Consider The Wave Of Revulsion That Floods The Average Person When He Or She Hears Of The Practice Of Human Sacrifice By The Aztecs And Other So-called Primitive Peoples. How Savage And Barbaric Such Practices Seem. But When A Christian Or Jew Comes Across Human Sacrifice In The Bible (see Jephthah's Immolation Of His Daughter In Judges 11:30-40), Is He Or She Repulsed?
The Bible Is Unfortunately Unclear On A Long List Of Moral And Social Questions And Sex Is One Of Them. On The One Hand, There Are Expressions Of Admiration For The Reportedly Virgin Mother Of Jesus, But Other Portions Of Scripture Speak Quite Accommodatingly Of Polygamy.
There Are Few Pages Of History Which Do Not Demonstrate That Public Prayer And Ritual Never Inoculated People Against Mass-madness And Cruelty. What Is Needed Is Emphasis On Morality And Manners.
We Must Never Forget That Both Good And Evil Flow From The Bible. It Is Therefore Not Above Criticism.
God Is By Definition The Holder Of All Possible Knowledge, It Would Be Impossible For Him To Have Faith In Anything. Faith, Then, Is Built Upon Ignorance And Hope.
There Is Not The Slightest Question But That The God Of The Old Testament Is A Jealous, Vengeful God, Inflicting Not Only On The Sinful Pagans But Even On His Chosen People Fire, Lighting, Hideous Plagues And Diseases, Brimstone, And Other Curses.
One Social Evil For Which The New Testament Is Clearly In Part Responsible Is Anti-semitism.
To Those Who Wish To Punish Others -- Or At Least To See Them Punished, If The Avengers Are Too Cowardly To Take Matters In To Their Own Hands -- The Belief In A Fiery, Hideous Hell Appears To Be A Great Source Of Comfort.
The Fundamentalist Believer Is Mostly A Weird Intellectual Who Often Lacks Real Faith Altogether. As A Self-appointed Attorney For God, Who Is In No Need Of Attorneys, He Very Easily Turns Out To Be More Godless Than The Agnostic And The Unbeliever. At All Events, He Seems Deaf To Poetry.
Impartial Observers From Other Planets Would Consider Ours An Utterly Bizarre Enclave If It Were Populated By Birds, Defined As Flying Animals, That Nevertheless Rarely Or Never Actually Flew. They Would Also Be Perplexed If They Encountered In Our Seas, Lakes, Rivers, And Ponds, Creatures Defined As Swimmers That Never Did Any Swimming. But They Would Be Even More Surprised To Encounter A Species Defined As A Thinking Animal If, In Fact, The Creature Very Rarely Indulged In Actual Thinking.
