NationStates Jolt Archive

Me -

Tanakh - 25 times
New Testament - 4 times
Qu'ran - 10
Vedas - twice
baha'i writings - once
Book of Mormon - once

what about you?

i'm just wondering because it's interesting to read what religions people have studied. and what religion are you?

Does 'Harry Potter' count?

I have read:

The Old Testament,
The New Testament,
The Book of Mormon,
Rig, Sama and Yajur Vedas,
The Brahma Sutras,
The Koran,
The Hadith,
The Talmud (partially),
and the Zhuangzi.

I am an agnostic.

Me -

Tanakh - 25 times
New Testament - 4 times
Qu'ran - 10
Vedas - twice
baha'i writings - once
Book of Mormon - once

what about you?

i'm just wondering because it's interesting to read what religions people have studied. and what religion are you?

Tanakh, New Testament... more times than I can count.

Midrash writings, pseudepigraphical writings, apocrypha... lots of times.

Koran...a couple of times.

Book of Mormon... once, all the way through.

(Egyptian) Book of the Dead... a few times.


Various commentary, concordance, or discussive documents... texts on various 'pagan' practises from Native American spirtuality to Wicca.

My 'religion' is a 'not applicable'. (Atheist: Implicit).

I've almost read the Bible from cover to cover.
I've only read excerpts from the Koran.
Enough of the Book of Mormon to decide they're nuts.
Excerpts from the Veddas and The Book Of the Dead.

Enough of all of them to prefer atheism.

I've not read a single one.

Waste of time, if you ask me.

*wanders off*

Does 'Harry Potter' count?

What about the DaVinci code?

Does 'Harry Potter' count?

Of course it does. It's a step by step instruction manual on how to cast Satanist spells. My preacher told me so!

Of course it does. It's a step by step instruction manual on how to cast Satanist spells. My preacher told me so!

Okay, so that means I've read none so far.

I've read the Bhagavad-gita, Ayatollah Khomeini's 'Little Green Book', Mao Zedong's 'Little Red Book', The Book of the SubGenius, John M. Allegro's 'The Sacred Mushroom & The Cross', The Egyptian Book of The Dead, Dianetics, The Old Testament, The Book of Mormon, Marx & Engels' 'The Communist Manifesto', Immanuel Velikovsky's 'Worlds In Collision' and a bunch of other shit besides. It all falls under 'religion', one way or another. I liked the illustrations in the gita the best, though.

*Edit: Cameroi, a few posts from now, reminded me that I've also read 'The Prophet' by Kahlil Gibran. Thanks for jogging the memory.

I read the Karma Sutra once. But I never managed to finish it. I kept getting distracted...

Bits of the Bible and the Tanakh.

And the operating thetan VIII thingamajig.

I'm a complete atheist.

kalil gebran's the prophet - yes i count that as one, in the sense of its spirit
more baha'i books then i can name off the top of my head
(a number of which my wife and i currently possess, including prayrs and meditations, some answered questions, seven vallies and the four valleys, the aqdas (american translation), nabil's dawn breakers, secred of devine civilization, ..., ..., ...)
several versions of christianity's 'book' of course, multiple times, and not those damd out of context quotes out of their aligorical and intended contexts as fundimentalist fanatics would have us to.
walker's translation of the hua hu chaing.
a couple of translations of the koran i'm not too sure about the validity of
a number of translations of hindu texts (NOT just the 'hari k*rshna' versions)
a number of texts on on buddhism and taoism (by buddhists and daoists, NOT 'comparative religeon' crap)
as many websites about shintoism as i've been able to track down.
listened directly and conversationaly with a number of indiginous elders (the best 'religeous' 'books' of all!)
also sat on nice flat rocks out in the woods and 'listened' to the feelings of spirituality that came to me there. most of my life. from my earliest childhood.

=^^=
.../\...

Are we talking about religious texts only? Because I read plenty of books about religion.

The King James Bible.

Dianetics.

The Satanic Bible.

That's pretty much it.

Bits of the Bible and the Tanakh.

And the operating thetan VIII thingamajig.

I'm a complete atheist.But the Tanakh is included in the Bible...

i read the bible in school iirc


that's it.

I have read the Bible, some non-canonical writings, parts of the Talmud, the Kebra Nagast, parts of the Mor(m)on stuff, one JW book, parts of the Qur'an, various Sumerian religious texts, various Akkadian religious texts, various Egyptian religious texts, various ancient Greek and Roman religious texts,
and above all: the Silmarillion ;)

Old Testament
New Testament
The Book of Mormon
The Pearl of Great Price
Koran
The Satanic Bible
The Brahma Sutras


some of them more often than others........

i tried to read the bible the whole way through once. didnt get through genesis. skipped to matthew, got through that, maybe got through mark but im pretty sure i got bored before i finished luke. tried a couple of epistles but it might as well have been written in another language. i attended church for 16ish years so i do have a passing familiarity with the contents of the bible otherwise.

glanced at the koran--same problem

glanced through the book of mormon--same problem

ive read much of what alan watts wrote about hinduism--i dont hold out much hope that its terribly accurate

ive read stories of the life of buddha and the spread of buddhism around asia but the sutras (is that the right word) have the same problem as the bible and koran. i understand the differences between the various major denominations of buddhism.

i have read the tao te ching, the analects of confucius, the i ching, and other books of taoism.

i have read the iliad and the odyssey some of it in the original

i have read many books ABOUT religion of various types from the greek gods to shintoism, to the native american beliefs.

Read from, not cover to cover ...

The Bible (Old & New Testaments)
Biblical Apocrypha (Macabbees, etc)
Homeric Hymns
Vedas
the Quran
bits of Egyptian & Mesopotamian myths

The Torah, many, many, many times.

The Bible
Parts of the Q'uran
Parts of the Torah
The Tao Te Ching
Drawing Down the Moon
Various mythologies

I can't take any of them seriously.

Most of the old testament at some time or another, bits and pieces of the new.

A smattering of koran and a decent slab of the khorda avesta.

Probably more about buddhism than any other.

The only religious book I have read is The Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

Indo-European/Dharma spirituality:
excerpts from the Rig Veda
The Upanishads
The Bhagavad Gita
The Poetic Edda
The Prose Edda
The Homeric Hymns

Chinese spirituality:
Tao Te Ching
The Book of Chuang Tzu

All of the above in translation unfortunately... Although to understand further certain passages/verses in the Rig Veda, Upanishads and Poetic Edda that seemed particularly important to me, I attempted to translate them myself from the original Sanskrit/Old Norse. My versions ended up being pretty different from most other translations, informed as they were by my own unique perspective on spirituality...

oh and also:

Thelema:
The Book of the Law
and a few more of Crowley's rantings that I forget the names of.

I got bored of Crowley's stuff pretty quickly. All that dull egyptian and freemasonry stuff gets in the way imo.

I've not read a single one.

Waste of time, if you ask me.

*wanders off*


Hear hear

You don´t " read " religious books, at best you study and consult them..
I pity people who waste their time at it, anyway..:p

I tried to read the New Testament, but got bored of reading before they got through Jesus' family tree. That and a handful of Discordian thingies that are only vaguely religious and barely qualify books. I'm writing one as it happens, very slowly and badly, but that's life.

I've read pretty much all the Bible, NIV mostly, as well as selections of the Apocrophya. Also perused the Koran, some of the Vedas and read loads of Ancient Greek religious literature.

Oh, and Principa Discordia.

So far I've only read the Bible, but I do want to read any holy book that Asatru may have.

So far I've only read the Bible, but I do want to read any holy book that Asatru may have.

most of what we know about Norse mythology comes from the Poetic Edda and the Prose Edda, which are compilations of Norse poems and stories compiled by an Icelandic poet in the 13th century, although the myths themselves are much much older. Check 'em out.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edda

most of what we know about Norse mythology comes from the Poetic Edda and the Prose Edda, which are compilations of Norse poems and stories compiled by an Icelandic poet in the 13th century, although the myths themselves are much much older. Check 'em out.

Cool, thanks.

I've just started "The God Delusion".

Does an anti-religious book count ?

Vey impressive you guys lol.

i