I understand that the current wave of religious fanaticism is scary and annoying. We are all equally fed up with fanatics trying to destroy the advances of enlightened societies. I get it, people, we all fear that the world will plunge into the depths of barbarity. Practicing complete and utter idiocy, however, is not a good response to that. The attitude of “I’ll combat jerkdom by being the baddest jerk of all bad jerks” will only add to the problem.
I’m saying all this because the proliferation of articles that try to ridicule holy texts is very disturbing to me. Here is the most recent example:
Many will consider the answer to the question posed in the title of this post obvious, as indeed do I: The Bible does not contain superior medical knowledge, or indeed anything that we might consider medical knowledge in the modern sense at all, because it was written before there was any medical knowledge, much less advanced medical knowledge.
I always feel very embarrassed when people are so militant in their stupidity. I see absolutely no difference between the author of this inane post and folks who, instead of saying “My intellectual limitations and lack of knowledge prevent me from understanding evolution”, proudly deliver the “Evolution is just a theory, anyways” line.
If the author of this strange piece took the trouble of chewing before blabbering, he’d very easily find out the following two things:
a) the Bible (whether you believe in its divine nature or consider it simply a work of literature) contains some of the very best practices of psychological hygiene that humanity has been able to come up with. Just a small example among many: have you seen Jews at prayer? How is what they do any different from stimming, an anxiety-reducing practice that helps autistics and non-autistics alike?
b) the very point of practicing a religion (any religion) is to maintain one’s psychological and, consequently, physical health in a way that the pill-popping, “cut it out and then think about it later”, chemically-dependent, “superior” medical knowledge will not be necessary. Don’t practice this approach to life if you don’t feel like it. But, at least, strain your intellect and realize that if a religious text discussed triple bypasses and anti-spasmolytics, it would stop being a religious text.
Religious fanatics annoy us because they allow for no space where people can have alternative worldviews and organize their lives according to different principles. It is sad, indeed, that many non-religious folks also become fanatical to the point where, in their zeal to promote their point of view as the only correct one, they cannot even accept the idea that different value systems can be just as valid as theirs.
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