Quite far along in Chapter 6 comes a revelatory moment that I had forgotten from my first reading of the book. Pilgrim is told that Dresden is safe - they will not be bombed. Why? Because it has no factories or other war value. It is simply a beautiful city. The irony, of course, is that it is bombe...

I volunteer to lead the discussion.

Having spent quite a bit of time with Kierkegaard this holiday season, I find myself motivated to discuss faith a bit. The Medieval church made quite a fuss over doctrinal belief, to the point where it was essentially identified with the term "faith" (pistis) used in the New Testament. Thi...

If there is one here I would say, based on the last part of the chapter, that it is his disgust with superiority. What readers love about Kurt Vonnegut is his whimsical irony, Disgust with superiority, deconstructing the delusions that enable conflict and disdain, brings a profound ethical reflecti...

Hello Jasmine, I also like fantasy. You might like to sample some of Guy Gavriel Kay's books, such as "Sailing to Sarantium." They are really more like historical fiction but they use a light sprinking of the supernatural to help achieve a fantasy vibe. I avidly read both "Ice and Fir...

Just finished Chapter 5. I must say it is not easy to see what thread KV is using to hold together his chapters. If there is one here I would say, based on the last part of the chapter, that it is his disgust with superiority. Perhaps he has in mind that the destruction of other people (and so it go...

And then there is Alfred North Whitehead's Process Philosophy, which has been adopted by Process Theology. God is a process. Nothing supernatural, as LanDroid would say, but since stories of the supernatural are, by and large, signifiers of things transcendent including transcendent values, the cont...

If you have time for a long book that is slow reading, you might appreciate Iain McGilchrist's "The Master and his Emissary", which explores the interaction between left brain, instrumental processes, and right brain, holistic perception processes. I am about half way through it. My takeaw...

:goodpost: Its a shame the thank button is missing from this thread, hopefully it can be reinstated. Carlin looks at the PR-driven evolution of language to say simpler words (with less syllables) are easier to understand and respond to. WW1: Shell shock (2) WW2: Battle Fatigue (4) Korea: Operational...

Just to add a little local color from Colorado, the new 8th district was predicted as narrowly Republican but went narrowly Democratic. It was the oil votes in Weld County and the traditional votes of northern suburbs (north of Denver) against Hispanic alienation in Commerce City and fear for daught...