After the London bombings the answer seemed clear to the liberal press. According to Polly Toynbee of the Guardian, "religion must be ousted from public life". She attributes the bombings to "deranged religious mania". Okay, I'll agree with that. Then she steps over the line to include others who should not be lumped in this category. I'd like to quote her here hi-lighting what I'd like noticed~
"All religions are prone to it, given the right circumstances. How could those who preach the absolute revealed truth of every word of a primitive book not be prone to insanity? There have been sects of killer Christians and indeed the whole of Christendom has been at times bent on wiping out heathens. Jewish zealots in their settlements crazily claim legal rights to land from the Old Testament. Some African Pentecostal churches harbour sects of torturing exorcism and child abuse. Muslims have a very long tradition of jihadist slaughter. Sikhs rose up to stop a play that exposed deformities of abuse within their temples. Buddhism too has its sinister wing. See how far-right evangelicals have kidnapped US politics and warped its secular, liberal founding traditions".....
"Those who believe they alone know the only way, truth and life will always feel justified in doing anything in its name. You would, wouldn't you, if you alone had the magic answer to everything? If religions teach that life after death is better then it is hardly surprising that some crazed followers will actually believe it".
Funny thing is that she quotes from the Christian Bible of "absolute revealed truth" when she utters the words, "The way, the truth and the life." It simply says, John 14:6 Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me. I totally believe that but I don't go around suicide bombing myself in order to promote my faith.
Now, I don't know about you, but I don't enjoy being compared to some crazy suicide bombers. I don't even believe people should committ suicide. I think it's a sin as most Christians do. Christianity and Judiasm are extremely different from the Muslim faith. It is totally ridiculous for her to suggest that our faith be erradicated from public life.
The Christian faith in particular has been used to rehabilitate criminals in prisons for years. I wonder what she means by "ousting". How exactly should we be ousted from public life I wonder? This is just another example of bigotry in the press against hard working decent people.
No comments:
Post a Comment