(no subject)

[jhetley]

Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity. What profit hath a man of all his labour which he taketh under the sun? One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh: but the earth abideth for ever.

Comments

[conuly]

Do you know, one time many years ago I read a piece by a pastor who had asked for input from atheists about their favorite quotes from the Bible. He'd braced himself for contradictions and the sort of embarrassing tough quotes that make Christians look bad, but happily all the polled atheists took it seriously and he was able to get some interesting data points from the whole thing.

The first is that atheists and Christians do not overlap on their favorite Bible verses at all. The second is that atheists, notably, strongly prefer Ecclesiastes to other books of the Bible, while Christians strongly disprefer it. (The two groups also split dramatically over Job.)

Which is to say that this is the sort of Bible quote that resonates strongly with me.