From: David
Date: April 21 2010
Your response made my response difficult. Been kicking around various responses for awhile. It is difficult because I concluded that we will be, and are, simply talking past each other so not sure what we will accomplish.
It is clear to me that all holy books have vile passages that believers have used to justify great evil throughout history. (Hitler said he was a Christian and said in his autobiography Mien Kamph (My Battle) "by persecuting the Jews I am doing the Lords work.) The Koran is full of vile passages, I'm sure Hindu books are, not sure about Buddhists - but yes, the Bible also. All believers respond as you did - some variant of "you are interpreting it wrong" and "here are passages that prove I'm right". Moderate Muslims say this all the time about the passages in their book. Believers always claim the extremists in their systems are not true Muslims, Christians, etc. etc. (The claimed Christian who murdered the abortion doctor used bible passages to justify his action, said he was a Christian, and I'm sure believers will claim he is not a Christian, misinterpreted the bible, etc.) The only difference between moderates and extremists - moderates explain away the vile passages and extremists embrace them. Centuries ago Christians embraced many passages rejected by today's Christians to burn people alive to "purify their souls". You would say this was not Christian but you would have lost this theological argument during the Spanish Inquisition.
What is truth? That which can be objectively proven because the gray matter in our skulls so easily deceives us. As Carl Sagen said, "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence".
David
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