| DaRev said: whatever dude - the bible has been around forever, and inspite of all its purported flaws, and it will be around long after you and your prestigious scholars and universities have turned to dust. 1 book my friend, 1 resilliant little book like no other |
Actually "The Bible" as something that has any large impact on how society is governed is rapidly losing its position. As it should since almost all the major claims based upon it have been proven to be in error during the last 500 years and Gallileo demonstrated that the universe doesn't revolve around the earth. "The Bible" stood its ground until the advent of the Scientific Revolution mainly because belief in it was enforced by the Roman Empire and disbelief was punishable by death. However, in the last two centuries, its influence has really started to crumble.
The United States with 89% of the people considering themselves to be religious remains the only first world industriazed nation to remain anywhere near as religious as it is.
In comparison only 66% of Australians ( http://bribiebaptist.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=10:australia-is-one-of-the-worlds-least-religious-countries&catid=1:latest-news ) and Canadians, 48% of Britains, 46% of the French, and only 28% of Germans and Austrians consider themselves to be religious ( https://www.google.com/#hl=en&safe=off&tbo=d&sclient=psy-ab&q=how+religious+is+the+united+states+compared+to+other+countries&oq=how+religious+is+the+united+states+compared+to+other+countries&gs_l=hp.12...1408.34423.0.36026.112.68.17.19.28.3.544.10196.4j55j6j2j0j1.68.0.les%3B..6.0...1c.1.07N5etfVU_E&pbx=1&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_cp.r_qf.&bvm=bv.1355534169,d.b2U&fp=f4c2134a814ceeeb&bpcl=40096503&biw=1366&bih=664 ).
In the meantime disbelief is the world's fastest growing philosophical stance ( http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2012/10/09/survey-one-in-five-americans-is-religiously-unaffiliated/ ).
The fact that Romney couldn't beat Obama with most of America's White, Evangelical vote in Romney's corner shows how dramatically "The Bible"'s influence is slipping even in America.
Two Hundred Years from now as more of the claims based on "The Bible" continue to prove to be unwarranted eg. no Apocalyptic end of the world on the way with no Jesus appearing from the clouds to throw all the people Fundamentalists hate in Hell ( Muslims, gays, women that "don't know their place"), and America's level of education rises to match that of people in the European countries, "The Bible" and most importantly literal belief in its pages will have little impact on human societies.
So I would argue that "The Bible" isn't that resilliant at all. It may have had a major impact on the world for ~1500 years and as long as people were murdered for not believing in it. But, it took only 500 to 700 years of people being able to freely inquire into the subjects that "The Bible" had supposedly had all the answers to for people to demonstrate that most of "The Bible"'s major claims were wrong and for disbelief to rapidly be on the rise to the point where there is only one major first world industrialized nation where the majority of the people place any strong reliance on what it has to say.
