Bible tops 'most influential' books (on random survey)

[Red Son]

Saw this on the BBC and felt like sharing. Shocking lack of Marx or Bukanin or anything :glare: hehe
So, they don't view the Bible or the Qur'an as works of fiction...I suppose it's the BBC and feathers mustn't be ruffled.

The Bible has been named the world's most influential book in a nationwide survey for the Folio Society.
The Folio Society's survey of 2,044 British adults asked those polled to make their selection based, not on enjoyment or popularity, but for their influence on humanity.
There was some disparity among men and women, with men choosing On the Origin of Species as their number one most influential book, claiming that it answers "the fundamental questions of human existence".
Women favoured the Bible, which they argued contains the "guidelines to be a good person".
Nineteen-Eighty-Four was the only fictional title in the men's top five (at number four), while Harper Lee's To Kill A Mockingbird was the only fictional title in the women's top five (at number five).

1) The Bible (37%)
2) The Origin of Species (35%)
3) A Brief History of Time (17%)
4) Relativity (15%)
5) Nineteen-Eighty-Four (14%)
6) Principia Mathematica (12%)
7) To Kill a Mockingbird (10%)
8) The Qur'an (9%)
9) The Wealth of Nations (7%)
10) The Double Helix (6%)

[JahLemon]

sounds about right tbh

[Sasha]

I need to get my mind out of the gutter, I read that thread title a bit different than intended... Sorry, carry on...

[Creative Destruction]

yeah, i don't see the issue. at the very least, the bible has had a momentous influence on great literature, but it's also the basis for laws and moral strings through our society. that's not really a value judgement (saying it's good or bad) as much as it's just a statement of fact.

eta. ah, the issue is whether it is fiction or non-fiction. well, tbh, scholars aren't sure what parts of the bible are historical or not, so, that's not really a definitive answer that could be given.

[Sinister Intents]

I wonder what the most burned book is. I don't really find this surprising, especially since a large number of people insist on the bible being historical, metaphorical, and so on. Just because a large number of people think it's influential or positive or negative doesn't mean I have to agree that it's influential though it's influenced a large number of people. The way it influenced me was repulsion towards it when I started reading parts of it. I tried reading the whole book, but couldn't get passed the bullshit.

[Creative Destruction]

I wonder what the most burned book is. I don't really find this surprising, especially since a large number of people insist on the bible being historical, metaphorical, and so on. Just because a large number of people think it's influential or positive or negative doesn't mean I have to agree that it's influential though it's influenced a large number of people. The way it influenced me was repulsion towards it when I started reading parts of it. I tried reading the whole book, but couldn't get passed the bullshit.

usually when these polls are conducted, they're talking about influence at-large, rather than what is a personal influence. it'd be extremely odd and unconvincing for you to argue that the bible wasn't influential in this sense. the influence of the book is clear when you look at our society and its culture.

[PhoenixAsh]

The most burned book is according to sources... the Talmud. Which has been burned through out history.

Religion truely keeps you warm.


The sources I refer to are the book: Burning Books by Haig Bosmaijan

[Sinister Intents]

usually when these polls are conducted, they're talking about influence at-large, rather than what is a personal influence. it'd be extremely odd and unconvincing for you to argue that the bible wasn't influential in this sense. the influence of the book is clear when you look at our society and its culture.

Yeah, I over thought this a bit. It's really sad the influence it has had, and especially sad so many do selective readings of this book. As for me I won't pick thr book up ever again

[Lord Testicles]

The Bible has been named the world's most influential book in a nationwide survey for the Folio Society.
The Folio Society's survey of 2,044 British adults asked those polled to make their selection based, not on enjoyment or popularity, but for their influence on humanity.


Here's the real problem. You can't take a poll to find out what the most influential book is, you can only take a poll to find out what people think is the most influential book.

For example, I imagine that The Discourses and Mathematical Demonstrations Relating to Two New Sciences by Galileo Galilei has been far more influential than To Kill a Mockingbird, Nineteen-Eighty-Four or A Brief History of Time.

[Rafiq]

Truth isn't a democracy.

[Grenzer]

I don't see much value in making trite platitudes like "truth isn't a democracy", which really explains nothing and means nothing by itself.

Most people lack the historical knowledge necessary to place a given work in its proper context and assess its significance. This alone makes the claims of such a poll rather spurious. In addition, 2,000 people is an absurdly small sample size.

[Lord Testicles]

I don't see much value in making trite platitudes like "truth isn't a democracy", which really explains nothing and means nothing by itself.


Pish. The meaning is pretty clear, truth cannot be determined by popular vote.

[Rafiq]

I don't see much value in making trite platitudes like "truth isn't a democracy", which really explains nothing and means nothing by itself.


Well, the answer to this dilemma of yours appears to be pretty obvious to you already, so I myself don't see how this is a problem. I am rather ignorant of the connotations of this (So, I guess that makes us even) - so if it means anything other than the fact that truth is not something which can be put to a vote, I deeply apologize. And I also apologize for not including the statement, which apparently would give meaning and explanation to the "trite platitude":

Most people lack the historical knowledge necessary to place a given work in its proper context and assess its significance. This alone makes the claims of such a poll rather spurious. In addition, 2,000 people is an absurdly small sample size.

Really? Fuck, who could have come to this conclusion had you not given it to us? Thank you, Grenzer, you are so good at clarifying everything for us. I said "truth is not a democracy" for no reason, I actually meant something else, you know: democracy is not the truth, or whatever inferences go on in your mind because of course Rafiq has to be saying something wildly ridiculous. I love how your arguments are literally worthless. Thanks again, Grenzer.

[RedWorker]

Well, in another poll (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/461545.stm) by the BBC, Marx was named as the greatest thinker of the last thousand years. So...

[Palmares]

I would imagine the results are quite different outside of the West. Eurocentrism, knamean.

Related, this is a (incomplete) list of the highest-selling books ever:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_books

[RedWorker]

I sometimes heard that the Communist Manifesto is one of the most read books in history. Is there a source for this?

[Chomskyan]

Here's the real problem. You can't take a poll to find out what the most influential book is, you can only take a poll to find out what people think is the most influential book.

For example, I imagine that The Discourses and Mathematical Demonstrations Relating to Two New Sciences by Galileo Galilei has been far more influential than To Kill a Mockingbird, Nineteen-Eighty-Four or A Brief History of Time.

Another problem, ethnocentric demographic. You should take a survey of British, Indian, Chinese, and Arab students to get a real survey.

[The Disillusionist]

Well, in another poll (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/461545.stm) by the BBC, Marx was named as the greatest thinker of the last thousand years. So...

Hell no. He was a great thinker, obviously. Top ten greatest? ....Yeah, a case could be made. But the absolute greatest thinker of the past thousand years? That's insane, and it ignores so many people it's just....mindboggling, I don't even know where to begin with that. The big three: Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau come immediately to mind. Chances are, the vast majority of people just don't know enough about great thinkers of the past millenium to think of anyone besides Marx. That's the problem with public polling, you could ask people to give a list of the 10 most devastating acts of terrorism in the past 1000 years, and I bet a significant number of them, especially if you were polling Americans, would put 9/11 on that list, simply because it is strongest in their own minds, despite being a rather minor event in the historical sense (though in the political sense, it has screwed everything up).

Also, Mistress Sinistra, I have to disagree with you here. It doesn't matter if you agree with the Bible or not. As the most influential book on humanity (and that's a pretty clear cut case), you should be familiar with it in order to be intellectually well rounded. You wouldn't refuse to read Shakespeare just because some of his historical plays weren't completely accurate, you wouldn't refuse to read Voltaire just because he was a racist, and you wouldn't refuse to read Marx just because he had his own issues. You should also be familiar with the teachings of the other major religions, like those in the Qu'ran, and the Rig Veda, at least if you want to study humans effectively. I can completely understand this whole anti-religion culture that has pervaded many leftist circles, but I don't agree with it. It's reactionary, and just leads to close-mindedness in response to close-mindedness.

Finally, 1984 is an important book, but it doesn't belong on that list. Despite Orwell's socialist beliefs, 1984 was used, without context, as pro-American, anti-authoritarian, Cold War propaganda in American schools for decades, so its the only political book a lot of Americans have ever really read, and that's probably why it's on the list. I'd put The Jungle by Upton Sinclair in its place, if we're talking about influential books in US history (as Chomskyan said, this is all a matter of cultural perspectives).

[Blake's Baby]

I sometimes heard that the Communist Manifesto is one of the most read books in history. Is there a source for this?

I think you might be getting the 'Manifesto' confused with 'Quotations from Chairman Mao', which certainly up until the 1980s was fairly regularly stated to be the second-most printed (not necessarily read) book after the Bible.


... In addition, 2,000 people is an absurdly small sample size.

No it isn't. Pretty much any sample of more than 1,000 is considered statistically-valid in market-research.

[RedWorker]

I think you might be getting the 'Manifesto' confused with 'Quotations from Chairman Mao', which certainly up until the 1980s was fairly regularly stated to be the second-most printed (not necessarily read) book after the Bible.

Not Mao. I first encountered the assertion in an article (http://www.vnavarro.org/?p=11078) by Vicenç Navarro, where he said that the Manifesto the "most sold book in the human race's history", and then Googled around. For example, this The Guardian (http://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/jul/04/the-return-of-marxism) article claims that the Manifesto is the second best-selling book of all time. Are there any statistics or more reliable sources?

[Rafiq]

The big three: Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau come immediately to mind.

I don't know whether to laugh or simply call it quits here. Are you fucking kidding me? Why do you always talk out of your ass? Hobbes and Locke would not even make it to the top five greatest thinkers of the past thousand years. These were not architects of the bourgeois state as such - they were philosophers. I mean, are you fucking kidding me? Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau? This is your big three? The idea that these men are the "big three" in the midst of the likes of Spinoza, Descartes, Kant, Hegel - is beyond stupid. From what basis do you say this kind of shit?


It's reactionary, and just leads to close-mindedness in response to close-mindedness.

So anything you have an aversion towards is reactionary? No one gives a fuck about your worthless, hypocritical and inconsistent ideas of "close-mindedness". The fact of the matter is that anyone with a semblance of any experience with intellectuals understands that all self-proclaimed "open minded" intellectuals are always the most narrow-minded and ignorant. "Open-mindedness" is not reflective of your ability to balance different perspectives, but testament to ultimate, purely ignorant and unwavering ideological faith.

You speak of an "anti-religion" culture among Left circles. What the fuck are you even talking about? If anything, as a result of the collapse of the Soviet Union and the petty bourgeois turn of the movement, the Left today has been more 'open' towards religions generally greeting the religious reaction towards capitalist development in a sympathetic way. If anything, a strong militant atheism is what is precisely lacking in the Left today, one that supersedes the philistine atheism of cretinous orange-faced scum like Sam Harris. You then go on to say that this imagined "anti-religion" culture is reactionary. How in any meaningful sense is this reactionary? Do you even know what the word means? That they are a reaction to the "enlightening" religious reaction of the 1980's? Go on, explain, explain to me how the rise of religious fundamentalism globally and the rise of religion both intellectually, institutionally and politically is somehow progressive in retrospect to "narrow minded" Marxism. Please go on to explain to me how new feats in 'spirituality', like any worthless liberal, simply render any consistent and militant opposition to religion "close-minded" and most of all, "reactionary".

Worst of all, I do not really have a problem with the idea that religions should be studied and understood in a complete and whole way, and that some religious ideas should be approached as achievements of human thought in retrospect to their predecessors (in that religion was the only means by which the domain of the intellectual, philosophical and most of all ideological resided, being that the domain of the 'secular' did not exist during their time). What I violently oppose is the idea that the Left is too harsh or dismissive towards religion, or that we ought to be more "open-minded" in accepting the implications religious ideas have for our immediate circumstances, rather than understanding the religious ideas themselves in the respective contexts from which they were derived. But let's hear it, Latnz. What is this "anti-religion" attitude and how does it perpetuate close-mindedness. Give us examples. Give us prominent Left intellectuals who harbor this kind of thinking. You can't. I suppose this imagined militant atheist Left is up there with 'Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau as the three greatest thinkers' in the greatest shits pulled out of Lantz's ass.

[The Disillusionist]

I don't know whether to laugh or simply call it quits here. Are you fucking kidding me? Why do you always talk out of your ass? Hobbes and Locke would not even make it to the top ten greatest thinkers of the past thousand years. These were not architects of the bourgeois state as such - they were philosophers. I mean, are you fucking kidding me? Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau? This is your big three? The idea that these men are the "big three" in the midst of the likes of Spinoza, Descartes, Kant, Hegel - is beyond stupid. From what basis do you say this kind of shit?



So anything you have an aversion towards is reactionary? No one gives a fuck about your worthless, hypocritical and inconsistent ideas of "close-mindedness". The fact of the matter is that anyone with a semblance of any experience with intellectuals understands that all self-proclaimed "open minded" intellectuals are always the most narrow-minded and ignorant. "Open-mindedness" is not reflective of your ability to balance different perspectives, but testament to ultimate, purely ignorant and unwavering ideological faith.

You speak of an "anti-religion" culture among Left circles. What the fuck are you even talking about? If anything, as a result of the collapse of the Soviet Union and the petty bourgeois turn of the movement, the Left today has been more 'open' towards religions generally greeting the religious reaction towards capitalist development in a sympathetic way. If anything, a strong militant atheism is what is precisely lacking in the Left today, one that supersedes the philistine atheism of cretinous orange-faced scum like Sam Harris. You then go on to say that this imagined "anti-religion" culture is reactionary. How in any meaningful sense is this reactionary? Do you even know what the word means? That they are a reaction to the "enlightening" religious reaction of the 1980's? Go on, explain, explain to me how the rise of religious fundamentalism globally and the rise of religion both intellectually, institutionally and politically is somehow progressive in retrospect to "narrow minded" Marxism. Please go on to explain to me how new feats in 'spirituality', like any worthless liberal, simply render any consistent and militant opposition to religion "close-minded" and most of all, "reactionary".

Worst of all, I do not really have a problem with the idea that religions should be studied and understood in a complete and whole way, and that some religious ideas should be approached as achievements of human thought in retrospect to their predecessors (in that religion was the only means by which the domain of the intellectual, philosophical and most of all ideological resided, being that the domain of the 'secular' did not exist during their time). What I violently oppose is the idea that the Left is too harsh or dismissive towards religion, or that we ought to be more "open-minded" in accepting the implications religious ideas have for our immediate circumstances, rather than understanding the religious ideas themselves in the respective contexts from which they were derived. But let's hear it, Latnz. What is this "anti-religion" attitude and how does it perpetuate close-mindedness. Give us examples. Give us prominent Left intellectuals who harbor this kind of thinking. You can't. I suppose this imagined militant atheist Left is up there with 'Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau as the three greatest thinkers' in the greatest shits pulled out of Lantz's ass.

Blah-blah-blah, your feelings are hurt, more childish ranting and insults, I don't care. :rolleyes:

To take this message seriously and reply to it seriously would be to reward this type of socially incompetent behavior, and I refuse. I don't care if people see that as an acceptance of defeat, I've had plenty of great conversations on this website with more civil people who I didn't agree with, and those conversations never degenerated into the kind of trash you fill your posts with from the very start.

[Rafiq]

To take this message seriously and reply to it seriously would be to reward this type of socially incompetent behavior

I would be flattered, but simply by merit of origin this attack doesn't amount to much. I would proudly be "socially incompetent", socially incompetent in adhering to the degeneration of our standards of reason and the cowardly attitude many Left-liberals take in order to quell their fears of actually growing a backbone when confronting issues that actually matter. Among those issues, the degeneration of our standards of reason and the rise of religious fervor since the collapse of 20th century Communism, something of which the Left has been absolutely either docile in addressing, or simply too insignificant for anyone to give a damn.

You can go on and speak of "socially incompetent" behavior, but you can't back up your utterly erroneous and ignorant claims for shit. I might very well be a pile of dog shit, but it doesn't matter: Philistines confront ideas or arguments by merit of origin, while a true intellectual understands them for their substance and their content. The ultimate irony is that you accuse others of being dismissive of ideas simply because they are religious. Yet you are completely dismissive of others simply because of their reputation or their etiquette. Yet we ought not to be dismissive of religion, because apparently religions have a great reputation historically, and are favorable in etiquette? Not to say I am in favor of being dismissive toward religion at all in the domain of understanding their complexity: But your logic is utterly inconsistent.

I accuse you of lacking the necessary knowledge about the thinkers of the past thousand years, or at least their prominence, to rank them. I accuse you of utterly misusing words like "reactionary" and attacking phenomena which is purely imagined. I challenge you to give us examples of prominent representatives of the "Left" and how they are "anti-religion" in a close-minded way. Is this too much to ask? If it is my feelings that are hurt, then why can't you address these simple attacks - because I hurt your feelings?

[Blake's Baby]

Quote not working for some reason.

RedWorker said:

"Not Mao. I first encountered the assertion in an article (http://www.vnavarro.org/?p=11078) by Vicenç Navarro, where he said that the Manifesto the "most sold book in the human race's history", and then Googled around. For example, this The Guardian (http://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/jul/04/the-return-of-marxism) article claims that the Manifesto is the second best-selling book of all time. Are there any statistics or more reliable sources? "

I don't know of any, and I'm not of aware of the contention about the Manifesto.

I find that to be strangely cheering, I'm glad there are so many copies of the Manifesto around. Not that everyone who reads it wioll necessarily become a communist but it suggests a widespread interest at least.

[consuming negativity]

The origin of species is only 2% behind the bible and I find its 35% to be comforting. Not sure why the fuck 1984 or TKaM are on there at all. They're good but I'd hardly say they were influential anywhere near on the same level as we're talking here. Maybe I'm just ignorant of literature but lol

[Firebrand]

What we see here I think is a variation of the same phenomenon that leads people to vote for mainstream parties they don't agree with because voting for anyone else is a waste. People make a mental list of books they think other people will vote for/have heard of, and then choose from that list.

[Red Commissar]

bit of a bump, but TBH I'm more surprised that To Kill a Mockingbird ranked among British adults. I always thought it was a book that didn't go too far beyond the US in terms of cultural impact.

I'm not so surprised by the Bible's ranking in this survey group, one tends to get the same thing in the US too when people are asked about what book is the most influential to them. I find a major problem though is if the survey provides a list of books, and for many people who aren't of another religion, the Bible might be the only one of those they may've read or at least heard of.