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

Enjoy the risotto!

Greatnan I didn't watch it because I knew it would be too depressing. when I believe you were one of the posters who asked me to explain myself. You shouldn't be annoyed when I attempt to do so. I hope you noted that I put the 'religious' terms in parentheses and tried to present my case in clear. NB 'anathema' - formal curse on evil doers. Has more than one meaning as so many words do. Like 'grace'. And 'secular' and 'militant'.

I watched a programme last night about creationists. Five of them from England were taken on a coach tour of the USA and were invited to put their theories to specialists in the various scientific disciplines,such as geology, anthropology and biology. One of them absolutely refused to acknowledge any of the evidence presented to them and bullied a younger man into submission with his views. The Muslim man actually made better sense, although he insisted that everything had been created by God. The two women were more open-minded - one had a gay son and I think that was the only thing that kept the bully from fulminating against gays.
When presented with the undoubted truth that 16,000 animals would not fit into any ship which would float, they decided god had made a special, one-off boat which defied his own laws of physics. Similarly, he had found some way of keeping the whales alive whilst on board. Every time a scientific proof was presented, they claimed that god had performed a miracle.
The bully claimed that the Grand Canyon had been formed by the Great Flood. When a geologist demonstrated that flood water would travel in a straight line, not meandering and forming side tributaries, etc. they just refused to listen.
I don't know whether I found it more amusing or frightening. Apparently, nearly 50% of Americans believe in some form of creationism.

Re your post at 1006, lily, lots of other books, and stuff online now, and films, and theatre productions, and art, and science, do that too. The bible isn't special any more. Well, it is to some people, but not most, even where its influence has been highest in the past.

Lilygran the use of language about grace, sin and being saved is very specific and anathema to me as an atheist. So much harm gets done in the name of religion and I accept just as much harm will be done by people who have no religion, but to place the chance of being good in the hands of a mythical being, for me, takes away personal responsibility to be good for its own sake.

Not ignoring anyone, but having my friend round for lunch so a risotto is beckoning to have a few more stirs. See you later on x

The thread is about the relevance of the Bible to today. I'm not trying to convert anyone, I'm just stating my position! Why is it such a shock, when?

I dropped my iPad when I read that Lilygran! I don't need the grace of a god to understand what good behaviour and attitudes are, including thinking about others in a kind and compassionate way, nor do I need saving from anything.

There are a lot of posts on Gransnet in which people who embrace secularism express their unhappiness or frustration with the way in which insensitive and intolerant, in some cases cruel and unthinking, representatives of various Christian denominations have behaved towards them. Those people do not represent all Christians and it is deeply saddening that an encounter with these flawed human beings had such far-reaching effects. If you do ever read any part of the Bible you will see that it includes story after story demonstrating that individuals and whole communities miss the point, behave badly, ignore what they know they ought to do. The reason for the endless lists of prohibitions in the Torah is that people kept on doing the same bad stuff. The New Testament is equally full of stories of people missing the point. That's what people are like. But I believe the Bible also offers a model for trying to recognise, acknowledge and overcome our tendency to do bad stuff or ignore the good things we know we should do (sin) and also offers the promise that through the love of God (grace) we can become better (be saved).

Quite, elegran. And I was going to add that although there is a lot of bible-based stuff in our culture, it's worth remembering that much of what are now called christian traditions are in fact much older traditions which the early christian church adopted and adapted for its own use from what was already in place in the earlier cultures. Christmas and Easter are the most obvious examples, but there are many more. Our culture no more need depend on christianity now than it need depend on the Norse myths or, for that matter, on the Harry Potter stories.

Medecine today is sophisticated and decisions are based on research and experiment, and discussion amongst experts in various fields on the best way forward in a particular case. In the past there were many approaches tried and adopted/discarded. On those that were kept were built the developments and improvements that are in use now, but the original formulae and procedures are not enshrined in law. They have been refined by subsequent knowledge, and no-one believes that we will not be cured unless we follow ancient texts to the letter using herbs gathered at the full moon - and offer praise to Hygeia.

I agree with you Lilygran. It's impossible to get through a day without some form of speech or behaviour that has religious influence being utilised. Likewise, the influence of anything non-religious from our past that has relevance today. That's different from choosing to use religious speech or behaviour, though. I regard much of it as benign, and when someone says 'god bless you' or I walk into a supermarket and there is a school brass band playing hymns, as there was last weekend, it doesn't bother me. It's when it's imposed on me that I start to bristle.

Now I'm retired, I don't have to sit in community liaison meetings where the local priest, chief police inspector and a local do-gooder insisted on having the meetings in the catholic school hall and starting with a prayer, after the tea and biscuits they would drag people in for first. Turning up to meetings with my Muslim colleague, the specialist liaison worker, was some challenge. She would politely sit there with me and we would express our frustration another time, in an effort to move things on, but it still happens today. Those meetings were about crime in the local community, but the organisations involved insisted on bringing religion into it. They wouldn't accept the invitation to meet in the mosque's meeting room, or a probation office.

My daughter has two primary schools nearby, one catholic and the other C of E. she just wants her twin girls to go to a decent school in due course without too much travel and fuss. She's excluded from the catholic one as she doesn't fit their criteria, and the C of E school will accept her but her children will be required to attend church or Sunday school several times before being enrolled. Or she can just uproot them and move house. We feel that this is discrimination. Children have to be educated, but the choice is restricted. I don't know how children with a different faith are schooled in that neighbourhood.

We have a lot of outdated laws and customs that are so ingrained we will never be free of religion. To say atheists are anti-religion misses the point. It's a bit like saying we are anti being beaten round the head with a cricket bat.

The lack of belief in evolution in the States is directly attributable to out-dated and wrong-headed ideas engendered by the bible stories and the 'culture' they encourage.

I think he's also saying that the hyper-importance these old books are given is distracting people from more important issues that we should now be talking about and giving the importance to, such as the new ethical problems that improvements in scientific knowledge bring us. c/f stem cell research, for instance.

The other stories you mention, elf, are treated as no more than stories/myths. It's time the bible and the quran went into the same category as them.

I don't think Harris is suggesting we avoid all such harking back, just that it is not given undue importance. He thinks that the bible and the quran are given undue importance. I agree. The Abrahamic religions are not our only source of culture, and we are increasingly moving away from their influence in modern times.

Yes, their historical importance is high. But their current importance is dwindling. So, for instance, muslims should not go into violent agonies when someone is negative about their prophet. It's that kind of harking back that is damaging to the modern world. Likewise, christian 'tradition' in our culture, such as insisting that schools have religious 'observances', and that we have bishops in our house of lords, is simply no longer justifiable in view of cultural changes that are taking place.

Just musing - is Homer avoided too, or the epic of Gilgamesh or the Rheingold.....

How can you avoid 'harking back ' to one of the original sources of our culture?

Yes, it is obvious, but I think Harris is saying we no longer need to keep harking back to that obvious fact nowadays, but move on with all the exciting new stuff that improved knowledge of the world and how it all works is giving us. It's a valid point even if, as you so eloquently show, lily, debatable

You may avoid reading the book itself but it would be impossible (unless you read only technical manuals and text books) in this culture, to avoid references to the Bible. The King James Version has permeated the language and art, literature and music are full of Biblical references - even in the 21st century. The laws and culture of the whole of the Western world have their foundation in the Bible and in Jewish/Christian culture. I didn't say this before because I thought it was so obvious it didn't need saying.

lily, I agree with you that Harris's view is an extreme one, but I agree with him that the bible and the quran are over-hyped as "good" books, and that it's perfectly possible (easy, even) to live a good life without direct reference to either of them.

Sam Harris claims that there is nothing worth knowing that can't be found somewhere else than in the Bible. The Bible has some weird stuff in it, I have to admit, but it also has material which has had such an influence on any literature of any kind that came after that it is nonsense to claim it is of no relevance to today. You say you studied philosophy. You can see the trail of people building on, developing from or reacting against the ideas that came before. Isn't that true? And might you not want to track those ideas to their source? I didn't mean to be patronising, I'm sorry if you felt I was. I'm used to arguing discussing things with people who I know will catch my allusions and references.

Please remind me what the issue is? You seem to be sneering at Sam Harris. Your post just before that is not clear enough for me to understand without further explanation as to what you actually mean. I can guess, but I can't be sure.

So, I'm not sure what I'm supposed to have evaded.

Please explain so that even I can understand.

I am not ashamed of not getting your reference, but I am a bit ashamed of your rubbing that in in such a patronising way.

Yes, I think I do. And you are still avoiding the issue.

Do you understand the complete lack of a need for faith?