[split] The Symbol of the Bible

[Diana]

Well, you're welcome to your opinion on the matter, but you're also being awfully dismissive and choosing to focus entirely on the negative in the Bible.   As I (and others) said, it contains whatever someone seeks within it.  And it has ALSO inspired many great works of art, and many great thinkers over the centuries.

If it's not to your own personal tastes, that's fine, but seems rather overzealous when you try to dismiss any of the positive contributions that have come from it as well.  I mean, honestly, saying that BACH wasn't inspired by it?  Come on, that just doesn't hold water.  And Copernicus was active in the church, and ran a chapter canonry for some years.  Gregor Mendel would be another example along the same lines - he was a friar who did his research on the side.  

There's no reason to be so absolutist about this.  Good things have come out of Christianity as well.  There's no purely black-and-white interpretation here.

I don't think I am being dismissive or choosing to focus on the negative. I think I am being logical and reasonable.

By the way, I said nothing about Bach. But regardless of any influence in the content of his music, talent is not something that relies on inspiration or a muse. That may be helpful, but to say Bach's genius was inspired by the bible is inaccurate. His genius would have been there already (my opinion.) He may have found an emotional muse in his religious beliefs, but barring that he would have found inspiration in anything to express what was in him to express. 

Do you think Copernicus's scientific achievements were inspired or derived from going to church? How? From Wikipedia on Copernicus's work:

"...Very soon, nevertheless, Copernicus' theory was attacked with Scripture and with the common Aristotelian proofs. In 1549 Philipp Melanchthon, Luther's principal lieutenant, wrote against Copernicus, pointing to the theory's apparent conflict with Scripture and advocating that "severe measures" be taken to restrain the impiety of Copernicans.

"The works of Copernicus and —the latter for asserting that was compatible with Catholic faith—were placed on the Index of Forbidden Books by a decree of the Sacred Congregation of March 5, 1616 (more than 70 years after its publication): This Holy Congregation has also learned about the spreading and acceptance by many of the false Pythagorean doctrine, altogether contrary to the Holy Scripture, that the earth moves and the sun is motionless, which is also taught by Nicholaus Copernicus' De revolutionibus orbium coelestium and by Diego de Zúñiga's  ... Therefore, in order that this opinion may not creep any further to the prejudice of Catholic truth, the Congregation has decided that the books by Nicolaus Copernicus and Diego de Zúñiga be suspended until corrected..."

I'm not trying to argue with anyone. I just think we have had enough of Christianity, and all monotheistic religions, for one planet in space-time to tolerate (and all the negative results of them). The urge to worship and devote one's self, in my opinion, has its roots in not wanting to face the vast void of unknowing with an empty cup because it's too scary. There is personal comfort in things such as the bible, but is that worth the destruction that has been done (and continues to be done) in its name?