On Mar 24, 2010, at 2:07 PM, Chris Doss wrote:
> He's probably completely unaware that the Catechism of the Catholic
> Church says, in black and white, that Genesis is allegorical and
> even spells out in what sense. That would require intellectual
> honesty and research (oh no!).
As someone who spent his childhood memorizing the catechism of the Catholic church, I can tell you that intellectual honesty and research have little to do with that preposterous document. It's about drilling doctrine unquestioningly into the heads of the young and gullible.
> I don't know what it is about religion that lets any dumbass think
> he gets to comment on it. The only people who have any business
> claiming to speak authoritatively about the Bible are Biblical
> scholars and scholars of ancient history, i.e., people who can
> actually read the text in the languages in which it was written and
> know something about the societies from which it emerged. Other
> people should just shut up.
That's silly. The bible is a canonical literary work whose influence has mainly been felt through translations, and any literate person should feel free to comment on it.