The Laughing Jesus; Timothy Freke & Peter Grandy
The book encourages a root-and-branch repudiation of Literalism in all religions, claiming that all fundamentalisms are fossilized shells and husks from which the living essence has either withered or escaped long ago.
As the authors say, fundamentalists of all religions ‘have willingly abandoned rationality in favour of blind faith in old books’ (p. 20). The reason fundamentalists are so extreme is that they have an absolute certainty that they are right and everyone else is wrong.
Religious Fundamentalism is an irrational pathology which leads otherwise decent men and women to become enemies of openmindedness and big-heartedness, and enlist in the service of divinely sanctioned bigotry. Fundamentalism creates dangerously self-righteous people who turn against those who espouse the truly spiritual values of love, tolerance and understanding. (p. 17)
This is one of the best books I have ever read, after reading it, I started to read it all over again.
