'Read Bible more!' Vatican tells Catholics

[emad]

'Read Bible more!' Vatican tells Catholics
By Philip Pullella
REUTERS


VATICAN CITY – The Vatican told Roman Catholics on Thursday to read the Bible more regularly instead of keeping the 'good book' on the shelf gathering dust.

'Unfortunately, we must acknowledge that there is still too little Bible in the lives of the faithful,' said Bishop Vincenzo Paglia.

Paglia, speaking at a news conference presenting a Vatican conference on the Bible to be held later this month, said a recent survey of Catholics in Italy, Spain and France showed that only three percent of them read it every day.

He said the survey showed that the overwhelming number of Catholics, some 80 percent, only heard the Bible when they went to Mass on Sunday.

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/world/20050908-1205-pope-bible.html

[trotsky]

1. I wholeheartedly agree with this advice.

More than anything else, reading the bible cover to cover helped me to become an atheist.

[RoBear]

7. You beat me to it!

I started reading the bible awhile back and it solidified my tendency to non-belief. Some asshole bitch on the Kansas School Board referred to evolution as a "fairy tale." She had that exactly backwards!

[DrDoubleplusgood]

14. Did to me as well

Reading the bible was one of a synergy of things leading to atheism from a fairly early age. BTW, Trotsky, check back in the discussion in R&T regarding Pat Robertson/closert atheists, I tried to correct a misunderstanding about my post there.

I guess this is why they kept the bible out of the hands of laity for a millenium. Then when laity got hold of it-it led to every "heresy" from Protestantism to Atheism. Coinkydink?

[FloridaPat]

2. When I was Catholic ages ago we were sort of discouraged from

reading the actualy Bible. We had the version for children and other diluted forms of it. No one in my family read the actualy book. When I finally got to college and read the Bible first hand I was suprised that all the Bible stores I was told in Catholic grade school were lies.

Maybe this is why I have a short fuse when it comes to liars.

[PatsFan2004]

3. There seems to be a lot of ignorance of what is actually in the

Bible. It probably would help for people to read it before they talk about it. There seems to be so much disinformation about the Bible all over the net just like the RW propaganda that Islam is a religion of violence.

[Clark2008]

4. Yeah - I've often suggested to fundies that they actually

READ the New Testament since all their propaganda seems to come from the Old Testament, which Jesus shooed off in His Sermon on the Mount.

That really makes 'em see red. :)

[TlalocW]

5. This goes against their history...

The Catholic Church for the longest time thought that making books available to the general public, translating the Bible into common languages, etc. were bad - supposedly they did it so the simple people wouldn't become confused and stray from salvation, but it was so that the priests could keep enriching themselves and the church by being the ones with the only say-so about the bible in the first place.

TlalocW

[PatsFan2004]

6. You can listen to the Bible nowadays instead of "reading" it.

You can freely stream or download for later listening the entire Bible narrated by Alexander Scourby, a great documentary narrator. On long drives or walks, I use an MP3 player to listen to the Bible and been able to go through the entire Bible a few times this way.

It helps you put the Old Testament and the New Testament in the proper light.

[politicat]

8. Ratzinger.... that kinda thing is what brought about the Reformation....

People reading bibles, people thinking for themselves....

Not that I object, mind you.... A good, long course of theological study and biblical tutoring made me the rationalist agnostic that I am today.

[CatholicEdHead]

12. This approach is with a "born-again" spin on it

Many of them around here have the "born-again" fundie feel to them. Kind of the back door method to narrow issues by selecting spefic passages.

This is a double-edged sword. Often this leads to more groupthink than anything.

[RoBear]

9. Why should I sully my beautiful mind

with garbage like hate, fornication, bestiality, prostitution, ncest, human sacrifice, cannabilism--all of which are in the bible, by the way, and are NOT necessarily condemned.

[PatsFan2004]

10. That reminds me of the question I put to my English teacher, why

did I need to read Shakespeare, Dante's Inferno, Beowulf, and Robert Frost. Or why I had to learn about Middle Eastern history.

[trotsky]

11. Hey, if you want to put your bible in the same category as fiction,

I've got no problems with it being taught as such.

[Kat45]

13. I think it's great, but they may regret saying that.

When people read the Bible, they may realize that much of what their church teaches them is man-made, rather than God-given, laws and practices. They may realize that they are adhering to church dogma rather than God's way.