Do you read the holy book of your religion?
 

I've been reading a book called '50 reasons people give for believing in a god', and one of the chapters the author writes is about the assertion that a holy book proves a certain god's existence. Among other arguments, the author points out that among the hundreds of people he was interviewing for his book, a large number of them eventually confessed to having not read their holy book, or to only having read parts of it. This wasvery surprising to me, and also seemed kind of ridiculous. If you're going to follow a religion, you should know all of what you're professing to believe. It's part of the reason I believe children can't truly be classed in religions, because they rarely get the full picture.

So anyways, for any religion out there: if your religion has any kind of sacred book, have you read it? All of it? Parts of it? I'm guessing the responses here will mostly be about the Christian bible, but it can be anything - the Koran, the book of Mormon, the Torah, etc.

I'll start. I'm a satanist, and yes, I have read the Book of Satan. All of it. I've begun reading the bible, just to rule it out as something to believe. I want to read the Koran when I'm done.

Re: Do you read the holy book of your religion?
 

The official text of my religion (well, "soon to be" religion, as I have not declared yet) is the Kitab-i Aqdas, which literally means "The Most Holy Book" in Persian (or Arabic? but fairly sure it was Persian.) I have read parts of it, mostly in big chunks when I have time or am trying to relate something. It's not really... well, it's not like the Qur'an or the Bible, it's quite different, and more like an "instruction manuel" if you will. But, the truth is, there are over 100 volumes of Holy Writings in my faith, so... it's kind of hard to read all of it in like on session, obviously. And, a little bit of it still has to be translated, and just a whole bunch of stuff. But, I like I said, I have read parts of the Kitab-i Aqdas. There is a LOT more than just that book, so.. you know.

Besides all of our writings, we still do hold the other Holy books to be in high regards so... I have also read bits and peices of the Bible and of the Qur'an, and I do own both. I also have a program called Ocean, which has a HUUUUUUGE collection of writings from the world's religion, and it has a cool little search engine... it's awesome, if anyone wants it it's completely free and I'll find the link to it.

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I'm unsure of my religion but am looking into LeVayan Satanism and Luciferianism. I've not heard of a holy book for Luciferianism but have read about it on their website and I'm reading the Satanic Bible at the moment but haven't had much time to get through a lot of it yet.

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I've read The God Delusion a couple of times. Does that count?

But seriously, atheism doesn't have a holy book (in fact it isn't a religion, so I'm not sure why I voted at all in hindsight) so I voted no.

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I said yes, I've read some. Not much at all. Little bits of the Bible. I don't put much stock in what the Bible says. I've heard that the people who wrote it may have been on drugs as well as some of the people in it, like Moses. Even before I heard that though, I didn't see much purpose of the Bible. It was written such a long time ago, I think hardly any of it applies really at all to modern day. Just my opinion. I don't really believe in the Bible, kinda like I don't believe that you have to go to church (have only been like 3 times myself). However, I still consider myself Christian. I just have different views on Christianity than many Christians.

Re: Do you read the holy book of your religion?
 

Re: Do you read the holy book of your religion?
 

I've read the bible and little sections of the Koran. However I'm an Atheist.

It seems to me that the majority of Christians around where I live have never read the bible or only know little passages they were taught at Sunday School. It's quite sad when an Atheist knows more about their holy book than they do. I say Christians as it seems Muslims take it a lot more seriously around here and do actually read it. Of course, just to reiterate, I'm only judging from people around here and not generalising to all Christians or even most Christians.

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Oh, just to clarify - I don't think it's bad if you're in the process of reading your religion's book(s), it just seems weird to me when people purposefully don't read the full things.

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I skipped to the end and it spoiled it for me.

Re: Do you read the holy book of your religion?
 

That's from scrubs! Great show :tongue

I have read a lot of the bible, even though I'm not religious. Mostly the New Testament.

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Re: Do you read the holy book of your religion?
 

I have read the whole Bible one time through.

Re: Do you read the holy book of your religion?
 

I can see your point of view on this. However, for me the Bible is mostly just stories, not a real basis for my religion. To be honest, I don't really like the Bible :p

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I've read chunks of the Bible, but not the whole thing.

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I've read the bible and the Book of Mormon, considering I'm LDS. I read two chapters a night :)

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I've read pieces of the Bible. I should really read it all, though. I'm becoming much more.. developed in my faith.

Re: Do you read the holy book of your religion?
 

Basing my answer on what I've encountered with the majority of christians/catholics but online and in real-life, either few have read the entire bible or they've read the entire bible but deny numerous parts of it.

Myself, I'm a devout atheist. I've read parts of the bible and dabbled a bit with theistic and laveyan satanism, although I never read the Satanic Bible. I learnt much of the philosophies of LaVeyan Satanism through its website, through various forums and through reading articles by recognized authority figures in it.

As of right now, I've read books dealing with evolution, so I'll say I've read parts just to be fair.

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I've read some of mine. But you have to understand just how many scriptures we use.

We use 4 books. The Bible (KJV), The Book of Mormon, The Doctrine and Covenants and The Pearl of Great Price.. thats a whole lot of reading.. I'm working my way through it all though.. =)

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Re: Do you read the holy book of your religion?
 

That IS insane! What, ordinary people shouldn't read the Bible because--Heaven forbid!--they might see all the places where it's unclear, or see where the contradictions are and come to different conclusions about which part are to be held literally and which are not?! Good G-d, how would the Church function?!

I haven't voted, because I've read chunks of both the Torah and the NT, but I'm currently working my way through the rest of them. Rabbis have divided the Torah into sections, with one for each Shabbat, so I'll have read the whole thing by the 2nd week of January next year.

I don't actually believe in the NT, but I hang out with a lot of Chrisitans and I got curious to see where their beliefs came from. I borrowed my copy from a friend. I was also startled to learn how few of my Christian friends had actually read the whole Bible. (The copy I borrowed from my friend has a ton of her handwritten notes in the margins. It seems she's read her copy a few times...)

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Re: Do you read the holy book of your religion?
 

I'm a pagan, so I don't really have a holy book. Wiccans, I think, have a book of shadows which is a bit like a holy book. I was brought up as jewish, so I have read quite a bit of the torah. I decided to read the bible for good measure and the koran because I have lots of muslim friends. I've also read the god delusion and other such book because, although I'm a pagan, I don't believe in god.

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I actually picked up the bible the other day to read leviticus.

I now really dislike that book of the bible.


I much prefer the new testament, I feel its much more relevant to people.

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I'm a Muslim. And yes, I've read the Quran entirely. I'm now rereading it a second time entirely. And all of my friends have read it entirely also. It's not that hard come to think of it. And I really do agree with everything in the Quran.

I've also read some verses of the Bible, but not from the actual Bible, from other books. I don't know if that counts.

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It's odd, almost every Muslim I've met has read the entire Quran (or is on their way to doing it), while it seems that most Christians I've met don't want to read the full bible. I wonder why that is...

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My holy book is everywhere all the time! :D

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I don't have a religion, so I didn't vote.
I'm not surprised that most people voted that they only read some. Most religious people I know (most of them Christians) haven't even read the entire New Testament. It seems ridiculous to me when people say they believe something wholeheartedly and go so far as to say it is their "manual" or "guide" for life, when they don't even know what that entails... It's like when you're presented with a Terms and Conditions page on the internet-- you just scroll to the bottom and click "I Agree."

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Since my personal religion (no one understands it :)) is a mixture of Islam, Christianity and Judaism, I want to read all the three Holy Books. I've read the Koran (because it has less pages than the Bible and the Torah, I guess) already, I'll soon start reading the Bible and the Torah. Grizabella, if you want to start reading the Koran, I recommend you the version of Rashad Khalifa. Most Koran translators are influenced by traditional sources and therefore they misinterpret many lines in the Koran - R.K. clearly rejects the traditional sources, since they are the reasons why women in Arabic countries are often treated badly. Have fun!

(And, Grizabella, I find it sad too that many people don't even read their Holy Books, know from their religion only from hearsay and assume they know it all. Good point!)

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I don't believe anything is "Holy."

But have I read the books? No.

Re: Do you read the holy book of your religion?
 

Re: Do you read the holy book of your religion?
 

I've read parts of the bible, but i don't believe in most of the text word by word. I interpret and think a little different then the direct context

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Yep. I've read the Torah. It's a great document. You kind of have to study religious texts in Judaism because Judaism is a religion that's more about ethics and how a person behaves then about beliefs. A person is almost free to believe anything.