Reza Aslan on The Daily Show

[robvalue]

I think the big problem with religion is what Phyrro said, it often has clear references in books that certain things are immoral which clearly objectively aren't. So it's bad enough this can be used as cover by bigots who don't want to own up to their own hate, but in fact it could drive good people to start hating certain groups when they otherwise wouldn't.

I agree Phyrro, I've never understood these prejudices against anyone. Never understood why people would be obsessed with other people being gay, or being a woman, and that somehow being a problem. Civilised society should have everyone as equal as possible, that seems rather obvious to me. Religious texts like the bible and Quran would upset this balance just by their words being acted upon.

So the important thing is what the attitudes are towards these books. And right now people seem to have a very confusing relationship with them, where it might as well be blank and they have just rewritten it for themselves. But the problem is that they haven't actually improved the wording at all in reality. So the next person who reads it and thinks "everyone says this is god's word" is going to read the horrific bit people want to sweep under the carpet. But of course, not everyone is trying to sweep them under the carpet either, some want to act on them and to regress society.