Given the damage that religion has wreaked in our modern world—and no religion is exempt—one would think that in attempting to rehabilitate the role of religion in modern life, one would seek to avoid association with violence.

But instead, with “The Book of Eli,” that is what we get: Violence. Post-apocalyptic violence justified by the Bible. “Some will kill to have it. He will kill to protect it.” Killing and violence justified simply for the sake of religion.

The question is thus begged: How far should you go to advance your beliefs? What violence should you enact to defend your faith? How important is faith (knowledge in the absence of evidence) in enacting violence? How far from this story do we find crusading knights, the Spanish Inquisition, doomsday cults, Islamic terrorists, and anti-abortion assassins? If the Bible is meant to be a book of peace, “The Book of Eli” seems a bit hypocritical.

Perhaps I’m the only one that sees some measure of irony in that the article upon which the world will be resurrected after succumbing to its self-destructive impulses, is the very same article which has already caused so much needless and senseless violence and suffering. It doesn’t matter if the holy tome is the Bible, the Q’uran, or the Torah. The best thing that could happen to humanity in a post-apocalyptic world is to finally be free of the institutionalized ignorance of religion

I’m at a bit of a loss to understand why Lombard allows the Bible to be included in the repository of all pre-war knowledge. Because, simply put, the BIble contains no knowledge. There is no science, there is no knowledge or information which cannot be gleaned from other sources without having to wade through all of the religious drivel.