/lit/ - Literature

>>7224647
>Hinduism doesn't believe in toilets
Actually, they believe that witches hang out in toilets, but they don't doubt that if there were no witches that toilets could be a good idea.

>>7196663
>Roth, Pynchon and Delillo will NEVER win the Nobel Prize because Euros are so salty about American innovation
I wish I didn't care, but I certainly resent how the Europussies are holding the most prestigious prize hostage.

>>7149894
>tfw trust fund brat
Sorry for putting my financial and social capital to work improving the state of literature. You're welcome, faggot.

>>7100526
A religion's wisdom literature can't redeem the rest of the religion being an incoherent mess. For example, a substantial number of Hindu faithful are terrified of a kind of witch that dwells in enclosed toilets and this is part of why some cities in India have had trouble getting people to use the loo despite offering small cash rewards. Whatever wisdom the Brahman caste is enjoying (oh yeah that whole caste system thing) doesn't do diddly for most of the people donating to their temples who are kept poor and stupid through slave-morality enforced with myth.

Poo in loo, Sandeep.

>>7093032
Yes. My family was seriously funamentalist, like bible study every morning after breakfast, home schooled, five family prayer times a day, middle-of-nowhere fundamentalist. The odd thing about them is that they're extremely intelligent (my dad has a PhD and makes a ton of money) but they really believe that they're on a mission from God to reclaim America for his glory.

I would just "get over it" except for two things. First, my family won't allow me to just ignore the issue. I love them, but whenever I come home I get preached at and cried over. It hurts because I don't like to see them upset, but I also have a hard time respecting them when their attempts to reconvert me are usually insultingly flimsy. Second, they were extremely controlling and raised me to be a limp-wristed pussy until I decided that wasn't helping me with the ladies sometime in high school. The social isolation, interrogations "out of love" left me with a huge complex about having fun and putting myself out there socially that I'm still working through, despite having a good life in most other ways.

Pro tip: girls don't like guys who act like their parents could be eavesdropping all the time.

>>7093073
Would just get over it, but they keep making a huge deal out of my hellbound trajectory.

>>7093090
Your parents were casuals.

>>7093098
The study was the only good thing that came out of it, but Christian theologists are worthless. Would much rather have been raised Jewish.

>>7093117
I don't identify with this at all. In fact I left the faith because everything boiled down to dread at the possibility that there's nothing bigger out there. I found that this didn't phase me in the slightest, so I discarded the apparatus.

>>7093131
You only say this because most protestants are casuals. Try living in a miniature version of Calvin's Geneva and see what you think of that.

>>7088073
I'd narrow it down to the Pacific Northwest, Rocky Mountain States and New England. I'm from the South and the breed of Christianity we've got here is not utopian in the slightest.

>>7088187
I can afford to avoid them in person so I consider the portion of my taxes that go to their welfare a well-spent donation to World Star Hip Hop.

>>7088316
>Fly from Utopia to France
>somebody tries to shoot up a train
>get my throat slashed stopping the gunman because I couldn't shoot back
>mfw Europoors unironically believe that "violence is bayud, mmmkay."

>>7080369
>Grow up reading The Bible in several versions
>memorize in their entirety the Childrens', Shorter, Longer and Westminster Catechisms for good boy points
>Learn Latin by middle school so I can read the vulgate
>Read theology and apologetics starting in elementary school
>attend a Christian school where we study this stuff in class
>Regularly dialogue with the pastors of two Presbyterian churches about theology.
>teach sermons at school, sunday school and youth group
Then I make the extremely psychically and socially painful decision that it's all just an outdated coping mechanism, and I get called a fedora by some casual who decided he didn't like the look of Dawkins' face.

If only anyone else knew that my pastor has been having a continuous crisis of faith for two years over something I said the last time we went out for breakfast together.

>>7077744
The way the rape went down
Walter's peace with getting cucked
Walter's speech to to West Virginians (meant to be over the top but sympathetic)
Joey's "come to Jesus" moment about the Iraq war. His whole storyline, really, I don't know how someone doesn't think that's extremely political.
Joey's "come to jesus" moment where he falls in love with Judaism
The overall tone of disdain for Middle America

You seem really upset that I think Franzen's political, and liberal, but that's one of the most common criticisms made of his work in the press. Probably THE most common criticism. All the topics above could be handled in a way that conveys or hints at Franzen's leanings without being nearly so heavy handed as they were.

>>7076261
>muh /pol/ boogeyman