Usually the books are represented by people and not directly read, this makes people unaware of the obvious nonsense because it is not mentioned. So do you think it would be an effective strategy to reduce religion by spreading translated books for free? Ofcourse some people will become stronger believers but what would the effect on average be? I plan to read the Quran to verify or falsify this for myself, and I am considering buying 100s of translated Qurans (in countries where the majority is a Muslim) and giving them to random people for free. |
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Last edited by Ginsan; 06-09-2015 at 07:47 PM.
Same for ancient Hebrew being mistranslated. Consider this, we read a Shakespearean play from the 1700s and have trouble, how much more a text dated to 5 AD (New Testament) and 500 or older BC (Old Testament) and not only that, it wasn't English. A lot of the meaning is lost on us. To really read the texts I believe you should understand the original language (which is what Muslims teach about the Qu'ran) as well as understand the culture of the place and time period. Note the culture and time period of the Bible spans thousands of years and places. |
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It's very annoying to keep hearing this. You might lose some meaning, but what if you hear it from some believer? The person that talks about it in a curch or mosque is obviously trying to convince other people to believe or is at least trying to talk in favor of the religion. How is that better than reading a faulty translation? |
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After the hash that the King James Bible made of both testaments, there was a great effort made by scholars to produce translations that best reflected the original texts. As of 30 years ago (the last time I cared), the best translation came in the Jerusalem Bible, whose editors made a great effort to be true to language, nuance, and colloquial terms of the original texts. You might want to check it out. |
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XP annoying shmashmoyning bro, it is what it is. I never said it was better, but if your asking me to argue for it, usually the guys doing the talking in church/mosque went to study the culture, times, etc. in some kind of Jesus College or Muhammed School. |
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Hahaha that's brilliant man it really does sound like a Gintama episode xD I can tell, I've seen the whole thing 3 times |
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Eh sure but the holy books are just as biased if not more so. They're made to convert ppl |
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There are more problems with this approach, surely there are better things to do with my money! Just imagine the effect of buying 2000 books, spreading them to people, if I'm really lucky I can have a negitive effect on the faith of 10% of those people, with 5 bucks a book that is 10.000 euro's. With 10.000 euro's I can do so much more good in this world. For example sending it to people who are working hard everyday to feed the hungry and cure the dying in third wolrd countries. This strategy may be worth it 100 years later at the least, though that's unlikely. Only when people are not dying from hunger and disease, getting raped and robbed all over the world will this be a sensible thing to do. |
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Yea spiritually and religion kinda keep human morality in check. Whether its true or not, I can't answer that for you. What I do know is that it's helped many people get through hard times and its prevented ppl from doing wrong. |
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I think Sam Harris puts it nicely. "At its best, religion makes people do good things for bad reasons when good reasons are actually available." I have never found any form of irrational behaviour that will have eventually have a positive effect. |
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Last edited by Ginsan; 06-11-2015 at 10:14 PM.
Spreading translated books for free? That's exactly what they seem to do if they can't force you to change your language. Doesn't seem to work... over 41,000 reported denominations of Christianity alone. Just because you read a language really well, and something is translated into that language very well, it doesn't mean it'll still be interpreted how it was intended. That's one reason Jesus spoke in parables and things. So many people might understand some of it... others might understand more of the meaning.... and some might understand. And most of the time the message gets really skewed down the line, so the last people get something like "banana rampage mountain tomb 13th 5" and come up with infinite different meanings for it. While the few who do know the actual meaning usually stay quiet to avoid the ignorance and ridicule and whatnot. |
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Martin Luther thought it would be a good idea, not to remove religion but rather to free it from the grip of Catholicism. He believed that people should interpret the text for themselves rather than have a priest interpret it for them. I wonder who, now, is more accurate, Catholics or Protestants? I think, unfortunately, despite the fact that more people are literate and own bibles, they still have trouble making sense of it regarding their modern world, so they depend on the likes of Billy Graham to interpret it for them. Billy Graham, a false prophet, ended up inverting all of Jesus' teachings and people, who owned bibles and could read them at their own will, bought right into it. They created an antichrist without suppressing the information at all, but out of a simple need to have things explained to you rather than exercise your brain. This new idol they raised teaches them to hate the poor, hate the non-conformists, idolize the greedy and the cruel, and the very book they keep in their own homes explains to them, clearly, how wrong this behavior is no matter how many traitorous translations it's aged through. |
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Everything works out in the end, sometimes even badly.
It's not because the posts were useless, but this thread is useless by its very nature. At least to me. As I said 2 posts before, removing religion (even if possible) is not the wisest thing to do with your money. I agree with you though, Original Poster. It might not even be very effective. |
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I am pretty sure the reason people don't read the holy books has nothing to do with access to said books. It has far more to do with a lack of interest in reading the said books. In my opinion, because they are generally poorly written, and lets face it, boring. A person can get a free book but they are not going to read it if they think it is boring. |
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Alric I agree and that's a great point against my idea. Strange that I hadn't thought of it.. |
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