Atheist “The Good Book” in competition with “The Bible”

While there are those who strongly disagree with The Bible, no other book currently or later created that will ever be able to compete with it.  The Bible is more than just a bunch of words; it’s a life map and provides the guidance that we all need from time to time when we have lost our way.

Jessica Ravitz of CNN article titled Leading atheist publishes secular Bible explains the Good News this way.  The Bible would have been “a very different book and may have produced a very different history for mankind,” had it drawn on the work of philosophers and writers as opposed to prophets and apostles, says Grayling, a philosopher and professor at Birkbeck College, University of London, who is an atheist.  “Humanist ethics didn’t claim to be derived from a deity," he says. "(They) tended to start from a sympathetic understanding of human nature and accept that there’s a responsibility that each individual has to work out the values they live by and especially to recognize that the best of our good lives revolve around having good relationships with people.”   Humanists rely on human reason as an alternative to religion or belief in God in attempting to find meaning and purpose in life.

Some of the points which may lead many to see it as a competition to the Bible is “Grayling arranged his nearly 600-page "Good Book" much like the Bible, with double columns, chapters (the first is even called Genesis) and short verses. And much like the best-selling King James Bible, which is celebrating its 400th year, his book is written in a type of English that transcends time.  Like the Bible, "The Good Book," opens with a garden scene. But instead of Adam and Eve, Grayling's Genesis invokes Isaac Newton, the British scientist who pioneered the study of gravity.”  This is more of a copy than a stand alone competitor.  To actually compete, it should be written about the same time, same material and same manner but instead of several people contributing, it only has one author and one point of view.

I do agree with this portion of the article and it would be my wish that others would come to embrace it as well.  The article reports that “while many intellectual traditions – religious and otherwise – teach that there’s “one right way to live,” Grayling says he hopes “The Good Book” will encourage people to “go beyond your teachers, your text” to understand that “we have to respect and relate to one another.”  In that is the entire reason for the existence of the Bible.  To show that only by accepting others as you would want them to accept you, will you ever know heaven and experience that peace all of us wish for ourselves.

Related articles can be found on www.mannsmedium.blogspot.com

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