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The Forum > Article Comments > The Bible is a mainstay of Western life > Comments

The Bible is a mainstay of Western life : Comments

By Greg Clarke, published 24/3/2017

Social media last week was peppered with comments such as 'why care about that old book?', 'it's all fairytales' or, more constructively, 'the Bible's teachings are evil'.

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Ye-es.

Sometimes I wonder whether we couldn't go direct to ethics without going via supernatural fables?
Posted by Jardine K. Jardine, Friday, 24 March 2017 8:47:13 AM
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Dear Jardine,

«Sometimes I wonder whether we couldn't go direct to ethics without going via supernatural fables?»

Perhaps because there ARE no ethics in the natural?

Nature is a cruel place and anyone who truly believes that they come from nature, is indeed dangerous.

The bible is anything but perfect, but occasionally it can distance individuals from their beast.
Posted by Yuyutsu, Friday, 24 March 2017 9:29:14 AM
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Funny, I follow a lot of the major anti-theist groups on Facebook and I didn’t notice anything different.

<<Social media last week was peppered with comments such as 'why care about that old book?', 'it's all fairytales' or, more constructively, 'the Bible's teachings are evil'.>>

This describes a standard week on Facebook’s News Feed for me.

<<Sometimes these opinions are offered by people who quite clearly have never set eyes on chapter and verse …>>

No, not in my experience. In my experience, they are the words of people who have actually read the book (and I mean beyond the four Gospels), rather than simply sitting there in the pews swallowing everything the pastor dishes out in his increasingly vague and motivational sermons as his faith slowly slips away with his credulity.

<<I would argue for the value of some biblical input in most public discourse.>>

Great. Then present a rational argument in favour of that. Because, given that one needs to wade through the Bible's many contradictions and cherry-pick it to pieces, the Bible appears to be an unnecessary step that can be skipped altogether.

<<But this is not a new idea.>>

No, it most certainly is not. I mean, it took a country founded on freedom 245 years to figure out that slavery is wrong because the Bible says it’s right. (Exodus 21:2-27, Ephesians 6:5, Colossians 3:22, 1 Peter 2:18, Matthew 5:17)

<<The Bible has almost always been an instrument for free speech. Where the Bible has been freely available, a society has usually become more tolerant …>>

This is the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post_hoc_ergo_propter_hoc)

<<What is the moral basis of marriage?>>

Whatever societies deem it to be. Marriage is, after all, a social construct.

<<What is sex for?>>

Procreation, bonding, and enjoyment. There is no need for mythology to figure that out.

However, I agree with the author in as much as I would encourage more Bible literacy, because there’s nothing that will make you an atheist quicker than actually reading that damn book.
Posted by AJ Philips, Friday, 24 March 2017 10:01:56 AM
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All the examples of the Bibles' influence mentioned in this Article are of a historical nature.

These are from an age when mankind had to believe in 'something' greater that itself... actively encouraged and led by Churches who had something to gain from this leadership... a Living !

You can still see what this overall Christian domination on its 'faithful' was like by looking at the Islamic World today.

They are yet to have their Reformation.

We all outgrow our childhood fairy stories even if we do remember lines from some of them over the years.

This also describes the Bible and it's rusted on believers.
Posted by Aspley, Friday, 24 March 2017 10:29:10 AM
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Yep and secularist have replaced belief in God with ' reason' . It allows us to kill the unborn with no conscience, perform every sexual perversion in the name of diversity (totally denying biology) and deny scientific laws to the max in swallowing the evolution fantasy. Pseudo science is simply an excuse for denying reason (hence man made gw fantasy) and makes us dumb enough to think we are not accountable to our Creator. I'm not sure if God is crying over our ignorance or laughing at the secularist stupidity. Yep the bible is still the Word of God. What secularist hate is it describes human nature accurately and thankfully through Christ offers forgiveness and rationality.
Posted by runner, Friday, 24 March 2017 11:11:41 AM
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But the Bible has also been used to justify a never-ending series of horrors.
Such was the inevitable consequence(s) when the widely based amorphous early christian movement was coopted by the Roman State placing Constantine's famous Sword at the blood-soaked leading edge of christian expansionism. Which necessarily involved the elimination/execution of "heretics" and anyone who attempted to stand in the way of this power-and-control seeking imperative.

An essay by Sarah Posner titled Amazing Disgrace describes the dark political purposes of the right-wing supposedly Biblical literature denizens in the USA - the inheritors of Constantine's power-and-control seeking imperative.

And of course the Murdoch media, and the Australian "news"-paper where this essay was first published are the now-time leading edge boosters of the applied blood-soaked politics of Constantine's Sword.
As is the producer of this disgusting vile movie:
http://torchbearermovie.com

There are of course now more Bibles in existence than ever before, and more christians too, both in total numbers and as a percentage of the total human population.
And does being Biblically literate really help or enable anyone to live with Real deeply-considered Intelligence in this time and place?
Posted by Daffy Duck, Friday, 24 March 2017 12:23:29 PM
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