http://www.alternet.org/books/why-we-mus...paging=off
What this article says is that in spite of what any believer thinks nobody follows the path of orthodoxy with whatever their religion is. Many say that they are strict observers, some even believe that they are, but the reality is that they all are engaged to some degree in a selective reading of their sacred texts, adopting what suits them and rejecting the rest. It’s a simple process, really. Pick up the sacred books of your religion, look for passages supporting your values, and adapt them a little to your liking. Then highlight their importance in the overall balance of the religion, and conveniently forget all those other unsavory passages that either downright contradict your values or support behaviors and attitudes that don’t fit with your inclinations. But they don't like to say so. They prefer to hide behind the orthodoxy of their faith and insist that it is the one true way to live. Anyone who says otherwise is a heretic.
But they are not necessarily liars. Some don’t lie consciously. They just happen to be masters at self-delusion, so skilled at lying to themselves that they can do it without ever becoming aware of it. What would they want to do that for? Because it would be too frightening to admit to themselves that they are just as guilty of thinking for themselves as those damned heathens. They have too much invested in being good God-fearing Christians or whatever. This way their beliefs have the God-approved stamp on them.
Then you also have the people who are not lying to themselves or to anyone else out of ignorance. Many Christians have not read much of the Bible at all, the same goes for Muslims and the Qu'ran. They just know what they remember from Sunday school and what the preacher spouts from the pulpit. It's far easier to deal with contradictions when you are not even aware of them. I know that I frequently get “I didn't know that was in there” kind of reactions to a lot of things I mention to people when they want to know why I don't believe.
The scriptures are appallingly contradictory, as you are all aware. But the people in the pews for the most part are not up to speed on that. Not surprisingly the same book has been repeatedly used to support opposites throughout history. During the American Civil War, Abraham Lincoln noted that, “Both [Southern and Northern soldiers] read the same Bible, and pray to the same God; and each invokes his aid against the other.” It was in this same time period, after all, that Christians used the Bible to argue for the abolition of slavery while just as many Christians found in the Bible the ideological ammunition to support slavery as a divinely ordained institution. And so it was before and since as well. All faiths splinter over arguments about who has it right. Dr. King was a Christian and so were the people who supported Bull Connor and George Wallace. Either way they were convinced that the “Good Book” supported their view.
We are far too removed from the origins of any of these faiths to know what really happened, to whom and how. The fact that they're all based on “revelation” to someone who is out in the middle of nowhere, illiterate and living in a time before any kind of trustworthy means of recording information had come along just makes it worse. Then it gets handed down as an oral tradition for who knows how long before it finally gets written down by a scribe or scribes who have an agenda – whether or not said scribes can admit that to themselves. This being the case, it is no small wonder that holy texts are rife with contradictions.
The result of this confusing state of affairs is that nobody knows with any certitude what any of it actually means. Consequently, people get to ascribe their own preferences to the text and go merrily along thinking that they have authority for their cherished notions – hey, it says so right there in the book! Point being that we all get to make our own DIY religion even if we are not aware of it. Put another way, it really is all in your head.
There is a lot more to the article than this, but I'm going to stop here. The author actually thinks that religion is a good thing, and I think it's absolute poison, so there you go. But it is a genuinely interesting read.
What this article says is that in spite of what any believer thinks nobody follows the path of orthodoxy with whatever their religion is. Many say that they are strict observers, some even believe that they are, but the reality is that they all are engaged to some degree in a selective reading of their sacred texts, adopting what suits them and rejecting the rest. It’s a simple process, really. Pick up the sacred books of your religion, look for passages supporting your values, and adapt them a little to your liking. Then highlight their importance in the overall balance of the religion, and conveniently forget all those other unsavory passages that either downright contradict your values or support behaviors and attitudes that don’t fit with your inclinations. But they don't like to say so. They prefer to hide behind the orthodoxy of their faith and insist that it is the one true way to live. Anyone who says otherwise is a heretic.
But they are not necessarily liars. Some don’t lie consciously. They just happen to be masters at self-delusion, so skilled at lying to themselves that they can do it without ever becoming aware of it. What would they want to do that for? Because it would be too frightening to admit to themselves that they are just as guilty of thinking for themselves as those damned heathens. They have too much invested in being good God-fearing Christians or whatever. This way their beliefs have the God-approved stamp on them.
Then you also have the people who are not lying to themselves or to anyone else out of ignorance. Many Christians have not read much of the Bible at all, the same goes for Muslims and the Qu'ran. They just know what they remember from Sunday school and what the preacher spouts from the pulpit. It's far easier to deal with contradictions when you are not even aware of them. I know that I frequently get “I didn't know that was in there” kind of reactions to a lot of things I mention to people when they want to know why I don't believe.
The scriptures are appallingly contradictory, as you are all aware. But the people in the pews for the most part are not up to speed on that. Not surprisingly the same book has been repeatedly used to support opposites throughout history. During the American Civil War, Abraham Lincoln noted that, “Both [Southern and Northern soldiers] read the same Bible, and pray to the same God; and each invokes his aid against the other.” It was in this same time period, after all, that Christians used the Bible to argue for the abolition of slavery while just as many Christians found in the Bible the ideological ammunition to support slavery as a divinely ordained institution. And so it was before and since as well. All faiths splinter over arguments about who has it right. Dr. King was a Christian and so were the people who supported Bull Connor and George Wallace. Either way they were convinced that the “Good Book” supported their view.
We are far too removed from the origins of any of these faiths to know what really happened, to whom and how. The fact that they're all based on “revelation” to someone who is out in the middle of nowhere, illiterate and living in a time before any kind of trustworthy means of recording information had come along just makes it worse. Then it gets handed down as an oral tradition for who knows how long before it finally gets written down by a scribe or scribes who have an agenda – whether or not said scribes can admit that to themselves. This being the case, it is no small wonder that holy texts are rife with contradictions.
The result of this confusing state of affairs is that nobody knows with any certitude what any of it actually means. Consequently, people get to ascribe their own preferences to the text and go merrily along thinking that they have authority for their cherished notions – hey, it says so right there in the book! Point being that we all get to make our own DIY religion even if we are not aware of it. Put another way, it really is all in your head.
There is a lot more to the article than this, but I'm going to stop here. The author actually thinks that religion is a good thing, and I think it's absolute poison, so there you go. But it is a genuinely interesting read.
“To terrify children with the image of hell, to consider women an inferior creation—is that good for the world?”
― Christopher Hitchens
"That fear first created the gods is perhaps as true as anything so brief could be on so great a subject". - George Santayana
"If this is the best God can do, I'm not impressed". - George Carlin
― Christopher Hitchens
"That fear first created the gods is perhaps as true as anything so brief could be on so great a subject". - George Santayana
"If this is the best God can do, I'm not impressed". - George Carlin
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