In Daniel Masny’s Feb. 3 column, he wrote: “Question yourself, the things you took as… In Daniel Masny’s Feb. 3 column, he wrote: “Question yourself, the things you took as assumptions and the people and things that tell you absolute certainties.” This is pretty good advice, I think, and it’s a shame that its author doesn’t follow it.

He has assumed, for one thing, that the Bible says that homosexuals are evil. While it does categorize homosexuality as a sin, it also points fingers at lust, lying and disrespecting your parents. These three are just as “evil” in the eyes of the Bible, and I’d say a lot more students have practiced them habitually.

If Masny had looked at what Christians believe a little more seriously, he might have found the phrase “love the sinner, hate the sin.” Christians believe that everyone has sinned and deserves eternal damnation, with the notable exception of that Jesus guy.

Christians, especially fundamentalists, aren’t worried about translation errors in the Bible for a very good reason. They believe in a God who is omnipresent and omnipotent, who guides their reading and influences their understanding of His book. By reading it and praying, they communicate directly with God Himself, so any important decisions or commands from a religious leader can be run by God first. These Christians trust that God will show them His will just as he did for the writers and translators of the Bible.

The idea that “God is in control of your life” is laughable at best, and doesn’t fit with most Christian teachings. Masny seems to have misinterpreted God’s omniscience. What Christians actually believe is that God has given us free will and it has allowed us to sin. Our mistakes are responsible for the imperfections and problems we deal with every day, all of which run contrary to the will of God. Just because God wants what is best for us and knows how we will screw up doesn’t mean he will take away our free will.

The real threat to morality is not “placing responsibility outside yourself” but taking personal control of all morality. If there are no moral absolutes, no right and wrong, then who are you to condemn anything as immoral? If a child dies two days after it is born, and its parents rip the corpse apart and eat the pieces, you would call this wrong, wouldn’t you?

If the source of morality is within oneself, then you have no right to impose your beliefs about cannibalism on anyone else. A possible answer you could come up with is that morality comes from society. Universally condemned things like murder, rape and cannibalism are wrong because people condemn them collectively. Now imagine us together in a room, alone. Just you and me and a shotgun, now if I say one thing and you say another, there is no clear majority. Would I not be justified in doing whatever I felt was right?

Here’s a question for you, “Why?” Why would someone be so hostile to real Christianity that they obscure and misrepresent its teachings? I’m going to speculate now on where such hatred might originate. Maybe you have had a bad experience with a Christian, or someone who called him- or herself a Christian. If we all judged every group by the worst of its members, then racism, sexism and the worst possible kind of bigotry would reign.

I don’t pretend to be very knowledgeable, but I at least know what I believe. My mind is open to different possibilities, and I have notoriously little faith. I think self-righteous condemnation is a sin, and taking potshots at somebody’s religion is no laughing matter. Try reading the Bible the whole way through; I think you’ll find yourself surprised by its actual content. I know I was.

W. I. Shane Moore

Political Science

Freshman