DharmaLogos is not currently reading any books.
I’m 31 years old, male, from the United States. I’ve been a DailyLit member since November 23, 2007. My reading interests include Classics, nonfiction, philosophy, religion, sci-fi, and fantasy..
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Book Requests - What about Tolkien (fame of LOTR)
Yes, Tolkien's literary legacy is owned by his son Christopher Tolkien who has spent the last three decades collecting and editing his father's unfinished writings on Middle Earth and publishing them collectively as the "History of Middle Earth", which I believe is up to 13 volumes.
Book Requests - Books by C.S. Lewis
Lewis' magum opus is his Space Trilogy (Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandra, That Hideous Strength). They are sort of The Chronicles of Narnia for adults. Most of Lewis's stuff is worth reading (even if I disagree with his theology), but it is not yet in the public domain.
On the Origin of Species - Understanding Natural Selection
Over thousands and millions of years a species can diverge into several different species due to the survival advantages of different traits in different environments. We see this take place (for different reasons) every time domestic animals and crops are specifically bred to produce certain traits.
On the Origin of Species - Understanding Natural Selection
It is worth noting that evolution is not based on random chance; nor is it the progression of life from a "lower" to a "higher" form. Put quite simply, evolution is a genetic/biological change over time that results from natural variations in life. Any two specimens of a species will have some biological variation. If one variation helps the specimen to live long enough to transmit its genes to the next generation better than another specimen, then this variation will become dominant through breeding. The group of genes that are most fit for a given environment will have a greater survival rate, which will cause those genes to become dominant and gradually become "greater" or "more" (such as dark skin pigment in a hot environment becoming darker due to the genetic isolation of those genes).
On the Origin of Species - Understanding Natural Selection
I recently read renowned biologist/athest Richard Dawkins' (of "The God Delusion" fame) book "The Ancestor's Tale" in which he attempts to trace natural selection from humans back in time to the ancestor of all living life forms on earth. That book caused me to finally start to understand evolution, and now thanks to Daily Lit I am again tackling "Origin of Species", this time in bite-sized pieces.
On the Origin of Species - Understanding Natural Selection
I grew up in a very religious environment, and my parents and church leaders always painted a picture of Darwin and his writings as idiotic, rebellious, illogical, and inconsistent. Eventually I actually started reading Darwin, and I realized that his idea of evolution/natural selection is nothing like what the church always said about evolution. I tried to read "Origin of Species" twice and "Descent of Man" once. I never got very far in any of them because it is a difficult read, and I didn't understand much. But everytime I read I had a little better understanding of the world around me that made logical sense, even if I didn't understand a lot of it.
On the Origin of Species - Understanding Natural Selection
Is anyone here currently reading "Origin of Species"? Or is there anyone who has read it and would like to discuss it? It would be nice to kind of compare notes and exchange opinions.
Fyodor Dostoyevsky - People I want to meet when I die
I believe lernet is saying he wants to meet Dostoyevsky in the afterlife.
Dostoyevsky wrote brilliant stories with realistic characters, but he went into way too much excessive detail. I've tried reading "Crime and Punishment" a few times and never made it halfway through due to the mountain of indecipherable details. It's an amazing book that I really want to make it through, so now I'm listening to an abridged audiobook version.
Dostoyevsky is the polar opposite of a modern minemalist writer like Chuck Palahniuk of "Fight Club" fame.