Should Catholics be able to mandate reproductive policy in a state if they can scrape up the votes? Should a majority of Christian Scientists be able to shut down hospitals in their city if that is their sincerely held religious faith? When these conversations arise most people think of it as a question of church and state. But just as democracy depends on a separation of church and state, so does science depend on an ability to ask “what is true” without being limited by pre-existing beliefs. For any religion to be sane, it must be able to do science without the tethers of religious dogma. “Faith” in this sense is a confidence that ruthless honesty will lead us back to the sacred when all is said and done. Any religion which refuses such honesty is an eyeless giant taking out victims as it dies.
The following article is a deconstruction of Bible based medicine. It is written by a former evangelical so, unlike the most of the new atheists, she knows where to put the scalpel. Her intent is to remove the cataract over religion, not to pluck out the eyes of intuition. She also understands that we need to learn to discover both truth and meaning, not to choose between them as religious and irreligious fundamentalists would try to convince us.
I preach the Bible every week, but I also know that the Bible is a vicious idol if it ever replaces the human heart or mind.