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The real problem that both sides have in discussing the Bible is the fact that it does require quite a lot of education to understand such a complicated book. Even if you don't believe it is divine, it at the least is cultural tapestry of one of the West's founding civilizations. The myths, stories, and history it contains speak so much about what human beings long for, wish for, and how they see the world. I believe Northrope Frye once called the Bible, "The Codebook of Western Civilization". So it's important.
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Yeah, I don't think anyone is disputing that. In fact, in one of the last chapters of
The God Delusion, Dawkins strongly recommends that more people read the Bible (or the equivalent religious text of the dominant religion of their part of the world), as it provides a greater understanding of the arts, literature, etc. of that society. Reading Shakespeare, Dawkins uses as an example, is greatly enhanced if the reader understands the Biblical references. So too would be the works of Michaelangelo and Bach, etc.
It's also interesting to note how many Christians really aren't aware of much of the Bible's content. Sure, everyone knows the common stories, like Noah and the flood, David and Goliath, Moses parting the Red Sea, etc., but what about the tale in Genesis where Lot freely offers his virgin daughters to be gang-raped by the mob in Sodom (and the same story being repeated with different characters and slightly different details in the Book of Judges). Not two years ago I told my parents about those stories and neither of them had heard it before, despite them both being lifelong Christians (my mother is the granddaughter of a traveling evangelical minister and my father was raised as a devout Catholic and received much of his education from nuns). They were in so much disbelief, in fact, that they made me produce a Bible to prove to them that I wasn't making it up! And then they made me produce a second Bible published using a different translation since they thought surely the first version must be wrong!
For the record:
Genesis version of the story
Judges version of the story
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Literal interpretations of the Bible are I believe fairly recent, mainly coming from certain Protestant sects.
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Yes and no. For centuries the Bible was regarded as the literal word of God and a completely accurate historical record. During Europe's scientific revolution in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, once it became obvious that much of what was written in the Bible was completely incompatible with observable evidence (such as a geocentric universe and the world only being 6000 years old, for example) the idea of the "metaphorical" Bible rose to popularity amongst mainstream Christianity. Now, particularly amongst fundamentalist evangelical Christians in the United States, sects that believe in a literal interpretations of the Bible are returning to prominence. These people cannot be dismissed as radicals either -- as Bobblehead pointed out, surveys show that nearly half of the American population has this view, putting them very much in the mainstream!