The Good Book
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- Published on Thursday, 14 April 2011 06:56
- Written by John Draper
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Christopher Hitchens has said that the King James Bible is a great piece of English Literature. Others like Richard Dawkins have said the same. They like it for its poetic language and as a collection of Human wisdom. Unfortunately it is intertwined with superstitious nonsense. Seeing this conundrum, atheist A.C. Grayling has published a book that can be thought of as a bible for humanists. Instead of being tied to Christianity and being the work of "prophets and apostles", it draws on the "work of philosophers and writers". His book is called: "The Good Book: A Humanist Bible," and subtitled "A Secular Bible". He included some of the ideas of Aristotle, Confucius, and Baudelaire (and many others) and organized it much like the Bible, with double columns, chapters (the first is even called Genesis) and short verses.
According to CNN, 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. "It was from the fall of fruit from such a tree that new inspiration came for inquiry into the nature of things," reads a verse from "The Good Book's" first chapter. "When Newton sat in his garden, and saw what no one had seen before: that an apple draws the earth to itself, and the earth the apple," the verse continues, "Through a mutual force of nature that holds all things, from the planets to the stars, in unifying embrace."
The book's final chapter features a secular humanist version of the Ten Commandments: "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."
So far, the book has been released only in the U.K. On April 12, 2011, Grayling's book was number 41 on Amazon's UK bestseller list and number 1 in the philosophy and spirituality categories.
Here is the interview by CNN.