Your correspondent S Mobbs. (28-9) invites me to find God by reading the Bible.
I studied Catholic Doctrine for twelve years. I studied the Bible for twenty years. I went to Bible College for two years. I married an Evangelist and a very sincere person who is a Carmelite Nun and my Aunt is praying for me. I am promised by a very sincere letter writer in Armidale that he is also praying for me.
The bottom line here is very simple. There is as much evidence that Moby Dick is the word of God as there is that the Bible is the word of God.
If I want to know what happens when I die, I don’t need to ask Peter Brain. Any funeral director can tell me. They are all in the yellow pages.
I am interested in Religion from a sociological perspective and from a political one. Holy books were written by the important to shape the values and loyalties of the unimportant. It is called Clericalism.
It was used in pre-democratic times to centralise power in the hands of the important. These people wear dresses for easy identification
Since the arrival of democracy, politicians talk up their relationship with God to marshal the voting power of the unimportant to thus make themselves important.
How does S Mobbs hope to gain knowledge of the subject by studying one book. Broader reading will show religion to be a form of power.
I have no wish to be discourteous to S Mobbs or Bishop Brain or anyone else. To me this is a philosophical debate.
John Bergin,
Armidale
