A Quandary for Bible-Thumpers
Guest blog by Charles Rayner Kelly
Well, fellow believers in God's literal word written in the Bible, we do have a problem, haven't we? General David Petraeus has confessed to committing adultery with another man's wife, and the Bible clearly tells us what we need to do. We need to stone them.
Deuteronomy 22:22 — If a man is caught sleeping with another man's wife, both must die, the man who has slept with her and the woman herself.
Nothing could be clearer. It's clearly far clearer than any references to gays and lesbians, contraception, abortion, or those other pubic concerns we all have.
Pat Robertson excused General Petraeus saying "he's a man," so he obviously doesn't take the word of God seriously. "She's a good-looking woman and he's a lonely man," he says. Aren't we all a bit lonely, Pat?
Nor has President Barack Obama raised a pebble against General Petraeus to uphold his belief in God's word, so we cannot depend upon him to correct the wrong. He'd rather lob missiles on people half a world away.
If we don't obey this command, fellow believers that the Bible is God's literal word, what are we to do? How are we to counter those who say the Bible is a document from an iron-age society that depicts its (necessarily limited) world view? Or that it was written by people who were merely human, and so they got some things right, like God is Love, and other things wrong, like the sun going around the earth.
I suggest we all meet at our nearest rock quarry and discuss the actions we need to take to uphold our fundamentalist beliefs.
_________________________
Charles Rayner Kelly is a retired educator, a philosopher and a novelist. Among his novels is LITTLE POOR MAN: The Story of St. Francis of Assisi.
Well, fellow believers in God's literal word written in the Bible, we do have a problem, haven't we? General David Petraeus has confessed to committing adultery with another man's wife, and the Bible clearly tells us what we need to do. We need to stone them.
Deuteronomy 22:22 — If a man is caught sleeping with another man's wife, both must die, the man who has slept with her and the woman herself.
Nothing could be clearer. It's clearly far clearer than any references to gays and lesbians, contraception, abortion, or those other pubic concerns we all have.
Pat Robertson excused General Petraeus saying "he's a man," so he obviously doesn't take the word of God seriously. "She's a good-looking woman and he's a lonely man," he says. Aren't we all a bit lonely, Pat?
Nor has President Barack Obama raised a pebble against General Petraeus to uphold his belief in God's word, so we cannot depend upon him to correct the wrong. He'd rather lob missiles on people half a world away.
If we don't obey this command, fellow believers that the Bible is God's literal word, what are we to do? How are we to counter those who say the Bible is a document from an iron-age society that depicts its (necessarily limited) world view? Or that it was written by people who were merely human, and so they got some things right, like God is Love, and other things wrong, like the sun going around the earth.
I suggest we all meet at our nearest rock quarry and discuss the actions we need to take to uphold our fundamentalist beliefs.
_________________________
Charles Rayner Kelly is a retired educator, a philosopher and a novelist. Among his novels is LITTLE POOR MAN: The Story of St. Francis of Assisi.
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