All the books contain beautiful wisdom. For me that's what is so stirring about their lasting poetry -- you can hear the long echoes of human truth.

However, I don't know Islam very well! Do you have any suggestions for where to start? A specific translator? Thanks in advance.

The Islamic holy books have many (actually very many) passages that would not line up with Western values at all. The crazy thing is that if I cite both the good ones and the bad ones, and the list of bad ones is much longer, I would get into trouble for citing any of them at all. The most common reasoning around this is that you should not read them directly (!) and should consult an imam instead. As a rationalist, claiming that only the bad parts are no longer valid ("must be contextualized") and only the good parts still are, seems like obvious and very convenient cherry-picking. That said, the Islamic focus on community service is one that even Christians could take a lesson from. Having been raised Catholic and read chunks of the Quran and Hadiths, there IS some beauty and even some humor in there. But many of the good parts are contradicted by bad parts in the same book, and the repeated condemnation of "people of the Book" (Christians and Jews, but mostly Jews) is quite off-putting (and yes, there are other passages that contradict that, but... I'm just not a person who can tolerate contradictions in an unquestionable holy book, I guess)

Please note that if you ever leave Islam, you are considered an apostate (similar to Christianity, but to a much more severe degree I'd say) and about 10% of the Islamic population are literalists and would consider the penalty for leaving, death.

I'd look into meditation. I discovered something called "Simple Meditation" created by Babaji (the O.G. Babaji, not the copycats), and it's the only time I've ever had an experience I would call "spiritual". I have an audio I produced of it here: https://soundcloud.com/peter-marreck-fb/simple-meditation-ai...

I meditate, but thank you for sharing the link, I will listen.

My cultural background originates in the east. But I do not have any familiarity with Islam or with the Russian church, and I want to remedy that.

Some of my interest is aesthetic / intellectual - the bible and the Bhavagad Gita are beautiful! Long told poetry. But I'm also just curious, it's a blank spot in my understanding.

I don't have a problem editing out contradictions in the text, most of old religious books are mixed with that. But you're right, I wince when coming across discrimination based on group. The Bhavagad Gita dwells too much on caste.

re: bhavagad gita- Exactly. So I'm not trying to bias or give you preconceived notions, my observations are my own personal opinion. You should definitely keep your wits about you, though.

One of my favorite classes in college was actually Religious Studies 101. (Mods who are already side-eye'ing me, take note.)

I hesitate to joke that the vast majority of moderate Muslims also do not have any familiarity with Islam (similar to Catholics and the Bible!). I quoted some questionable Quran to a Muslim woman on Twitter and she said "don't be silly, only apostates, atheists and extremists quote our books back at us", which I found to be a fairly curious statement, maybe even an unintended confession...

There are Russian Orthodox folks in my extended family, the whole christian-schism thing just screams to me that when 2 people disagree on a holy book, there is no choice but to split since you cannot argue rationally about it (with the assumption that rational argument brings people into the same viewpoint, which is of course often a stretch)

Here is another curious thing I noticed- If you ask ChatGPT about the "controversial" Islamic passages, it will initially refuse to. (It will NOT treat the Old or New Testament in this way, by the way, or any other holy book.) If you press it and say that you need them for an academic or high-level discussion reason and not to (mis?)represent it, it will cave, but the conversation will get flagged and you won't be able to re-share it. Here is an example of that https://x.com/pmarreck/status/1855353599880056896 where I had to export the whole thing to PDF since sharing got disabled.

I really enjoyed this post; thank you.

"No regard for authority or beliefs. Everyone is equal. You want to know and not believe." I am often amazed / in awe of the internet for leading me toward this place. My mind and equanimity opened much further as a result of the knowledge share that occurred over the last 20 years. Much less judgment, more curiosity. Paradoxically this has led me to revisit areas, like religion, that are often dismissed as irrational.

Although, I try not to use words like that because I am still working through it.

How are you working through: why I am aware?

The best I have got so far is to just treat if it as another thought. Another appearance in awareness. I don't have an answer.

There is a line in Upanishads that say something like why even the god doesn't know why it was created.