(July 14, 2020 at 8:12 am)Grandizer Wrote: I think part of it is some people tend to view religion as this fixed set of predetermined beliefs and ideals that cannot be molded by individuals and societies that incorporate it.
Or some people just watch the news and see all atrocities people do in the name of religion. Like Mike Pence, Mike Pompeo, Betsy Devos who want to turn USA into a theocracy; how book of Revelations influences US international politics; or persecution of gays by Muslims in Chechnya, and so on.
teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. - Sam Harris, "Letter To A Christian Nation"
