/lit/ - Literature

I think there's a certain amount of arrogance in creating art that you expect strangers to care about at all. Not an unforgivable amount, but an amount that is present, and that the artist (writer, painter, musician, whatever) ought to try to compensate for by expressing his or her ideas in as humble and unpretentious a way as possible.

Agree? Disagree?

>someone expresses a philosophical view you're actually sympathetic to (and maybe even agree with)
>they can't back it up and/or use shitty logic but act really arrogant about it
>you criticize them and point out that there are flaws in their thinking
>they immediately assume you think the opposite of them and start attacking a position you don't even hold
All philosophical discussion on /lit/ in a nutshell.

That said, let's talk philosophy. What single philosophical work has had the strongest effect on you as an individual (as opposed to indirectly affecting you by impacting society which in turn helped mold you into who you are)?

Does anyone have that image on how to write haiku in English that points out that syllables are slightly different in Japanese than English, and suggests just winging it on the syllables, and talks about the kind of -idea- of a haiku?

Before I start listing things, I want to let you know that none of this will write for you or come up with ideas for you or anything of the sort. But it does help you to come up with more ideas, to organize them, and so forth.

>Write or Die
http://writeordie.com/
This is a cool little tool that forces you to keep writing... I usually use it for free writing, to come up with as many ideas as possible, then go back and see what I actually like and can develop further. There's a free version if you scroll down, or if you want I guess you can buy the PC, Mac, or iPad version.

>yWriter
http://www.spacejock.com/yWriter5.ml
This basically helps you keep track of stuff while you're writing, allows you to rearrange scenes, keep track of what characters are where at what times, etc.

>Places Data
http://placesdata.com/
Information about different places around the globe. Useful for quick fact checks and a bit of interesting information you might not know.

And please add any you might know.

Why is it that Republicans (or at least a certain subset of Republicans) insist that the writings of Ayn Rand are compatible with Christianity, when even Rand herself insisted that they were not?

Where does this bullshit idea come from that Christianity properly understood is hyper-capitalistic and in favor of big business and war?

Are there any good books that discuss this phenomenon?