Fictional books can be good and there are plenty of valuable lessons in the Bible. I know plenty of Christians who are great people capable of critical thinking.

> aims to suppress critical thinking in order to lock the reader into a particular world view for the rest of their lives.

There are a myriad of books that present their POV as absolute truth. Some of them aren't even in the dreaded fiction section! Most books don't end every statement with, "I could be wrong though, do your own research."

Knowing we will not agree, I will simply leave it that it was the first book on Gutenberg printing press, and that I think we can both agree made books much more widely available. Additionally, I think that must people on this site have more than likely had some logic and critical thinking studies, myself included, and that it is ok to disagree on some things. However, on the logic side, if Heaven is real and there is but one way to get there and not many, only those on that way will get there. If it is real and there are many ways, it doesn't matter what one you pick. If it is not real, then it also doesn't matter. I know if someone wants to hear logical discussions there are apologetics and debaters out there that are good to listen to. With the main thread here, I appreciate libraries and librarians greatly, especially in an age where so much is kept in a mutable form vs the hard copy. I would say that I hope most people have a worldview that they can express, and that it should morph with a deeper understanding of the world as you mature.

There are people who have used it as missionary (they're literally called missionaries sometimes), but the book itself does not suppress critical thinking - in fact some of the stories within it challenged me to think about the World in a very different way, and to consider what kind of person I wanted to be and the place I wanted to inhabit in my life, regardless of faith.

I also did not find it prevented me from changing my World view as I grew up. I am not a practicing christian today, but I do think that many christian parables have helped make me a more rounded, generous and thoughtful human being. I am certainly quite likely more empathetic and loving than many others around me.

Read it as a work of fiction and don't be afraid of it "converting you" into a a robot remotely controlled by the pope. You might be surprised.

'Thou shalts' tend to be antithetical to free thinking. If nothing else, because it absolves readers from having to independently consider things and encouraging relying on community and/or leader dogma.

We can quibble about whether or not dogmatic interpretations are in the original work or were layered on top by the organized church, but at the root of both is the idea that some things must be believed without questioning.

Up and down this thread there are notes about people who were raised in a religious tradition and then branched out -- that's great, but you all are also the exceptions.

There are far more people who believe what they're told, as a consequence of religious indoctrination, until the day they die.

And because of that, on the whole, the Bible (as used in modern Christianity) is anti- free thought.