According to Dr Tim Gallwey (Letters, 18 October), “We are quite capable of thinking things through for ourselves without the need for clergy to tell us what to think, what to do and how to do it.” When I read those words, I just had to sigh, “If only that were true”. Take Islam, where there is no central (clergy) interpreting authority. The Isis Mufti interprets the Koran to justify the torturing and killing of infidels. Another mufti, in another land, interprets the Koran as a religion of peace, charity and tolerance. In the Islamic belief world both interpretations are valid.The closest analogy for us to understand this is to think of our common law, where we obtain legal opinions, sometimes contradictory, from QCs, but where there is no high court of the land t
30 October 2014, The Tablet
Perils of faith
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