Isaac Asimov in 1992:
Incidentally, I am interested in what it is that fundamentalist television preachers call “sin.”
We have just gone through a decade of the twentieth century in which the United States set up a standard of corruption such as has never been seen before. We have worked with junk bonds, we have ripped off the Savings and Loan banks, we have spent money like water, living on borrowed funds until our city, state, and even federal governments have no money.
Yet I don’t hear the television preachers call any of this “sin.” I hear no denunciations from the pulpit.
Sin to them is a little bit of sexual fun. A touch of adultery gets them all hot and bothered. And, as a matter of fact, a touch of adultery is something they themselves dabble in. They then weep and let the tears run down their cheeks and howl, “I have sinned.”
Well, you know, I don’t like to believe that either. I don’t want to believe that having relations with some woman who is not your wife is supposed to infuriate a kind allmerciful God, while ripping off our nation wholesale and having people steal by the millions leaves him unmoved and untouched.
I hear conservatives say that “liberals” are destroying the family, but it is the conservatives who are destroying the country.
I would be much more impressed by religious people if they weren’t so anxious to gather in the loot for themselves, and if they got up on their hind legs and denounced the thieves and crooks who permeate our society.
I don’t really think it will happen, however. Religious people are too interested in sex.
Incidentally, I am interested in what it is that fundamentalist television preachers call “sin.”
We have just gone through a decade of the twentieth century in which the United States set up a standard of corruption such as has never been seen before. We have worked with junk bonds, we have ripped off the Savings and Loan banks, we have spent money like water, living on borrowed funds until our city, state, and even federal governments have no money.
Yet I don’t hear the television preachers call any of this “sin.” I hear no denunciations from the pulpit.
Sin to them is a little bit of sexual fun. A touch of adultery gets them all hot and bothered. And, as a matter of fact, a touch of adultery is something they themselves dabble in. They then weep and let the tears run down their cheeks and howl, “I have sinned.”
Well, you know, I don’t like to believe that either. I don’t want to believe that having relations with some woman who is not your wife is supposed to infuriate a kind allmerciful God, while ripping off our nation wholesale and having people steal by the millions leaves him unmoved and untouched.
I hear conservatives say that “liberals” are destroying the family, but it is the conservatives who are destroying the country.
I would be much more impressed by religious people if they weren’t so anxious to gather in the loot for themselves, and if they got up on their hind legs and denounced the thieves and crooks who permeate our society.
I don’t really think it will happen, however. Religious people are too interested in sex.
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"
