(Part 3) Best religion encyclopedias according to redditors

It's fascinating how speakers of vastly different languages can employ the exact same methods to "demonstrate" that it is their language from which all other languages are derived.

Here's a short list of languages for which people have made such a claim. Feel free to add to it:

German/Old High German (see comment below for info. it's all in German though)

Albanian (this was posted on here some while back and has become somewhat of a legend.)

Tamil (obviously)

Greek

Sanskrit

Arabic (this guy is crazy. i'm not sure he's been featured on here. badling galore, and even in a pseudo scientific way.)

Edit:

Hebrew (thanks to the post that was posted here recently)

Romanian (a discussion on this sub from a few weeks ago)

Edit:

Frogs

Kitchen Witchcraft is my specialty! I use a lot of herbs, both in spellwork and in cooking in general. Sprinkling a little rosemary on your food to invoke protection, for example. A great way to start is to look up some of the magical properties of some of your favorite foods/herbs, and when cooking with them just focus your intentions on those properties. Getting a magical encyclopedia like this one is a great investment. I'm not Wiccan, but the book I linked has some great general information in it.


Kitchen Witchcraft is all about turning the mundane into the magical. You can imbue magic into every day tasks like cleaning, cooking, and doing laundry. No elaborate rituals, no complex spells, just natural magic done every single day. It's wonderful.

This guy seems to need a copy of The Complete Idiot's Guide to World Religions. He's asking what the differences are in the beliefs, but he's just showing up at Sunday service without talking to anyone or having done any research.

First of all, can I just say how much I love giving and receiving book recommendations? I was a religious studies major in college (and was even a T.A. in the World Religions class) so, this is right up my alley. So, I'm just going to take a seat in front of my book cases...

General:

1. A History of God by Karen Armstrong
   
   
2. The Great Transformation by Karen Armstrong
   
   
3. Myths: gods, heroes, and saviors by Leonard Biallas (highly recommended)
   
   
4. Natural History of Religion by David Hume
   
   
5. Beyond Tolerance by Gustav Niebuhr
   
   
6. Acts of Faith by Eboo Patel (very highly recommended, completely shaped my view on pluralism and interfaith dialogue)
   
   
7. The Evolution of God by Robert Wright
   
   Christianity:
   
   
8. Tales of the End by David L. Barr
   
   
9. The Historical Jesus by John Dominic Crossan
   
   
10. Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography by John Dominic Crossan
    
    
11. The Birth of Christianity by John Dominic Crossan
    
    
12. Who Wrote the New Testament? by Burton Mack
    
    
13. Jesus in America by Richard Wightman Fox
    
    
14. The Five Gospels by Robert Funk, Roy W. Hoover, and the Jesus Seminar (highly recommended)
    
    
15. Remedial Christianity by Paul Alan Laughlin
    
    Judaism:
    
    
16. The Jewish Mystical Tradition by Ben Zion Bokser
    
    
17. Who Wrote the Bible? by Richard Elliot Friedman
    
    Islam:
    
    
18. Muhammad by Karen Armstrong
    
    
19. No God but God by Reza Aslan
    
    
20. Approaching the Qur'an: The Early Revelations by Michael Sells
    
    Buddhism:
    
    
21. Buddha by Karen Armstrong
    
    
22. Entering the Stream ed. Samuel Bercholz & Sherab Chodzin Kohn
    
    
23. The Life of Milarepa translated by Lobsang P. Lhalungpa
    
    
24. Introduction to Tibetan Buddhism by John Powers
    
    
25. Zen Flesh, Zen Bones compiled by Paul Reps (a classic in Western approached to Buddhism)
    
    
26. Buddhist Thought by Paul Williams (if you're at all interested in Buddhist doctrine and philosophy, you would be doing yourself a disservice by not reading this book)
    
    Taoism:
    
    
27. The Essential Chuang Tzu trans. by Sam Hamill & J.P. Seaton
    
    Atheism:
    
    
28. Atheism by Julian Baggini
    
    
29. The Future of an Illusion by Sigmund Freud
    
    
30. Doubt: A History by Jennifer Michael Hecht
    
    
31. When Atheism Becomes Religion by Chris Hedges
    
    
32. Atheism: The Case Against God by George H. Smith

Don't confuse Cleon Skousen (the non-scholarly man who wrote the controversial first X-thousand years series) with Royal Skousen who is viewed as a first rate scholar.

> I have heard him ridiculed many times

That would be Cleon Skousen who speculates odd things like, in the Celestial kingdom fish will have to be changed to swim in fire because there is no water... Anyways, these men are very different.

>Also, another question I have been wondering about is the Oral Torah, does anyone have any books which defend it?

I don't know that you're going to be able to find much in the way of apologetics for this, we consider it to be kind of self-evident. There's nothing in the written Torah which explicitly tells us how to properly slaughter an animal, what constitutes working on Shabbat, what tzitzit or totafot are, etc. The only way it makes any kind of sense is if there's an Oral tradition to accompany it.

As far as learning about the Oral Torah, jumping straight into the Talmud might not be the most useful thing for you. A book that I found useful when I was starting to learn was R. Adin Steinsaltz's Reference Guide to the Talmud. It talks about the history, who many of the rabbis in it were and what their background was, as well as going over the basic structure of Talmudic discourse.

Let me know if you have other questions about differences between Christian and Jewish theology. I was raised Methodist, so I might have a better understanding of what your theological framework is and the where and how of its differences to Judaism.

May I recommend this book to you?

Edit: more recent edition

One of my favorites is Encyclopedia of Haunted Places. Then, if you want a little more than just hauntings, there is The Encyclopedia of the Paranormal.

Both are good books with different perspectives.

Here is a link to the book on Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/Same-Light-Daljit-Singh-Jawa/dp/1479758442/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1380655447&sr=1-1

Check this too, by Swain Wodening. http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/147517666X

komencinte lerni E-on mi trovis cxi tiun vortaron cxe mia publika librejo. gxi estas bonega por paroli kaj skribi E-e. mi havas cxi tiun libron. gxi estas tro simpla, tamen gxi estas helpema.

Depending on where you're stationed, there's still time to get the ArtScroll Rosh Hashanah prayer book. It has everything, and I mean EVERYTHING. Sam goes for the Yom Kippur Machzor. Thanks for your service! https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0899066992/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1474767885&sr=8-1&pi=SY200_QL40&keywords=artscroll+rosh+hashanah+machzor&dpPl=1&dpID=41R7RtiGfiL&ref=plSrch
https://www.amazon.com/Complete-Artscroll-Machzor-ArtScroll-Mesorah/dp/0899068960

From what I've read, he shows up in here.

Theism; or, Atheism: The Great Alternative (Dodo Press)

The new church almanac has lots of info in the preview. You can find some old almanac stuff here.

The pew forum has some good stuff stuff for comparisons.

Aris has some stuff.

You've got LDSINC's stuff as well.

And stuff from the Cumorah project though it's not pulling up for me right now, damn work computer.

That's all I can think of off hand but if I remember more I will edit it in.

I was curious to see how the Bible rated with these stats.
Found these: KJV (King James, 1607),
NIV (Modern Translation)
Surprisingly, the KJV is rated as quite easy to read, and they both are at 100 percentile for length.

Also, the Qua'ran rates quite similarly, although slightly easier.

You may read this book

https://www.amazon.com/Road-Heaven-Encounters-Chinese-Hermits/dp/1562790412

Even though the book was written in 1989, there are still thousands of hermits practicing Taoism and Buddhism in 终南山 Chungnan mountains in ShangXi nowadays. Some of them are living in deep mountains , hard to find. That is a tradition for more than 1500 years.

Sure you can go there since some foreigner already did that in 1989, but don't expect everything to be like your imagination.

By default they have to attach themselves to doctrinal Islam, it is the same that Tantric Aghoris in India attach themselves to Hinduism, it's all about where you are coming from Geographically and socially.

I take it your knowledge of Islam stems from the internet which is a double edged sword, one of the best books i have come across about Islam is this one:
http://www.amazon.com/Understanding-Islam-Frithjof-Schuon/dp/0941532240
And for Sufism:
http://www.amazon.com/The-Mystics-Islam-Reynold-Nicholson/dp/0941532488

I highly recommend you seek out knowledge on what Islam is. Your talk about "I don't want there to be more Muslims in the world" worries me, it sounds very similar to what the "opposition" would say.
It only takes an idea to grow from a seed to a full blown plant.
Peace

Have a read of the book Sexual Chaos https://www.amazon.co.uk/Sexual-Chaos-Personal-Consequences-Revolution/dp/0891074309 . Sounds like the "Sodom is a satellite dish" bit out of that book...

Again - another American evangelical Christian title.