Why we don't have a bible in the house, nor would...

Lilygran that is so interesting.

I am quite excited about the theological interpretations. The bible is such an interesting book when viewed in this way.

However going out for the day now. To Coventry Cathedral as it happens. Lovely building, especially the big window. Also an exhibition there at the moment.

What God obviously didn't demand was the sacrifice of Isaac. What he expected was a willing obedience. Although perhaps 'expected' is the wrong word to use since the whole story starts with 'man's first disobedience' and goes on with one account after another of deliberate disobedience, arguing the toss with God and ignoring what people knew perfectly well God wanted them to do. And doing things they knew He didn't want them to do! And your Sam Harris says the Bible isn't relevant today......

Well, it certainly isn't relevant to me! I hope I live a decent and morally acceptable life without any god's intervention.

Have a good day out, petallus. I like Coventry as well. I remember being blown away when I went to visit the first time. I think I was about 11.

Well it is called "the good book":

Good question
Am I my brother's keeper?

Good point
The labourer is worthy of his hire.

Good advice
Be not righteous overmuch; neither make thyself overwise.

Good politics
Whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant.

Good description
The hair of my flesh stood up.

Good insult
Go up, thou bald head.

Good observation
A merry heart maketh a cheerful countenance.

Good grief
God is no respecter of persons.

absent
There are probably about thirty different bibles in my house! I don't want to miss out on any 'nuances'.

And are they all from the same translation?

I teach English as a second language so I know the difficulties inherent in translation, so no; I have many different translations. biblestudymagazine.com/preview/choosetranslationWeb.pdf

Not speaking as a Christian has any one come across a better set of rules Thou shalt not kill or Honour thy (grand)father and (grand)mother?

I think you will find the same general rules govern the conduct of all societies. Except for the bit about 'not having strange gods before me' of course. People were managing to live together a long time before the bible was written. The concept of adultery might not have existed, though - monogamy would not be viable in some societies. The prohibitions on killing, stealing, lying would be necessary for any community.

Some lies are useful and not bad. Did you know that other primates can "tell lies", by which I mean practise deception. Got this from a programme years ago by Charlotte Uhlenbroek or David Attenborough about Toque Macaque monkeys living on ancient Buddhist ruins somewhere in Sri Lanka. The programme was reporting about a long-standing study that has been going on there led by someone whose name I've forgotten.

Which apparently unrelated side issue says to me that 'morality' is part of our make-up as a social species. Being 'good' is about the best way to survive satisfactorily as a member of a social species (you could say survive and be happy). The ability to tell apart what is good and what is bad is there in our very old ancestors from before we even evolved as modern humans. Just a wee bit before the bible then.

I think we are beginning to understand that we have been arrogant in the past, thinking we were the only creatures who could feel empathy and grief. I find the sight of elephant cows grieving with a mother who has lost a calf to be very moving.

Greatnan What is even more interesting is that the leader of the herd is a granny. Matriarchs matter –in many species.

There are cultures where the concept of stealing doesn't exist and the prohibition on killing has been quite varied. I think it is a sweeping generalisation to say these rules of communal life exist everywhere, even today, or that the rules were the same 'before the Bible was written'. When was that, by the way?

You tell me, Lily, you are the Christian!
I don't believe any tribe could exist if they had not been more co-operative than combative. Hunting was a group activity which called for close communication - probably the motivation for speech to develop. The rules they had may not have been the ones we abide by today, but they would certainly have had an acceptable code of conduct, which members broke at their peril.

It's a nice thought! Anthropology (and Darwin) suggest a less rosy picture.

Speech development, and changes in the brain as consciousness evolved, is suggested to have occurred around 3,000 years ago. Jaynes' Bicameral Mind is a theory that posits that the brain's two distinct hemispheres did not communicate and humans experienced auditory hallucinations in one half of the brain that they could not yet articulate via the other, separate half in undeveloped speech. As the brain evolved, so did language development and expression of conscious awareness. Jaynes and others suggest that primitive appreciation of human experiences of nature resulted in explanations like a god talking to humans when they were having auditory hallucinations, or causing sensational events that humans believed could only have been brought to them by a deity, when we now know that thngs like fires, floods and plagues can happen naturally.

I am sure there are many other alternative explanations for how primitive humans began to believe in the supernatural. Expansion of language did not occur in a vacuum and shared communication and understanding had to start somewhere. We are animals who have evolved at our own pace. It's now acknowledged that other animals have some degree of consciousness and even the beginnings of language that we don't yet understand.

Religion is a relatively recent phenomenon in the evolution of modern man. Worship of objects, the sun, the planets and the ocean were probably as vehement as worship of a god for our ancestors.

3000 years ago sounds very recent. Massive stone monuments were built 5000 years ago, could they have done that without speech?

Homeric epics can be dated to at least 3000 years ago; they were passed down orally long before they were written. Same goes for biblical stories.

According to Jaynes and others, there was early speech but reflection and consciousness were so underdeveloped due to the state of the brain that explanations for auditory hallucinations coud not be articulated so they were perceived as being god talking to our ancestors. They haven't claimed man couldn't speak, just provided a set of theories about underdeveloped speech and its relationship to simplistic views of there being a higher power that was governing their experiences.

Sorry if I didn't explain very well. I only remembered the bicameral mind when Greatnan mentioned speech development and social cooperation.

There's a William Golding novel, "the Inheritors" (I think) which explores the development of speech to express concepts.

Sorry for the digression; I am enjoying the debate.

I don't think every parent is worthy of honour - respect is something that has to be earned, it is not automatic.

Hmm. I think it may have had more to do with the fact that we didn't have the scientific understanding to talk about certain ideas, not that our brains weren't wired up the right way.

Small communities tend to work well, with little crime or violence. It is when you get larger groups of people and opposing groups of people who want the same resources (e.g. land) that violence escalates – tribalism. Which is where the old testament comes in. That's the level it's pitched at because of its place in the timescale of history. And that's why I think there are far more relevant books for nowadays. We still have the same problems facing us, but our approach has, naturally, refined a bit over a few thousand years.

What Harris is saying is that anything good you can find in the bible, can also be found is multiple other places nowadays, and with the advantage of not having all the violent and unrefined baggage attached. I happen to agree with him.

Honour and respect aren't the same thing. There is a crisis in this country in the care provided for old people. The NHS and other care organisations bang on about respect by which they mean not allowing patients etc to appear semi-naked in public or to have treatment carried out in public and similar considerations. If 'honour thy father and mother' were a reality, all the tick boxes about respect wouldn't be needed.

And what appears in the other books sprang fully armed from the brains of people like Harris, I suppose.