Main Area and Open Discussion > Living Room

Wanted: Electronic/Searchable Holy Books

<< < (9/12) > >>

cmpm:
Yes, those who know these religions and texts and beliefs know a project as suggested would be a waste of time. It's the heart of these things that matter and cannot be seen in black and white.

Best to choose what you are interested in , and search those things out. and then a comprehensive look can be seen and organized into something readable. And possibly usable.

A most comprehensive work that I've seen that can be viewed in general is this. And it's not a program or book. As close to real as the real thing I suppose. There are other resources emerging that I'm aware of but would not fit into this forum in any way.

http://www.flightfromdeath.com/trailer_high.htm

tinjaw:
First of, thank for the link to the film. It looks very interesting. I'm going to try an view it when I get the opportunity.

I do understand that what I am asking for is quite huge, but only if you look at it as me trying to "understand" everything about all of the religions. What I seek is only slightly more than a surface level understanding, a foundation, that will provide me with a proper perspective with which I can view related issues. I do not wish to do this as a Doctoral Thesis, I just want an educated layman's understanding - something beyond hearsay and propaganda.

cmpm:
There isn't anything anyone has that you don't tinjaw.
It's built into you, the journey is the destination.

Picture religions as mountains.
The only way to see them is from the 'air'.

CWuestefeld:
There isn't anything anyone has that you don't tinjaw.
-cmpm (January 11, 2008, 05:46 AM)
--- End quote ---
Of course there is... an organic mandible!

app103:
I copied tinjaw's original post to another forum where they do a lot of political & religious debating, from all kinds of angles, perspectives, and a broad range of beliefs (and non-beliefs).

It had 2 replies so far:

The thread already discusses the xian ones I have found useful.

I used the http://www.onlinebible.net/downloads.html for a long time. Much of it is free, but there are versions of the bible under copyright, those can be bought and unlocked relatively cheap ($5-$12).

Some christians I know swear by http://www.e-sword.net/downloads.html , but I found it a bit light.

The UI for e sword is a bit friendlier, but it is capable of less.

As far as other texts, I have not found them united under one program. 

There are various Qurans etc, but my experience using them was typically little more than basic searching and reading.-Vladd44
--- End quote ---

Another great resource for comparative studies of the multiple versions of the bible is Bible Gateway.

Alternatively, if you want to delve back to the ancient Greek and Hebrew, an excellent resource is HtmlBible.com which contains Strong's Dictionary and Hebrew and Greek Concordance.

While neither of these sources provide software, they are exhaustive and functional nonetheless.-Knot4Prophet
--- End quote ---

If you would like to keep an eye on the thread there, I have to warn you first that it's in a free speech forum that most here would probably find offensive beyond belief and it's definitely NSFW. I have asked them to please 'behave' in that thread, but there are no guarantees that they will, or for how long. I will not be responsible if you read or see anything there that you find offensive, especially if you wander around that forum outside that thread.

That being said...

click at your own riskhttp://www.vladd44.com/phpbb2/viewtopic.php?t=10494

--------------------------

Now my thoughts...

I think the biggest problem for a good application/resource that incorporates all the major texts, religions, and philosophies is that no believer of any particular one will want to present any other point of view in the same way that they would present the one they believe in, and generally aren't willing, capable or knowledgeable enough in what they don't believe in to present it properly, completely, and without bias.

And most scholars seem to concentrate only on one area of specialty.

I think ultimately, to get the kind of software that tinjaw and others want, it would end up being the life's work of many groups of people and scholars.

I think if a serious open source educational project was started now, by those qualified and educated enough in what it will cover & require, maybe we could see a decent application by the time our grandchildren are old enough to understand it enough to get some benefit from it.

This seems like the kind of thing that would probably be best done as a university research project.

I think the closest anybody has ever come to it was The Great Books Foundation and Encyclopaedia Britannica's Great Books of the Western World, which I purchased almost 20 years ago.

It's not just religion though...it's fiction, history, poetry, natural science, mathematics, philosophy, drama, politics, economics, and ethics, too.

If you have about 10 years to devote to reading, research, & discussion, there are a few yahoo groups you might be interested in, related to this book set.


* The Great Conversation

* Great Books of the Eastern World (group dedicated to the books that were not included in the original set)
If you would like to know more, this page has quite a bit of info on the whole reading plan, including where you can access many of the books for free (you don't need to spend $1200 to get them all):

http://www.angelfire.com/art/megathink/greatbooks/

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page

[*] Previous page