionist or recon-derived religious body is going to be likewise. So there is no one book about "Nordic beliefs", nor any central text that will let you practice as a "Norse Pagan". If you really want to read about the mythology, you can't go wrong with the Eddas and Sagas, and you can choose a translation of your liking for that one. But, it cannot be understated, that mythology is not religion, and if you're interested in approaching Norse Paganism (Heathenry or its derivatives) seriously, you'll need to look into more of the contemporary practice. A book like this one is a good place to start.

If not and you're just interested in the mythology, then /r/Norse is thataway.

This reads more like schizophrenia than "old person."

See: Lark Voohies' [Lisa Turtle from Saved By The Bell] book True Light: A, superior, take, unto, the, premier, haloing, of, tenuation. Readily, available, True Light, provides, resource, into, time's, motifed, and, vestuved, authenticate, revelation.

And, yes, that's the actual title.

Well, it was a pretty long journey, but I'll try to summarize the main points.

I'm a cradle catholic. So when I was young, I attended catechism classes and I just took it all in without thinking about it critically.

As I grew older, I started to question all the things I was taught before. And the more you know about physics and biology, the more you question how the universe really works. Moreover, I got exposed to the writings and ideas of Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins and the other popularly vocal atheist guys. I got exposed to arguments like the God of the Gaps, I saw the corruption in the catholic church both now and in the past; and all these things just added up and eventually pushed me to become an atheist.

After a certain event in my life though, I was forced to really think about what I truly believe in. I did a lot of thinking and a lot of studying of the arguments of atheists and the other religions as well. What I've come to realize is that catholicism, though not perfect, is probably the closest to the truth about how our universe works and how we should live our lives. That's a big statement, and I'm willing to be proved wrong on that, but here's briefly how I came to that conclusion.

I was exposed to the writings of Thomas Aquinas. His five proofs, and in particular, his argument from contingency is quite a revelation, and to me it makes a lot of sense. I also realized that there is a limit to what science can answer, and the only honest statement that science can make about God is that we don't know and can't prove scientifically whether or not he exists. Then you have the argument from absolute morality (which is not the same as 'what's stopping you from committing crimes if you don't fear a higher power?'). You have the proof of the historicity of Jesus and his message. You have the high probability of the resurrection being a real event. There's also the behaviour of the early church fathers and what they believed the message of Jesus was.

And I also came across many scientist-theists and their writings. John Lennox is particularly good (http://www.amazon.com/Gods-Undertaker-Has-Science-Buried/dp/0745953719). Alistair McGrath is another one who bridges the science-religion debate really well.

So now I'm back to the catholic church. I know it's not perfect, there is still corruption there. But just because the people that make up the church are corrupt does not mean it's message is necessarily corrupt as well.

I have not read it but i've heard that Kenneth Millers Finding Darwin's God is really good. He is a catholic and was an expert witness in the Kitzmiller v. Dover case.

Here is a short snippet from his 2006 lecture on intelligent design: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zi8FfMBYCkk
You can find the whole two hour lecture on youtube and i highly recommend it if you haven't seen it.

True Light by Lark Voorhies (who, by the way, played Lisa Turtle in Saved by the Bell): http://www.amazon.com/True-Light-tenuation-authenticate-revelation/dp/1450243541/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1464320861&sr=1-1&keywords=lark+vorhees Hopefully you can use the "Look Inside" feature.

I DO expect a William Shatner impression and will accept nothing less.

I would suggest reading a few zen books. Be careful, because some of the words are supposed to be vice grips that trap you, but you will read things that cause you to wonder, thus growing your mind, and zen is not about the religious aspects of Buddhism so much as the tangible, concrete, here-and-now perceptions of deeper and deeper wisdom. I can give you . . . four recommendations of zen books that I really enjoyed.

Zen Bridge

Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind

Don't Be A Jerk

The Zen Teaching of Huang Po

Apart from highschool (No one should count highschool lol) I've had two years of science studies, both from classes from biology to chemistry so I know a bit about both. I also regularly talk to science teachers I've had as well as frequent science forums when I can. For fun I read things such as

“Finding Darwin's God: A Scientist's Search for Common Ground Between God and Evolution”
http://www.amazon.com/Finding-Darwins-God.../dp/0061233501
This was written by a scientist who is a Christian.

To:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B001QEQRJW/ref=redir_mdp_mobile

Why Evolution is True By Jerry A. Coyne

& then I also peruse news networks because every so often people make claims about evolution which leads me down the path of looking at their sources and how they reached that conclusion :)

So I'm stupid but not THAT stupid lol I just have honest questions that confuse me :)

ust think of the Gods and ask for their help or favor. You dont need to create massive altars or anything yet. You are just in the learning stages, but I do recommend these books.

1st. Hellenic Polytheism by LABRYS

Due to the fact that the book give you a starting point. Easy to read and very informal to give you a basics as a starting point. Scripts and photos as guides.

2nd Kharis: Hellenic Polytheism Explored by Sarah Kate Istra Winter

Still a beginner book, but with more detail on relationships with the Gods, festivals, and rituals.

It seems that the op deleted his account. Is there any chance to get the source code of hist list to update it?

Three books that I can recommend are:

[The Reason For God - Belief in an Age of Skepticism by Timothy Keller] (http://www.timothykeller.com/books/the-reason-for-god)

The Book That Made Your World by Vishal Mangalwadi

God's Undertaker: Has Science Buried God? by John Lennox

Furtheron it would be great to have a smiliar list for christian apologetic organizations like

bethinking

The BioLogos Foundation

Institut für Glaube und Wissenschaft

Well this idea is not 100% risk free, but would be something unique... a deck of tarot cards and a lil booklet on how to tell fortunes can be had for around $20 []. They're interesting to look at even if she doesn't ever try to tell a fortune with them. Of course, you don't really want her to take it too seriously, so maybe a lighthearted card would set the right tone.

Dunno. Either way hope you find something she's happy with.




[] https://www.amazon.com/Rider-Tarot-Arthur-Edward-Waite/dp/091386613X

Satipatthana: The Direct Path to Realization manages to be scholarly without being dry. It's a really great in-depth look at this Sutta. It is extensively footnoted as well and gives a lot of great leaping-off points for further exploration.

gonna share three books that deal with this, from less directly (at least initially) to most directly dealing with it:

​

1- Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism

2- A Guide To The Huna Way

3- Oneness

​

#1 and #3 are reference books to come back to every decade or so.

#1 addresses in great depth and detail the psychological processes you're now beginning to deal with (consciously) and warns of the pits on the way not so much to 'show' you how to avoid them but to make you know that you're not alone at all with any of those feelings and inner processes. Specially so regarding your last sentence.

#2 and #3 are directly dealing with the time-less nature of Reality.

#2 presents the Huna's 'Higher Self' –the most timeless entity out there; the Huna presents a hard-to-miss way of actually experiencing that timelessness yourself (if it goes anything like it did with me).

#3 may seem too 'fringe' to some people; I know it would have me years ago. Still, give it a chance, ignoring anything that may not resonate at first. I did; then it was non-stop mindblowingness. And my stomach feels funny when I think of reading it again, like 'ooooh rollercoaster ahead!'

​

There is also Jung but you already know his work.

Last thing I want to share is (again maybe? if so, well my bad), I had come to such 'realizations' way before coming across any of these books or authors, it happened via 'journaling'; I write everyday, I've recently found out there's a thing called Narrative Therapy, this fused with my earlier routines of stream-of-consciousness writing and [Julia Cameron's] the Morning Pages, it's the way I have been 'journaling' all these years –a kind of fusion of them all. By doing this writing I was 'able' ('allowed') to become aware of this phenomenon. It sure fucked with my mind back then -at the very beginning, knowing nothing or no one into this- but ultimately it helped me discern what was (possibly) a synchronicity and what was entirely a fabrication of my mind.

​

Give some feedback if you ever do get into any of that.

It establishes that human beings do not have existence in themselves. We are nothing that has been called into being by grace, that is sustained in being by grace, and when we sever ourselves from the grace of God by sin, we begin to return to the nothing from which we were called out.

This is what God meant when he said to Adam and Eve, "dyning ye shall die;" not just that they would die but that they would remain in a state of death and corruption, that is, falling out of existence and into nonexistence again.

And it is this state of dying and corruption and falling back towards nothingness that Christ comes to save us from.

A very, very good book to read on this topic (and from which I drew the above) is St. Athanasius the Great's On the Incarnation. As a bonus, it's actually not very long; it's less than 100 pages in this SVS Press Popular Patristics Series copy (the volume itself is a little bigger, with introduction and supplementary materials).

Interesting. My question came up because of a book I am reading in an online group at the moment, Satipatthana: The Direct Path to Realization. In meditation, when I am aware of my thoughts, they do go away very quickly! As if they are running from my awareness. But how do I learn about their causes and conditions if they disappear so quickly? Maybe just more practice :-) Thank you for the offer to lend me the book. I would accept, but I am currently reading 3 Buddhism books right now instead of my school text books :-) Cheers

>Muslims have been debunking atheist arguments for over a millennium. I would recommend reading Hamza Tzortzis's "The Divine Reality: God, Islam & The Mirage Of Atheism". The first chapter is available for free on Amazon. https://www.amazon.com/Divine-Reality-Islam-Mirage-Atheism/dp/0996545387/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1491918002&sr=8-1&keywords=hamza+tzortzis

>There is also plenty of material that is available online for free as well by Muslim authors, they use the standard arguments (i.e. Teleological, Kalam, Contingency). https://asadullahali.com/2015/08/16/the-rationality-of-believing-in-god-without-evidence-part-1/

>Tzortzis's book takes you from atheism to Islam, succinctly.

I second The Longship.

​

Asatru is a type of Heathenry. Heathenry is an umbrella term for religions, philosophies, piety, lifestyles that are based in Germanic Paganism and/or Germanic Pagan culture.

A good place to start is reading books.

Here are the ones I recommend:

A Beginner's book: https://www.amazon.com/Practical-Heathens-Guide-Asatru/dp/0738733873/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1542673929&sr=8-1&keywords=heathenry

​

And the Poetic Edda translated by Jackson Crawford: https://www.amazon.com/Poetic-Edda-Stories-Hackett-Classics/dp/1624663567/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1542673980&sr=8-1&keywords=jackson+crawford

​

Also, for some spiritual music to meditate to, I recommend starting with

Wardruna: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3fnPwj1AMpo

And this song by Heilung: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xqdk34f210w

​

Ancestors are very important to Heathenry, so I would meditate on some of your ancestors that have passed on, if you don't already.

​

Connect with the energies of your local land and woods. Some Heathens think these energies are literal beings called Land Wights. Some see them a bit more fluid and amorphous but still relational energies tied to the local land.

​

I also recommend learning a bit about the three major ritual forms: Blots, Sumbels, and Fainings.

​

At least, these are the places I would begin.

I wish I had more info for you. Hopefully someone else reading this can chime in. I can only recommend the [translation I read.] (https://www.amazon.com/Being-Harper-Perennial-Modern-Thought/dp/0061575593/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8), Macquarrie & Robinson. This is a more recent translation and I don't speak German. The classic version was the [Stambaugh] (https://www.amazon.com/Being-Time-Translation-Contemporary-Continental/dp/1438432763).

Those are the two main ones as far as I know. Once again, I'm sure there are people far better qualified to speak to this than me reading.

I'm a Mormon who believes in evolution. In fact, in a recent discussion on r/lds and from what I've seen in the majority of my conversations with other Mormons most of us do. Links to discussions [1](http://www.reddit.com/r/lds/comments/eiu9e/as_a_member_of_the_church_what_is_your_opinion_on/?sort=controversial
) and 2

We also have doctrines specific to Mormonism that seem to support evolutionary theory to me such as an un-determined period of actual time for the "days of creation" (creation may have taken place outside of time all together), in much of LDS specific scripture God created the world is replaced with God organized the world and that matter (and spirit) has always existed and cannot be created nor destroyed. More on Mormonism and Evolution here

My personal belief (read not church doctrine and pure speculation on my part) is that evolution was the mechanism that God used to create the world we live in. His role was in essence to guide the seemingly random chance of natural selection to make us and everything else what he wanted it to be. Thus religion answers the why question and science answers the how. For an overview on the Why read this. When everything was the way he wanted it to begin the test of man-kind he sent down the first spirit to inhabit a body created through evolution. Making Adam the first complete man with body and spirit.

An interesting read on all this is Finding Darwin's God: A Scientist's Search for Common Ground Between God and Evolution. I disagree with the author on several theological points (he's catholic) but reading it helped me sort out what I thought God's role in evolution was.

Edit- An article about how evolution is taught at BYU Link

The following works are pretty nerdy, I would say. They were assigned throughout the course of my undergraduate studies in theology and think that they serve as excellent primers to the intellectual side of Catholicism.

Joseph Ratzinger, The God of Jesus Christ. Highly recommended as a beautiful exposition of the Catholic concept of God.

Ratzinger, Introduction to Christianity.

Ratzinger, In the Beginning...: A Catholic Understanding of the Story of Creation and the Fall.

Ratzinger, God and the World. A fantastic survey of essential Catholic doctrines and beliefs.

Gustavo Gutiérrez, A Theology of Liberation. A genius work that reminds us that God is on the side of the poor, that he casts down the mighty from their thrones and lifts up the lowly.

Hans Urs von Balthasar, Life Out of Death. A short but beautiful meditation on what it means to die and rise with Christ.

And then, of course, there are the classics. Augustine's Confessions, Aqunas' Summa, Athanasius' On the Incarnation, Benedict's Rule, Anselm's Proslogion, Bonaventure's Mind's Road to God, etc.

>but a god, to me sounds like woodo.

I highly advice you to read this book, hopefully it will clear up your doubts about God and give you a different perspective on the issue.

The Divine Reality: God, Islam and the Mirage of Atheism

Saint Vladimir Seminary Press has produced some nice little paperback volumes with patristic writings, that go for about $10-$15 each, so it's a pretty affordable way to get them, if you like hard copies rather than reading online. I would particularly recommend their edition of Saint Athanasius ["On the Incarnation"](On the Incarnation: Saint Athanasius (Popular Patristics) https://www.amazon.com/dp/0881414271/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_tt6uzbQTQAW7W), both because it's a classic of the patristic age, and because their edition features a preface by C.S. Lewis which is also really excellent.

Sounds like True Light: A, Superior, Take, Unto, The, Premier, Haloing, Of, Tenuation. Readily, Available, True Light, Provides, Resource, Into, Time's, Motifed, And, Vestuved, Authenticate, Revelation. by former Saved by the Bell star Lark Voorhies. Apparently it's written with comma's after almost every other word.

Mindfulness is the primary means of purification of all activities; and the primary rubric for that is satipatthana: the foundations of mindfulness in the body, its feelings, the mind and mental objects.

In the Sutta Pitaka:

DN 22 - Maha-satipatthana Sutta: The Great Frames of Reference

MN 10 - Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta: Frames of Reference

SN 47 - Satipatthana-samyutta - a chapter from the Samyutta Nikaya on the subject


AN 8.63 - Sankhitta Sutta: In Brief (Good Will, Mindfulness, & Concentration)

Some valuable secondary reading:

Soma Thera - The Way of Mindfulness: The Satipatthana Sutta and Its Commentary

Thanissaro Bhikkhu - Wings to Awakening, Part II.B: The Four Frames of Reference

Ajaan Lee Dhammadharo - Frames of Reference


Mahasi Sayadaw - Satipatthana Vipassana

Bhikkhu Analayo - Satipaṭṭhāna: The Direct Path to Realization (this is a free version, it is also available in print or on Kindle)

The Rider-Waite deck is pretty standard, I'm new also and almost all the youtube videos I've seen say it's the best deck to start with since the drawings and symbols help you memorize the meanings, and you can move on to more "fun" decks after you learned them all.

​

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/091386613X?pf_rd_p=8e0819a9-0ef1-44cd-9544-a7f28374af8b&pf_rd_r=02QFBEAQHWXQQK8JH2QG

>it seems like they're just trying to show how "mindful" they are, or how "yogi" they are, whatever you want to call it. After a certain point it seems like it's less about the personal benefits and more about projecting a certain image towards other people

Chogyam Trungpa called this "Spiritual Materialism"

FREE
(On The Origin Of Species)
http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1228

KINDLE
(Why Evolution Is True (Jeffrey Coyne)
http://www.amazon.com/Why-Evolution-Is-True-ebook/dp/B001QEQRJW/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1368402079&sr=1-1&keywords=why+evolution+is+true
(Evolution: What the Fossils say)
http://www.amazon.com/Evolution-What-Fossils-Matters-ebook/dp/B007H9RGOK/ref=pd_sim_kstore_8
(Your Inner Fish)
http://www.amazon.com/Your-Inner-Fish-3-5-Billion-Year-ebook/dp/B0010SKTRA/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1368402391&sr=1-1&keywords=your+inner+fish

and there's a really good power point you can download here:
https://ssl.cbsd.org/sites/teachers/hs/jucollins/Pages/Evolution-Page.aspx

If I had to point out a book that is good for teaching the beginner a little bit about heathenry, and more importantly about the basics of heathen thinking, I would suggest A Practical Heathens Guide to Asatru by Patricia M. Lafayllve. It's by no means perfect (I haven't found a beginners book that is), and includes a few things I'd rather see left out, but it's the best beginners book I've personally read.

Here are the basic, basic decks.

The Rider-Waite-Smith Deck, on which most decks base their symbolism. Has many different versions, such as the Radiant RWS or the Universal Waite Tarot. Most decks you find will be based on this one.

The Thoth Tarot by Aleister Crowley, which relies much more on occultism and knowledge of the symbols to read. If you want a project that you can really lose yourself in and study for, this is probably a good deck.

The Marseille Tarot which, unlike the other decks I've listed, does not fully illustrate the Minor Arcana (Ace-10 of Cups/Swords/etc). Instead they are called "pips" and don't show a scene, so you have to rely on your knowledge of the cards to read them.

These are the three most well-known tarot traditions for symbolism upon which most other decks are based, with RWS being the most popular in the English-speaking world. Marseille, as I understand it, is very popular in non-English speaking European countries, and the Thoth is just the Thoth.

You don't have to stick to these decks though. Choose any deck that you feel speaks to you. What's most important is feeling connected with your deck, that way you don't lose interest in the cards before you've learned all you can about them.

​

I think much of what got me, as a former Christian, was not "reasoning for becoming an atheist", but rather realizing the reasons I believed did not hold up, and slowly arriving there by default. This makes sense given that atheism is really nothing more than a lack of a belief.

Kenneth Daniels' book, Why I Believed: Reflections of a Former Missionary captures this fairly well, and it's also the first book I'd recommend to a Christian that wants to understand why someone would leave the faith.

Edit: If you missed their comment, warebec has pointed out that you can go read it for free here: http://infidels.org/library/modern/ken_daniels/why.html

I love these 2.....

This one is the best value. It's a solid deck and comes with a book and a paper tarot spread. If you bought the deck alone it would be much more than this. I recommend this one to my students. https://www.amazon.com/Easy-Tarot-Learn-Read-Cards/dp/0738711500/ref=sr_1_2?crid=2492TY300PB54&keywords=guilded+tarot+deck&qid=1557425818&s=gateway&sprefix=guilded%2Cstripbooks%2C154&sr=8-2

I also really encourage them to start here https://www.amazon.com/Rider-Tarot-Arthur-Edward-Waite/dp/091386613X/ref=sr_1_2?keywords=rider+waite&qid=1557425881&s=gateway&sr=8-2

​

My last favorite that I tell them about is this one but it's a little more pricey https://www.amazon.com/Witches-Tarot-Ellen-Dugan/dp/0738728004/ref=sr_1_2?keywords=witches+tarot&qid=1557425951&s=gateway&sr=8-2

Just ordered: https://www.amazon.com/Tarot-Bible-Definitive-Guide-Spreads/dp/1402738382 and https://www.amazon.com/Rider-Tarot-Arthur-Edward-Waite/dp/091386613X/ref=pd_bxgy_14_img_2?ie=UTF8&refRID=TS8S6KR0GEA8KC963X25
Hope it will server me well. Thanks all :)

This book is great for going over household worship and some traditions involved with it. I really enjoyed it.

may not be the original place he wrote this, but I know I read it in here as well.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Quantum-Lotus-Frontiers-Buddhism/dp/1400080797/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1333420840&sr=8-1

Edit: it's a good read for anyone interested in physics and Buddhism

Privileged planet

https://www.amazon.com/Privileged-Planet-John-Rhys-Davies/dp/B0002E34C0/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1485725348&sr=8-2&keywords=privileged

Signature in the cell

https://www.amazon.com/Signature-Controversy-Responses-Critics-Cell/dp/0979014182/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1485725571&sr=8-3&keywords=signature+in+the+cell

Gunning for God

https://www.amazon.ca/Gunning-God-Atheists-Missing-Target/dp/0745953220

God's Undertaker

https://www.amazon.ca/Gods-Undertaker-Has-Science-Buried/dp/0745953719

https://www.amazon.com/Wonder-World-Journey-Modern-Science/dp/0972347313/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_product_top?ie=UTF8

The Wonder of the world- one of the books that changed Antony Flew from an outspoken Atheist to a diest.

I recommend these to start, if you are genuinely interested that is.

Thank you very much. I haven't studied this subject very deeply, but I know that there are writers who cover it far more eloquently and convincingly than I. Much of my current thinking on this comes from Sam Harris, especially his books on free will and morality. Both are fascinating and extremely well argued, in my opinion.

Given your interest in the topic I think you'd really enjoy this book. He talks about this sort of thing way better than I do.

I don't know where you would get a free pdf, but Amazon has an excellent version here.

FYI, I was specifically told not to use the Stambaugh English translation of Being and Time, the one you linked to.

Anyways, in my edition the chapter is "How the worldly character of the environment announces itself in entities within-the-world."

The sentence you pick out is in bold, here's the surrounding paragraph for context, as I think it will help you see what Heidegger is saying: "To the everydayness of Being-in-the-world there belong certain modes of concern. These permit the entities with which we concern ourselves to be encountered in such a way that the worldly character of what is within-the-world comes to the the fore. When we concern ourselves with something, the entities which are most closely ready-to-hand may be met as something unusuable, not properly adapted for the use we have decided upon."

This comes from the the Macquarrie and Robinson edition which was recently reprinted.

If you're truly interested to the point that you're willing to sink time into it, the single best book I've ever read on evolution (and I've read a few) is Finding Darwin's God by Dr. Kenneth Miller, premier biologist, and devout Catholic.

He makes a very compelling (and surprising) argument that religious faith and evolution are not mutually exclusive, and states even that religion is strengthened by science. (Which I don't personally buy, but he makes the case eloquently) Richard Dawkins recommended it as the most concise explanation of evolution he's ever read, and he's flamingly anti-religious.

If you are actually interested in religion and evolution this book is an excellent place to start, so long as you can plough through the jargon. In a nutshell, it's not so much that religion is beneficial to us in evolutionary terms, but that religious ideas (memes, if you like) arise naturally out of the normal function of our innate cognitive systems, and evolve into what we now call religions as they are shaped by our social organisations (this is also an inversion of earlier ideas in which religion was thought of as an attempt to impose some form of social order). It's dense, and gets a lot more complex that that of course, but rewarding and not easily refutable. There's probably more recent stuff out there by now, it's a little while now since I was studying this stuff.

I highly recommend God's Undertaker: Has Science Buried God? By John Lennox

You should also know and point out that the dichotomy is not between science and faith, it's between Christian Theism and Naturalism. That's a pretty big difference.

https://www.amazon.com/True-Light-tenuation-authenticate-revelation/dp/1450243541
True Light: A, superior, take, unto, the, premier, haloing, of, tenuation. Readily, available, True Light, provides, resource, into, time's, motifed, and, vestuved, authenticate, revelation.

http://www.amazon.com/Religion-Explained-Pascal-Boyer/dp/0465006965/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1333094305&sr=8-1

pretty good read if you're really interested.

To Be a Jew is always a good intro to general practice.

I also think an Artscroll Chumash does a pretty good job of explaining our inception, while getting your feet wet in the Torah.

I recommend:

Religion Explained: The Evolutionary Origins of Religious Thought by Pascal Boyer on the origins of superstitious and supernatural thinking

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In Gods We Trust: The Evolutionary Landscape of Religion by Scott Atran on why the tendency towards religiosity was preserved for its social utility instead of being eliminated.

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More than Nature Needs: Language, Mind, and Evolution by Derek Bickerton on the origins of language.

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A Natural History of Human Morality by Michael Tomasello on the origins of morals.

Popular Patristics has a version of it with the CS Lewis preface. They have a lot of other modern translations of the Fathers as well :)

I know you said a physical book, but many have Kindle versions as well if anyone is interested in those.

I recommend the ArtScroll Stone Chumash. It's just the Five Books of Moses, but they are the most important ones. It has a really good English commentary anthologized from traditional sources.

A descent selection so far from the other comments. I'll throw in a few, as well:

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• Carl Sagan - Demon Haunted World
  
• Greg M. Epstein - Good Without God
  
• Michael Shermer - Why People Believe Weird Things
  
• Sean Carroll - The Big Picture
  
• John Loftus - Why I Became an Atheist
  
• A.C. Grayling - The God Argument
  
• Kenneth Daniels - Why I Believed
  
• Robert A Burton - On Being Certain
  
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  Some of the above is specifically related to atheism, while others I've used to help shape and inform my understanding and my worldview. Out of the entire list, the Carl Sagan book and the Sean Carroll book rank highest, for me, in level of importance. Those books didn't just change what I think, they changed how I think, and I am forever indebted to them.

If you are curious of how people of different cultures relate to religion and the supernatural, then I heartily recommend this book which treats these question from an anthropological perspective There are several valuable insights to be had for both the atheist and the theist.

If you wonder why people experience aliens, miracles, ghosts and things that didn't happen? Why wouldn't we? We can never rule out events to be figments of our minds or perception, nor can we entirely rule out what we believe to be impossible.

This should pretty much sum it up. Great read.