As well as philosophy and psychology, I've noticed that even though I'm an atheist, I have an innate curiosity about all religions and that I've always asked myself basic religious questions like "why do people believe religion?", "does, as Nietzsche says, Christianity cause nihilism", "is faith healthy or negative?", "which religion is more life-affirming?" and "is there a god?".

So, I've decided to study theology along with philosophy and psychology. I figured that there are key books I should read and I've made a list of them:

<UL TYPE=SQUARE>

<LI>The Elementary Forms of Religious Life

<LI>Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, and <LI>The Natural History of Religion - David Hume

<LI>The Bhagavad Gita

<LI>Upanisads

<LI>Anselm of Canterbury: The Major Works

<LI>Selected Philosophical Writings - Aquinas

<LI>Confessions - Agustine

<LI>The Bible: Authorized King James Version

<LI>The Koran

<LI>Natural Theology - William Paley

<LI>Origin of Species - Darwin (I know it's not a religious text, but it's had a profound effect on religion)

</UL>

Are there any texts I've missed or are there any you recommend? For example, I have no idea what books on Buddhism to get.

If you're going to read the Bible, be sure to read the Nag Hammadi library.

You might want to read some books by Jung.

I find the concept of syncronicity interesting.

Some non-fiction books with religious or phylosophical themes - Robert Heinlein, A Stranger In A Strange Land; James Redfeild, The Celestine Prophecy (actually a 4 book series). A lot of the Classics have sociological implications like Tolstoys War and Peace (if you won't read the whole book just read the appendix), books by Dickens, Steindhall,The Red and The Black; etc...

Eastern - Tao Te Ching, The Art of War, The Doctrine of the Mean, Dzogchen by The Dalai Lama, Autobiography of a Yogi.

Got to go, more later.

If you haven't read them already, check out The Blind Watchmaker, The Selfish Gene, Unweaving the Rainbow, and The God Delusion, all by Richard Dawkins--of course, though, they are from an atheistic perspective.

A Course in Miracles; The Urantia Book; Conversations with God (Neale Donald Walsch)Power, Freedom and Grace by Deepak Chopra.

A good short novel to read would be Siddhartha, it's an easy read and very though provoking. The bible and the koran are going to be incredible boring and long, i hope you have the attention span to handle a quest such as this.( I still only read parts of both)

If your interested in learning the origins of western societies theologic beginnings, read the Myth's of the greeks and romans. It is easy to get unbiased info on why man creates stories of supernatural beings to explain the complexity of the world.

Good luck on your quest! Im glad to see that your not an "intellectually lazy" atheist.



Have a lot of discussions with people of different faith's and i think you will start to see that all religions share a common ground, and maybe then you'll be able to draw some conclusions.

Edit: Also, if your interested in the humanities and learning about the structures of government, read about confucius, Plato, Socrates, Aristotle, Thomas Jefferson. Good hard facts from educated people like these will help you!

[This message has been edited by samurai_steve (edited 02-11-2007).]

I agree with Seriously in that you should look into the Tao Te Ching, by Lao-tzu. I would also look into the myths of the Nords, I've always found them to be very fascinating.

For Buddhism

The Dhammapada

buddhist sutras if you really want to get indepth.

quote:Originally posted by ArmsMerchant:

Conversations with God (Neale Donald Walsch)

quote:Originally posted by samurai_steve:

A good short novel to read would be Siddhartha, it's an easy read and very though provoking. The bible and the koran are going to be incredible boring and long, i hope you have the attention span to handle a quest such as this.( I still only read parts of both)

I actually enjoy reading the Bible; well, the Old Testament, at least. It has some very good stories in there, such as my favourite "The Book of Job".

quote:If your interested in learning the origins of western societies theologic beginnings, read the Myth's of the greeks and romans. It is easy to get unbiased info on why man creates stories of supernatural beings to explain the complexity of the world.

Would you happen to know of any good anthologies of Greek mythology?



quote:Good luck on your quest!

Thank you. http://www.totse.com/bbs/smile.gif (http://www.totse.com/bbs/smile.gif)

quote:Have a lot of discussions with people of different faith's and i think you will start to see that all religions share a common ground, and maybe then you'll be able to draw some conclusions.

I already do that. http://www.totse.com/bbs/smile.gif (http://www.totse.com/bbs/smile.gif)

quote:Edit: Also, if your interested in the humanities and learning about the structures of government, read about confucius, Plato, Socrates, Aristotle, Thomas Jefferson. Good hard facts from educated people like these will help you!

I already have read Plato(one of my favourite philosophers) and Aristotle, but I'll pick up something written by Thomas Jefferson.

Also, Socrates never wrote anything. He only appeared in the works of two or three philosophers as a main character. There's actually some questions about whether or not he's real, although he probably is.

Well, thank you very much for the recommendations and thank you to everyone else too. http://www.totse.com/bbs/smile.gif (http://www.totse.com/bbs/smile.gif)

For Buddhism:

Where Sutras are concerned you will find that many of them include a commentary by a monk. Because this happens quite often there are many different versions of the same sutra. (actually the sutra is the same but the commentary is by a different person and so may shed some light on the text in a new way.)

For this reason I suggest that when you find one sutra that interests you, you should try to find other publications of the same sutra with a commentary by a different person. Some will be concise and easy to understand while others will frequently use new terms you will have to look up in the glossary and you might have trouble following the logic.

Some good books and commentaries are by Thich Nhat Han, Chogyam Trungpa, The Dalai Lama, Robert Thurman, Pema Chodran and B. Alan Wallace and Ken Wilber. There's other good ones but I can't remember all their names.

Some sutras you might be interested in reading are The Dhammapada(mentioned above), The Heart Sutra(PrajnaParamita),

Fundamental Treatise of the Middle Way by Nagarjuna, Commentary of Valid Cognition by Dharmakirti, The Three Level of Spiritual Perception by Deshung Rinpoche, deffinatly something of Dzogchen and/or Mahamudra, something on Mindfullness, and The Diamond Sutra.

I would recommend you stick to the commentaries and sutras before you start reading tantras as they can be difficult.

Maybe this'll help?

http://www.erowid.org/spirit/traditions/traditions.shtml

The Great Theft (wresting Islam from the Extremists)

quote:Originally posted by shitty wok:

The Great Theft (wresting Islam from the Extremists)

That's not really the sort of books on religion I had in mind, but thanks anyway.

This one is a MUST READ:

Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomena

Our boy Daniel Dennett. He doesn't miss a beat with this one.

quote:Originally posted by AngryFemme:

Daniel Dennett.

Isn't he the guy who totally missed the point of phenomenology?

*ahem*

heterophenomenology.

And this, too, is arguable http://www.totse.com/bbs/smile.gif (http://www.totse.com/bbs/smile.gif)

quote:Originally posted by AngryFemme:

*ahem*

heterophenomenology.

And this, too, is arguable http://www.totse.com/bbs/smile.gif (http://www.totse.com/bbs/smile.gif)

I'd argue he missed the point big time, by making it third person to comply with the scientific method. Phenomenology isn't about objectivity, as such, and is completely based on subjective, first person experience, without worrying about whether or not what one is experiencing is real. And in fact, Sartre's use of phenomenology was ingenious for getting "facts" of human existence via describing an event we've all experienced in some form or another, forcing us to agree with him.



[This message has been edited by Hare_Geist (edited 02-12-2007).]

Dennett offered an alternative to first-person phenomenology. First-person *reports* cannot always be the authoritive viewpoint to consider.

We will never fully understand what it is like to "be" something else. What's more, we sometimes misconstrue our own experiences. It's a fresh perspective, in my opinion.

Regardless - I still think Breaking the Spell would be a good addition to your reading material.

Aye, I wasn't arguing that because I thought his approach to phenomenology was wrong that his opinions on religion would be too. And I am considering picking up his book.

Also, his heterophenomenology seems in someways similar to one of the methods I've been thinking about forming, which has been influenced by phenomenology, Nietzsche's "On the Genealogy of Morals" and the historical philosophy of Foucault.

His phenomonology views took quite a stabbing after he published "Consciousness Explained" (what a bold title!!)- but he's since revised his consciousness model since that publication:

http://ase.tufts.edu/cogstud/papers/heteroreconsidered.pdf

What I enjoyed about Breaking the Spell was how it read like a natural history book on religion - all the while ignoring the great taboo surrounded by questioning the act of faith itself.

One without prior knowledge of Dennett's largely materialistic worldview would not feel as though the book were written by an Atheist, or even a philosopher, for that matter.

Good luck in your exploration http://www.totse.com/bbs/smile.gif (http://www.totse.com/bbs/smile.gif)

On religion:

Adam, Eve, and the Serpent - Pagels

*early christian beliefs (esp. about sex) on the Creation story (Adam & Eve); Augustine v. Julian, etc. A great read.



Approaching the Qur'an: The Early Revelations - Sells

*Great intro to the Qu'ran. Includes interpretations of selected suras.

wow, you remind me of me. how old are you btw?

nvm, anyway, i have done studdies in psycology and was totally captivated in it... then there was lots of boring stuff. right now i am working on becoming a philosophy teacher at a college near my place.

i was very interested in relligion because, lets face it, its E V E R Y W H E R E! so, i began studdies in the major religions...

first- christianity- i think its really stupid now and hate christians.

second- catholicism- as lame as christianity.

third- jewdism- also along the same lines.



so then i started thinking outside the box a little, and i found buddism. keep in mind that im not totally sold yet, but i think im getting there....



i wish you luck my friend.



books---------&gt;

the tibbetan book of the dead

the buddist bible

meditation in plain english



(any decent library carries all three)

[This message has been edited by corruptgoldfish (edited 02-13-2007).]