The scriptures present a God who delights in genocide, rape, slavery, and the execution of nonconformists, and for millennia those writings were used to rationalize the massacre of infidels, the ownership of women, the beating of children, dominion over animals, and the persecution of heretics and homosexuals. Humanitarian reforms such as the elimination of cruel punishment, the dissemination of empathy-inducing novels, and the abolition of slavery were met with fierce opposition in their time by ecclesiastical authorities and their apologists. The elevation of parochial values to the realm of the sacred is a license to dismiss other people’s interests, and an imperative to reject the possibility of compromise. Steven Pinker
About This Quote

The scriptures present a God who delights in genocide, rape, slavery, and the execution of nonconformists. This post is an excerpt from an article by David Bentley Hart that appeared in First Things , a national Catholic publication, in which he explores the question of why people could possibly have read the Bible so literally for so long. He believes that the problem is not really with the Bible itself or its original readers but with modern readers who have imbibed so deeply into the culture of literalism that they have come to see it as holy writ. The words of God are sacred, but the way people interpret them should be considered by all to be less than holy.

Source: The Better Angels Of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined

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