Thirty Day Book Challenge: Day Twenty-Four

A Book You Wish More People Had Read

*see day seven*

Welp, okay, so I’m getting lazy and I feel like some of these questions are getting repetitive at this point, so I’m going to go ahead and say that I wish more people would read holy books. The Bible, the Qur’an, the teachings of Confucius and the Buddha…people need to read these. First of all, it’s important people read them for their own religious purposes, because so many people are completely ignorant of their own religion. I grow tired of the Christians I deal with who know less about the Bible than I do (and I’m an atheist). Not knowing the basis of your own religion leads to so much bitterness and hate, and I don’t understand how you can preach to people about sin when you don’t even know what sins you are talking about. This goes for other religions too, of course, not just Christians, but it’s the one I’ve dealt with the most, so I’m drawing from those experiences. Second, if we can understand others’ religions (or lack thereof), it would be so much easier for people to relate and communicate, and perhaps lessen the amount of hatred and prejudice in the world. If perhaps Christians and Muslims knew the similarities between their religions, if people read more of Buddha’s ideas…who knows? Perhaps it could make this world marginally less miserable to live in.

Finally, on a literary level, knowing the basis behind the world’s religions draws so many more meanings out of books. Authors used to make religious references constantly, and these allusions made the books much more complex and meaningful, rather than the tripe we tend to see these days. I long for books that reference Lazarus and the Magdalene, that know why forty is an important number in Buddhism. So…there you have it. Know your religions!