A turn on the books

So, as I’m sure my Friend List already knows, I’m huge on reading and having books, and my main mode of release and relaxation is through reading. I love science fiction and fantasy because they are the genres which, to me, provide the most complete escape from the real world that a book is capable of providing.

But, I’m beginning to experience an interesting shift of preference where books are concerned. I’m starting to be really drawn toward books that might actually fill my head with useful stuff. I think it might be because I’m having a bit of an identity crisis where my lack of religion is concerned. I had a very uncomfortable experience a few months ago that’s been on my mind off and on since that time.

We had an exchange student back then who is from Saudi Arabia, and is a devout practitioner of Islam. The conversation about religion, then, happened naturally because he was surprised, really surprised that I and my friends are not only atheist, by very pro-gender equality. We got into a bit of a debate on the way home from the movies one time about how we had decided that we were atheist and he was asking a lot of questions that, embarrassingly, I didn’t know how to answer. Questions about why we felt that the natural man-woman marriage should not be the only form of marriage, what made us choose to be atheist, please explain the idea of evolution and why that works better for you than god. Things like that.

The idea of religion has always been fascinating to me, as well as the theory of evolution, but I realized that I only understand WHY I believe what I believe in a general sense, not a specific one. I’m atheist because the idea of god can’t answer for my view of the general ENORMITY of the universe, and science has already answered so many of the big questions that god just doesn’t make sense to me.

But why?

I’m not getting into it right now because I’ve only just started the process of solidifying my reasons for myself, but anyway, it’s led to a different take on the books I’m reading.

First, I bought The Vikings, by Robert Ferguson, and this was what sparked it all. I initially only bought the book because I’m writing about a people who are very loosely based on the viking culture and I was looking for small quirks that I could add. However, as I was reading, there were a lot of points brought to light about why the Vikings had been so violent toward the influx of Christianity into Scandinavia. One of the possibilities brought forward was that their violence was in retaliation of the horrid persecution their own people were experiencing at the hands of Christianity (arguing that Christianity at the time truly believed itself justified in their acts of violence against non-christian cultures because they were spreading the word of the one true god, and also had to power to enforce it).

This eventually led me to buy two other books, The Origin of Species, by Charles Darwin, and The God Delusion, by Richard Dawkins. I’m reading both right now, along side The Vikings. The Origin of Species is, to me, a heavy read and I’m easing into it slowly. I understand what Darwin is talking about, but his manner of writing is rather long winded and complex. This is by necessity of course, and also due to the time in which he lived, but it’s a bit hard at first to wrap my mind around it for any significant length of time.

The God Delusion is an interesting read. Richard Dawkins is a little more sarcastic in his approach to atheism than I am, But his arguments are educated and he covers all his bases. Despite his sarcasm though, he has so far only reaffirmed what I already knew to be true, just in a more detailed way. I’ve been taking note of his examples, but mostly I’ve been jotting down the names of books that he’s read which favor god, creationism, and intelligent design.

Because obviously I have to read the arguments for god too. You can’t have a truly educated opinion about something if you haven’t read and seriously considered material supporting both sides of an argument. So I’m making a list of those books I need to read, the Bible will be first among them. I’ve tried reading the Bible on several occasions in the past, but it’s up there with The Origin of Species where its language is concerned.

For those of you who might read this and are believers in god, whatever religion it may be, I’d welcome any suggestions on books you think I should read.

Anyway, what’s really changed is the fact that I find these books actually interesting. For the longest time I’d pick up books that I thought I had a moral obligation to read as a person who wanted to be any sort of moderately intelligent only to abandon them later because they bored me to death. I was a strong believer that reading was at its best only when employed to expand the reaches of my imagination and I could not believe I could better benefit by it for anything else. I don’t read books to learn things, I read books to daydream outside of my own head.

I’m pleasantly surprised and immensely thankful that this seems to be changing.