Misguided remarks

COUNCILLOR Yagyah Adams’s recent diatribe against atheists understandably provoked an indignant response from a number of your readers, who generally made well the point that there is a significant proportion of the population who are capable of maintaining a humane ethical lifestyle without the need for an exogenous faith-based entity to terrify them into doing so.

I was confused by the councillor’s appeal to the “Abrahamic faith” by which I understood him to mean that there is some sort of consolidated ethical view shared by the world’s Christians, Jews and Muslims. While these religions may share a common root in Abraham, their subsequent growth has been anything but harmonious. Judaism boasts five different branches: Conservative, Hasid, Kabbalah, Orthodox and Reform. Islam also comprises five different branches: Sunni, Shia, Wahhabi, Suffi and Ba’hai, which between them have split into more than 70 different sects.

Followers of Jesus Christ are described variously as Roman Catholics, Anglicans, Lutherans, Methodists, Presbyterians, Baptists, Pentecostals, Charismatics, Seventh-Day Adventists, Quakers, Mormons, Eastern Orthodox and so on. And between them all are a host of different views on ethical matters such as marriage.

Prior to the advent of communism, Russian Jews were persecuted unless they agreed to convert to Orthodox Christianity. What would Abraham have to say about that? Most of Councillor Adams’s remarks are misguided, while his closing comment about those suffering with leprosy are downright offensive. Stephen Pain

Kleinkruisrivier