It was “Bring your Bible to Work Day” yesterday in the UK, apparently. A recent survey there discovered people were less embarrassed to be seen reading the “holy book” than a romance novel.
Twenty five per cent of the 1,008 adults questioned in an ICM survey expressed shame at the thought of reading a romantic novel on the bus compared with 13 per cent who thought that Bible reading should occur exclusively in private. Seventy per cent thought the Bible should be read in public.
Fifty three per cent said that it would improve society if more Britons read the Bible and half of those questioned said they would feel safe confiding in a Bible reader in their workplace.
The survey was commissioned by The Bible Society to mark Bring Your Bible to Work Day on October 27, an initiative to encourage the church-goer to “slip scripture in with their sandwiches” and make the Bible message part of their life at work.
It would be nice to see a breakdown of the actual questions that were asked, and how they selected their pool of responders. There tends to be a bias when it comes to survey making and it’s fairly easy to build questions that will get you the answers you want. This survey is suspect just by the fact that a bible society commissioned it. Of course they want a positive bible-reading result. And they got one.
I’m not a big fan of romance, either, but it’s less about the scantily clad models on the covers contorting themselves in inexplicable ways but writing quality. A lot of romance stories are sheer torture to wade through, especially if you’re looking for a plot that makes some kind of sense. However, the ladies at Smart Bitches, Trashy Books do a great job highlighting the good ones, slamming the bad ones and mocking some of the more ridiculous covers. They’re a good source for good romance novels. And, for an added laugh, go try the romance novel cover maker.
Purrfect Passions
I guess you can read whatever you want, but I don’t want to be at work and have my lunch room turn into a bible study. I don’t think the bible is the best source for morality and ethics. Not by itself, anyway. There’s too much garbage in it. Too many rules and suggestions in there make little sense in today’s world. For example, have you killed any of your kids lately for cursing out Dad?
It wouldn’t be so bad if people stuck to the new testament and actually followed teachings of their so-called savior instead of poking around in the realm of the petulant, jealous and vindictive father figure of the early books. Mind you, even Paul came up with some kooky concepts, but I don’t think he really had a handle on the messiah either. I think he just made a bunch of stuff up that would justify and excuse his choices in life.
“This survey goes to show that people should not be afraid of reading their Bible with pride in public and letting its revolutionary message transform our world.”
Yeah, it’s revolutionary all right. We really need another revolution. I think religions impact society enough as it is. Too many groups manipulate the Word to justify their behaviour, and sometimes their behaviour is morally and ethically flawed. There’s too many interpretations of the Word. Who’s right? Whose version of the truth should be supported? It better not be Westboro Baptist, that’s for damned sure. I don’t think anything would be gained by looking to the Word for the answers to the world’s problems. There are too many conflicting messages in it.
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Edit: 7:32 AM – have a look at Bing’s blog entry, Answers in Genesis: Sometimes Religious Genocide is OK!
One Minion's Opinion 
I completely agree. I’m very glad we don’t have a day like that here in the states, but National Day of Prayer is bad enough really. Coincidentally, we both wrote about morality in the bible today..