From: donsw@cs.cornell.edu (Donald Wihardja)
Subject: Re: What is the problem?
Organization: Cornell Univ. CS Dept, Ithaca NY 14853
Date: Thu, 21 Jan 1993 16:41:56 GMT

In article <1jl83gINNoro@calvin.usc.edu> alves@calvin.usc.edu (William Alves) writes:
>Well, I wasn't going to get drawn into this, but since you asked, I vote
>a very emphatic YES. I am neither Muslim nor Christian, but I found the
>posts very interesting. I most certainly did not find them insulting nor
>offensive. It is true that I am not Indonesian, but I am a subscriber
>to this newsgroup. I believe my perspective is just as valid.

Yup, I agree, your perspective is valid.

>In my opinion, religious tension is not created by talking about religious
>issues. Quite the opposite. Silence and censorship create the kind of
>ignorance and lack of communication that promotes stereotypes and intol-
>erance. Religious prejudice and other forms of bias are overcome by knowing
>members of other religions as people, by trying to understand (if not agree
>with) their belief systems and customs, and by openly communicating.

Well, I just think that the topic is one of those that both side cannot 
agree on as it is the fundamental belief in each side. (If Jesus is the
Son of God, Islam is bogus, if not, Christianity is bogus.) So there is
no point in spending effort discussing it.

>I believe that cross-posting does not waste bandwidth on most newsreaders.
>Only a single copy of the article is transmitted to an Internet site.

Actually that is not true, at least not in my site. All newsgroup has their
own copies of whatever articles is accessible to it. (I checked) But that is
not my main concern, (heck I don't care about disk space) I just mean that 
whatever reply we make never gets to whoever post the article. But as you
pointed out, if we use "f" or "F" it will get posted everywhere. I stand 
corrected.

>>I think you are
>>not familiar with the situation in Indonesia regarding religion aside from 
>>the fact that 80% of Indonesia is technically Muslim.
>
>I think the poster was familiar with this fact, which is why he thought that
>this would be an appropriate newsgroup.

He just forgot that the 20% is not Muslim. He didn't know about the 
religious tension in Indonesia right now. He didn't know that that percentage
(80-20) does not hold true of the Indonesian reader of this newsgroup. 
Basically, its just bad timing, that's all.

>>while most
>>educated people does not care what religion their friends are in, as long as
>>they are nice people, the topic of religion is a very sensitive matter.
>
>Then, to me, the answer is more education and the teaching of religious
>tolerance.

You know, I believe that "religious tolerance" stems out of the fact that
many people don't VERY FIRMLY believe in religion anymore. (I think Atheists
should be the most religiously tolerant people, as long as they don't 
treat Atheism as another "religion".) In the case of the world's major 
religion (treating all Christianity as one), one religion is "TRUE" only
if the rest are false. In both Christianity and Islam, it is the duty of 
its member to try and righten the rest of the world. Thus "religious 
intolerance". (Sadly, I am religiously tolerant :> )
As for the role of education: Education/scientific knowledge makes people
believe less in God than in laws of nature. (I think if there is Satan, or
whatever the antithesis of God is, he couldn't invent a much better way
to win people away from God than science. Yeah, science could be used to
make you believe in God even further, but see how it is used to secularized
the world today. But I am digressing.)

>Bill Alves

Donald
-- 
CS Department, Cornell University
Ithaca, New York.
Newsgroups: alt.culture.indonesia