Monday, September 08, 2008

God: a modest proposal

Here's a proposal:

Before all kinds of religious people start imposing their morals on us, everything from opening hours to censorship, from creationism to wars, could you all, and I mean you Jews, Christians and Muslims on behalf of the Abrahamic faiths, just get together and agree on *one* version of the truth between you. By all means then put that up for inspection by the rest of us. It's all too confusing trying to take in all these differing ideas.

Just an idea.

Until you sort yourselves out, we should remove all religiously sources laws and rules from our schools, governments and so on.

Thanks.

4 comments:

Billy Abbott said...

How very dare you. That's just minimising the influence of the zoroastrians and mithrians (or whatever the followers of mithraism call themselves). And as well all know, that's just rude.

Anonymous said...

'Truth'. You keep using this word. I don't think it means what you think it means.

A classic shoehorning of logos into mythos, I fear. If people *want* faith (for want of a better word) schools, why not? If you don't want to go, or don't want to send your children somewhere they may be indoctrinated, then don't.

GUVVMINT is a bit more problematic, but then, The State should be a lot smaller, and yes, have nothing to do with articles of faith. (Although the useless, bloated, inefficient NHS seems to be some sort of blind religious article-of-faith to most people.)

*Plus* you haven't even considered those Truths from *way* out East..., but I fear I digressed from your statement from the outset.

Anonymous said...

What laws do you have in mind?

I like the anti-slavery ones, and the ones that allow chaplains in hospitals and prisons.

Not so keen on the one that doesn't allow the heir to the throne to be a Catholic.

Can't we debate laws on their merits, rather than where they came from?

Anonymous said...

A few random (and possibly disorganised) thoughts.

1/ Christianity and Islam are just sects of Judaism. Start at the root and then expand into trying to understand the newer heresies.

2/ It's only three versions anyway. Not really too tricky to get to grips with.

3/ Using the word "truth" in association with religion is... er... problematic.

4/ You imply that religion could be brought back into public life once there is only one religion. I have a huge problem with that. I think religion is fine as long as it only happens in private with consenting adults present. And never in front of the children. A bit like masturbation.

5/ Oh, and, dcorking, of course laws against slavery are a good thing. But slavery is condoned by all of the religions Dave is talking about here. The Old Testament is full of it.