Reddit reviews Small Gods (Discworld)
We found 9 Reddit comments about Small Gods (Discworld). Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.
Harper
Reddit reviews Small Gods (Discworld)We found 9 Reddit comments about Small Gods (Discworld). Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.
I always link to the Wikipedia page on world religions in discussions of building religions, because copious example are key to learning.
A quick outline of what I look to answer when I ask the question "What does this religion look like?" goes like this:
VALUES
DEITY
SYMBOLS
Also Small Gods by Terry Pratchett.
“He says gods like to see an atheist around. Gives them something to aim at.”
Small Gods by Terry Pratchett.
If you've never heard of Terry Pratchett he's a humorous writer, similar to Douglas Adams... but under the humor he typically has something very important to say. Things like the role of the police, the power of government, gender and race relations, etc.
Pratchett's writing is special because it manages to analyze the human condition, highlighting all our ridiculous foibles and petty selfishness, without judgement. It's an unblinking satirical look at what we really are, all the while saying "isn't that both funny amazing and beautiful in its own strange way".
He has been quoted as saying he'd always rather be the rising ape than a falling angel.
He has numerous books that take place in Discworld... a sort of fantasy Victorian age world. But you don't have to read them in any particular order. Some books involve the same characters, others are one-ofs. It's like of like Marvel movies. You don't need to see Captain America before you watch Thor... but it probably helps to see Iron Man 1 before Iron Man 2.
Anyway, Small Gods is one of Pratchett's many books on religion. It's where I suggest people start reading his stuff because it's a great "one of". You don't need to know any of his other stories to get it. No characters carry over.
It involves the God Om, who has one of the most successful religions in the world. The problem: Nobody really believes in Om. Oh they go to church and they follow the pageantry, but that isn't quite the same as actual belief is it?
The other problem: Om is a bit of an Old Testament god, with fire and wrath. Now there is so little belief in him that he's lost any real power. The book is about how he and the one person who actually believes in him still go to reclaim his religion.
Here are a few of my favorite quotes from the book:
“Gods don't like people not doing much work. People who aren't busy all the time might start to think.”
“Belief, he says. Belief shifts. People start out believing in the god and end up believing in the structure.”
“When you can flatten entire cities at a whim, a tendency towards quiet reflection and seeing-things-from-the-other-fellow's-point- of-view is seldom necessary.”
“...logic is only a way of being ignorant by numbers.”
“Fear is a strange soil. It grows obedience like corn, which grow in straight lines to make weeding easier. But sometimes it grows the potatoes of defiance, which flourish underground.”
“The merest accident of microgeography had meant that the first man to hear the voice of Om, and who gave Om his view of humans, was a shepherd and not a goatherd. They have quite different ways of looking at the world, and the whole of history might have been different. For sheep are stupid, and have to be driven. But goats are intelligent, and need to be led.”
“The Ephebians believed that every man should have the vote (provided that he wasn't poor, foreign, nor disqualified by reason of being mad, frivolous, or a woman). Every five years someone was elected to be Tyrant, provided he could prove that he was honest, intelligent, sensible, and trustworthy. Immediately after he was elected, of course, it was obvious to everyone that he was a criminal madman and totally out of touch with the view of the ordinary philosopher in the street. And then five years later they elected another one just like him, and really it was amazing how intelligent people kept on making the same mistakes.”
“I think," he said, "I think, if you want thousands, you have to fight for one.”
It's 7-8 bucks from Google play books, or here's th Amazon link: https://www.amazon.com/Small-Gods-Discworld-Terry-Pratchett/dp/0062237373
See whether she has any interest in Bertrand Russell's "The Problems of Philosophy", available in various formats for free. It starts with the question "Is there any knowledge in the world which is so certain that no reasonable man could doubt it?" While it may be a bit dry for a young teenager, even skimming parts of it could help to open some horizons.
The general philosophical issue here, of how we determine which claims are true and should count as knowledge, is at the root of many questions of belief. Most people choose beliefs intuitively, and by following social precedent, and could not give you a coherent explanation of why they believe as they do.
A deeper understanding of what knowledge is, and how we can reasonably obtain it, allows us to more completely justify our beliefs, and this allows us to choose beliefs that are better justified, whatever they may be.
As for learning about atheism, atheism is merely the lack of belief in gods, and entails nothing further. If she wants to investigate atheistic belief systems, then there are various possibilities such as secular humanism, some varieties of Buddhism, as well as post-Christian churches such as the Unitarian Universalists, which does not require or assume theistic belief.
If she's focused on the question of whether a god or gods exist, as a religious person yourself, you might want to help her refocus on a more productive question - such as how we can understand religious belief in the context of modern philosophical and scientific knowledge.
We have no sound rational arguments that end with the conclusion "...therefore gods exist". As long as this is the case, belief in gods as something real, existing outside the imaginations of humans, will always require a faith that goes beyond rationality. This brings us back to the question above: should such ideas be treated as knowledge about the external world?
A simplistic answer to this is that from a rational perspective, no, gods are not demonstrably real in an external sense, so we are not rationally justified in believing in them, although we may nevertheless rely on faith to support such belief.
But knowledge about gods can also be seen as knowledge of another kind - not about the externally real world, but rather about the inner mental (and "spiritual") life of humanity. There's no doubt that people believe in gods, and in a sense, give them a life of their own through their belief-inspired actions. Charity by churches is evidence that gods do exist, in that sense. The oft-cited claim that "God is love" is another way of getting at such ideas.
With that in mind, perhaps the best book to inspire thinking along these lines is "Small Gods" by Terry Pratchett. I looked for a review that captured what I think is relevant about this book, and found this one, which I've excerpted below:
> Terry Pratchett uses Small Gods to tackle the topic of religion and intolerance ... Pratchett is able to examine the difference between a belief in God and a belief in a religion.
> Small Gods may not be the most laugh-out-loud funny of the Discworld novels, but it is the most philosophical book in the series. Pratchett is able to remain on course as he explores the meaning of religion with a smattering of philosophy. His characters, plot and concepts all come together to form a cohesive whole which does not allow itself to get sidetracked for the sake of a joke or a situation.
> While most satirists have a tendency to focus either of the roles of God in religion, or, more frequently, the life religions have apart from their gods, Pratchett examines both.
Good luck, although by the sounds of it, neither you nor you daughter need it!
It's an excerpt from an incredible book:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/0062237373/ref=sr_1_1_olp?ie=UTF8&qid=1485353369&sr=8-1&keywords=Small+Gods
Or you can buy / torrent the audiobook or ebook version, doesn't matter.
But I still haven't found someone who hasn't loved Terry Pratchett's books after giving them a try.
You can start with any one of them of course, I'd suggest the Guards series(https://www.goodreads.com/series/106221-discworld---ankh-morpork-city-watch), but that's personal preference
Small Gods
Ach I'm over 2 weeks late... and it's funny - I was re-reading Small Gods at the time!
There are a few different versions of the book:
(Also At Discworld Emporium)
EDIT: You can also find them all on Book Depository for slightly cheaper.
I highly recommend: