R. Joseph Hoffmann has a 2010 wish list for various religious faiths:
It is time for a list of things religions must give up, forswear, abandon and forever repudiate in order to be what they want to be–or say they do: mechanisms of peace, justice, compassion and love of humanity.
A few excerpts…
For Christians:
1. Abandon the mythology of Genesis. God did not make the world in 6, 8 or 1000 days or 1000 days of years. Stop squabbling over Hebrew syntax and what you think the Biblical writers meant. They meant what they wrote and they were wrong. We know far too much about how things really came about to believe any of the nonsense about how a Hebrew-speaking priest of the sixth century BCE thought things came about.
For Muslims:
3. Let your women get an education. Admit that the most ordinary housewife who chooses to wear hijab to keep her husband and eldest son happy is smarter than the average imam. Don’t cut off people’s legs for adultery. Stop the stoning. Stop saying that cliterodectomy is un-Islamic, or rather shout it out and mean it. Don’t throw battery acid in girl’s faces for consorting with boys en route to school. Stop torching the schools. Etc.
For Jews:
1. There are no chosen people. There are just people. It is depressing, isn’t it? We all want to be special.
I like his list, but the #4 item under Judaism rubs me the wrong way and I suspect many of you will feel the same. Hoffmann knows this and acknowledges it. I’m curious what you think of it
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