The Editor, Sir:

Don't we sometimes get tired of hearing the phrase "the Bible says," or are some of us so stupid, uneducated, and unenlightened, that we're going to live our lives according to the dictates of a book that few of our best educators can't even agree who wrote or when?

You must realise, I'm not condemning the Bible. It is obviously a collection of great and wise words written over a long period of time by many different people. But can we forget that, for as often as the Bible has been used to save souls, it has been used to justify destroying them?

Falling into the trap

Words do no real harm until they are used as an excuse for our own self-centred weakness and cruelty. How quickly we forget the horror of the African slave experience itself was justified by those who followed what they thought were the dictates of that same Holy Bible!

That said, how can people who call themselves Christians today fail to see the trap the Bible can lead them into? Should any of them make war against their fellowmen just because they want to interpret the Bible as condemning certain behaviours?

For example, how can condemning homosexuality as a sin and an abomination, then acting upon that religious belief to ostracise, injure or kill another human being, ever be considered a Christian course of action?

Jamaicans should realise that there are undoubtedly as many homosexuals in Jamaica as there are in any other part of the world and perhaps the nation's religious leaders need to grow up and live with that fact, not throw an old book at it.

I am, etc.,

ED McCOY

mmhobo48@juno.com

Bokeelia, FL

Via Go-Jamaica