Editor,
I'm writing in response to the letter by Laura Bracht and Havah S. Johnson published in the Daily Lobo on Wednesday in which they claim that because the Bible has clout in our society, it is factually accurate.
The Iliad is considered to be a semi-historical myth. Scholars don't seriously believe that the ancient Greek gods played an active role in the Trojan Wars, but rather, the story offers a serious look at the culture and religion of the time. If the Western world wasn't so predominantly Christian, the Bible would likely be treated in the same way.
This also applies to Biblical morality. For example, I don't think any reasonable person in today's society would do anything such as these actions which the Bible commands of us: "Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man, but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man" -Numbers 31:17-18. "If anyone curses his father or mother, he must be put to death" - Leviticus 20:1, 9. "If your very own brother, or your son or daughter, or the wife you love, or your closest friend secretly entices you, saying, 'Let us go and worship other gods' (gods that neither you nor your fathers have known, gods of the peoples around you, whether near or far, from one end of the land to the other), do not yield to him or listen to him. Show him no pity. Do not spare him or shield him. You must certainly put him to death. Your hand must be the first in putting him to death, and then the hands of all the people. Stone him to death, because he tried to turn you away from the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. Then all Israel will hear and be afraid, and no one among you will do such an evil thing again" - Deuteronomy 13:6-11.
I sincerely doubt Bracht or Johnson would argue that any of these should be taught today. The Bible asserts many historical, scientific and moral teachings that have been determined to be wrong, not based on faith but on looking at the
evidence.
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They invoke Galileo as though he was being persecuted for his faith rather than his scientific assertion, and that it wasn't the religious leaders at the time who were calling him a madman. I can't believe that Bracht and Johnson seriously try to argue that wind is somehow an article of faith because it can't be seen. So, in other words, anything that a blind person believes to exist must be a complete act of faith because he can't see it.
I'll end this with an appropriate quote from Richard Dawkins: "There's all the difference in the world between a belief that one is prepared to defend by quoting evidence and logic and a belief that is supported by nothing more than tradition, authority or revelation."
Elliot Kaufman
UNM student
