Steve Allen on the Bible, Religion and Morality
The famous author/comedian/songwriter here fires off a blunderbuss at uncritical biblical literalism. Finding the Bible as a whole riddled with historical, scientific, and moral error, he attacks the Old Testament for portraying God as vengeful and bloodthirsty and the New Testament for assigning most of humanity to eternal damnation in hell. He believes neither approach provides insight into God's true nature. Allen goes on to criticize the religious establishment, especially that of fundamentalism, for ignoring or vilifying the fruits of biblical historical-critical research. Though he claims to find much of the Bible ennobling, the majority of this work is so relentlessly belligerent that one is not surprised to find that he originally planned to publish it posthumously.-Richard S. Watts, San Bernardino Cty. Lib., Cal.Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.