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What is a book that has been important in the development of your worldview?

I know that many of us are on here because we don't like a book telling us how to think, but books are still important ways to share ideas and spark conversations. I think that the paths to thinking a certain way are many, and I'm curious to know what that journey has been like for you.

Wombat1624 4 Aug 30
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William Horwood's Duncton Wood has a great influence on me as a young person. It is a series of stories about animals in a wood. On another level it is about culture, history, identity and spirit.

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The God Delusion.
The Age of Reason.
God is not Great .
A Short History of Nearly Everything.

A short history of nearly everything is one of my favorites.

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A Brief History of Time, by Stephen Hawking.
Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space, by Carl Sagan.
Death by black hole by, Dr. Neil Degrasse Tyson.
There have been many more, but these three are the ones that I've re-read the most. I get something more each time I read them.

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  1. The Age Of Reason, by Thomas Paine
  2. Biography of Thomas Jefferson
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God: A Human History by Reza Aslan

Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the America City by Desmond Matthew

Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters by Atul Gawande

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari

The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History by Elizabeth Kolbert

Bait and Switch: The (Futile) Pursuit of the American Dream
Living with a Wild God: A Nonbeliever's Search for the Truth about Everything
Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By In America All by Barbara Ehrenreich

We Are Our Brains from the Womb to Alzheimers by Dick Swaab

The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in The Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander.

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May seem a bit silly but I read Mists of Avalon years ago, and although it is fiction it made me start to realize how competitive religions were in controlling world views. I started to question mine. I grieved when I finished the book.

It took me awhile, bit I did complete that book. Good read!

I loved that book. I think you have just inspired a re-read!

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Surprising that no one has said this, but the Bible opened my eyes to the world in ways my pastor never intended.
From it I learned the lies, deception, hate, fear, abuse and uselessness of religion.
Reading my bible was the worst thing I could’ve done as a religious person.

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Non-fiction..

Rights of Man by Thomas Paine.
Cosmos by Carl Sagan.
War is a Racket by Smedley Butler.

Marz Level 7 Aug 30, 2018

@orange_girl I hope you enjoy it!

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God is Not Great.

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“The Science of Discworld” V1-4 by Sir Terry Pratchett (STP). Covered human history, science, literature, and religion better than any other text I know of. With the possible exception of “Systemantics” by Gall. It explains systems somewhat more succinctly than TSOD, But not by much.

This looks like an awesome book series. Sounds funny deep and informative I'm going to have to read it thank you for the listing.

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Robert Heinlein ...Stranger in a Strange Land

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The Grapes of Wrath.

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Wow, this is like asking me about my favorite glass of water. I cannot narrow it down well but I will say that "On the Origin of Species" by Darwin was great AND it sparked a revolution of countless other great books.

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At the risk of dating myself a good place for me to start would be 1984, heart of darkness,catch 22. Books like that.

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Marcus Aurelius Meditations

@maturin1919 That would be me

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The God Delusion
Cosmos
God Is Not Great
The Brothers Karamazov

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Book: Fahrenheit 451

Comic book: V For Vendetta

I've always been fascinated about stories of totalitarian regimes and the societal effects brought with. The wondering how people could allow it, how even with so much history we can easily forget and repeat.

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I Ching Wilhelm/Baynes version

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Catch-22 and Guns, Germs, and Steel

@Wombat1624 It gave me an equal dose of cynicism and dark humor. Some sympathy for the enlisted people. As well as a healthy distrust of warmongering and warmongerers.

Where are the Snowdons of Yesteryear?

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When I was younger it was books like Uncle Tom's Cabin, Little Women and the classics. Then in middle school I read The Third Reich and The Diary of Anne Frank. Lately it's been books by Wamariya (The Girl With The Glass Bead Smile), Jasmyn Ward (Sing Unburied Sing), Salman Rushdie, Margaret Atwood and Haruki Murakami. I particularly like non-American authors for their perspective on the world outside of our myopic view.

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Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged."

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Stranger in a Strange Land....Rabbit Run...The Plot Against America.

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Hands down for me: Atlas Shrugged. Period.

Seriously? As a semi-science fiction surreal novel, I just simply could not believe the underlying premise. It was just patently ridiculous that the rich would give up everything they had to start over. Also the idea of two CEOs striping off their shirts to hammer at a forge? I dotn' think they would realistically know what to do, let alone lower themselves to actually do physical labor.

What the book totally ignores is that the rich, only use money as a means for getting what htye truly want, which is power, which is what makes the premise ridiculous. They would not just walk away from that.

Ayn Rand hs a great imagination, but her most believable book was "We the living", based partly on her personal experience. Her other novels were just not believable.

@snytiger6 We The Living was by far her best

@snytiger6 yes, seriously.

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All is Quiet on the Western Front , Erich Maria Remarque. I read it as a teenager, had to take it out of the library under the pretense that my father wanted to read it.

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there have been so many, so VERY many. i don't think one book changed my WHOLE world view, but many books changed many parts of it. a spaniard in the works and in his own write changed my view of writing itself, which is important as i am a writer. stranger in a strange land was seminal. if i listed them all the computer would explode.

g

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Most of the ones I've read. Though learning about the Kardashev Scale via Michio Kaku has influenced me. Also Kahlil Gibrans many books. And the sensitive dependence on initial conditions thought process from Chaos is a big one that helps. Though I am fond of Alyosha The Pot too.

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