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Inspiring Funny Typical Important Outrageous Amazing Innovative BeautifulThe Bible 2.0? A Humanist Bible
Lays Down The Gauntlet
The Good Book: A Humanist Bible
By A.C. Grayling
$35; Walker & Company
If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then
British philosopher A.C. Grayling has just paid
the Bible the ultimate compliment. Aftercenturies of being the best-selling work of alltime, the Bible will now face a direct competitor:The Good Book: A Humanist Bible by Grayling
($35; Walker & Company) is a distillation ofwisdom and insight from some of the world'sgreatest thinkers explicitly modeled on theapproach of the Bible published on the 400thanniversary of the King James Version.
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It's cheeky, audacious, almost scandalous in a
way. The Bible as we know it today comes in hundreds of different versions (thousands if you countvarious translations of sections like The Book Of Job and Psalms, which are very popular on their own asliterature). It draws upon millennia of oral tradition, written texts, parables, sayings, prayers, psalms,histories and biography, adjudicated at various times by early Catholic Church leaders and otherChristian faiths, controversially translated into English (a heresy punishable by death at one point) andthen gloriously translated into English for the King James Version in 1611 after some seven years ofwork. That version was completed by dozens of scholars, surely making it the greatest work of literatureever produced by committee. Some faiths teach that a particular version of the Bible is the literal word ofGod, but whatever your faith (or lack of it), the Bible in its many forms contains words that can and doinspire and comfort.
Grayling, an atheist, said, hey, that's a clever idea. Why not create a new Bible to instruct and inspire that
draws upon many other philosophical sources? You can of course be a humanist and a Christian, but it'stempting to call this "a Bible for the rest of us." He's modeled The Good Book on the Bible, with varioussections like Genesis, Wisdom, Parables and so on. The text comes from thousands of sources written byhundreds of the world's greatest thinkers: Aristotle, Bacon, Chaucer, Confucius, Darwin, Euripides,Goethe, Hafiz, Jefferson, Laozi, Locke, Montaigne, Ovid, Rimbaud, Rumi, Spinoza, Swift, Voltaire andWalpole are among the many greats he draws upon. Here's a brief chat unrelated to this book in whichGrayling talks about his life and philosophy in general.
Even the layout is similar: short chapters, with two columns on each page and lines written in verse butwith an eye to poetry. You could of course read it cover to cover, but it's probably best approached bydipping in here and there, as I've done. (I haven't read the entire work yet.) If you're grieving, you mightturn to Lamentations or Consolations, which ends with "This is the final consolation: that we will sleep atevening, and be free for ever." (Okay, not so consoling at first blush.)
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If you want to consider friendship, read Concord. If you are looking for pearls of wisdom, meditate on
Sage, in which you'll read, "Do not be concerned about others not appreciating you. Be concerned about
not appreciating others."
Grayling doesn't just quote these thinkers; this is not a commonplace book where he lists a string of
famous quotations. As you can gather from the brief passages I've quoted, Grayling has edited and shaped
and woven together ideas and phrases and insights into one voice, delivered in a slightly archaic, formalstyle. Histories and Acts are two of the longest sections, often drawing on ancient stories from Greeceand Rome and the like. Proverbs is easy to plumb. You'd never read this useful saying in the KJV: "Amaid that laughs is half taken." But anyone can benefit from remembering "Whispered advice is notworth a pea" or "A true man hates no one."
Grayling does himself no favors with his foreword, here called an Epistle, which is written in such a
grand, high-flown style and with such immodest ambition ("its aspiration and aim the good for humanityand the good of the world") that a casual reader might even call it a sin of pride. (Ha!) His Genesis is alsoa bit stiff. Dive into the middle of the book and you'll probably be drawn in. Start at the beginning andyou might feel blocked, just like people who decide they're going to read the Bible and are suddenlydeluged with wearisome "begats." And I do wish he'd offered at least a select bibliography of the works hehas culled his text from, rather than just a list of names. Footnotes would have been distracting (and notin keeping with the authoritative tone it sought) but still. Perhaps Grayling or someone else will do thedetailing of exactly what came from where online.
It will be fascinating to see if The Good Book catches on. Maybe agnostics and atheists will embrace it;
maybe Christians will embrace it too as a valuable collection of insights. It might begin as a curiosity and
then flourish or remain a cult favorite or just a curiosity. I suppose some might be offended by The GoodBook but they needn't be. You don't have to be a nonbeliever to find solace and wisdom in the distilled
ideas presented here. It's a testament to the enduring power of the Bible that Grayling sought to drawupon its very form and structure.
Even if you accept any of the four versions of the Ten Commandments that Moses offered up as law, is
there harm in asking, as Grayling does in the final section The Good, "Shall we ask, by what
commandments shall we live? Or might we better ask, each of ourselves: What kind of person should I
be? The first question assumes that there is one right answer. The second assumes that there are manyright answers." And yes, Grayling does come up with his own Ten Commandments, not that he would callthem such. Would any person of faith object to them?
"Love well, seek the good in all things, harm no others, think for yourself, take responsibility, respect
nature, do your utmost, be informed, be kind, be courageous: at least, sincerely try."
Thanks for reading. Michael Giltz is the co-host of Showbiz Sandbox , a weekly pop culture podcast that
reveals the industry take on entertainment news of the day and features top journalists and opinion
makers as guests. It's available free on iTunes. Visit Michael Giltz at his website and his daily blog.
Download his podcast of celebrity interviews and his radio show, also called Popsurfing and alsoavailable for free on iTunes. Link to him on Netflix and gain access to thousands of ratings and
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NOTE: Michael Giltz is provided with free copies of books to consider for review. He typically does notguarantee coverage and invariably receives far more books than he can cover.
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A bible for atheists ? :-))
Thanks for FBing this Jez. Noting this book is available in a discussion on the blogs of our
local paper.Recency | Popularity Page: 1 2 3 4 Next › Last » (4 total)
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"The text comes from thousands of sources written by hundreds of the world's greatest thinkers:
Aristotle, Bacon, Chaucer, Confucius, Darwin, Euripides, Goethe, Hafiz, Jefferson, Laozi, Locke,Montaigne, Ovid, Rimbaud, Rumi, Spinoza, Swift, Voltaire and Walpole are among the many greats
he draws upon."
Reminds me of an editorial cartoon a few years ago, depicting a bookstore whose shelves were
lined with books written by men, in which a man was busily complainin g to a woman clerk, asking
how come there were so many woman authored books in the (one meager shelf of women'sstudies) store, where were the books written by men?
So, not having read the entire list of sources, which I assume to be incomplete , I'm taking a chance
here of appearing super foolish, by asking 'where are the opinions of the world's greatest thinking
women in this?' Are there any at all?
Fanned and Faved! I argued earlier about the lack of non-Europe an authors, but when I
looked into the book itself they were in fact included. The article author has since added
Lao Zi and Rumi to the list to prove that it includes world names.
I am very glad that you brought up the gender issue as well. We will see who comments on
that!
The only woman I can spot on the list is Sappho, I'm afraid. It does also includefolklore and folktales, many of which would have been handed down by women in
oral traditions . But I'm stretching the point. He is lacking in women. The vast
majority of thinkers are hundreds or thousands of years old. Which women should
he have drawn upon? Who would you put on his reading list?
There are More Comments on this Thread. Click Here To See them All
"It might begin as a curiosity and then flourish or remain a cult favorite or just a curiosity"
the latter is most probable, seems snarky at first impression
Snarky? I'm not sure what I wrote or quoted from the book that gave that impression , but
nothing could be further from the truth. Snarky about what? It's a book that presents the
author's selection of distilled wisdom from millennia of writings and sayings and folklore andthe like about friendship , grieving, ethics, morality and love. Snarky is surely the one thing it
isn't, however successful or not one considers the book to be.
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hippynanainblingland 03:35 PM on 3/30/2011
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78 Fans"Love well, seek the good in all things, harm no others, think for yourself, take responsibi lity,
respect nature, do your utmost, be informed, be kind, be courageous : at least, sincerely try."
Now, THAT'S the best ten commandeme nts ever! Thanks.
Thanks for commenting ! I agree it's lovely. Also a big fan of the Beatitudes , which, coming
direct from Jesus, should hold more sway over Christians than the Ten Commandmen ts but
rarely do.
What ever it Takes to get the Uneducated to Stop believing in Man MAde Stories, religion the
biggest Hoax Man Kind has ever been told and believed for thousands of years.. I understand
people 100 years ago and all before them,they thought the world was flat and the center of
everything LOL BUT in todays World with SCIENCE PROVING with out a DOUGHT all those storiesare MAN MADE and people still believing they are the Word of the AlMighty is just (NICE WORD)Anyways the Sooner we GROW UP as a society the better..
I like your 1600's to 1700's writing style of capitalizi ng every other word. We lost something
when that style of writing became passe.
When I saw the title of this article, I thought, "now this is bizarre". And now having read the article, I
see it is even more bizarre than I expected!
Of course, it is simply not possible for any one person to make a Bible-styl e book. Even the attempt
to do this shows a total failure to understand what it is that makes this book so special.But there is one part where the article almost got it right. The book will enjoy a brief spell of
popularity , as clueless atheistic humanists embrace it hoping to find it something they can use to
thump back at the Bible-thum pers. But once they figure out this approach accomplish es nothing,
the book's popularity will fade, just like Bennett's "Book of Virtues".
I always find it interestin g that people with the strongest faith in their "true" religion are so
easily threatened by outside ideas. Explore our shared humanity and the wisdom of peoplewho actually existed and did some serious intellectu al work on who, what and why we are.
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I must emphasize the book is not a rejoinder to faith nor does it comment on faith or
religion or whether someone should or should not practice a religion. It's his collection ofinsights and wisdom that he has cherished and many have found enduring and worth
reading for centuries now, hence the status of Aristotle and Locke and Jefferson and so
many others from the East and the West. If the book were half as commercial ly successful
as Bennett's Book Of Virtues (which was a major bestseller and spawned a sequel for kidsand even a tv series), I'm sure Grayling and the publisher would be thrilled.
Michael: Do we get to hear our mothers' voices through the ages, as well as ourfathers'?
As a "Christian humanist" this actually sounds really exciting to me. Don't want to spend $35. on it
yet....but maybe some day!
I would have sooner chosen "books" based upon the themes created by Khalil Gabran in The
Prophet.
Here is the piece that the author of the article was missing; this gives me a much greater
appreciate for the scope of the work, and the inclusion of non-Europe an thinkers.. .
"Instead, going back to traditions older than Christiani ty, and far richer and more various, including
the non-theist ic philosophi cal and literary schools of the great civilisati ons of both West and East,
from the Greek philosophy of classical antiquity and its contempora neous Confucian, Mencian and
Mohist schools in China, down through classical Rome, the flourishin g of Indian and Arab worlds,
the European Renaissanc e and Enlightenm ent, the worldwide scientific discoverie s of the 19th and
20th centuries to the present, Grayling collects, edits, rearranges and organises the collective
secular wisdom of the world in one highly readable volume. Contents of this title include: "Genesis";"Proverbs" ; "Histories "; "Songs"; "Wisdom Acts"; "The Lawgiver Lamentatio ns"; "Concord Consolatio
ns"; "Sages"; and, "The Good Parables".
I don't think this is that bad. I've been talking with my mom about end of life planning. We talked
about my atheist uncle, who is in his late 70s. He doesn't think a life should pass without aceremony of some sort, but obviously he doesn't want a pastor performing the ceremony, or a
religious funeral in any way. Having a book with humanist quotes or wisdom would be a thing you
could turn to at a time like that. All I could think of before was to read a Robert Ingersoll essay orsomething, which is still a good idea.
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107 FansWell, yes, you could "turn to" it "at a time like that", but what good would it do anyone?
Uh...somet hing appropriat e to read at a funeral instead of something religious?
You certainly can't go wrong with Ingersoll.
Yawn. Isn't the point not to have to follow a code or a book?
The point of what?
I don't think that is the point really. The point is to avoid belief without reason, a very
dangerous and foolish thing. The book is about sharing knowledge as most books are.Sounds to me like the bible is a rule book while this is more of a guide book. One tells youwhat to do, one helps you make the choice that is right for you.
What could be wrong with a book that pulls from the most thought provoking and philosophi cal texts
that humans have written? Sounds like a fine read and a good conversati on starter. I'll look for it.
I'll look for it also, but only if women's words of wisdom through the ages are also included,
and not in a token manner, either.Syllogizer 01:18 PM on 3/30/2011
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34 Fans"Love well, seek the good in all things, harm no others, think for yourself, take responsibi lity,
respect nature, do your utmost, be informed, be kind, be courageous : at least, sincerely try."
********** ********** ********** *
This is exactly my moral code.
So, it really baffles and angers me whenever a Christian condemns me as un unrepenten t sinner
doomed to suffer in eternal fire. Really? REALLY?
A god who would do that to someone who made a conscious, persistent effort to do good in this life
doesn't deserve my fear of eternal suffering, so I'm unafraid.
Beautiful "moral code", practice!
I am a seeking "Christian humanist" who is not satisfied with the status quo. I love your
thinking. And, wherever you go in this life or beyond, I hope to meet you there! ;)
"conscious hope," that was very nice to read. Thank you.
Right back at you!
“The Good Book: A Humanist Bible”The Tome of Thought: An Agonistic’ s Anthology, surely. As an atheist might be challenged to
produce irrefutabl e evidence, in order to substantia te what would otherwise also be belief.
“Do not be concerned about others not appreciati ng you”.
Its probably due to something you don’t appreciate .
"This is the final consolatio n: that we will sleep at evening, and be free for ever." (Okay, not so
consoling at first blush.)The final consolatio n: if we sleep at evening, and are free for ever. We are unlikely to be conscious
of that state.
“Love well, seek the good in all things, harm no others, think for yourself, take responsibi lity,
respect nature, do your utmost, be informed, be kind, be courageous : at least, sincerely try"
to remember, it might be you who’s mistaken.
It may well be a "Good Book" but, I think this book will advance the religious argument that atheism
is also a religion.
I will not be attending the achurch.
It must be really hard to sell a book that tell people how to be good.practiceempathy 10:50 AM on 3/30/2011
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edgraham 09:41 AM on 3/30/2011
92 Fans
78 FansActually, it is an easy sell as long as the customers can be fooled into thinking it tells them
what they want to hear -- that they are already doing what is good.
The book has nothing to do with making an argument for or against religion. Itcertainly doesn't encourage lazy or self-satis fied thinking. It's challengin g and
thought-pr ovoking and presents words worth pondering from some of the greatest
and most acclaimed minds in history on eternal topics like grieving and ethical
behavior. It's as far from a nihilistic , if it feels good do it attitude as you could ask.
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Inspiring Funny Typical Important Outrageous Amazing Innovative BeautifulThe Bible 2.0? A Humanist Bible
Lays Down The Gauntlet
The Good Book: A Humanist Bible
By A.C. Grayling
$35; Walker & Company
If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then
British philosopher A.C. Grayling has just paid
the Bible the ultimate compliment. Aftercenturies of being the best-selling work of alltime, the Bible will now face a direct competitor:The Good Book: A Humanist Bible by Grayling
($35; Walker & Company) is a distillation ofwisdom and insight from some of the world'sgreatest thinkers explicitly modeled on theapproach of the Bible published on the 400thanniversary of the King James Version.
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It's cheeky, audacious, almost scandalous in a
way. The Bible as we know it today comes in hundreds of different versions (thousands if you countvarious translations of sections like The Book Of Job and Psalms, which are very popular on their own asliterature). It draws upon millennia of oral tradition, written texts, parables, sayings, prayers, psalms,histories and biography, adjudicated at various times by early Catholic Church leaders and otherChristian faiths, controversially translated into English (a heresy punishable by death at one point) andthen gloriously translated into English for the King James Version in 1611 after some seven years ofwork. That version was completed by dozens of scholars, surely making it the greatest work of literatureever produced by committee. Some faiths teach that a particular version of the Bible is the literal word ofGod, but whatever your faith (or lack of it), the Bible in its many forms contains words that can and doinspire and comfort.
Grayling, an atheist, said, hey, that's a clever idea. Why not create a new Bible to instruct and inspire that
draws upon many other philosophical sources? You can of course be a humanist and a Christian, but it'stempting to call this "a Bible for the rest of us." He's modeled The Good Book on the Bible, with varioussections like Genesis, Wisdom, Parables and so on. The text comes from thousands of sources written byhundreds of the world's greatest thinkers: Aristotle, Bacon, Chaucer, Confucius, Darwin, Euripides,Goethe, Hafiz, Jefferson, Laozi, Locke, Montaigne, Ovid, Rimbaud, Rumi, Spinoza, Swift, Voltaire andWalpole are among the many greats he draws upon. Here's a brief chat unrelated to this book in whichGrayling talks about his life and philosophy in general.
Even the layout is similar: short chapters, with two columns on each page and lines written in verse butwith an eye to poetry. You could of course read it cover to cover, but it's probably best approached bydipping in here and there, as I've done. (I haven't read the entire work yet.) If you're grieving, you mightturn to Lamentations or Consolations, which ends with "This is the final consolation: that we will sleep atevening, and be free for ever." (Okay, not so consoling at first blush.)
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If you want to consider friendship, read Concord. If you are looking for pearls of wisdom, meditate on
Sage, in which you'll read, "Do not be concerned about others not appreciating you. Be concerned about
not appreciating others."
Grayling doesn't just quote these thinkers; this is not a commonplace book where he lists a string of
famous quotations. As you can gather from the brief passages I've quoted, Grayling has edited and shaped
and woven together ideas and phrases and insights into one voice, delivered in a slightly archaic, formalstyle. Histories and Acts are two of the longest sections, often drawing on ancient stories from Greeceand Rome and the like. Proverbs is easy to plumb. You'd never read this useful saying in the KJV: "Amaid that laughs is half taken." But anyone can benefit from remembering "Whispered advice is notworth a pea" or "A true man hates no one."
Grayling does himself no favors with his foreword, here called an Epistle, which is written in such a
grand, high-flown style and with such immodest ambition ("its aspiration and aim the good for humanityand the good of the world") that a casual reader might even call it a sin of pride. (Ha!) His Genesis is alsoa bit stiff. Dive into the middle of the book and you'll probably be drawn in. Start at the beginning andyou might feel blocked, just like people who decide they're going to read the Bible and are suddenlydeluged with wearisome "begats." And I do wish he'd offered at least a select bibliography of the works hehas culled his text from, rather than just a list of names. Footnotes would have been distracting (and notin keeping with the authoritative tone it sought) but still. Perhaps Grayling or someone else will do thedetailing of exactly what came from where online.
It will be fascinating to see if The Good Book catches on. Maybe agnostics and atheists will embrace it;
maybe Christians will embrace it too as a valuable collection of insights. It might begin as a curiosity and
then flourish or remain a cult favorite or just a curiosity. I suppose some might be offended by The GoodBook but they needn't be. You don't have to be a nonbeliever to find solace and wisdom in the distilled
ideas presented here. It's a testament to the enduring power of the Bible that Grayling sought to drawupon its very form and structure.
Even if you accept any of the four versions of the Ten Commandments that Moses offered up as law, is
there harm in asking, as Grayling does in the final section The Good, "Shall we ask, by what
commandments shall we live? Or might we better ask, each of ourselves: What kind of person should I
be? The first question assumes that there is one right answer. The second assumes that there are manyright answers." And yes, Grayling does come up with his own Ten Commandments, not that he would callthem such. Would any person of faith object to them?
"Love well, seek the good in all things, harm no others, think for yourself, take responsibility, respect
nature, do your utmost, be informed, be kind, be courageous: at least, sincerely try."
Thanks for reading. Michael Giltz is the co-host of Showbiz Sandbox , a weekly pop culture podcast that
reveals the industry take on entertainment news of the day and features top journalists and opinion
makers as guests. It's available free on iTunes. Visit Michael Giltz at his website and his daily blog.
Download his podcast of celebrity interviews and his radio show, also called Popsurfing and alsoavailable for free on iTunes. Link to him on Netflix and gain access to thousands of ratings and
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NOTE: Michael Giltz is provided with free copies of books to consider for review. He typically does notguarantee coverage and invariably receives far more books than he can cover.
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A bible for atheists ? :-))
Thanks for FBing this Jez. Noting this book is available in a discussion on the blogs of our
local paper.Recency | Popularity Page: 1 2 3 4 Next › Last » (4 total)
Jez Coulson 10:58 AM on 4/04/2011
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"The text comes from thousands of sources written by hundreds of the world's greatest thinkers:
Aristotle, Bacon, Chaucer, Confucius, Darwin, Euripides, Goethe, Hafiz, Jefferson, Laozi, Locke,Montaigne, Ovid, Rimbaud, Rumi, Spinoza, Swift, Voltaire and Walpole are among the many greats
he draws upon."
Reminds me of an editorial cartoon a few years ago, depicting a bookstore whose shelves were
lined with books written by men, in which a man was busily complainin g to a woman clerk, asking
how come there were so many woman authored books in the (one meager shelf of women'sstudies) store, where were the books written by men?
So, not having read the entire list of sources, which I assume to be incomplete , I'm taking a chance
here of appearing super foolish, by asking 'where are the opinions of the world's greatest thinking
women in this?' Are there any at all?
Fanned and Faved! I argued earlier about the lack of non-Europe an authors, but when I
looked into the book itself they were in fact included. The article author has since added
Lao Zi and Rumi to the list to prove that it includes world names.
I am very glad that you brought up the gender issue as well. We will see who comments on
that!
The only woman I can spot on the list is Sappho, I'm afraid. It does also includefolklore and folktales, many of which would have been handed down by women in
oral traditions . But I'm stretching the point. He is lacking in women. The vast
majority of thinkers are hundreds or thousands of years old. Which women should
he have drawn upon? Who would you put on his reading list?
There are More Comments on this Thread. Click Here To See them All
"It might begin as a curiosity and then flourish or remain a cult favorite or just a curiosity"
the latter is most probable, seems snarky at first impression
Snarky? I'm not sure what I wrote or quoted from the book that gave that impression , but
nothing could be further from the truth. Snarky about what? It's a book that presents the
author's selection of distilled wisdom from millennia of writings and sayings and folklore andthe like about friendship , grieving, ethics, morality and love. Snarky is surely the one thing it
isn't, however successful or not one considers the book to be.
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Peace Walker 09:59 PM on 3/31/2011
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Michael Giltz 12:43 AM on 4/01/2011
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fightandorflight 03:50 PM on 3/30/2011
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Michael Giltz 12:16 AM on 3/31/2011
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hippynanainblingland 03:35 PM on 3/30/2011
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78 Fans"Love well, seek the good in all things, harm no others, think for yourself, take responsibi lity,
respect nature, do your utmost, be informed, be kind, be courageous : at least, sincerely try."
Now, THAT'S the best ten commandeme nts ever! Thanks.
Thanks for commenting ! I agree it's lovely. Also a big fan of the Beatitudes , which, coming
direct from Jesus, should hold more sway over Christians than the Ten Commandmen ts but
rarely do.
What ever it Takes to get the Uneducated to Stop believing in Man MAde Stories, religion the
biggest Hoax Man Kind has ever been told and believed for thousands of years.. I understand
people 100 years ago and all before them,they thought the world was flat and the center of
everything LOL BUT in todays World with SCIENCE PROVING with out a DOUGHT all those storiesare MAN MADE and people still believing they are the Word of the AlMighty is just (NICE WORD)Anyways the Sooner we GROW UP as a society the better..
I like your 1600's to 1700's writing style of capitalizi ng every other word. We lost something
when that style of writing became passe.
When I saw the title of this article, I thought, "now this is bizarre". And now having read the article, I
see it is even more bizarre than I expected!
Of course, it is simply not possible for any one person to make a Bible-styl e book. Even the attempt
to do this shows a total failure to understand what it is that makes this book so special.But there is one part where the article almost got it right. The book will enjoy a brief spell of
popularity , as clueless atheistic humanists embrace it hoping to find it something they can use to
thump back at the Bible-thum pers. But once they figure out this approach accomplish es nothing,
the book's popularity will fade, just like Bennett's "Book of Virtues".
I always find it interestin g that people with the strongest faith in their "true" religion are so
easily threatened by outside ideas. Explore our shared humanity and the wisdom of peoplewho actually existed and did some serious intellectu al work on who, what and why we are.
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Michael Giltz 12:17 AM on 3/31/2011
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Michael Giltz 12:23 AM on 3/31/2011
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I must emphasize the book is not a rejoinder to faith nor does it comment on faith or
religion or whether someone should or should not practice a religion. It's his collection ofinsights and wisdom that he has cherished and many have found enduring and worth
reading for centuries now, hence the status of Aristotle and Locke and Jefferson and so
many others from the East and the West. If the book were half as commercial ly successful
as Bennett's Book Of Virtues (which was a major bestseller and spawned a sequel for kidsand even a tv series), I'm sure Grayling and the publisher would be thrilled.
Michael: Do we get to hear our mothers' voices through the ages, as well as ourfathers'?
As a "Christian humanist" this actually sounds really exciting to me. Don't want to spend $35. on it
yet....but maybe some day!
I would have sooner chosen "books" based upon the themes created by Khalil Gabran in The
Prophet.
Here is the piece that the author of the article was missing; this gives me a much greater
appreciate for the scope of the work, and the inclusion of non-Europe an thinkers.. .
"Instead, going back to traditions older than Christiani ty, and far richer and more various, including
the non-theist ic philosophi cal and literary schools of the great civilisati ons of both West and East,
from the Greek philosophy of classical antiquity and its contempora neous Confucian, Mencian and
Mohist schools in China, down through classical Rome, the flourishin g of Indian and Arab worlds,
the European Renaissanc e and Enlightenm ent, the worldwide scientific discoverie s of the 19th and
20th centuries to the present, Grayling collects, edits, rearranges and organises the collective
secular wisdom of the world in one highly readable volume. Contents of this title include: "Genesis";"Proverbs" ; "Histories "; "Songs"; "Wisdom Acts"; "The Lawgiver Lamentatio ns"; "Concord Consolatio
ns"; "Sages"; and, "The Good Parables".
I don't think this is that bad. I've been talking with my mom about end of life planning. We talked
about my atheist uncle, who is in his late 70s. He doesn't think a life should pass without aceremony of some sort, but obviously he doesn't want a pastor performing the ceremony, or a
religious funeral in any way. Having a book with humanist quotes or wisdom would be a thing you
could turn to at a time like that. All I could think of before was to read a Robert Ingersoll essay orsomething, which is still a good idea.
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Hexxenhammer 11:20 AM on 3/30/2011
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107 FansWell, yes, you could "turn to" it "at a time like that", but what good would it do anyone?
Uh...somet hing appropriat e to read at a funeral instead of something religious?
You certainly can't go wrong with Ingersoll.
Yawn. Isn't the point not to have to follow a code or a book?
The point of what?
I don't think that is the point really. The point is to avoid belief without reason, a very
dangerous and foolish thing. The book is about sharing knowledge as most books are.Sounds to me like the bible is a rule book while this is more of a guide book. One tells youwhat to do, one helps you make the choice that is right for you.
What could be wrong with a book that pulls from the most thought provoking and philosophi cal texts
that humans have written? Sounds like a fine read and a good conversati on starter. I'll look for it.
I'll look for it also, but only if women's words of wisdom through the ages are also included,
and not in a token manner, either.Syllogizer 01:18 PM on 3/30/2011
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34 Fans"Love well, seek the good in all things, harm no others, think for yourself, take responsibi lity,
respect nature, do your utmost, be informed, be kind, be courageous : at least, sincerely try."
********** ********** ********** *
This is exactly my moral code.
So, it really baffles and angers me whenever a Christian condemns me as un unrepenten t sinner
doomed to suffer in eternal fire. Really? REALLY?
A god who would do that to someone who made a conscious, persistent effort to do good in this life
doesn't deserve my fear of eternal suffering, so I'm unafraid.
Beautiful "moral code", practice!
I am a seeking "Christian humanist" who is not satisfied with the status quo. I love your
thinking. And, wherever you go in this life or beyond, I hope to meet you there! ;)
"conscious hope," that was very nice to read. Thank you.
Right back at you!
“The Good Book: A Humanist Bible”The Tome of Thought: An Agonistic’ s Anthology, surely. As an atheist might be challenged to
produce irrefutabl e evidence, in order to substantia te what would otherwise also be belief.
“Do not be concerned about others not appreciati ng you”.
Its probably due to something you don’t appreciate .
"This is the final consolatio n: that we will sleep at evening, and be free for ever." (Okay, not so
consoling at first blush.)The final consolatio n: if we sleep at evening, and are free for ever. We are unlikely to be conscious
of that state.
“Love well, seek the good in all things, harm no others, think for yourself, take responsibi lity,
respect nature, do your utmost, be informed, be kind, be courageous : at least, sincerely try"
to remember, it might be you who’s mistaken.
It may well be a "Good Book" but, I think this book will advance the religious argument that atheism
is also a religion.
I will not be attending the achurch.
It must be really hard to sell a book that tell people how to be good.practiceempathy 10:50 AM on 3/30/2011
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lastpost 09:45 AM on 3/30/2011
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edgraham 09:41 AM on 3/30/2011
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78 FansActually, it is an easy sell as long as the customers can be fooled into thinking it tells them
what they want to hear -- that they are already doing what is good.
The book has nothing to do with making an argument for or against religion. Itcertainly doesn't encourage lazy or self-satis fied thinking. It's challengin g and
thought-pr ovoking and presents words worth pondering from some of the greatest
and most acclaimed minds in history on eternal topics like grieving and ethical
behavior. It's as far from a nihilistic , if it feels good do it attitude as you could ask.
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