[metalspot]

this is a modernist misconception. ancient religions are philosophical frameworks and the texts are internally coherent arguments for those frameworks. They are just expressed in language that modern audiences without formal training don't understand.

[rendx]

I use "religion" to mean organized forms of spirituality, governed by "truths" you are supposed to "believe" in as member of the religion. Any such belief is a "third party truth": You do not know whether it is true or not. One may argue that this violates what "true" spirituality entails, which is experiental and not organized. For such spirituality, you can obviously read spiritual literature from whatever religion you please, like other philosophical works, but you read between the lines and don't follow some other person's interpretation (= third party authority).

[amanaplanacanal]

Which texts are internally coherent? The religion I grew up with certainly wasn't.

[metalspot]

How would you know? Are you an expert in the language and culture that its texts were originally written in? Even an expert would qualify their interpretation by saying that it is only an educated guess. Look at how easy it is for humans to misunderstand each other, even in direct verbal communication, then extend that to the level of misunderstanding in email and text messages. Now tell me how well you think modern people actually understand the meaning of something written thousands of years ago.