2 Reasons to Trust Authors

There are lots of non-fiction books by religious and spiritual people. They often contain views and explanations about life. They often disagree. How do you sort through the masses of material for something worth some of your time?

If you trust the writings of a person, you must trust the authority of that person. I have found that when I look for books to add to my One-day-I-will-read-this list, I am more likely to decide that I trust an author if the following 2 reasons are true.

The Money Lists

At the moment myself and Jenny host a small group (home group/cell group/life group) each week. I once set an activity that focussed on how different people make priorities with their money. I didn't know how it would go, or what we would find out from comparing the lists. But by the end, I was surprised.

What do we spend money on?

First I got the group to think of a list of about 7 or 8 headings that someone might use to categorise everything on a personal budgeting file. The list was fairly generic. It included food, taxes, recreation, giving/charity, travel, savings, and a couple of others.

Fake Fun

It seems that people can claim they have experienced fun in one of two ways- past and present.

The people who say they are having fun in the present are aware that they are enjoying their current experience. It sounds simple, but a surprising amount of "fun" things don't fit into this category!

The people who say they have Had Fun- past tense- have sometimes decided that "fun" is the acceptable label for whatever torment they just went through. I think that this post-trauma-override thing is a bit of self-deceipt mixed in with a knowledge of culturally accepted "fun" activities.