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Permalink Reply by Strega on October 5, 2012 at 3:04pm

I was fortunate to be brought up in an atheist family and yet develop enough morality to be able to enjoy life without doing so ostensibly at other people's expense.

As children, our mother read us Hilair Belloc's Cautionary Tales for Children and Aesop's fables.  Aesop's fables all contain animals so that also provided a play outlet with toy animals that substituted for Noah's Ark. The Cautionary tales are in rhyme which was huge fun- my favorites were Matilda, and Jim.  If you haven't read them, there is a full copy on line of the original illustrated stories/rhymes that google will take you to. We also read Edward Lear's Book of Nonsense, and Lewis Carroll's Alice tales.  

To better understand the concept of divinity, we had anthologies of diverse mythologies, which probably helped us to conclude that tales of gods were fictional. I suspect my delight at Fantasy and Sci_fi stories in later life stemmed from here.

Going to early teen/mid teen years, a book called "The Little Red Schoolbook" was clandestinely circulated amongst the students.  This dealt with teen sexuality, relationships and stuff like that, with very helpful diagrams.  The fact (or maybe pretense) that this book was somehow illicit, made it that much more desirable to read.  

Sex education was taught in Biology, and always seemed to begin with "When a man and a woman love each other very much..." and rather quickly after that, "the penis is inserted into the vagina and fertilisation occurs".  Not really very helpful, especially when the Little Red Schoolbook was so much more explicit.

Our Religious Education classes at school taught us about the major religions and what was believed by each.  The variety presented, without indoctrination, allowed us to learn about other cultures but the diversity also helped to highlight that adopting a religion was a choice, not an obligation.

I don't believe that one single book can be a guide to life, but for adulthood, the most all-encompassing single tome I have read is Bill Bryson's fairly recent book "A Short History of Nearly Everything". The caveat to this book being adopted as core reading would have to be that it be periodically updated to keep abreast of scientific discovery and development.

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Permalink Reply by Simon Paynton on October 13, 2012 at 4:01pm

The Little Red School Book was great. 

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Permalink Reply by archaeopteryx on October 5, 2012 at 11:14pm

The Kama Sutra.

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Permalink Reply by Eric Diaz on October 5, 2012 at 11:26pm

I think I would choose "1984" by George Orwell or the graphic novel "V for Vendetta"

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Permalink Reply by Hank Hell on October 6, 2012 at 5:31pm

I think I like your mind set, Brave new world would be good too. I also love a clock work orange, It's the best thing I've ever read about the nature of morality.

 

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Permalink Reply by Morgan Matthew on October 6, 2012 at 12:35am

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Permalink Reply by Marvel on October 6, 2012 at 7:29am

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is a very good choice as well as Aesop Fables ..

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Permalink Reply by Iron Shemp America on October 6, 2012 at 8:59am

{What book or narrative do you think presents a better understanding of Morality/reality/sexuality/ and/or spirituality...}

My four year old Grandson's coloring book. %^}

More seriously:

1. The Complete Works of Mark Twain.

2. Marvel's The Fantastic Four, The World's Greatest Comic Magazine, Issues 55 & 56.

3. Or, once you're tired of reading, Pulp Fiction ~ a Quentin Tarantino film.

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Permalink Reply by archaeopteryx on October 6, 2012 at 5:58pm

Now that's a practical suggestion!

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Permalink Reply by marilyne Hansen on October 10, 2012 at 9:21am

Atlas Shrugged. For the morality (what else is there?). As with most things, read in context-as a product of it's author; her experiences and the times (1950's).

I suspect the more vocal detractors haven't read the book, and are only familiar with the authors more scandalous and somewhat crazy later years.

 

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Permalink Reply by kOrsan on October 10, 2012 at 11:10am

What would you replace the bible with if you could?

A fucking lecture book about physics.

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Permalink Reply by Lars NIelsen on October 11, 2012 at 3:32am

Nice one 

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