Sunday 13 September 2009

Religion encourages social growth?

Religious apologisers, especially the well-educated ones, say that religion (esp. Christianity) has been the driver for all the great civil rights movements from gender equality to the abolition of slavery.

You know what, fine, I'll give you that. It still doesn't make religion a good thing.

It is like saying as the Nazi's medical experiments (reducto ad hitlerum) allowed such great advances in medicine we should allow concentration camps.

The fact that you can cherry pick quotes from any of the religious texts that support an abolition of slavery in no way counterbalances the fact that there are passages that specifically allow nay, command, slavery. Oh wait, those ones are allegory. How silly of me, I'm glad no religious person would ever be confused between the allegorical stories and the ones you should take seriously.

Karen Armstrong, in her new book, states “Jews, Christians, and Muslims all knew that revealed truth was symbolic, that scripture could not be interpreted literally, and that sacred texts had multiple meanings, and could lead to entirely fresh insights,” great, please go tell the people in America who want to abolish the teaching of evolution. Go tell the people in the Middle East who are stoning adulterers and homosexuals to death. Go to Mecca and say that their book should not be interpreted literally. Once you have done that then you can come and discuss with me the deeper meanings that can be taken from these great works.

2 comments:

  1. I'm of the persuasion that it wasn't religion that had anything to do w/any of this. It was the people, using it as an excuse to do whatever they pleased.

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  2. https://feserismisnotthomism.wordpress.com/

    Problems for Thomism in the US

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