If You're a Reader and Not a Writer...

I have a friend over at New Order Mormon that happens to be a moderator named Dathon. He's a heckuva guy with a masters who may be one of the best-read people I know, particularly in the areas of the psychology of belief and human error.

When you've got a friend like that, you just HAVE to know what he's reading...so I asked for his short list.

Dathon's short list is most people's "covered 'til I'm dead" list...but it is so utterly, incredibly worthwhile, I absolutely had to share. If you need some good books about why you think the way you do, and how to handle the way you think...you're welcome. (But please give Dathon the credit.)

And so, without further ado...Dathon's short list.

Human Error, by James T. Reason Text on industrial accidents. Worth borrowing from a library.

Why We Make Mistakes: How We Look Without Seeing, Forget Things in Seconds, and Are All Pretty Sure We Are Way Above Average by Joseph Hallinan. A good introduction to error / decision making. A lay person's guide to why people are prone to doing dumb things.

Don't Believe Everything You Think: The 6 Basic Mistakes We Make in Thinking, by Thomas Kida. I heard the author interviews on the "Point of Inquiry" podcast during a difficult interval of my own faith crisis. The book is accessible and well written, imo.

How We Know What Isn't So: The Fallibility of Human Reason in Everyday Life by Thomas Gilovich. An excellent introduction to cognitive biases and other common pitfalls that short circuit critical thinking. This was one of the first books on the subject that I encountered, so it's one of my favorites.

How We Decide by Jonah Lehrer. A good introduction for those not familiar with decision making, biases and error. I particularly liked the chapter on the influence of emotion. This is not a strong or technical book and has some flaws.

Behind Human Error [Paperback] David D. Woods (Author), Sidney Dekker (Author), Richard Cook (Author), Leila Johannesen (Author), Nadine Sarter (Author) I haven't read this one yet. It's on my list. I'll probably get the kindle edition next month. This is likely way too technical for most readers.

Reason & Religious Belief: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion This textbook is in its 5th edition. I bought a 2nd edition at a used bookstore and found it helpful in re-framing how I think and feel about religion in general.

The 5 Elements of Effective Thinking by Edward B. Burger and Michael Starbird

The Logic of Failure: why things go wrong and what we can do to make them right. by Detrich Dorner

Inevitable Illusions: How Mistakes of Reason Rule Our Minds, by Massimo Piatelli-Palmarini (translated by the author & Keith Botsford)

The Seven Sins of Memory: How the Mind Forgets and Remembers by Daniel L. Schacter

The Believing Brain: From Ghosts and Gods to Politics and Conspiracies---How We Construct Beliefs and Reinforce... by Michael Shermer

On Being Certain: Believing You Are Right Even When You're Not by Robert Burton

The Invisible Gorilla: How Our Intuitions Deceive Us by Christopher Chabris and Daniel Simons

Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me): Why We Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions, and Hurtful Acts by Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson

Why People Believe Weird Things: Pseudoscience, Superstition, and Other Confusions of Our Time by Michael Shermer

Memory, Brain, and Belief (Mind/Brain/Behavior Initiative) by Daniel L. Schacter and Elaine Scarry

Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin of Error by Kathryn Schulz Check out Kathryn Schulz's TED Talk on Being Wrong also.

Currently reading / listening to: You Are Not So Smart: Why You Have Too Many Friends on Facebook, Why Your Memory Is Mostly Fiction, and 46 Other Ways You're Deluding Yourself by David McRaney

...

Make no mistake, my amazon "Wish List" just exploded. (Probably better that I don't see Dathon's, however; he said it has a tendency to make people gasp.) All you readers, enjoy, and I look forward to sharing as I make my (slow) way through! THANKS AGAIN, DATHON!!!

The Egg, by Andy Weir

You may or may not have read or heard this, but I've been trying for MONTHS to figure out how to explain how I now view the god, existence, human life, the universe, and everything in it, and this sums it up beautifully. Thank you to my dear friend B for sending it. Much love, lady. 'Gina


You were on your way home when you died.

It was a car accident. Nothing particularly remarkable, but fatal nonetheless. You left behind a wife and two children. It was a painless death. The EMTs tried their best to save you, but to no avail. Your body was so utterly shattered you were better off, trust me.

And that’s when you met me.

“What… what happened?” You asked. “Where am I?”

“You died,” I said, matter-of-factly. No point in mincing words.

“There was a… a truck and it was skidding…”

“Yup,” I said.

“I… I died?”

“Yup. But don’t feel bad about it. Everyone dies,” I said.

You looked around. There was nothingness. Just you and me. “What is this place?” You asked. “Is this the afterlife?”

“More or less,” I said.

“Are you god?” You asked.

“Yup,” I replied. “I’m God.”

“My kids… my wife,” you said.

“What about them?”

“Will they be all right?”

“That’s what I like to see,” I said. “You just died and your main concern is for your family. That’s good stuff right there.”

You looked at me with fascination. To you, I didn’t look like God. I just looked like some man. Or possibly a woman. Some vague authority figure, maybe. More of a grammar school teacher than the almighty.

“Don’t worry,” I said. “They’ll be fine. Your kids will remember you as perfect in every way. They didn’t have time to grow contempt for you. Your wife will cry on the outside, but will be secretly relieved. To be fair, your marriage was falling apart. If it’s any consolation, she’ll feel very guilty for feeling relieved.”

“Oh,” you said. “So what happens now? Do I go to heaven or hell or something?”

“Neither,” I said. “You’ll be reincarnated.”

“Ah,” you said. “So the Hindus were right,”

“All religions are right in their own way,” I said. “Walk with me.”

You followed along as we strode through the void. “Where are we going?”

“Nowhere in particular,” I said. “It’s just nice to walk while we talk.”

“So what’s the point, then?” You asked. “When I get reborn, I’ll just be a blank slate, right? A baby. So all my experiences and everything I did in this life won’t matter.”

“Not so!” I said. “You have within you all the knowledge and experiences of all your past lives. You just don’t remember them right now.” I stopped walking and took you by the shoulders. “Your soul is more magnificent, beautiful, and gigantic than you can possibly imagine. A human mind can only contain a tiny fraction of what you are. It’s like sticking your finger in a glass of water to see if it’s hot or cold. You put a tiny part of yourself into the vessel, and when you bring it back out, you’ve gained all the experiences it had. You’ve been in a human for the last 48 years, so you haven’t stretched out yet and felt the rest of your immense consciousness. If we hung out here for long enough, you’d start remembering everything. But there’s no point to doing that between each life.”

“How many times have I been reincarnated, then?”

“Oh lots. Lots and lots. An in to lots of different lives.” I said. “This time around, you’ll be a Chinese peasant girl in 540 AD.”

“Wait, what?” You stammered. “You’re sending me back in time?”

“Well, I guess technically. Time, as you know it, only exists in your universe. Things are different where I come from.”

“Where you come from?” You said.

“Oh sure,” I explained “I come from somewhere. Somewhere else. And there are others like me. I know you’ll want to know what it’s like there, but honestly you wouldn’t understand.”

“Oh,” you said, a little let down. “But wait. If I get reincarnated to other places in time, I could have interacted with myself at some point.”

“Sure. Happens all the time. And with both lives only aware of their own lifespan you don’t even know it’s happening.”

“So what’s the point of it all?”

“Seriously?” I asked. “Seriously? You’re asking me for the meaning of life? Isn’t that a little stereotypical?”

“Well it’s a reasonable question,” you persisted.

I looked you in the eye. “The meaning of life, the reason I made this whole universe, is for you to mature.”

“You mean mankind? You want us to mature?”

“No, just you. I made this whole universe for you. With each new life you grow and mature and become a larger and greater intellect.”

“Just me? What about everyone else?”

“There is no one else,” I said. “In this universe, there’s just you and me.”

You stared blankly at me. “But all the people on earth…”

“All you. Different incarnations of you.”

“Wait. I’m everyone!?”

“Now you’re getting it,” I said, with a congratulatory slap on the back.

“I’m every human being who ever lived?”

“Or who will ever live, yes.”

“I’m Abraham Lincoln?”

“And you’re John Wilkes Booth, too,” I added.

“I’m Hitler?” You said, appalled.

“And you’re the millions he killed.”

“I’m Jesus?”

“And you’re everyone who followed him.”

You fell silent.

“Every time you victimized someone,” I said, “you were victimizing yourself. Every act of kindness you’ve done, you’ve done to yourself. Every happy and sad moment ever experienced by any human was, or will be, experienced by you.”

You thought for a long time. “Why?” You asked me. “Why do all this?”

“Because someday, you will become like me. Because that’s what you are. You’re one of my kind. You’re my child.”

“Whoa,” you said, incredulous. “You mean I’m a god?”

“No. Not yet. You’re a fetus. You’re still growing. Once you’ve lived every human life throughout all time, you will have grown enough to be born.”

“So the whole universe,” you said, “it’s just…”

“An egg.” I answered. “Now it’s time for you to move on to your next life.”

And I sent you on your way.

 ...

The only difference between this and what I'm coming to for myself is that perhaps I take it a step farther: We are not just god in embryo, we ARE god...as it were. God is a collection of experience, a database, if you will, of everything and everyone in the universe, of every experience, of every conceivable avenue of experience and every possible choice that could be made. All-encompassing, in other words, and able to retain each individual experience while allowing the identity born of that experience to also unite with the whole.

.................Or maybe I'm talking out my rear. That's a possibility, too. Either way...it's something to think about. :)