Reading Enough Books, Including the Bible

I'VE READ SEVERAL thousand books, not enough to really know much, but enough to know something about books. enough to find it impossible to believe, no matter how hard I try, that God ever had anything to do with writing one. "It is beyond me", said Goethe, "how anyone can believe that God speaks to us in books and stories." Amen to that. yet, here in our primitive culture, millions of other wise intelligent people believe that the Bible is the undeniable Word of God. I find these people disgusting and barbaric, intellectually. I think this belief is harmful and dangerous, and I wish I could help change it. It will change, over time, surely. Where I live, small town southern U.S.A., damned near everyone believes this nonsense about the Bible being the Word of God. Damned idiots. As if God writes books. In my neck of the uncivilized woods, you can't swing a dead cat without hitting some country bumpkin who has never ever read a single book, including teh Bible, yet swears on his mother's grave that the Holy bible is the sacred word of God. No matter what the topic, these people, sooner or later, declare the final answer to be Biblical, and that's that. I never inject the Bible into conservation in try to prove that my viewpoint is Godly, and if anyone does, I reject the claim. This is not unfair in the least, but they always get angry about it. If I point out that the Bible commands the execution of disobedient children and strongly implies that the Earth is flat, half the time they insist that no such Biblical passage exists. When I prove otherwise, they inbvariably point out that the Old Testament is old, and that, anyway, the God of the new testament has a brand new personality. The whole notion of divine scripture, that god speaks in books, is not only ridiculous, it is harmful and dangerous. It is a myth which hinders progress and improvement, and undermines the human intellect. Generally, the more fervently a person worships the Bible, the fewer books the person has read, the less educated the person is. The more books people read, the more they understand and appreciate them for what they are - human. Many of our conservative christian colleagues go to church their entire lifetime, get old, join the local senior center, and attend Bible study classes. How long does it take to learn one book, especially if its the only book one ever reads? Intellectuals tend to absorb books by the bushel. Our conservative Christian colleagues reject climate change and evolution, but insist that every word of the Bible is true. These folks are perfectly intelligent, but poorly educated. And like the rest of us, they simply haven't read enough books.