Anybody else here actually...

...ever read the bible, torah, koran, book of mormon, teachings of buddha, etc.?

 

yes

 

Nah, no one reads those. They just look at the sparknotes.

 

Yes on all of those other than Joseph Smith's amazing work because the Mormons took it away from me when I told them that I will only talk to them about their religion after reading the entire thing because they had people to hassle.

 

Sad but true.

 

All of them?

 

I've read many translations and excerpts of sacred texts, and have further participated in many different ritual modalities in my studies of comparative religion. For instance, fasting, fire walking, dervish dance, mantra, pranayama, vows of silence, pagan mysteries, and many others.

 

I'm curious-- does that include the koran?

 

Specifically the koran only excerpts and some of the writings of Islamist mystics.
At this point in my life I would far rather learn Arabic and experience the culture.

 

When I was in 3rd grade, I used to read the Bible all the time. Pretty interesting stories for my hyperactive imagination you know - wars, burning bushes, and more wars, sex, and there's that battle between David and Goliath, Samson being super strong, something about a man, a woman and a snake, wars, incest, sex, etc. Really much more interesting than any children's story book. Except maybe Harry Potter. But Harry Potter's like rated PG 13 at the most and the Bible often hits rated R. Plus it has a lot of boring sections as well (the Bible, I mean).

 

I've also read the Tao Te Ching, the Dhammapada and the Heart Sutra among others. But that came much later after I decided I couldn't really call myself a Christian anymore.

 

I have read bible, torah, Quran, I mostly read the Quran but I have read the others

 

to learn Arabic is good, then you can read the Quran properly as it does not translate well into English.

 

I had been advised of that so I never really went all out, I didn't feel I had the time at the time.