The religious left in both the US and in Israel seem oblivious to the content and teachings in the "holy" books of Christianity and Judaism. Their seeming lack of awareness of these religious teachings indicates they only focus on some "nice" verses from their religion's "holy" scriptures, and either are ignorant of or ignore the cruel and harmful teachings. This gives them the illusion that they can "reclaim" the religion from the religious right, thus halting the anti-progress advances the religious right is making in society. Advances which are moving us ever closer to living under oppressive and dark theocracies.
In the Jewish state of Israel, Jews in the religious left make noble and heroic stances against the state's brutal ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from Palestinian East Jerusalem and from the Palestinian West Bank. (Israel refers to the Palestinian West Bank as Judea and Samaria, which were the names of the area in biblical times. This is an example of what the father of the warmongering neoconservatives, Leo Strauss, wrote regarding "progress" in Judaism. In Progress or Return? The Contemporary Crisis in Western Civilization, Strauss wrote, "Judaism is a concern with return; it is not a concern with progress. 'Return' can easily be expressed in biblical Hebrew; 'progress' cannot.")
The Jews in the religious left in Israel need to realize that the Jews who created and sustain the daily religious violence and terrorism of the expanding Israeli occupation are not, according to Judaism and the Hebrew Bible, extremists. According to the Hebrew Bible at Genesis 15:18 God gave to Abram, aka Abraham, and all of his descendants all the land "from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates." Judaism and the Hebrew Bible teach Jewish superiority and religious violence when they claim God chose the Jews "above all people that are upon the face of the earth" (Deuteronomy 7:6) and when the ancient Jewish clergymen who wrote the Bible claim at Deuteronomy 7:2 that God commanded the Jews: "And when the LORD thy God shall deliver them before thee; thou shalt smite them, and utterly destroy them; thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor shew mercy unto them." It is obvious that from the perspective of Judaism, the extremists are the Jews in the religious left who don't want to follow these ungodly religious teachings.
Likewise, the Christians in the US who are part of the religious left seem focused on only the nice and kind teachings attributed to Jesus by the anonymous authors of the Christian Gospels. They ignore teachings such as Luke 14:26 which has Jesus saying,
"If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple." (Click here for our page on this teaching attributed to Jesus.)
The people in the religious left also ignore teachings such as that found at Matthew 25:14-30, which has Jesus portraying God as a cruel slave owner. Verses 29-30 end with,
"For unto every one that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance: but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath. And cast ye the unprofitable servant into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth."
Any good and beneficial teaching in the Bible are made useless by its horrific and cruel teachings. The ambiguity in the Bible allows people to make it mean whatever they want it to mean. Thomas Paine addressed this problem in a letter he wrote to a Christian friend who took issue with Paine's important book on God, Deism and religion, The Age of Reason. Paine wrote to his friend, "...the Bible decides nothing, because it decides any way, and every way, one chooses to make it."
There is no logical reason why we must hang on to the ancient man-made "revealed" religions. In fact, there are countless reasons why we should let go of them and evolve our thinking and living free of the fear-based superstitions of the ancient "revealed" religions. For just one example, the religious violence promoting teachings in the "revealed" religions mentioned above would no longer have their harmful impact on people and society. That, in and of itself, would make for a much better world.
Some people think that caring for people in need has its roots in religion. This is not the case. One example of people in the religious left believing charity is tied to religion is Serene Jones, president of Union Theological Seminary in New York. In this article she said that universal basic income is "a religious foundational principle." In reality, the first person to promote it in America was the Deist Thomas Paine in his booklet Agrarian Justice.
The World Union of Deists is working towards creating Deist Reason Centers. Deist Reason Centers will be staffed with knowledgeable Deists who can answer any questions people have about Deism. They will not only educate people about Deism, but they will also serve the needs of people without bombarding them with religious dogma and pressuring them to convert. Deist Reason Centers will be dogma and ritual free. They will have libraries containing books, periodicals, and other media about Deism as well as about science, math, and history along with literacy classes. This is all truly in the spirit of Thomas Paine and progress.
