Posts by Gappers

Wednesday 13 April 2011

THE GOOD BOOK: A Secular Bible by AC Grayling

So a chap has written a secular, humanist bible. It's filled with what he believes to be the best stuff from secular, humanist classical literature. His name is AC Grayling. I read an article reviewing his book. And I found it interesting, ironic and good...

''This anthology of humanist wisdom serves chiefly to highlight the scriptures' divine sublimity.'

'It powerfully suggests that if you drain the 'poison' of Judaeo- Christianity from western literature- as Grayling might describe this project- the remnant is strikingly bland and anaemic.'

'Grayling aims to avoid the 'divine' and stick to the 'human'. And so, self- defeatingly, there is no room in this humanist scripture for the biblical but passionately human.'

'Left with only a cool, disinfected air of reason.'

'The original 'Good Book' may be far more frightening, messy, irrational, violent... but it's also more human and indefinably sublime.'

'Everything that today's secular liberal humanist values most- universal human rights, racial and sexual equality, peace rather than war- comes not from Greece or Rome, but from the New Testament. Eg. Galatians 3:28. There is nothing remotely approaching this radical vision of human equality in all of classical literature.'

'Compared to the Bible, it's a molehill at the foot of Everest.'

'Nobody will ever kill for its sake. Nobody will ever die for it either. Perhaps that's secular humanism for you.'


Hmmmm...


John 14: 6
"Jesus answered, "I am the way, the truth, and the life."

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