Bonnie Ponce
The Secular Bible – Click here to read the whole story.
This makes me sad that someone has written a “bible” for all the non-religious people, though A. C. Grayling claims that there is something there for everyone.
“The question arose early in British academic A.C. Grayling’s career: What if those ancient compilers who’d made Bibles, the collected religious texts that were translated, edited, arranged and published en masse, had focused instead on assembling the non-religious teachings of civilization’s greatest thinkers?
What if the book that billions have turned to for ethical guidance wasn’t tied to commandments from God or any one particular tradition but instead included the writings of Aristotle, the reflections of Confucius, the poetry of Baudelaire? What would that book look like, and what would it mean?
Decades after he started asking such questions, what Grayling calls “a lifetime’s work” has hit bookshelves. “The Good Book: A Humanist Bible,” subtitled “A Secular Bible” in the United Kingdom, was published this month. Grayling crafted it by using more than a thousand texts representing several hundred authors, collections and traditions.”
This bible is a collection of the greatest human philosophies from the east and west and there are probably some interesting or even inspiring ideas but the problem is that they are from men. I believe that the Holy Bible is completely inspired by God that his ideas were put onto parchments and scrolls by men but they were God’s words. I feel that this bible written by Grayling will lead people that have never read the Holy Bible into thinking they are of equal importance.
What do you think? What impact will it have on our culture?
Bonnie Ponce is the Director of Support Raising for Relief and lives in Huntsville, Texas with her husband and betta fish. She has a BA in English from Sam Houston State University. After work she enjoys relaxing with a good book or working on her novel.
What impact will it have on our culture? Probably none.
But a “bible” of history’s greatest thinkers is a beautiful idea. What’s the harm in giving people who don’t believe in God a way to reflect on past ideas and grow as humans?
For them, those words ARE of equal/greater importance than God’s word. Why should man’s word be any less important than God’s? We can learn just as much from enlightened humans as we can from God. It’s all a matter of perspective, but the bottom line is, there are as many right answers as there are humans on Earth.
So long as the common end-goal is love and peace, what difference does it make what road we take to get there?
I get the feeling any negative feelings are really there because people are getting caught up with simantecs. The word bible has its root in Greek and phoenicia where it means a papyrus bound book. So… If it is just that… A book of human writings then I don’t understand the problem. There are millions of books dedicated to the writings of enlightened and intelligent humans. Which is amazing, we should celebrate ourselves and each others ability to form such theories, ideologies, et cetera regardless of religious preference. I see this book just like I do the Quran, the Christian bibles, Stephen king novels and so on as the same. Books. Whether we choose to believe one is more true over the other or has any truth is our own right
I wouldn’t concern myself if people are looking at one book as equal to or greater then a religious bible… I’m more concerned with how I’m living and treating the universe around me.
Thoreau had a similar idea of compiling all the world scriptures into a single volume that would be something like a bible of humanity. The difference from the Christian concept of scripture is not just one of preference, however. As Bonnie notes, Christians take scripture as inspired by God, thus they have a unique authority for our lives that other texts may at best share. The best way I can understand Travis’s point is to say that non-Christians will see the Bible as just another book by humans, anyway, but that’s different than saying other human voices are as significant as God’s. Of course we learn from wise people, but as Christians we simply recognize that all wisdom is ultimately from God and of or related to him, since he is the source and ground of truth or wisdom.
This new secular bible strikes me as consistent with the “new atheist” phenomenon, which positions itself blatantly against theisms, especially Christianity (hence not a secular Quran or Talmud). I think the primary danger a Christian might see is that this kind of thinking privileges human insight over any claims to divine inspiration. Thus it may promote self-worship rather than worship of the one true God who guarantees the truly transcendent love we all desire.
It saddens me that people are willing to read a “Secular Bible” but refuse to read the inspired Word of God. I have often thought it takes more faith to believe that there ISN’T a God than to believe that there is a creator who loves us enough to die for our own sins.