/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.2131327]

I'm interested in religion and spirituality, but I don't know any good literature about the subject. I checked the Recommended Reading list, but it didn't have anything.

I'm looking for something that is well-written, and interesting, but doesn't sacrifice it's message. I'm looking for literature from any religion, although I already know a bit of about Roman Catholicism, having been brought up as one. Right now I'm reading "The Teaching of Buddha", but it's written almost as an overview, instead of it's own independent work.

I'm not looking for religious fiction, necessarily,
>religion
>fiction
>pick two
but anything well-written on it's specific religion.

Thanks in advance.

[Anonymous No.2131337]

[Anonymous No.2131339]

>>2131337
have it, read it, enjoyed it.

Next.

[Anonymous No.2131354]

>>2131339
>>2131327
You mind is so open that your brains have fallen out.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBUc_kATGgg

[Anonymous No.2131358]

>>2131354
I like him, his songs are very funny.
I have seen this one before.

[Anonymous No.2131361]

>>2131358
Yeah, Storm is pretty great.

[Anonymous No.2131374]

[Anonymous No.2131375]

>>2131337
Nigger makes the Bible seem fair and unbiased.

[Anonymous No.2131390]

Read Siddhartha by Herman Hesse. You need know nothing more about buddhist philosophy.

[Anonymous No.2131403]

Faith by Sharon Salzberg
Zen Philosophy, Zen Practice by Thich Thien An

[Anonymous No.2131414]

>>2131390
he said he wasn't looking for religious fiction

[Anonymous No.2131650]

Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind by Shunryu Suzuki
The Awakening of Intelligence by Jiddu Krishnamurti

[Anonymous No.2131664]

Seven Storey Mountain, Thomas Merton

[Anonymous No.2132207]

>>2131414
Well, I'm not going to turn it away just because it's fiction.

Anything that is good, I'll read.


>>2131403
>>2131650
>>2131664

Noted, noted and noted.

[Anonymous No.2132232]

The Bible. No really.

[Anonymous No.2132237]

>>2132232
I agree, really. I've read most of the New Testament, thanks to those little bibles the people pass out, and growing up in Religious Education.

[Anonymous No.2133010]

"God is not great" by Cristofer Hitchens.

[Anonymous No.2133065]

the perennial philosophy

[Anonymous No.2133073]

"What Does the Bible Really Teach?" published by Jehovah's Witnesses. Here is the free online version: http://www.watchtower.org/e/bh/article_00.htm

[Anonymous No.2133097]

>>2133010
>>2131337
I assume OP wants literature that treats religion competently.

[Anonymous No.2133282]

>>2132237
Don't start your religious education with the New Testament, it is one of the most esoteric and deeply symbolic works in all of religion. You won't understand it.

I would start with Hinduism, the Bhagavad Gita and the Upandisads are readable and profound.

On Hasidism by Martin Buber is another good religious overview which would give a perspective on religion you probably would not be familiar with.

Then there are guys like George Gurdjieff, Aleister Crowley, P.D. Ouspensky, Macgregor Mathers and Rudolph Steiner if you want to get into real religion.

[Anonymous No.2133489]

The Perennial Philosophy and Siddhartha

[Anonymous No.2133504]

Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit should probably be considered more spirituality and religion than anything else. I would start there.

If not, read this by Rudolf Steiner:

http://wn.rsarchive.org/Books/GA010/English/AP1947/GA010_index.html

[Anonymous No.2133603]

Islam
>Charles Le Gai Eaton - Islam and the Destiny of Man
>Seyyed Hossein Nasr - Ideals and Realities of Islam
>Imam al-Ghazali - The Savior from Error (Al-Munqidh min ad-Dalal), tr. Muhtar Holland

[Anonymous No.2133664]

>>2133282
> New Testament, it is one of the most esoteric and deeply symbolic works in all of religion.

Can you explain yourself? Ive read alot of it, and aside from the completely out of context things that Jesus says occasionally, nothing is really out of the ordinary when it comes to benevolent teachings.

[Anonymous No.2133695]

>>2133664

Not the poster you responded to, but you can't expect to really understand any religion's scripture without being at least moderately familiar with the language in which it was written and some of its major exegeses.

[oh pizza No.2133708]

why don't you just read Thomas Campbell's "My Big Toe"? http://books.google.com/books?id=RYHtBPiZVgsC&printsec=frontcover&dq=my+big+toe+thomas+campb
ell&hl=no&ei=yxGWTtydCYbqOf-F7e0K&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3&amp
;ved=0CDYQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q&f=false Or Jane Robert's "Seth - Nature of true personality"? http://books.google.com/books?id=Hmd7cmnzJKgC&printsec=frontcover&dq=jane+roberts&hl=no&
amp;ei=ARKWTrKwAtCVOtD5pa4H&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4&sqi=2&ved
=0CD0Q6AEwAw#v=onepage&q&f=false

[Anonymous No.2133834]

>>2133664
Alright, as you may well know the New Testament was not written for the masses as a historical count of a man named Jesus per say, nor a morality of loving your neighbor per say, but was written for a small cult of Christian 'initiates' in the first or second century, was was put in a new light, the understanding we have of it now, by Constantine.

Things such as the Twelve Apostles, the washing of the feet, the raising of Lazarus, the crucifixion, and the three day death and resurrection ect, have spiritual and symbolic truths behind them.

The best way I've heard it put is that learning about the Four Gospels is similar to learning about geometry. To learn geometry you do not start by reading Euclid but by being taught the principles first off. You need to be taught the meaning of Christianity before you can understand it.

In fact, most Christians do not practice their religion correctly for the most part, I may get flamed for saying this.. for example, in the Old Testament, when God is refered to as the Lord, Father, God, ect, this is not done as a literary device so as not to use the same word over and over again, but in Hebrew it is talking about different aspects of God, or different God's or cosmic principles.