We’ve got book A where Jesus gets married and has kids, and we have book B where he is born of a virgin, gets resurrected, and where the “saints” rise from their graves and stomp around Jerusalem like an ancient George Romero movie. So what’s the work of fiction again?
And as far as tolerance goes, since I grew up Jewish, I could say that you claiming your book is true is intolerant of my old beliefs. But that would be wrong.
How about Christ’s Brightly Lit Taint?
… and in years to come, it will become a colorful, if not antiquated, British expression: Staint!
Well, another place to cross off of my skinny dipping list.
And I thought **Eve’s ** comment was 100% Grade A Eve.
The Dark Half.
I win!!
Coincidentally, I did in fact go skinny dipping there, with a very pretty girl - to the amusement of some friends who’d climbed to the top of the Mouila Rock, aka Zeus’s knob.
(speaking as an agnostic here…)
Except that “fiction” isn’t really the right word. People do not (in general) read The Bible in order to learn what happened in the past, with their primary concern being historical accuracy. They read The Bible in order to receive guidance concerning how to live their lives. It’s neither “fiction” nor “non-fiction”, but some other category instead.
There are plenty of people who read The Bible, and take it very seriously, for whom it plays an enormous part in their life, who do not at all view it as an accurate historical recounting. That’s not the point.
(And, for that matter, we don’t have any reason to think that large parts of the gospels are NOT true, at least the non-supernatural parts…)
But do you apply that distinction equally to every single other belief system and mythos? I think that’s Dio’s point, and if it isn’t, it certainly is mine.
So maybe put in in the self help section? It can go between Being You, Loving Me and Black Science;ancient and modern techniques of ninja mind manipulation. (both actual books in the self help section on amazon)
People read Jonathan Livingstone Seagull for the same reason. Examining how we should live our lives is one advantage of reading fiction.
Right. So these people should not complain if the Bible is called fiction - they admit it isn’t factual. Calling it self-help has some appeal, but the Bible is full of stories told as if they were true, so at least part is fiction, part self-help.
Not nearly as true as Gore Vidal’s historical fiction, say. Maybe a good match would be the Carlos Casteneda books - told as if they happened, full of baloney, but maybe of some spiritual value.
Jonathan Livingston Seagull was fiction? Say it isn’t so! 
In general, yes.
Calling The Bible “fiction” is a bit like calling God an “Invisible Sky Pixie”. Not really inaccurate, and useful in certainly rhetorical contexts where it’s clear what point you’re making, but in every dayusage, more inflammatory than useful.
Man, I gotta say, that’s one big penis.
For what it’s worth, I think of the Bible — and the Qur’an, and the tales of Greek and Roman gods, and all other religious narratives involving gods and extranatural heroes — as being “mythology” rather than fiction. It’s a useful distinction, I think; the stories aren’t labeled as “obviously false” the way the word “fiction” connotes, but then they aren’t true, either. But really, with mythology, the truth or falsity is sort of beside the point; if the stories have staying power and cultural usefulness, they sort of transcend any prosaic notion of “being true” (and I say this as a stone atheist). Mythology is also separate from fiction in my mind in that it’s more of a group effort, a collection of lesson-stories that has evolved over time and under the influence of a number of people (or a culture as a whole), rather than the single-creator model implied by fiction. (From this point of view, “Star Trek” has become mythology, while Scientology is fiction.)
Which isn’t to say that fundies of any stripe will react positively to having their cherished beliefs labeled as mythology, but it’s a marginally preferable term compared to the direct frontal attack of calling the basis of their faith “fiction.”