Qur'an Vs Bible Vs Bhagavad Gita Vs None

[Semmelweis Reflex]

No scripture is better than the other. Each has something special to offer. I've finished the Bhagavad Gita last year. It has knowledge of reincarnation, knowledge of the infinite cosmic spirit, the acts that will liberate us from this prison-world and a few more things. The Bible and Quran are in my to-read list. I've already read the book of genesis in the last decade but couldn't finish the whole scripture due to some health issues. This time i wish to read the whole bible using both NIV and NASB editions.

I think it's true that none are better than the other and that each has something to offer. And it's subjective as well. I didn't like the Quran or Bhagavad Gita. I've read several translations of each. The Gita seemed to me like a prolonged PR piece on nationalism and war. Nothing else to it. The Quran seemed to me to be a poorly constructed, xenophobic tirade with an occasional glimmer of hope. For example, charity and generosity and, strangely contradictory portions on religious tolerance.

Analects seemed pretentious, Shinto texts (Nihongi and Kojiki) seemed nonsensical and boring. Taoist texts seem quixotic. The Pirke Avot was painfully officious and pointless. I think I favor the Buddhist texts. I especially recommend Ajahn Sumedho discourse on the Buddhist teaching of The Four Noble Truths as both enlightening and practical. An easy read as well.

I never actually liked the Bible from a readability perspective. To me the Bible is the most important of them all, but it's best used as a tool. Like a dictionary rather than a novel or poem.

 

[mangalavara]

The Gita seemed to me like a prolonged PR piece on nationalism and war. Nothing else to it.

Are you sure it was the Bhagavad Gītā and not Mein Kampf?

 

[Semmelweis Reflex]

Are you sure it was the Bhagavad Gītā and not Mein Kampf?

Well, I've never gotten around to reading Mein Kampf, though I would like to. So, I can't compare the two.

 

[firedragon]

The Bible. It's the most read.

Also you probably want to do the Mahabharata instead of the Bhagavad-gita.

I have read all 3 and would recommend all 3.

Well, Bhagavad Githa is part of the Mahabharatha.

Good read. Some even consider it to be excellent for business strategy.

 

[firedragon]

I think it's true that none are better than the other and that each has something to offer. And it's subjective as well. I didn't like the Quran or Bhagavad Gita. I've read several translations of each. The Gita seemed to me like a prolonged PR piece on nationalism and war. Nothing else to it. The Quran seemed to me to be a poorly constructed, xenophobic tirade with an occasional glimmer of hope. For example, charity and generosity and, strangely contradictory portions on religious tolerance.

I think your knowledge on all of these books you are speaking about is very poor.

 

[MikeF]

You know, I don't really understand this aspect of atheistic philosophy. It's as if they have this uninformed notion that mythology must be believed. That that is its purpose. And if they have anything to do with it they would appear stupid. Like, people who pay attention to that sort of thing are ignorant and superstitious. I guess because they think that is where it all comes from. Ignorant superstitious people using it to control and then being used by the masses as a sort of crutch. Which is ironic.

Atheists seem to want to use the intellect as a control device and crutch. It makes them feel smart, safe and secure. Everything in the material world is predictable, concrete and without emotional attachment. And consequently they don't know as much about the world around them as they think they do because they have it all wrong. What is concrete about logical thought and where would it be without emotion? Where would emotion be without logic.

The believers tend to have this false sense of superior morality and the unbelievers seem to have this false sense of intellectual superiority. But look at what we've done to the noble pursuit of knowledge. The educated are told what to think rather than how to think. The religious and irreligious have many similar paradoxical illusions. The educated and the religious both tend to be offended by certain words so they will insist of intellectualizing or dumbing down substitute words which have the same meaning. A delusion is an idiosyncratic belief or impression that is firmly maintained despite being contradicted by what is generally accepted as reality or rational argument. You can't hide away the truth or the lie and not come away from it without being delusional.

Those names I listed weren't pulled out of someone's ***. Butt or glutes, if you will. They have great meanings which are deeply embedded into the culture, your thinking. It's all around you. The Greek word for spirit is pneuma. The English words pneumatic and pneumonia comes from that Greek word. An invisible force in motion which produces visible results. Wind. Breath. You can't control the wind. Since wind comes from all directions then by extension it can mean east, west, north, south. Or it can mean compelled mental inclination. What practical unseen forces influence a macrosopic and perhaps even a myopic perspective on transcendent reality? Tradition and culture.

Think of art. Music. Parables, stories, fables . . . myth. George Orwell said all art is propaganda. Pablo Picasso said that art is the lie that enables us to realize the truth. From the Bible Jesus taught in illustrations. Fictional stories that instructed his listeners. Made them think about what he was saying, not just memorize and regurgitate what he said. Aesop's fables. Fairy tales like the Emperor's New Clothes instruct children about self-deception, conformity, and obedience to authority.

I think the overly pragmatic approach to reality is unfortunate.

I'm not sure why investigating and understanding actual reality, the cosmos, all that is, should necessarily prohibit one from seeing value in, and appreciating Literature, Arts and Aesthetics, or prohibit one from feeling emotion and recognize and respond to emotion in others. Nor should it prohibit one from being able to grasp and understand abstract concepts, or recognize that we can imagine things that do not exist and things that are impossible to exist and be able to make that distinction. It makes no sense. It also does not make sense to treat fiction as literally true and hold it as immune and exempt from evaluation and constructive criticism.

I see two separate issues. One is to acquire knowledge and understand reality irrespective of the existence of Homo Sapiens. This sets the stage or framework in which we exist. The second issue is understanding ourselves, what instructs and influences our behaviors and actions, how we relate to each other and to all life as a whole, all of which exists and operates within actual reality.

 

[Jainarayan]

View attachment 63555
I read 2 out of 3 and touched on a summary with one of the others. Which one do you believe is the best and give your reasons for why. For those that think none of them are any good, state your reasons as well.

For me as a Vaishnava Hindu, obviously it would be the Bhagavad Gita. However, not As It Is, the ISKCON and Prabhupada version. While some of his translations are very poetic, some to me are downright ridiculous, as are many of his purports. Not all, but enough to turn me off to As It Is. I prefer Swami Mukundananda and Swami Tapasyananda.

There are some nice teachings in the three synoptic gospels, but nothing new that I don't find in the Bhagavad Gita. The Gita predates Jesus by at least several centuries. That suggests to me that Jesus and/or the gospel writers drew on Dharmic philosophy.

 

[Ella S.]

Just out of curiosity have you actually read any of these?

Yes. I read the Bible twice, once with the NIV version, a second time with the Oxford Study Bible. Actually, I've engaged in a number of high-level Biblical studies, talking about everything from how the "aeons of aeons" was incorrectly rendered as "forever," how Gehenna, Tartarus, and Sheol, are all mistranslated as "Hell," the Elohist, Yahwist, Priestly, etc. sources, the Q and sayings gospels, including Biblical apocrypha and how Jesus references the Book of Enoch, etc.

I've read the Bhagavad Gita, both the translation by Easwaran and a version used by the Hare Krishna movement.

I've read the Quran only once, although I compared a few passages between versions, and the version I read was "The Study Quran" which also references a variety of Hadiths.

 

[firedragon]

I voted None because I believe they are all holy books, so neither one is better than the other.
However, I believe that the Qur'an is much more authentic than the other two because it was dictated by Muhammad to scribes who either memorized what they heard or wrote it down, later to be compiled in the Qur'an.

By contrast that Bhagavad Gita and the Bible came to us by way of oral tradition, they were not revealed by a Messenger of God or Prophet. Allegedly the Bhagavad Gita was composed by an ancient sage named Vyasa, but the authorship of the Bible is unknown, making it even more precarious.

With all due respect, didn't you contradict yourself in this single post?

 

[Trailblazer]

With all due respect, didn't you contradict yourself in this single post?

I did not mean to imply that more authentic is necessarily better.

 

[firedragon]

I did not mean to imply that more authentic is necessarily better.

Okay TB. Sorry if I misrepresented you.

 

[Semmelweis Reflex]

I think your knowledge on all of these books you are speaking about is very poor.

What knowledge? I read them several times, and gave my opinion. I've published them on personal websites; I translated the Quran from an archaic version with footnotes I added from a basic research on terms specific to Islam, but that's about it. There is no knowledge to speak of all the texts I mentioned except the Bible, which I've personally studied for about 30 years.

 

[RestlessSoul]

I can certainly distinguish between the abstract labels for things and the things themselves.

So you can distinguish between the past, present and future, and the hands of a clock, but which of these can you see and touch?

 

[MikeF]

So you can distinguish between the past, present and future, and the hands of a clock, but which of these can you see and touch?

Both can be experienced, wouldn't you say?

 

[RestlessSoul]

Both can be experienced, wouldn't you say?

The past leaves traces of itself in the present, particularly in memory, so yes. But the future? That can be anticipated, and we can make predictions about it, but it remains an abstraction. And deliberations on the nature of time, from Aristotle to Kant to Einstein, to Carlo Rovelli, leave us groping in the mist for it’s true nature.

The passage of time is something we experience as a linear phenomenon, but special relativity appears to be telling us that this is a function of our particular human perspective; just as the erroneous perception, empirically supported by centuries of recorded observations, that the sun and stars rotate around the earth, was a function of perspective.

 

[The Hammer]

Even if these are just "misinterpretations," the fact that they are so easily misinterpreted along these lines is still bad. Nobody has misinterpreted a Shel Silverstein poem as proof that it's their divine duty to rape someone, as far as I know, for instance, whereas that has happened quite a lot with all three of these books.

And rape happens for many secular reason too. Should we take out secular philosophy?

 

[stevecanuck]

I've never fully read the Quran, so I didn't vote. Between the first two. I can't say which is best. Both are equally illustrative of their purposes and intents. Neither of them worthless for their cause. Both good reads. When I get around to reading the Quran I may feel the same way about it.

If you decide to read the Qur'an, send me a message first. I can give you a glossary of terms that would otherwise be meaningless to you.

 

[danieldemol]

And rape happens for many secular reason too. Should we take out secular philosophy?

Rape appears to happen because people are horny and some of them lack self control. But how did you decide upon that as a "secular" reason.

Are you regarding any reason not specifically driven by religion as being motivated by secularism? I'm not sure that it makes sense to do so.

In my opinion.

 

[Bathos Logos]

You mean, like . . . days of the week, months, holidays, wind chimes, wedding rings, tombstones, planets, movies, TV shows, theatre, novels, video games, Midas tires, Trident gum, constellations, Orion Pictures, Ajax household cleaner, Apollo Theater, Mercury, Mars candy bars, the Olympics, Phoenix Arizona, Atlas Van, Nike shoes, FTD Florist logo, Spartans sports teams, Cereal, Apollo Space Program, Pandora Jewelry, Amazon, male names like Jason, Troy, Damon, Michael, Elijah, female names like Rhea, Penelope, Phoebe, Helen, car names like Apollo, Eos, Titan, Taurus, Versace label, the symbol for Medicine, architecture, Battlestar Galactica, Frankenstein, geometric art, astronomy . . . do you think that the primitive superstitious people who were allegedly trying to figure out what the world around them was all about didn't formulate some compendium of knowledge which permeated every aspect of all cultures that ever existed or just pottery shards and a few cave paintings? they weren't trying to figure the world out they were creating it. You're surrounded by the mythical everyday and you don't even know it? Good luck (another mythological concept) with the reality you inhabit. Science, education, medicine, evolution, law. philosophy, ethics, morality, marriage . . . where do you think those things come from?

I would argue that none of those things are what really, truly matter. Sure... those are all constructs. So what? What do you believe this indicates? That all of reality is just more constructs? The only thing you can really state is that our sense perception of much of reality is a form of construct. That we don't get a taste of what reality really "is". Otherwise... please, please note and understand why you didn't put things like atoms, molecules, electrons, protons, electric energy, gravity, empty space, heat energy and light waves on your list. None of those items made your list. Do you understand why that is?

Too many people go through life thinking that your list is "reality". Your list is akin to entirely disposable trash when put up against the things that truly do not diminish when you try to "pull back the curtain".

 

[MikeF]

The past leaves traces of itself in the present, particularly in memory, so yes. But the future? That can be anticipated, and we can make predictions about it, but it remains an abstraction. And deliberations on the nature of time, from Aristotle to Kant to Einstein, to Carlo Rovelli, leave us groping in the mist for it’s true nature.

The passage of time is something we experience as a linear phenomenon, but special relativity appears to be telling us that this is a function of our particular human perspective; just as the erroneous perception, empirically supported by centuries of recorded observations, that the sun and stars rotate around the earth, was a function of perspective.

Every present is a realized future. Does the fact that we can plan for and cause future events make it any less abstract in your mind?

As to the physics, only time will tell.

I do find it funny that a scientific theory can be called upon to support a notion of reality as an illusion, but to counter science as a source to support concepts of a reality external to the mind, you characterize scientific theory as "merely speculation", in another thread.