(1) they are probably used to read a chapter or two on a daily basis (thus, the routine is already there),
(2) and they probably remember some passages in their native tongue (thus, already having a translation of the text).
This helped me. YMMV.
> they are probably used to read a chapter or two on a daily basis
This sounds mental. Reading the Bible on a daily basis? I’m pretty sure that this is not the norm for the vast majority of (devout) Christians (at least in Western/Central Europe).
It's a bit of a No True Scotsman, but a lot of people who claim they're devout don't really read the Bible at all, just make public judgments about people. The actually devout people I know usually have a copy of the Bible near the bed, often with an issue of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Our_Daily_Bread on top of it (A daily devotional.)
Very long-time atheist here.
Is it really that much of an ordeal to spend 10-20 minutes with the words of the creator and lord of your universe every day? IMO if that sounds tough, then the belief can't be serious. If you have a favorite 1 hour weekly TV show, that's almost the same amount of time committed.
Rather than insisting stories from millennia ago written by humans (even if you believe them to be divinely inspired) are forever perfect and right for an evolving secular civilization, it makes more sense to me if those stories are put into context by what are, in the end, educated professionals who have spent years studying them and other associated texts.
I've heard a lot of sermons from catholic priests who were good at their job (caveat: I've also heard priests who were terrible at their job...) that I would consider interesting and thought-provoking even for atheists. I'm particularly fond of jesuit priests (such as the current pope), who are more scientifically minded and more likely to speak "my language", in my experience.
Of course it is. The whole idea of protestantism was going "back to the roots", to the "initial sources". As such it is a fundamentalist creed.
Catholic, orthodox etc are much more socially and historically developed.
Clarifications, yes. Changes in dogma, no. Catholic doctrine has not changed since the death of the last apostle, John. It has developed, in the sense of being expounded upon for an increase in understanding (clarification), but it hasn't changed. Clarification often occurs in response to attempts at changing doctrine or promoting something which is contrary to doctrine.
Right, but very few people watch the exact same episode/series over and over, at the exclusion of everything else. And people who do that are generally seen as more than just devoted. It also means that you have one hour less to discover something new. The Bible is a big book, but it’s limited. I’ve read all of it, and I’ve read parts multiple times (it is, after all, a central part in Western culture). But reading it again and again every day means I’d lose time in which I could be reading (and learning!) other things.
A commenter below mentions quiet time. This is a perfectly fine concept but those Christians (both Catholics and Protestants) that I know don’t spend it rereading the same text over and over. They spend it introspecting. Anyway, I don’t want to disparage the concept: All things said and done even if I’d consider this time completely wasted you’re right that it’s fairly short. I just found it hard to believe because, as mentioned, it doesn’t match my experience at all due, presumably, to cultural differences.
No judgement in if you do that, good for you. However the point is not that it's too much reading or w/e, but rather that it's far more than the typical christian cares to do. To assume christians actually do that is the mental part, but you choosing to do; if that makes sense.
edit: To the downvote, do you honestly think the majority of christians in America, some self proclaimed 70% of Americans iirc, read several passages a day? Really?
It turns out about 27% of Americans[0] read their Bible several times per week, with more than half of those reading it daily.
[0] https://www.barna.com/research/state-of-the-bible-2018-seven...
I had friends who had that as a stable morning and evening ritual for years, complete with bible-studybook-journals e.t.c
[0] https://www.barna.com/research/state-of-the-bible-2018-seven...
> Persons in selected households are then invited by telephone or by mail to participate in the web-enabled KnowledgePanel
I have opinions on how biased this can be...
i mean everyday readings comes in my email along with a bunch of other newsletters. i read all that stuff every morning, so it is definitely not hard.
In rural areas of central Europe you'll quite often find the Bible in hotel rooms for your nightly bible lecture.
(Literally their main goal listed on the site: https://www.gideons.org/about)
edit: I should be clear, I'm just referring to christians by label; not anyone specifically. If you are christian and you read daily, put in effort to learn and love, more power to you. I appreciate you. That however seems abnormal in my experience. People tend to be lazy, and christians are after all people.
When learning a language, I've heard its best to not learn a direct mapping to a word in your original language but instead to, for example, place the word for "lamp" on a sticky note and stick it to a lamp in your house. This way you more directly associate the word with the object rather than the name in your original language, because you'll otherwise grow to rely on using your original language as a go-between from ideas to the foreign language, which will make fluency more difficult.
(I'm not denying that it's enlightening to look at another culture's words and see how they divide the world up differently from ours, and direct attention to things ours might miss. But I get the impression that ever since C S Lewis's "Four Loves" many people think that the ancient Greeks had a richer variety of understanding of human affections than we do because they had four words for "love" and we have only one, and I think that's all wrong.)
For English speakers learning Chinese:
https://pingtype.github.io/bible.html#_home
For Chinese speakers learning English:
https://pingtype.github.io/bibleEnglish.html#_home
Songs:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLwKrKHi_rqtAjt0eIvhEB...
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLwKrKHi_rqtBNfDESXQuk...
Edit: although given how useful it is to read/write English, and how we often find it easier to motivate ourselves by reading, I understand it.
So are publications by international bodies like the UN (though those tend to deal less with sex, drugs and rock-and-roll than the religious books).
More modern translations such as NIV or ESV will read more like modern everyday speech.
It also makes a nice yardstick: you start out having to look at the original text after every verse. Soon you are able to start reading verses, chapters, then entire books without referencing your native language.
[1]: https://www.comeuntochrist.org/belong/meet-missionaries/who-...
- In MyBible[1] you can read multiple translations at once, e.g. English and Ukrainian. Double-tapping a word opens it in your installed dictionaries (which are found under 'Modules' in the app).
- Listen to an audiobook of what you're reading, as well: what you hear more directly influences your speaking skills. Also, too much reading and too little listening isn't good for pronunciation.
- Listening to the same things multiple times (repetition) is like Neo downloading Kung-fu into his brain in the Matrix.
I would actually advise against religious texts as their language is usually more archaic and less common on the day to day
I tried to read the first book in Spanish, and ended up owning a number of dictionaries because none of the ones I already had contained an entry for "los muggles." (I had not, obviously, read the English version first).