From: john@anasazi.com (John R. Moore)
Subject: Re: Anti-religious fanatics (Was Re: School Choice )
Reply-To: john@anasazi.com
Organization: Anasazi Inc, Phoenix AZ USA
Date: Tue, 18 Aug 1992 14:48:34 GMT

Keywords: 

In article <24922@castle.ed.ac.uk> fofp@castle.ed.ac.uk (M Holmes) writes:
]
]The thing is that christianity has shown a penchant for this sort of
]thing. Apart from the inquisition I'm thinking of:
]
]The Crusades.
Long, long ago.

]The Genocide of the Incas.
]The murder of complete villages in Europe who were accused of "Heresy"
](ref: Simon De Montfort, The Albigensians, The Gnostics, various others...)
]The European Witch-trials (one third of the female population killed in
]some areas).
These occurred around the same time as the Spanish Inquisition
]
]So this "aberration" seems to be a regular feature of christianity.
]It's a reasonable question to ask whether a penchant for mass-murder
]could be expected from a creed whose god is also depicted as having
]a very strong genocidal and murderous streak.

You own examples show that this is not true. Modern christianity
has shown no penchant for this. You had to go back hundreds of
years, when societal conditions were far different, to find these
examples.
]
]>Of course it is. Reverend Jones was not a representative or typical
]>Christian. He was a typical cult leader (which occur in lots of religions
]>and non-religions).
]
]No, this doesn't work. Any movement could then disclaim folks who they
]found politically inconvenient because of their actions. But who does
]the disclaiming? The Church leadership itself was implicated in, if not
]responsible for the mass-murder listed above. And as I've mentioned, the
]christian god is claimed in the Bible to be responsible for several
]murders, mass-murders, and genocide.

Okay, let's take this one at a time. The conservative movement disclaimed
David Duke, because he WAS NOT PART OF THE MOVEMENT. Christians can
properly discredit James Jones because he was also not part of it - he
was an aberration. Should I say that non-religious people shouldn't
be trusted because Charles Manson was a member of that movement?
You are simply using guilt by association, and it is really not an
appropriate argument.

Now, you say that "The Church leadership itself was implicated..."
What church leadership? You mean Jim Jones? He was not a leader of
the christian movement, he was a leader of a small group of deluded
people.

]It's abundantly clear that christianity did *not* lead these folks to
]become all-round Good Guys. For those of us who quite simply don't
]believe any of the mythology, christianity can best be judged by its
]effects on people. I'm happy to admit that in a number of individual,
]and even some corporate cases, this has been good. The downside however
]may simply be too large to be worth this. On balance, history could
]reasonably lead someone to the conclusion that christianity has been A
]Bad Thing. 

Christianity did not lead these folks at all...a charismatic cult leader
(Jim Jones) led them, using Christianity as a tool. Every ideology or 
religous movement (which includes anti-relgion) can be used the same
way by a clever manipulator. Consider Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin -
they used non-religious ideology to achieve far worse effects.

To condemn or be suspicious of all Christians because of the actions
of a few is fatuous.
-- 
John Moore NJ7E, 7525 Clearwater Pkwy, Scottsdale, AZ 85253  (602-951-9326)
john@anasazi.com ncar!noao!asuvax!anasaz!john anasaz!john@asuvax.eas.asu.edu
 - - Saddam Hussein... he just keeps going... and going... and going - -
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