From: arsmith@lamar.ColoState.EDU (Alan Smith)
Subject: Re: Religious Stuff
Date: Sun, 15 Nov 1992 09:24:09 GMT
Organization: Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO  80523

In article <1992Nov12.071741.15546@deeptht.armory.com> rstevew@deeptht.armory.com (Richard Steven Walz) writes:
>In article <1992Nov10.065923.21891@mnemosyne.cs.du.edu> sgreever@nyx.cs.du.edu (Steven Greever) writes:
>>
>>I am sorry my earlier posts angered you - I said that I didn't mean
>>anybody any harm.
No harm done, at least not to me.  As biblethumpers go, you were very kind.
Heck, as posters go, this ain't bad.
>>was "why don't these people just read the Bible?"
They don't feel the bible has all the answers.

>>I cannot believe in the things you do but in
>>retrospect I had no right to criticize them.  You believe what you
>>believe, and I shall continue to believe what I do.  Until then,
>>it's ok with me if we all stop bickering.

Yeah, well, I have a little bickering to do, but not with thee.
>>
>Well, Steven, I think you will find that most people, and I don't mean
>some simple majority, but like 90% plus people on the alt.* newsgroups
>are here to tell you that they don't believe that stuff that you were
>taught,

Not I.  I don't believe it, but I don't feel that I should brodcast that.
("You just did."  Oh, well)

>and they even think it's so unbelievably wrong that they might
>actually rid the world of that type of belief with a wave of their
>hand, if given the power, and without a second's thought. Many of them like
>me would be happy to rid the world of that form of belief with a wave
>of my hand even if it meant the violent horribly painful death to all
>people who hold such beliefs. That should shock you to your core,
>perhaps, but I assure you that it is true, and that I have devoted a
>fair proportion of my political life trying to do away with people
>like you by any means necessary!

If you were anywond else Richard STEVEn Walz, I would figure you were joking.
But thee art thou, and I have no doubt that you spend a good deal of your time
trying to rid the world of religion.  To the extent of causing them "violently
painful deaths."  Or at least talk about it in an effortless condition.

>I consider you the worst perversion
>of human hopes and aspirations and will do literally anything to stop
>your form of stupidity and return the world to its course before the
>assholes twisted what *might* have been a kindly humanistic teacher's
>words and then put him on a pedestal to stand for the crap that *they*
>wanted.

"The worst perversion of human hopes and aspirations," as you so quaintly
put it, is not one who takes the writings of another for his own uses, as
I'm doing that right now, but the one who seeks to rend and destroy that
which is found most valuble in life to others, merely because he does not
like it.

Fact: Christianity has been turned from what christ originally said.

Fact: The politcal history of Christianity and Christians is full of blood
and guts, and there are Christians right now who would do both of us in
given the chance.

Fact: Millions of people turn to Christianity for comfort when they could find
no other scource, and I do not mean merely spiritual comfort.  God, Jesus, et.
al. are their very *lives*.

But you wouldn't mind sacrificing their lives, would you?

>What Yeshua ben Miriam said nobody has the slightest clue,
>really. Even the gospels were a collaboration by people who constantly
>misunderstood the man if he even actually existed.

This I will concede.

>And if you think
>that anything sexual has any inherent evil in it, I would like to see
>you wiped from the face of this earth as fast and as painfully as
>possible, as your kind has taken western culture down the blind alley
>of fear and guilt for much too long.

'His kind' kept western civilization from turning into hunter-gatherer
tribes after Rome fell.  Oddly enough, right when all the *really* bad
stuff was going on.

>I would gladly give my life to
>get rid of all people who believe as you do. The dark ages are just
>now ending. Get used to it, and by the way, find a better religion.
>Yours really sucks a turd and a half.

RSW, your dark ages may not have ended yet, but mine have.  I suppose I'm
lucky: I know 'who I am',  I know 'why I'm here', and I know how to behave.
My Great Questions have been answered already.  Somehow I doubt that yours 
have.

Regardless, I have seen some insight into you (Remember posting about the
wife-beating neighbor?), and I cannot flame you as being 'wholly evil'
since you ain't.  So I will let you off with this:

You should have read the post you were quoting.  That person wanted to harm
no one.  Admittedly, he may have had his prioritys a little screwed up, but
he merely intended to show us all the Way that had given him so much comfort
what's more, he did it in a way that didn't assault anybody.  When other
people felt assaulted, he immediately posted an apology.  This is what you
quoted.

You flamed the wrong guy.  Way to go.

Big Al.  Holey Evil, Batman!
Organization: Sophomore, Electrical and Computer Engineering, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA