Narrow MInded Views: At you're local book store.

Here's a quick story. I live in a town where there is literally four churches at an intersection. No mosques, no temples, no synagogues or anything other then christian. Nope..four protestant churches.

Anyway, I went to the local mall yesterday because I plan on reading several religious texts. I'm working on the bible again, I want to read the koran, and maybe something on Buddhism.

I'm rambling again..Anyway, I went to the book store in the mall to find a good copy of the Koran. It took me a good 20 minutes to find one, and there was only one version. A very small, paperback version translated by some guy that isn't important. I asked the person working at the book store if they had, or could order any other copy that seemed a little better. They literally only had this one version, and only one in stock. Meanwhile, in the same section, they had an entire shelf filled with many various versions of the bible.

well, I bought the copy of the Koran that didn't look to reliable..I guess just to make a point. That I was interested in other religions then Christianity, and I wanted the person at the book store to see that.

"Sigh", I even got funny looks from the other patrons at the store. It's no surprise really, considering I've lived in the same town for 22 years and haven't met anyone who was not a christian there.

0 members like this

Comment by Kenneth Montville D.D. on January 19, 2011 at 8:54pm: Haha that's funny, Flower. Jon lives in what I like to call Pennsyl-tucky.

Then again, I grew up in a small town in Massachusetts and encountered very similar experiences when I first stopped believing.

Comment by Kenneth Montville D.D. on January 19, 2011 at 9:02pm: Jon, the Qur'an is difficult. It isn't like the Bible that has been openly translated again and again for several hundred years. Your translation is probably fine... but then again it may well be complete shit. I say it is probably fine regardless because even in Arabic nearly every passage in the Qur'an is horribly vague and requires commentary to understand. (hint: it's because it may well have been written in Syriac and not Arabic but then transcribed into Arabic later by someone who didn't recognize the difference).

If you think this is hard wait until you hit Buddhism... you'll need to be picky about what you read, so feel free to ask me as I considered myself a practicing Rinzai Zen Buddhist for several years. It will be hard because of the sheer amount of writings they have, I have seen estimates nearing 80,000 pages of scripture. Not what you'd call light reading.

Comment by Jon Heim on January 20, 2011 at 4:11am: I was browsing amazon.com and found a book called The Dhammapada. It's annotated so I thought I'd give that a read. What is you're opinion on that?

Comment by Jon Heim on January 20, 2011 at 4:20am: That's not the first time I've heard pennsyltucky. The small town I live in might as well be in the south. except we'd be lucky if three people who where not white lived here. true story...I looked up the demographics. lol

Comment by Kenneth Montville D.D. on January 20, 2011 at 6:52am: The Dhammapada is good. I used to own a copy myself, though admittedly I was not a Theravada Buddhist so it wasn't part of the canon in my sect. It differs greatly in structure from a majority of Buddhist scripture, but is a very interesting read.

Comment by Mr Good Without God on January 20, 2011 at 4:39pm: I grew up in the small town of Purchase Line, Pennsylvania and the nearest big "town" is Indiana. I have experienced much of the same thing. It really is sad.