Sunday, April 13, 2008

Holy Books

The short film Schism (Islam's answer to Fitna) ends with the statement
It is easy to take parts of any holy book and make it sound like the most inhuman book ever written.
QFT.

The qualification is telling. It's easy to take parts of the three Abrahamic holy books and make them sound inhuman because they are in fact inhuman. One does not have to quote-mine, take statements out of context or otherwise misrepresent the plain meaning of the text to "make" these holy books sound inhuman: all you have to do is read them.

Try taking the Humanist Manifestos and make them sound inhuman. How about the Declaration of Independence or the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Not so easy, eh? If you could do it at all, you'd have to quote-mine like a cretinist on crack.

If it's easy to make your book sound inhuman, perhaps you should re-think its holiness.

[h/t to The Freethinker]
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4 comments:

  1. Anonymous4/13/08, 7:22 PM

    Ramen! I think one of the major problems with fundamentalism (and with the automatic deference religion in general is given) is that it prevents people from realizing that verses like that have no business being included in a book that they're using as the blueprint of their civilization. I dream of the day when the standard Biblical translation is the "Cruelty-Free Humanist Edition".

    ReplyDelete
  2. Larry Hamelin4/13/08, 7:27 PM

    CG: The Cruelty-Free Humanist Edition the Bible and the Koran would probably deserve places in my collection of Very Short Books.

    ReplyDelete
  3. John Morales4/14/08, 3:16 AM

    Um, what is the qualification?

    It is easy to take parts of any holy book and make it sound like the most inhuman book ever written.

    I can't find any other qualifiers, and neither detracts from the point.

    I agree with the quote, as written.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Larry Hamelin4/14/08, 6:41 AM

    I'm referring specifically to the qualification of "holy".

    If you take just normal, non-religious ethical literature, as noted, you cannot easily make them sound inhuman, in whole or in part.

    ReplyDelete

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