In the prevailing culture of tolerance and political correctness, it is hard to see any statement condemning certain religious practices as anything other than insensitivity to other people’sbeliefs or even deliberate provocation. But is this attitude reasonable or wise?
In the extreme case, human sacrifice has been practised as an integral part of variousreligions throughout human history, most famously perhaps by the Aztec civilisation of Central America but also by early cultures on most continents and more recently by certain minor cults of Hinduism. Almost all people in today’s world would have no hesitation at branding human sacrifice as an outrage which should be eliminated but the members of those other cultures participated in a society that considered it a necessary part of procuring the favour of the god or gods. In the ancient world, people sometimes sacrificed their own children in desperate times to try to stave off famine or military defeat.
We hear it argued that we must not criticise other cultures but here is a clear example where we would all feel that we would have to disagree (or almost all as I have actually heard an Indian professor defend current instances of child sacrifice in India as part of the perpetrators’ culture which outsiders have no right to criticise). Once we have started to draw the line where do we stop? Who becomes the arbiter of what is acceptable and what is not?
There are various practices carried out in the name of religion, which are not actually part of the teaching of that religion’s holy book or books, for example, human sacrifice is not taught in the Hindu Vedas, female circumcision, forced marriage and suicide bombings are not found in the Quran and the crusades and the inquisition did not come from the Bible. Where such an authority is available, an appeal can be made to the original teachings of the faith in order to outlaw certain activities.
Further difficulty arises, however, when people disagree about the morality of what is written in the holy books. Some modern Muslims see the references to jihad or holy war in the Quran as a call to arms against various political injustices in the Muslim world, many Hindus would see nothing wrong in making offerings to rats (a holy animal in India even though it spoils much potential human food and spreads disease) and gay rights campaigners question the prohibitions against homosexual behaviour in the Bible. Who decides? Many would argue that a plain, straight-forward reading of the texts would confirm all the above ideas. Is there an absolute Truth or is all truth relative and we decide for ourselves?
