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It is properly said that the Devil can "quote Scripture to
his purpose." The Bible is full of so many stories of
contradictory moral purpose that every generation can
find scriptural justification for nearly any action it
proposes - from incest, slavery, and mass murder to the
most refined love, courage, and self-sacrifice. And this
moral multiple personality disorder is hardly restricted to
Judaism and Christianity. You can find it deep within
Islam, the Hindu tradition, indeed nearly all the world's
religions. Perhaps then it is ... people who are morally
ambiguous.
Scripture is said to be divinely inspired - a phrase with
many meanings. But what if it's simply made up by
fallible humans? Miracles are attested, but what if they're
instead some mix of charlatanry, unfamiliar states of
consciousness, misapprehensions of natural phenomena,
and mental illness? The fact that so little of the finds of
modern science is prefigured in Scripture to my mind
casts further doubt on its divine inspiration.
But of course I might be wrong.
-Carl Sagan
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