Give over, the both of you! It’s like two bald men arguing over a comb!
Just forget the mumbo-jumbo and stick to the ethos – all faiths except the most fundamental share the same, basically humanist values such as compassion, forgiveness, honesty, etc. It’s the mumbo-jumbo that kills.
Iain Banks puts it well in his book ‘The Quarry’. His character Guy, the father of an autistic youth, is dying of cancer, and comments:
“I shall not miss being part of a species lamentably ready to resort to torture, rape and mass murder, just because some other fucker or fuckers is or are slightly different from those intent on doing such harm, be it because they happen to worship a slightly different set of superstitious idiocies, possess a skin occupying a different position on a Pantone racial colour wheel, or had the fucking temerity to pop out of a womb on the other side of a river, ocean, mountain range, other major geographical feature, or indeed, just a straight line drawn across the desert by some bored and ignorant bureaucrat, umpteen thousand miles away and a century ago. Frankly it’s a relief to be shot of the necessity to be watching such bollocks play out.”
