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M. Tovey regarding Jesus

Reader comment on item: The Enemy Has a Name
in response to reader comment: Terrorists of Any Religious Nature Using Fear to Spread Lies Cannot Discern the Truth

Submitted by Claire (United States), Jun 27, 2008 at 17:28

Unfortunately, it's beliefs like the one you describe that breed as much hatred as the beliefs espoused by those like sTs. Inflexible focus on allegory and metaphor in ancient writings is a path to destruction just as much as inflexible focus on an ancient warlord's writings.

The ancients thought geniuses were gods or goddesses or prophets. They were people who had innovative insights. Although I'll agree that Jesus probably taught some of the most practical lessons for humankind, as did Prince Siddhartha, the self-proclaimed prophets, such as Moses, Paul, Mohammed, and Mao also had insights, including how to convince people to place them in positions of power and follow the rules and regulations they developed (or, in the case of all of these people, borrowed). Much of it is simply dogma, doctrine, and thus a brainwash.

We are just coming to understand why people believe in ancient stories of the supernatural. But it will be a while before we can harness what is good and useful from these religious systems and apply them without the need to brainwash and indoctrinate people into an ancient lore.

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