From: scasburn@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (Steven M Casburn)
Subject: The Bob Hooker thing
Organization: The Ohio State University
Distribution: usa
Date: Thu, 5 Nov 1992 21:32:55 GMT

  I wrote:

>>      The sad thing is that, even though I now realize that I probably agree
>> with Hooker on quite a few things, I don't like him any more than I did when
>> he was just "Bob", telling us all that we were going to Hell and taking the
>> GOP with us. His true personality and the personality of his persona don't
>> seem to differ very much; it's only the political views that change. Being a
>> liberal doesn't make someone a good person and being religious doesn't make
>> someone a bad person. Many Democrats seem to need to learn this; Bob Hooker
>> is one of them.

  Bob Hooker replied:

>Oh really,  ghee I thought that all liberals are good people.  you mean
>that just because someone is a liberal they may be a bad person?  The
>thought never occurred to me at all.
> [deleted -- three paragraphs of justifiable but thick sarcasm]
>Brilliant.

     OK, OK, it was late, I was tired, I was cranky, I went for the jugular
instead of trying to end things reasonably. I made a mistake, but I admit it.
:-)
     There is an interesting difference between what people will agree with
when it's laid out in front of them in black and white and what they actually
do in their lives. To continue the example I gave above, I would imagine that
if you asked most liberals the abstract question "Are religious people bad
people?", they would say "no, that's ridiculous", as Bob Hooker did in a
roundabout, deservedly sarcastic way. And they would mean it -- I don't in any
way cast aspersions on their truthfulness or sincerity.
     But what happens when someone begins discussing things like Resurrection,
or Rapture, or any other of a number of fundamentalist Christian teachings that
run counter to the secular sense of how things really are? I know a lot of
people (some of my best friends are liberals :-) ) who have sneered, or rolled
their eyes, or outright laughed when topics like these have been discussed. And
they've told me afterwards what a superstitious idiot the speaker was. They
may not know the speaker; they may not know anything else about him. But they
already have a deep aversion to that person, just because they've heard his
religious beliefs.
     Let me stress that this trait is not limited to liberals; we all have our
blind spots and prejudices, and this was the example that I've picked out of
Lord only knows how many that can be used. Also, I agree that, because I only
know Bob Hooker through his activities with the bush-org group, it is not fair
to assume that he has this prejudice. That was a mistake on my part and I
apologize.
     The point I was trying to make was that, though I fear the Religious
Right as a group and strongly disagree with their aims and the theology that 
they believe justifies them, I cannot judge individual fundamentalists based on
the evil that their leaders spew out. Some of the finest people I know are 
fundamentalist Christians. Their religion affects them in a positive way, and 
they aren't carried away by the hatred that many (but by *no means* all)
preachers spew in the name of God. Far too many people I know can't make a
distinction between a person's beliefs and how he applies them, and so they
make a blanket denunciation of all fundamentalists. This is wrong.
     Obviously, if this thread continues, it does not belong on an 
alt.politics.* line. I only posted this as an explanatory mea culpa. If anyone 
wishes to continue the discussion, let's do it by e-mail.

                                        Steve
///
-- 
    Steve Casburn (scasburn@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu)
    They gave me differential calculus, and I said "Hit me again"
    So they gave me integral calculus, and I said "Hit me again"
    Now I have vector calculus, and...I'm starting to lose consciousness...
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