> Religious texts don't impress me at all. Some pretty language here and
> there, some sensible advice (though few and far between), mixed up with
> lots of nonsense, which has been used to oppress many for centuries.
The context of my question was not asking about whether they impressed you or not. As your further remarks show, these texts obviously do not merely strike you as the result of repressed sexuality. At their high points, i.e., _The Diamond Sutra_, _Bhagavad-Gita_, "Job_, they show human beings attaining a level of clarity and aesthetic expression that gain the respect and admiration of even non-believers.
> Some
> of the oppressed have also used religious texts, faiths, language, and
> organizations for their own purposes of resistance and struggles sometimes,
> but that doesn't give me any reason to think of _religious texts in
> themselves_ as worthy of respect.
Look At Engels' work on the Anabaptist rebellions of the 16th century. He saw the religious insurrection as a way of confronting the socio-economic injustices of the times. The Franciscan movement, the Jesuits in Uruguay and Paraguay. All these were inspired by the "texts" you so question.
Given this, however, you are absolutely right in showing how the texts have been abused to breed hatred and disgust for others. Yet, it is an interesting question of hermeneutics to see how a text that can inspire hatred and injustice can also inspire the kinds of movements for justice we see in Liberation Theology, Martin Luther King, Gandhi and others.
This problem of reading texts gives the lie to what religious fundamentalists call the literal interpretation of texts. Without a life geared towards justice and liberty, any text is going to be distorted to reflect the preconceptions of the reader. These preconceptions usually reflect an unquestioned adherence to social values whose roots in economic injustice issue in the kinds of abuses you rightly catalog.
> Your comment about Abraham being forebear for three major religions points
> to a problem of religion. I think that sectarianism of the religious far
> outstrips sectarianism of the left. Just think of murders and mayhem that
> we can see in the history of the relationships among Islam, Judaism, and
> Christianity, not to mention the history of suppression of internal dissent
> within a given religion.
Absolutely true in many respects. Yet, unlike many on this list, I would point to political pogroms beginning with the French Revolution and continuing to today to show that politics is just as much prone to injustice as is "religion." How do you quantify the slaughter to reach a qualitative judgment that one form of atrocity is worse than another? Is the cold, calculated movement of people to internment camps to assured death worse than the "collateral fallout" from battle and military rampage?
If you look at some of the recent work by Derrida and Habermas on the backyard wars in Europe, you'll find an interesting debate about the causes of the various fundamentalisms. I tend to side with Derrida on this issue. Any thoughts?
chuck miller