Inerrancy

A problem with 'religion' is the profound, structural difficulty it has shedding its own mistakes. In this respect at least, science is much better positioned. And this is the particular--relatively little discussed, it seems to me, but vital--upon which the future of religion hinges. This is why homosexuality is such a crucial issue for the big monotheisms at the moment. Not because it is inherently important, for it isn't; but for cultural and historical reasons it has become a major blot in the cultural discourse of religion. It's axiomatic that the condemnation of consensual homosexual sex, or of a homosexual orientation, is, simply, an error. The extent to which Christianity and Islam persist in this error is the index of their pathology. Finding ways of moving religion past its mistakes may well be the great challenge of the age. Inerrant is one of the most terrible terms of dispraise in the lexicon, though often taken otherwise.