by Matthew Abuelo

Created on: May 10, 2010

Yesterday night my wife and I took a trip to Long Island New York for Mother's Day. At the last minute we decided to visit a friend of mine who, because of personal reasons, is forced to live with his parents, both of whom consider themselves dedicated Jews with a slight secular bent, despite their belief in God. As has become their custom when it comes to me, they decided to start up a conversation concerning religion which became a debate.

In what turned out to be a clear effort to throw down the gauntlet, his mother made the statement that the Bible is a source, if not the source of our morals. In today's age the statement would seem comical if it was not so scary, especially in today's post 9/11 world. But even on the face of it, the statement can be discarded right away.  If one were to read the book of  Leviticus or the book of numbers or the book of Deuteronomy, one would find not only the approval of God to own slaves but a mandate to do - so as long as you don't beat them to the point that you knock out their eyes or teeth. In fact, anyone attempting to intervene between slave and slave master and trying to stop the abuse would be committing a crime punishable by death. And in all of the Abraham books of the religions, Christianity Judaism and Islam, a woman who is not a virgin on her wedding night also receives a death sentence – and must be stoned to on her father's door step.

 The clear implications, if one takes these writings literally, are that the Southern Confederate movement was correct from a moral stance on the issue of Slavery. Or in the question of conservative Muslims who stone their daughters to death after they are raped, the same conclusions must also be reached.  Personally, I'm so glad that most of us these days consider these writings sheer rubbish.

 It is also important to remember that the movement of terror against prenatal clinics is exclusively religious, as is the targeting and assassinations of abortion doctors. In Israel, the Zionist movement for the Jewish people to reclaim the country is always under a mandate of God. The outcome of this movement has been nothing less than genocidal violence against the Palestinians. In each one of these cases, these people are not misunderstanding their religions but taking the writings literally.

 It should be pointed out that most religious people don't believe in committing these acts of violence but that is by in large because of our social evolution

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