Symposium (translated by Robert C. Barlett)

• Jonathan’s Rating: 5.5/10
• I personally thought this was not a great reading, it’s like they’re trying to tell a funny story with deep philosophical thought in it too, but I personally didn’t find it that entertaining to read nor that deep LOL.
  • “For you see, there are times when courage and wisdom are held to be harmful to both friends and the city, but justice isn’t intermingled with injustice in even a single respect”
  • “Well does it escape you that you wouldn’t take the King’s money in place of your son?” –> Hence “you are the wealthiest of human beings”
  • “It’s a worthy thing indeed for us beautiful ones to pride ourselves on this too, that while the strong one must acquire good things by oiling, and the brave by running risks, and the wise by talking, the beautiful one can accomplish everything while being at leisure”
  • [Since he gave away all his wealth] “now I lose nothing, for I have nothing to lose, and I always hope that I’ll lay hold of something.”
  • “human beings do not have wealth and poverty in their household but in their souls”
  • “it is likely that those who look to cheap things are more just, at least, than those who seek our expensive things”
  • “For we all know that there is no association with another worthy of any account in the absence of friendship”
  • “For false reputation is soon refuted by the test of experience, but true manly goodness, unless a god hinders it, always supplies a more brilliant fame when put into practice”

Of Friendship (by Montaigne)

• Jonathan’s Rating: 6.5/10
• His writing style is really all over the place LOL but such a beautiful writer
  • “And Aristotle says that good legislators have had more care for friendship than for justice.”
  • “Friendship feeds on communication”
  • “Free will has no produce more properly its own than affection and friendship”
  • “In the friendship I speak of, our souls mingle and blend with each other so completely that they efface the seam that joined them, and cannot find it again”
  • “It is not in the power of all the arguments in the world to dislodge me from the certainty I have of the intentions and judgment of my friend”
  • “For this perfect friendship I speak of is indivisible: each one gives himself so wholly to his friend that he has nothing left to distribute elsewhere … Common friendships can be divided up”
  • “Since the day I lost him, I only drag on a weary life. And the very pleasures that come my way, instead of consoling me, redouble my grief for his loss. We went halves in everything; it seems to me that I am robbing him of his share”

First Series (1841): Friendship (by Ralph Waldo Emerson)

• Jonathan’s Rating: 7/10
• I think it’s best if I just write quotes from these texts since these philosophers write it so much more eloquently than I ever can
  • “The moment we indulge our affections, the earth is metamorphosed; there is no winter and no night; all tragedies, all ennuis vanish, – all duties even; nothing fills the proceeding eternity but the forms all radiant of beloved persons”
  • “I awake this morning with devout thanksgiving for my friends, the old and the new”
  • “A man who stands united with his thought conceives magnificently of himself”
  • “The condition which high friendship demands is ability to do without it”
  • “We must be our own before we can be another’s”
  • “The essence of friendship is entireness, a total magnanimity and trust”

The Reason for God (by Timothy Keller)

• Jonathan’s Rating: 6/10
• This is honestly a really compelling book for those beginning on a “why Christianity” journey: it’s one of the few that I not only read cover to cover, but I also analyzed every chapter and discussed it weekly with my discipler in manna! I learned a lot and had a lot to talk and discuss about: a few things that I really enjoyed about it was how Keller addressed basically every single major criticism of Christianity there is. And while it might seem compelling at first, I’m rating it decently low because he doesn’t address any counter arguments to his rebuttals. Granted, I can’t expect him to, otherwise he’d make the book go on forever LOL. But that’s where the majority of the issues I have with Christianity lie: it’s not in the surface level criticisms, it’s the counter arguments. For example, the book would go something like this: atheist argument –> how do we know the gospels are factually true? | One of Keller’s counterpoint –> he sites that the gospels report women were the first to witness Jesus alive (in a time period where women testimony was considered invalid). Keller argues if it were fake, the gospel writers would have wrote it so that the men saw Jesus first to sound more believable. | And then the book section would end. But there are SO many rebuttals to this argument here which Keller doesn’t address at all. I’ll name a few just off the top of my head: in the time period, women were the ones who brought spices and perfumes to the bodies, wouldn’t it be weirder/less believable for the men to have brought the perfume? It just makes sense for the women to see the tomb first. Not only that, but what did the women do right after seeing the empty tomb? They went to tell the men who then verified the claims. Kinda defeats the purpose of Keller’s argument. Not only that, but the claim that a man literally died and rose again and is GOD HIMSELF is an extraordinary, outrageous, and unbelievable claim. To defend this assertion by citing examples like “women saw him instead of men” is completely ridiculous. Shouldn’t there be a better defense? There’s just countless examples of these in the book where Keller can address a surface level criticism, but doesn’t foresee any possible rebuttals to his claims

Letter to a Christian Nation (by Sam Harris)

• Jonathan’s Rating: 7.5/10
• This is a relatively short read so I picked it out of the library and read it in one go: it was a pretty good book criticizing Christianity and made some compelling points which really show me that many Christian beliefs are quite unintelligible. For example, one of the many points that stuck with me was Harris’s assertion on miracles: he claims that modern day miracles such as “supernatural healings” do not happen even though so many believers claim that they do. If they do exist, he argues, why does God only perform them with cancer patients but not veteran amputees. He asks, “Does God love cancer patients more than veterans? Do veterans not pray as hard as those with other sicknesses?” http://www.whydoesgodhateamputees.com was cited in his book as reference. In other words, Harris completely dismantles this idea that the “miraculous” healings of cancer patients is supernatural, but rather, he shows them to be a natural happening whose reasoning has not yet been established. Very good points, very good read for Christians who want to learn criticisms of the faith or willing to change some of their viewpoints.

Fuckarounditis (by Martin Berkhan)

• Jonathan’s Rating: 10/10
• I loved this blog post so much that I’m just going to put my favorite quotes for this cause THERE’S SO MANY THAT MADE ME DIE LAUGHING
  • “Another trait of having fuckarounditis: you avoid squats and deadlifts because you think they’ll give you a wide waist. Bitch please, yes squats and deadlifts will put muscle on your obliques and thicken up your lower back, but it’ll also help you grow some fucking balls so u stop making bullshit excuses for not training hard. Take your “wide waist”-argument/excuse and shove it up your ass right now.”
  • “Are you still warming up? I can’t tell. Let’s see some fucking effort next time. Don’t take up precious space here when you can get a better workout from walking your dog through the park outside. All the time, I see people doing sets of 10-15 reps before they get to something that remotely resembles their real set. Which is completely retarded, because you will be fatigued and glycogen-depleted so your performance will be limited for metabolic reasons, not your actual strength.”
  • “First of all, you’re weak and fat. If you can’t see your abs, you need to unfatten yourself.”
  • “You seem to believe that the modest amount of strain will cause you to wake up looking like a bodybuilder in the morning. Horseshit. You’re not using enough drugs to ever come close to looking muscle bound”

No More Mr. Nice Guy (by Robert Glover)

• Jonathan’s Rating: 8/10
• This was one of those books which if I’m going to be completely honest with myself, was quite the slap in the face. It was basically saying “this you?” One of the main key points I took away was that I need to learn to communicate my thoughts and emotions openly and honestly, address my flaws, and hold myself accountable to my own needs and wants. The “nice guy” roadmap which Glover outlines is “conceal your true self –> Be who others want –> Have a perfect life,” which he explains is misguided. He explains how “nice guys” have unselfish natures from a desire to appear unselfish and appear “low maintenance” so others will like him.

Feel-Good Productivity (by Ali Abdaal)

• Jonathan’s Rating: 8.5/10
• This was an eye-opening book for me: it’s so obvious, yet so contrary to what I do LOL. It’s not about “grinding” to finish your work, it’s about ENJOYING the work and making it fun. And if you don’t enjoy it, then CHANGE SOMETHING UP so that you do enjoy it. I can’t believe I haven’t even thought of that before as;dlgkjasd. Ali goes into this concept of a “virtuous cycle” where each step will NATURALLY feed into the next step: an activity makes you feel good, your energy is boosted, you are more productive, you feel good, and REPEAT. And I know exactly the feeling he is talking about. And there isn’t one size fits all: we need to figure out WHAT WORKS FOR YOU! To enter the flow state, we have to have fun and enjoy what we are doing. Love this take, and I will do my best to figure out how to enjoy what I am doing.

The Way of the Superior Man (by David Deida)

• Jonathan’s Rating: 9/10
• I really enjoyed this book: even though most of it is not actually applicable to me at this very moment since it talks a lot about relationships, it still gave me much insight into how I should lead my life at this current moment and advice to incorporate for when I do start dating. Few key takeaways: to be willing to give your fullest gift in every moment (approaching everything openly/lovingly), freedom comes from sharing and acknowledging my fears (greatest growth lies at the edge of your fears, to find a core and fulfill each purpose of life, and I’ll probably read this book again once I do start dating to incorporate the rest of the lessons into my life hehe.

Can’t Hurt Me (by David Goggins)

• Jonathan’s Rating: 8.5/10
• This was an extremely motivational book and I think what I gained from it is an admiration of David Goggin’s and his struggles to become great. It’s a helpful reminder for me to have when I’m trying to achieve my goals. David had home problems, schools problems, racist problems, hater problems, and then on top of all this, he adds on Navy seal problems, hell week problems, 100 mile race problems. He actively seeks out problems to have in his life to continue pushing himself to become great. A few lessons I’ve learnt from this book: using a cookie jar (thinking of the shit you’ve been through to push through), dismantling your governor (pushing past what you think you can do), do things you don’t like regularly

Atomic Habits (by James Clear)

• Jonathan’s Rating: 9.5/10
• Well this is just a staple book for anyone on a journey of self improvement. It’s absolutely great. Every action that I do is a vote for the person that I want to become. Set up systems rather than goals. Recording Habits. 1% better every day is different from doing a “habit” over and over again: need to slightly increase the difficulty to improve. Building momentum. So much good advice in this book it’s a masterpiece hehe

Faith Still Moves Mountains (by Harris Faulkner)

• Jonathan’s Rating: 2/10
• This book really showed me how vastly different my thought process regarding religion has changed it’s so crazy. During the entire book, the author cites cases of faith in action in the real world today where God saves people from death, danger, and a lost of direction. She records stories like that of Earnestine Reese, whose home was entirely destroyed by a tornado except for her prayer closet and her family’s lives. She writes about Sarah Olson, who was able to design a catheter design to ease her child’s pain only after receiving divine inspiration following a prayer. She cites the prayer warriors of the Bible College of Wales, who during WWII, dedicated themselves to praying every day for the downfall of Adolf Hitler for hours every day. According to Faulkner, this influenced Hitler to make bad war decisions. A few years back, I would have been amazed at how God is working so evidently in today’s world. Now, I think of every last one of these arguments as outrageously unsupported and fallacious. How the heck is “people prayed for Hitler to lose and he lost so therefore God” an argument of any sort???? Anyways… did not like this book.