[lbo-talk] Marxism and Religion

[sharif islam]

On 2/27/07, Yoshie Furuhashi <critical.montages at gmail.com> wrote:
[.....]
>  The thing is that
> most people of any religious faith are not fundamentalists, so they
> don't read the texts literally, which is the reason why they can
> reconcile faith and science.

I have to disagree with the statement that most people don't read the
texts literally -- at least  not the Muslims I know. The main problem
is, as others mentioned, depending on the context and history, certain
verses could be literal or symbolic. So mainstream religious folks
usually don't have the time and knowledge to decipher all the
intricacies. Now this may or may not make them fundamentalists.  But
it is easy to go for the literal interpretation which usually provided
by religious leaders. Verse 3:7 (Surah Al-Imran) in Quran is a good
example. I blogged about it here:
http://khepa.livejournal.com/58797.html

--sharif

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