From: jacksonk@gehrig.cs.rpi.edu (Keith Jackson)
Subject: Re: Anti-religious fanatics
Organization: Resntoseel Pynucistcer Itlteniha, Troy, NY
Date: Tue, 18 Aug 1992 23:02:17 GMT

In article <24957@castle.ed.ac.uk> fofp@castle.ed.ac.uk (M Holmes) writes:
>mwilson@ncratl.AtlantaGA.NCR.COM (Mark Wilson) writes:

  .
    .
      .

>>I personally think that if people would truely follow the teachings of
>>Christ, Mohammed, Buddha, etc. instead of trying to kill all those who
>>didn't, the world would be better off.

>Ah, but I submit that the people in charge of the Crusades, The Spanish
>Inquisition, the witch burnings, the murder of the incas and so on *did*
>believe that they were truely following the teachings of Christ.

That's completely ludicrous!  If they did believe that, then they  had
major  delusions  and  would  thus be classified as highly neurotic or
even psychotic.  More likely these people knew exactly what they  were
doing  and rationalized their actions as justified.  Or in some cases,
they could be incredibly naive, e.g. one of the lowly underlings -- in
which  case  they  would have been duped by `evil' persons above them,
not by Christianity itself.

No mention of the Muslim conquest of North Africa and part of Spain --
thus  concentrating  derision  against  Christians.   Of course, since
Christianity is the most popular religion of  the  West-European  Male
descendants,  that  obviously  heinous  and  most PI group, this is of
course justified.  (obligatory ;^) )

>The problem with such teachings is that they have such ridiculous
>premises that suspension of the critical faculties are necessary.

Please explain what you mean by `critical faculties'.  Can you justify
this ridiculous statement?

>After
>that, you're open to be convinced of anything. Once convinced, rational
>argument to the contrary is almost futile. The teachings themselves are
>often inconsistent and open to almost arbitrary interpretation. Witness
>the sheer number of christian creeds which developed from different
>interpretations of the Bible. Almost any belief appears to be
>justifiable using quotes from the Bible.

Not quite.  Sure, many persons wrongly  use  the  Bible  to  `justify'
their  ideas,  but  that doesn't mean that people have to accept this.
More glaringly, if you're not a Christian you can simply discount  the
Bible  as a source of justification.  Not being part of the group, you
certainly should not criticize those who claim to be part  based  upon
the precepts of  the group itself.  If you can't convince someone that
you're right, you eventually have to leave them alone and believe what
they will.  Oh,  but you can't do  that, can you?  Not in your nature.
After all, you are human.

>So "true teaching" is only what someone in charge of a section of the
>religion says it is, and their own interpretation of it has allowed them
>to order the murders of folks who disagreed. 

What  the hell does  this have to do  with any specific belief system?
This is more a characterisic of human beings than of anything else.

>As for "true christian". Most folks simply mean by this "they agree with
>me on this one." It's used as a tool for conveniently disowning folks
>within their religion whose actions and statements they now find
>embarrassing. I just can't agree that this is reasonable when it
>excludes people who have *led* the christian religion for hundreds of
>years.

OK, so if someone says they're a Christian but  advocates  unjustified
murder,  then by your logic the Christian religion is permanently tied
to this individual.  OK, so I advocate unjustified murder and I  claim
to  be a member of any group you're in.  What, you have a problem with
that?

>Christianity is different from political creeds in that it claims to
>somehow be involved in empowering some "divine plan" leading to "heaven
>on earth". It has also claimed to somehow improve people. It's kinda
>hard to believe that this is the case when historically the effects of
>christianity have been to produce the exact opposite.

But you see, historians do not write of the family that went to church
each  Sunday, were kind to their neighbors, and overall had a positive
effect on the community.  They only like the  gruesome  details.   You
apply  the  same bias by only pointing out the negative.  Who's to say
what the net influence on humanity is?  In addition, you claim that  a
belief  system is responsible for many attrocities, when in fact it is
the people who _CLAIMED_ to follow this belief  system  who  committed
these  attrocities and hid behind some rationalizations about justifi-
cation based upon this belief system.  Again, I go  kill  someone  and
say  `I  do  this  in  the name of Confuscius!' then give all kinds of
quotes to `justify' my actions.  Just because I wrongly used this  be-
lief system, does it mean this belief system has resulted in some evil
outcome?  No -- that's silly!

>As for the "it's all a long time ago" idea. What does this mean exactly?
>We can ignore events that happened "a long time ago" as irrelevant? That
>would presumably include events which may or may not have happened in
>Galilee around two thousand years ago? I somehow can't see christians
>queueing up to advocate that we just ignore that story.

You're mixing apples and oranges -- you shouldn't ignore any  item  of
history.   By  claiming  that  present day persons have no relation to
historical attrocities one does not insist on ignoring  history,  just
that  you  be  realistic and lay blame where it's deserved -- on those
who committed the attrocities.

If you look at any religion or belief system as what it's meant to  be
-- an ideal for people to strive for, of which those who claim to be a
member don't always succeed or even try in reaching  this  goal,  then
you  can't  fault  this ideal unless it specifically calls for heinous
acts.  You can fault it's followers if they do something `wrong',  but
if this is directly against their proclaimed their belief system (e.g.
as murder is to Christianity) then you can hardly claim that they  are
following this belief system.

>It's a fair question to ask though: "Well ok, do you really believe that
>christians are *still* like that?"

Christians are a mixed breed, to say the least.  Many humans are `that
way'  in  this  day  and age.  Look at the Serbs (predominantly Chris-
tians) killing the Bosnians  (predominantly  Muslims.)   Look  at  the
Arabs  and the Jews in the Middle East.  Look at Afghanistan, Somalia,
(Soviet) Georgia, etc.  Attrocities abound regardless  of  the  belief
systems, or lack thereof (e.g.  Stalin.)  All your arguments boil down
to stereotypes.  The only  absolute is that humans are  cruel to other
humans.

>I'd have to qualify my answer with something I mentioned earlier: I
>believe christianity has had a good effect on some people. I just don't
>believe that it's had a good effect on all people, and as an organised
>mass movement it's proved to be one of the most successfully and long
>term murderous groups in history.

Yes, but you can't quantify the good or the bad, and neither  can  you
attribute  any  specific attrocities to a belief system rather than to
human nature.  All of this is opinion based upon no quantitative  evi-
dence.

>As you said above "these atrcocities are a *human* tendency". So the
>question amounts to "Have humans changed at all?"

If at all, very little.  Maybe they've gotten  worse  or  better,  who
knows?   You'd  have to have scads of data to back up any claim, which
we will never have.

>I submit that there's no evidence that they have. Personally I doubt it.

OK, so why are you blaming a belief system?  Why  not  put  the  blame
where it belongs, on humanity?

>The main example that comes to mind are some of the fundamentalists in
>the USA who a few years ago were claiming that Armaggedon was close and
>the USA was going to destroy atheist-communist Russia in a nuclear
>blowout. The pollution wouldn't be a problem though because jesus was
>coming back to make a New Earth anyway. Reagan himself was said to have
>contacts with these people. Now I have no personal doubt that these
>people do in fact believe what they say and given the historical record
>of christianity, it makes me kinda worried.

You have `no personal doubt' that they  believe  this?   You're  awful
gullible.  It's a wonder you're not a Christian yourself!

>On a less obvious note there's the Catholic Church opposing
>contraception, and in some countries making it illegal whether someone
>is christian or not.

Name one country in which the vatican has made political decisions  in
modern  history!  Perhaps the people have been influenced by them, but
that is the choice of those who choose to be Catholic.

>In the USA they want to make abortion illegal
>whether someone is a christian or not.

Many people who are not Catholics are Pro-Life.

>These folks certainly seem keen
>to legislate the rest of us into following their own interpretations
>whether or not we subscribe to their religion.

Well, their justification is that aborition is murder.  Do you have to
be  religious  to agree that murder is wrong and should be punished by
law?

>It wasn't really so
>different during the Spanish Inquisition was it?

Yes, it definitely was!  The SI  used  physical  torture  and  murder,
while  the  Pro-Lifers  use  political activism.  They work within the
system except when they perform civil disobedience, which  you  cannot
equate to torture and murder.

>The problem there
>amounted to folks that had a different and unapproved interpretation.

So the current legal system says that those who are Pro-Life are wrong
and  have a `different and unapproved interpretation' of the constitu-
tion?  See how your logic goes both ways?

>Now I'm not saying that it's been suggested that mothers who've had an
>abortion be put on the rack until they admit that the pro-lifers were
>right (although some of them do seem keen on the Death Penalty for other
>crimes) but I assume that jail sentences are being considered.

Looks like the Pro-Lifers are being jailed for doing what they believe
is  right.   If  abortion  were  illegal and people publicly performed
abortions, accepting any penalty for doing so,  as  a  form  of  civil
disobedience,  it  would  simply  be  the  same  situation in reverse.
You're putting a very highly exaggerated conclusion  to  their  inten-
tions  to  show  how ruthless those *&^$# Christians are.  Why not say
that they want to put all mothers who had abortions into concentration
camps while you're at it?

>In other
>words there are christians today who would happily jail you for not
>following *their* religious principles.

What about the other religions or basic human decency which says  that
murder  is  wrong?   If you accept the premise that abortion is murder
(I'm not trying to convince you either way on  that)  then  you  don't
even  have  to  be religious to consider it wrong in the same way that
manslaughter is.

>No, I'm not really convinced that anything has changed.

I've just shown that abortion is not a Christian issue, no matter  how
many Christians use their belief system as justification for their ar-
guments on the issue.  So you can't use that.  You see,  many  of  the
laws  you can label as Christian are merely due to the prevailent eth-
ics of the community.  As the community's ethics change, so should the
laws (e.g. the repeal of sodomy laws in many states.)  I don't care if
some bozo wants to justify a law with his/her religion,  that  doesn't
make  that  law  based upon their religion unless it is unique to that
religion.  I'm sure you can dig up  some  obtuse  laws  still  on  the
books,  but  can you come up with a major law which affects people and
is actually enforced?

>Christianity may well be fairly safe and innocuous as a personal
>religion.

Gee, don't you want to claim that it causes  neurosis?   Since  people
who  follow  Christianity have to deal with `contradictions' as `abso-
lute truth' obviously they have to delude themselves with all kinds of
rationalizations  to  justify  everything  they do.  Right?  Shouldn't
they be put in mental asylums and cured?  Or is `re-educated' a better
word for you?

>At least if it were personal then nobody could start up with
>claims that someone else's interpretation was wrong or that they weren't
>"a true christian".

If you don't subscribe to their beliefs, what the  hell  do  you  care
what  conclusions they derive from it?  If you think they're wrong for
believing what they do, why worry if they make claims based upon  this
`wrong'  belief  system?   If you are not a Christian, why do you care
who they consider as a `True Christian?'  Seems to me like you're try-
ing to impose your own standards on others.  Exactly what you complain
about -- hypocrisy.

>When christianity gets involved in a large organised
>group though, it gets dangerous. To non-christians, and to christians
>they decide aren't "true" christians.

How is this specific to Christianity?  I  think  any  large  organized
group tends to go political and thus corrupt.

>Given that, and tying it back to the original point, that's why some
>folks oppose them.

Well, you haven't shown me any reasons why anyone can  feel  justified
in opposing Christians or Christianity to help humanity.  I think much
more important than anything you've mentioned is personal  liberty  --
the  liberty  to  choose whatever religion you wish and to follow that
religion to the point that it interferes  in  your  neighbors  rights.
Note,  that  if following a religion interferes with another's rights,
then the offender should be punished under the legal system,  not  the
religion  itself.   Of  course you have the right to speak out against
any belief system you like, but don't expect me back you up  when  the
only reason you show is that some members act all too human.

>>--My opinions are mine and mine alone, unless someone else claims them
>>first.

>>--Mark

>My opinions are mine. It's harder to work 'em out than just be told what
>they are by a 2000 year old book. But it's worth it.

>FoFP

Well, I  think I  can find more in the Bible that I agree with than in
your posting, and I'm not even religious.
-- 
            ^  >
            O o                                                 \_O
           >=-=<        Keith Jackson == jacksonk@cs.rpi.edu      |O
             U                                                  _/ \_
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