Well, this begins another season of blogging with everyone back in school. These won't come every week, but now and then to give you guys something to chew on. Hope this can still be a resource for you.Sunday we looked at a part of a lecture (determined by class vote) from the Apologetics Conference last year. The topic was "10 Books that Screwed up the World", which in reality ended up being 15 books.
The basis of his argument was the importance of reading these books, especially for Christians, to understand both the depths and the ramifications of some modern thought. For example, The Descent of Man by Charles Darwin makes Darwinism hit home when arguments are made for applying "Origin of Species" methods, for lack of a better title, to humanity. We might call that social darwinism, or survival of the fittest, but to understand what Darwin meant by those, the Descent of Man outlines the fruit of evolution in society as eugenics (controlling the population through sterilization of certain peoples), and even extermination. This is the side you don't tend to hear about his arguments, but it is important to note for someone to consider themselves an advocate of Darwinism or not.
So here is the list of books (and I promise you I have misspelled some names and titles), along with a summary, if the speaker gave one, of the thoughts expressed in this book:
Machiavelli – The Prince (Beginnings of atheist thought in government. Ultimately, a government should do what is in the best interest of the people and the ruler, even if that means being immoral, because ultimately if you can get a government to not fear hell and punishment, there is much more you can accomplish).
Charles Darwin – The Descent of Man (described above)
Pivot of Civilization – Margaret Sanger (founder of Planned Parenthood, this book is something that most planned parenthood people want others to avoid because of the extreme views voiced in this book. Nevertheless, she is the founder of the movement that is the leading voice in encouraging abortion)
John Stewart Mill – Utilitarianism
Freud – The Future of an Illusion
Renee Descartes – Discourse on Method
Karl Marx – Communist Manifesto (full scope of communism, government that is run with the state and not the individual in mind)
The rest which we did not have time to examine, but that the speaker gives.
Meade – Coming of Age in Samoa
Hobbes – Leviathan
John Jacque Reusau – Discourse on the Origin and Foundations of Inequality Among Men
Lenin – The State and Revolution
Nitsche – Beyond Good and Evil
Adolf Hitler – Mein Kampf
Kinsay – Sexual Behavior in the Human Male/The Male Report
The Feminine Mistique – Betty Fernan
If anyone has questions or comments, or would like a copy of this session, let me know, and I will be happy to burn a DVD and mail it to you. God bless you all, happy reading if there is a book that sticks out to you as something that would be important to examine.
