It’s Important to Leave the Bible as It Is

Re: “Getting in Touch With the Bible’s Inclusive Self” (Oct. 16): As an atheist whose reading of the Bible from cover to cover set my feet upon the path to reality and truth, I deplore the new “translation” of the Bible to make it more in tune with modern sensibilities.

This might seem odd, an atheist concerned about the content of the Bible, but it is, in fact, imperative that this theological deception be denounced in the strongest terms possible. It is precisely the exclusive nature of the Bible that makes Judeo-Christian doctrines so divisive and dangerous.

Reinterpreting these dogmas to modern political correctness is to diminish their impact and will obscure the very source of the violent and destructive history founded upon it. I want the Bible to remain as it always has been: misogynist, pro-slavery, anti-intellectual, self-contradictory and eternally threatening to those who might believe in some other mythology, or those who might not base their perceptions of existence on a mythology at all.

--GEORGE SCILEPPI

Glendale