Can Literature Make Us Worse?: Religious Scripture as Literature.

Often times, what a work of art means is profoundly obscure. Literature, however, is the form of art that most clearly illustrates the thoughts of the artist. When we’re speaking honestly, we can refer religious texts as works of fiction that depict age-old stories. These are texts that, on the whole, have made humanity worse off morally and intellectually. That is because, throughout history, these texts have not just been interpreted as ‘mere’ literature but as guides to morality and reality itself. However, aside from its non-literary implications, as a work of literature, it presents a worldview that has in more ways than not made humanity worse off. The dark ages, the inquisition, and the crusades, for instance, would have been irrational without the existence of the bible. This is clearly a controversial claim, but the truth supersedes the polarizing taboo of criticizing religious texts. Religious scripture is literature that makes us worse ethically and diminishes the human spirit, at the level of individual identity. This is not a call for censorship, however. Plato was wrong in this regard. If we censor them, that eliminates the possibility of criticizing these works of literature as the inducers of moral abhorrence. The fact that such literature can make us worse, implies that there exists literature that makes us better. Literature that makes us better, must be coherent in its presentation of a palatable worldview. The stories which make us better, do so without explicitly attempting to make philosophical claims…