The Elephant in the Holy Text Room

One consistency is the, often, emphasis on absolutes in a cosmic battle between good and evil with the “thou shalt” and “thou shalt not” listings of the Abrahamic faiths, almost as if frozen ancient philosophies before the more dynamic ways of the modern world. I see this as a crux in Divine Command Theory ethics.

It is externally sourced or attributed, which does not seem to make the claim more well-established. The Bible, as far as I know, is well-established as written, basically, decades after the supposed occurrences. The religious texts in the Abrahamic faiths have a well-established but little-known crux. There is a large reliance on eye witness testimony to things or individual testimonials of the purported prophets and holy figures.

In that, there is a cognitive psychology field by Professor Elizabeth Loftus on the idea of the false memories and even rich false memories. People can invent parts of memories or even whole experiences; this can be scientifically manipulated.

Here we come to an issue, we thrive and survived on stories, narratives. We now know from skeptics and from scientific research: this is not a form of good evidence, even okay evidence, but of terrible evidence.

The problem faces us.

In that, the eyewitness, if applied in the light of the modern scientific evidence, provides little justification or reason to adhere to the narratives as told in eyewitness accounts in suggested holy texts.

How can we advance this scientific understanding for a more secularized and naturalized understanding of the world through the lenses of the traditional religions?