orb@whuxl.UUCP (SEVENER) (05/09/85)
> > > Or should the interpretation of religion be a living and growing > > thing which is not locked into staid dogmas? > > tim sevener whuxl!orb > > That statement is so vague and touchy-feely that I'm not at all sure > what you're talking about. > > Frank Silbermann What I am talking about is the way religions frequently become dogmatized in blind contradiction to later and better knowledge and changed conditions. An excellent example is the trial of Galileo for espousing the Copernican theory that the Earth revolves around the Sun rather than vice versa. For over a hundred years after Copernicus the Church and even many scientists and philosophers refused to admit that the Earth went around the Sun. They claimed such a theory contradicted scriptures, for example, the passage in the Old Testament in which Joshua "stopped the Sun". How could he stop the Sun if the Sun stayed still and the Earth moved? Of course now we find the same rejection of better knowledge with uninformed opposition to evolutionary theory. But what happens in the realm of natural understanding also happens in moral values. At one time it made sense for women and men to "Be fruitful and multiply" in a world without large human populations. Such an admonition hardly makes sense in a world already suffering largescale famines in part due to overpopulation. For the Catholic Church and other groups to oppose reasonable birth control to prevent exploding population growth makes no sense in the modern world. Similarly at one time, regardless of the absurdity of War, it was not totally devastating. The Old Testament is replete with accounts of battles of the Israelites against their enemies. But where are the glorifications of battles, war or violence in the New Testament? There are none. Indeed as I previously noted even as Christ was being led away to be crucified, he did not do violence to his crucifiers but healed the ear cut off by Simon Peter and said: "He who lives by the sword shall perish by the sword". While hanging on the cross he said "Forgive them for they know not what they do." In a time when War threatens the total devastation of the whole human race, I think that it is well past time to go beyond the Old Testament and take seriously Christ's life and teachings of love and nonviolence. tim sevener whuxl!orb But how can War be justified now when it threatens the destruction of the whole human species?