Holy texts

[Supreme]

What is your stance on the issue of holy books, scriptures, spiritual/philosophical treatises and/or esoteric writings?
Do texts play an important part in your world view, and if so, how do you perceive them?


And to get things rolling, I'll start with my own take on this issue:

I regard scriptures (and by that, I mean any piece of writing that tries to grapple with transcendence, to communicate mystical experiences, or to establish a meta-narrative aimed at making sense of the world) as an important cultural heirloom of mankind as a whole, chronicling our attempts at understanding things that lie outside of the accessible chains of cause-and-effect. They reflect our innermost desires, our deep-seated need to understand, our capacity to literally make sense - and occasionally, our ability to enter altered states of consciousness, partaking of something that transcends the restrictions of our everyday frame of mind.

As such, I do indeed consider most scriptures sacred, provided that they're not fraudulent attempts at deceiving the audience or collossal failures at providing even a modicum of wisdom or insight: they are works of art, as much a testimony to the creative spirit of mankind as the pyramids, the Hagia Sophia or the Empire State Building.

However, I do not believe that any of these writings convey THE truth, literally handed down by an ultimate deity (not even the Bible). It lies outside of the nature of language to achieve that. I can imagine that at least *some* authors did experience transcendence in some fashion, and tried to communicate the same in their writings - yet I believe that history shows only too well that such things cannot be communicated to those who have not experienced them on their own. Trying to communicate transcendence by means of language is like describing colours to the blind: even if they THINK that they understand you, chances are that they will soon be involved in doctrinal infighting, as the group splinters into separate factions who claim to have a monopoly on how the texts should be read and understood.