Reading religious texts in full

[Mole]

Giraffes evolved purposely.

There is no purpose in evolution.

 

[Mole]

Yeah, God must have the best sense of humour, ever.

Sure, He giggled His way through Auschwitz.

 

[Giggly]

In our research on type and spirituality, which involved interviews and e-correspondence with people of each type from all over the world, it was mostly the INTPs who said they'd read religious texts cover to cover. Usually it wasn't just the main one from their own cultural faith but the Bible, Koran, Book of Mormon and so on. They said, "How can you say you believe anything unless you understand it and also understand the alternatives?"

They also were most likely to pick up on bizarre patterns. Like why the obsession on what we wear on our heads?

INTPs all emailed us their answers. ESFJs all had us over for coffee.

That's very interesting.

 

[Mole]

I've read everything in the Bible at least once except Jeremiah and Ezekial. The Bible isn't a book you're going to read one time and understand. I'm still trying to get it figured out, and it's been years.

The problem is that you can't understand the Bible from the inside. That is, you can't understand the Bible in its own terms.

To understand the Bible, you need an external reference point.

You can't understand any trance from the inside because understanding is a cognitive faculty. And in a trance, even the Biblical trance, your cognitive faculties go to sleep so you trance faculities can awaken.

So it is necessary to wake from your Biblical trance in order to understand it.

No understanding can be found within the Biblical trance itself.

 

[ygolo]

Has anyone here read in it's entirety, like from cover to cover like a normal book, any religious texts (i.e. Bible, Quran, Talmud, etc.)?

I've only ever met one person who did this with The Bible.

Yes. I read all of them that way the first time. (No "study" or "commentary" or anything of that sort the first time).

I liked the Bible stories as stories...To be honest, I did "speed read" the long lists of lineage, strictures, etc. when I read the Bible.

I read English versions of the Bhagavad Gita several times this way. IMO, the Gitas are the easiest to read "as normal books." Perhaps, I am biased.

I want to read the Heart Sutra, at some point, also.

 

[The_Liquid_Laser]

Has anyone here read in it's entirety, like from cover to cover like a normal book, any religious texts (i.e. Bible, Quran, Talmud, etc.)?

I've only ever met one person who did this with The Bible.

I've read the whole Bible through once, but I've read most books of the Bible several times. I tend to skip most of the prophets though.

I'm not really surprised on a board with this many N's that quite a few people have read the whole thing.

 

[Venom]

ive read more than half for all of these (some of them ive read in full):

genesis, exodus, numbers, Deuteronomy, Leviticus, proverbs
Matthew, mark, james, timothy, 1 Corinthians, colossians, revelations


btw: numbers 31 is pretty funny

 

[FFF]

The problem is that you can't understand the Bible from the inside. That is, you can't understand the Bible in its own terms.

To understand the Bible, you need an external reference point.

You can't understand any trance from the inside because understanding is a cognitive faculty. And in a trance, even the Biblical trance, your cognitive faculties go to sleep so you trance faculities can awaken.

So it is necessary to wake from your Biblical trance in order to understand it.

No understanding can be found within the Biblical trance itself.

So I should listen to Christian techno instead of Christian trance?

 

[Mole]

So I should listen to Christian techno instead of Christian trance?

If I were to take your reply as a poetic metaphor, the answer would be, yes.

But if your reply was confusing trance music with the trance of the mind, I would refer you to The Trance Institute.

 

[01011010]

I've read entire texts of most of the major religions. I was curious. I remain agnostic, with a sprinkling of atheist.

 

[G-Virus]

I am a Muslim but I have sadly never ever read through the whole Quran in order. I have over 150 pages memorized down to the last phonetic utterance. I guess 500 to go, but whenever I memorize I don't like to do it blindly just memorizing words, but instead I like to learn the reasons for revelation and meanings. This takes a while and most of what I have memorized is now rusty. Maybe I can start up on it again.