A. C. Grayling: In Defense of 'The Good Book'
Australian Broadcasting Corporation - Sydney Writers Festival
British philosopher AC Grayling has created a secular Bible distilling the wisdom of the great non-religious traditions as a guide for life. Who needs the Bible of religion when you can have “The Good Book”?

British philosopher and public intellectual AC Grayling is considered the “nice guy” amongst the world’s leading “anti-religion” advocates … less cool and clinical than Richard Dawkins and more polite than Christopher Hitchens. Now, the mild-mannered atheist author has created a secular Bible, distilling the wisdom of the great non-religious traditions as a guide for life.

When it comes to God, Grayling is doggedly opposed. But he doesn’t put his book in the same league as Dawkins' “The God Delusion” and Hitchens' “God Is Not Great”. It doesn’t attack religion and is unfailingly optimistic, for one. But that doesn’t mean it won’t upset many Christians.

“The Good Book” is a manifesto for rational thought, but mirrors the Bible in both form and language. Grayling explains he has spent several decades on his ambitious project, distilling what he considers “the best that has been thought and said by people who've really experienced life, and thought about it".

His talk at the Sydney Writers Festival 2011 was introduced by Chip Rolley.