Tuesday, 10 January 2012

A New Concept: The Bible as a Model for Religious Tolerance

In The Star, Monday January 9 ("No need to politicise a biblical debate") Denzil Jones says, without a hint of irony, "Let's practice religious tolerance and adhere to true biblical prescripts".

What a lovely double oxymoron!  Firstly, the Bible (along with the Qur'an) is one of the most religiously intolerant of documents!

Consider: "Thou shalt have no other gods before me", death for adultery or even collecting firewood on the Sabbath.

The New Testament is not much better, what with "no man comes to the father but through me", and exhortations to convert all nations.

Jesus had no objection to slavery and the suppression of women, which decent people consider abhorrent today.

The second oxymoron, of course, is "true biblical prescripts".  The Bible is largely myth, so what does Jones mean by "true"?
Perhaps he means that we should only follow the biblical prescripts that we regard as morally true?

In that case it is not the bible that sets the standard, but the enlightened human conscience.


Which means we don't need the bible anyway.


No comments:

Post a Comment