Some believers might be sufficiently paranoid to think that non-believers wish to grab every copy of the bible or quran to burn or ban then, but not at all, the truth is quite the opposite. I fully support and encourage everybody to read both of these books … properly.
What is true is that there is an objection to the promotion of religion within the public square, but this is to the advantage of all beliefs, it is to ensure that no one distinct belief gains leverage and starts suppressing all other variations of belief or non-belief. What is key is that while there is a wall of separation between state and belief that must not be crossed, individuals must also be free to believe whatever they wish, even if it is obvious to all others that the belief is not actually true.
OK, so why promote books that contain ideas that are not true? The answer is that you would read then for the exact same reason you would read Greek myths or perhaps Shakespeare they have all had a profound impact upon human culture and language,and so as historical documents they should be nurtured and embraced, not as sources of “truth”, because that is where critical thinking comes into play, but rather as texts that reflect the beliefs and thinking of their time, so everybody with an interest in a good story should read them.
Does anybody seriously advocate the destruction or banning of Greek or Roman mythology? No, of course not, and the Quran and the Bible are no different. In fact, I do wish that those that truly believe would actually read them, because if they did then there would be far fewer who actually believed complete nonsense. many are familiar with the sugar coated nice stuff and have not had the full exposure to it all in its entirety, or in the words of the book … “Blessed are they who enter into the fullness of truth” (Mark 17 v23)
Penn Jillette explains ..
Penn explains that he was asked to leave his Christian youth group by a pastor who told his parents: “He’s no longer learning about the Bible from me. He is now converting everyone in the class to atheism.“.
He nails it — often what we get presented with is a filtered distilled version that consists of the nice bits, you really should just read it all, including the bits that usually get skipped over. That is when you come across the gory truth, for example that this deity encouraged his select tribe to slaughter on a biblical scale all the other surrounding tribes, and so you soon come to the realization that god, as described in the bible really is a complete insecure, genocidal shit.
“Being able to say the simple sentence, ‘there is no God’, … meant the world to me … and gave me joy, and gave me compassion, and gave me love, and gave me confidence“- Penn Jillette
Oh and one final confession (if I may “steal” that word), that reference I gave you earlier to the text from Mark 17, did you recognise it, was it familiar? If you instantly rejected it because you realised that Mark only has 16 chapters, then well done, you have read the bible. If however you did not know that, and you happen to be a believer who truly thinks that this book is the inspired word of the creator of the entire universe, then shame on you, it is time for you to go read it — all of it.