Lynn,

Pretty hard to argue with a person's personal experience, which is what you've offered in this song. Your experience coincides with my own in many respect in these matters. It didn't always, which is why respect the others views who have weighed in here, but it does now. And has for 33 years--as long as Jesus Christ walked this earth.

Graham,

I've handcopied the Bible cover to cover, some portions several times. I'm in the middle of memorizing the 12 chapters of the prophet Daniel. Just did the first seven verses of Daniel 7 this morning, every word, how to spell every word, the punctuation, and even with the writing forward and in reverse. I have in the past memorized the eight chapters of Song of Solomon, the 22 chapters of Revelation, the four chapters of Jonah, the Sermon on the Mount, and many other individual chapters. So I've got more than a little knowledge on a book you label "fables". There is even, in fact, a couple of fables included in the Bible as a literary form--one in the book of Judges where all the trees of the forest go out to find themselves a king, and one in the gospel of Luke where a very old story that had been told a hundred different ways among the nation of the ancient East before Jesus' time was picked up by Him and used to convey His own content (the Rich Man and Lazarus).

To label the whole Book fables--a Book that has been more influential in world history than any other ever written--is fairly "politically correct" in our day, I will admit. Many fools will applaud you for it. I will not be among them. Perhaps, contrary to Ray's experience in meeting people involved with religion, I do know the content of my faith, and also the God I worship. That is the God of the Bible--a book which includes in addition to its very sparse number of actual fables such literatry forms as history, poetry, the words to a full scale musical, a hymnbook collection with seven distinct forms of lyric formats which we no longer use (we being limited to three over the past 150 years in Western music), words to plays, prophecies, short stories, apocalyptic literature, adventure stories, family histories, geneologies, attempts at genocide, dreams and their interpretation, law codes, intergalactic politics, natural history, rules for warfare and kingship, chronicles written about every ruler from Saul and David's time until the Israelite nation went into Babylonian captivity, letters, epic family sagas, the stories of a single man grown into a nation over the course of 2,000 years, proverbs and even gospels--those literary one of a kind inventions necessary to adequately express the life, work and meaning of the man Jesus Christ. It is amazing that with the huge diversity of writing styles and 40 highly varied authors writing over the course of 1,600 years that they all end up making the same points and give such a unified worldview. The fact those books were penned over the course of so many centuries also allows us to see how behind the human authors there is a Great Intelligence that introduces Himself to us in this book, demonstrates His existence in ways that appeal to the human intellect and heart, and says, "You want to know Me? Take a step closer. Listen to My Word."

I'm guessing you value the Bible to approximately the degree you have given careful attention to its contents. Same as me.

Ray,

I know the New Age take on these things. It is entirely wishful thinking. Those of us who are of the Bible faith will not be going anywhere. There are no other world views out there to compare, or come close to competing with what is presented in the Bible. I know. I read my way through the philosophy and religion section in my local library in Centralia, Washington where I grew up (two long shelves) by the time I was 17.

I've studied and continue to study the alternative world views to the Biblical one on an ongoing basis--both in books and through many, many thousands of face to face conversations on such matters over the past 20 years. Why should a hungry man give up bread for sand? Or a thirsty man give up water for smoke? Don't think the Biblical form of Christianity will be making its exit from the world scene any time soon.

Don't count on another 2,000 years to find out whether it will, either. Take a look at the second chapter of Daniel, the unfolding of the great nations and empires of earth from 600 B.C. to our own day--and beyond. We don't have another 2,000 years to meddle around with the old worship of spirit powers dressed up as something new and novel. Things are going to be winding up here quickly. Next major thing on the agenda is major intervention from outside planet Earth--an intervention that will be inescapable for all.

It astonishes me the basic ignorance of the contents of the Bible among those who consider themselves quite up to date and informed. How can a person consider themselves to be well-read at all if they have not given careful consideration to the claims of that Book? It is inconcievable to me. And yet I find even clergy who haven't a clue and pass on a little hearsay they picked up in Sunday School and the seminary to crowds of equally Biblically illiterate parishioners. And all this while Bibles sit unread in the pews in front of them and on their shelves at home. Call a book fables, and nobody takes it seriously enough to pick it up and make careful personal investigation. Its almost as good as burning them, like the religious authorities did at the ending of the Middle Ages.

Is the Bible mere fables? How can a person even be in a position to make such a statement until they've at least read it thoroughly? How this book can be slandered above all others when it excels them all to such a remarkable degree is one of the great mysteries--and perhaps reveals the flaw that will in the end destroy humanity itself. Nobody is quite so blind as the man with his eyes tightly clenched shut.

I am a man of one Book, though I read many. That one Book is the Bible. Why settle for less than the best? I've also read, as I mentioned before, at least major portions of the holy books and philosophies of pretty much every other world religion, plus a shelf as far across as I can reach of those promoting the Darwinian evolutionary explanation for the origins and alleged development of biological life on Earth. They were the ones who convinced me they were not correct. They changed their proofs for their theory every generation for four generations running, but never lost the one truth faith--that Darwin must have somehow been right, even though their solid proofs kept evaporating every time they turned around, and needing to be replaced by equally ephemeral supports. I didn't need Creationist literature beyond what I found for myself in the Bible to show me they did not have an intellectually viable or defensible explanation. Increasing numbers of them are coming to that conclusion in our day. It is the beliefs of about 9% of the population that holds undisputable center stage in our educational system in America at present. How can such a marginalized minority weild such a bully pulpit?

We do live in a time when people are questioning the foundations and assumptions of systems that have held sway in man's intellect in past centuries. We now know pretty much everything anybody has thought on these matters in recorded history before us, or at least have that information available for the looking. So when I choose the Bible and its world view and its God in preference to all other options, it is not due to ignorance. It is due to a very clear-eyed choice among available options. Nothing out there matches what the Bible offers. Everything else is less.

I cannot be happy when I see masses of people making bad choices that hurt them and others on the basis of a lack of vital information that would allow them to do otherwise. That's why I recommend a cutting free of all traditions and dogmas and a reexamination of the founding document--the Bible, the most influential Book in human history. Its got a fable or two, alright. But it is more than that.

Keep us thinking.

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