In one line: A fun read–a dystopian novel with beautiful writing and an embryonic perspective on faith, religion, prayer, and our existence, amidst visions of a demoralized society.
- All that you touch, you change. All the you change, changes you. The only lasting truth is change. God is change. – Earthseed, The Book of the Living (ch1)
- God is power. Infinite, irresistible, inexorable, indifferent. And yet God is pliable, trickster, teacher, chaos, clay. God exists to be shaped. God is change. God can be shaped and focused. Prayers only help the person praying and only if they help strengthen that persons resolve. If they’re used that way, they can help us in our only real relationship with God. They help us to shape God. And to work with the shapes God imposes on us….We can rig the game in our favor if we understand that God can be shaped and will be shaped with or without our forethought. our intent. (ch3)
- A tree cant grow in the shadow of its parents (ch7)
- To get along with god, consider the consequences of your behavior (ch8)
- When a parents ability disintegrates, which it must, people tend to give in to fear and depression, to need and greed; When no influence is strong enough to unify people, they divide, struggle for survival, position and power. They remember old hates and create new ones. They create chaos and nurture it. They kill until they are exhausted, destroyed or conquered or until one becomes a leader most will follow or a tyrant most fear. (ch10)
- Any change may bear seeds of benefit, seek them out. Any change may bear seeds of harm, beware. God is infinitely malleable. God is change. (ch11)
- When it comes to strangers w guns, I think suspicion is more likely to keep you alive than trust (ch11)
- All successful life is adaptable, tenacious, opportunistic, interconnected. Use this, shape God (ch11)
- In order to rise from the ashes, the phoenix must first burn
- I spent my childhood trying to set a good example for my brothers and living up to my dads expectations
- Its no small thing to commit yourself to other people (ch15)
- No one is who we think they are. That’s what we get for not being telepathic (ch16)
- Most people fear change (ch18)
- God isn’t good or evil, doesn’t favor you or hate you, and yet is better partnered than fought (ch18)
- Show me a more pervasive power than change. (Ch18)
- Worship is not good without action. With action, its only good if it steadies you, focused efforts, eases your mind (ch18)
- The questions little children ask drive you insane but they also make you think (ch18)
- Taking care of other people can be a good cure for nightmares (ch20)
- The self must create its own reasons for being, to shape God, shape self (ch21)
- Stumbling across the truth isn’t the same as making things up (ch21)
- There’s no narcotic like exhaustion
- Your teachers are all around you. All that you perceive, all that you experience, all that is given to you, or taken from you. All that you love or hate. Need or fear, will teach you, if you will learn. God is your first and your last teacher. Your harshest teacher. Learn or die (ch23)
- Create no images of god except the images that god has provided. They are everywhere, in everything. God is change. Seed to tree. Tree to forest. Rain to river. River to see. Grub to bees. Bees to swarm. From one, many. From many, one. Forever uniting growing, dissolving, forever changing. The universe is God’s self-portrait. (ch25)
Philoso-Feed 