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Cool gsaseeker....I look forward to learning your thoughts about reform !!!
and others.
That's just like me, I've taken a look at all of them. What did you think of Anton LaVey? I thought he was almost like a sociologist in some of his essays.
Wow! You're ambitious and I'm impressed! I noticed you didn't include "Kitab-i-Aqdas," which is supposedly the most important of the writings of Baha'u'llah (unless it may go by some other name that I didn't recognize in your list). I just love it when a member of the Baha'i Faith posts something from their scriptures. They are so beautiful! There are a lot of them, though. And what about the Urantia Book? And while I'm at it, may I suggest the Mormon scripture called "The Pearl of Great Price." It's a very short read.
It was a long time ago when I read it, in the 90s.
I did start reading the Urantia, but I just couldn't convince myself to read more than a few pages. At the time I knew a guy who was really into it. He believed it so badly he sold everything and went to look for spiritual evolution somewhere. I haven't heard from him since.
Well, I don't have a religion, so all such texts qualify. The NT I've read in Greek, English, Latin, Gothic, German, French, and somewhat of Sanskrit. The OT I've read in English, Hebrew, & Greek. It's a bit hard to determine whether certain texts are "religious" still less what religion, in some cases, but I have read e.g., the Iliad and Odyssey in Greek and most of both in English (Hesiod too), various so-called gnostic texts (though often in translation as I can't read Coptic), and most of the extant religious Greco-Roman religious texts (such ad the Hymn to Demeter or Plotinus. I've read the Koran in English an Arabic and read much of the ahadith (though mostly in English). I've read a number of Buddhist texts, but these I've read through pre-arranged collections like Penguin's Buddhist Scriptures), but mostly my knowledge of Eastern religions such as these is limited to what I picked up in martial arts and what I learned by reading the history of the developments of such religions. I've read the Bhagavadgita in English and much of it in Sanskrit, I've read Kṛṣṇa, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, the Principal Upanishads, the Mishnah and the Talmudim (mostly in English but I'd say a fair proportion in Hebrew), the Kitáb-i-Aqdas, Gems of Divine Mysteries, various medieval treatises from persons or groups that were deemed heretical, most of the so-called Church Fathers (especially those writing in Greek), that which remains of Nordica saga and the like, a number of borderline cases (such as The Book of Five Rings or most of both the Na Hammadi and Dea Sea scroll texts), and probably many others that would be counted as some as "religious texts" and denied by other.
Yeah. People make careers on studying just the New Testament, or just Paul's letters. Not that they don't study the other parts too, but they are scholars after all so it's somewhat "job-related." I'm no scholar.
Well, as a Mormon, I definitely can't say the Book of Mormon is the most riveting book I've ever read.
Some parts I really like, and other parts I really have to force myself to get through. But if you can't take the "whole pray for a testimony thing" seriously, you might as well just put the book down and start the Qur'an. Basically, the "pray for a testimony" thing is just a take off on James 1:5, which says, "If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, who giveth to all men liberally and upbraideth not. And it shall be given him." It seems to me that if asking God for help in terms of gaining spiritual knowledge and wisdom is entirely logical, but if it's not to you, then I can absolutely assure you that it won't work.
