From: grante@aquarius.rosemount.com (Grant Edwards)
Subject: Re: Will the -REAL- Christians please stand up? Was: What did Judas betray?
Reply-To: grante@aquarius.rosemount.com (Grant Edwards)
Organization: Rosemount, Inc.
Date: Sun, 27 Dec 1992 23:50:03 GMT

tke@shep.att.com (Tom Epstein [415]) writes:
:
: I would almost expect it to be taken as axiomatic that persons who
: ferverently behave in a manner which Jesus (based upon what
: Christians themselves believe were his teachings) would condemn
: should not be assumed to be Christians, barring any evidence other
: than their claims.

That's the problem!  Christians can't agree on jesus' teachings, and
therefore can't agree on what Jesus would condemn.  If they could
agree, then they wouldn't have spent all that time killing and
torturing each other for not being good christians.  Thankfully,
secular law prevents that today, but they still claim that those other
people aren't "real" christians.

:  As the old saying goes:
: 
: 	"If it walks like a duck, looks like a duck, quacks like a duck and 
: 
: 	"If it walks like a duck, looks like a duck, quacks like a duck and 
: 	lays duck eggs like a duck, the chances are pretty good that its a 
: 	duck."

Ah, but we _have_ a firm definition of what a duck is to start with,
from which you have generalized a test for duckness.  We can express
this definition in two ways.  First, by enumeration:

Phylum      Cordata
Class       Aves
Order       Anseriformes
Family      Anatadae
Subfamilies Dendrocygnae  (whistling ducks)
            Anatinae      (mallard, teal, marsh ducks)
            Aythyinae     (diving, sea, bay ducks)
            Oxyurinae     (stiff-tailed ducks)
            Merginae      (mergansers)

Second, there is a set of anatomical features (which I won't list)
that is used to determine membership in this phylum, class, order,
family, subfamily system.  This definition of what's a duck is pretty
much universally agreed upon by ornithologists and can be used to
decide if a bird is or isn't a duck, regardless of the opinion of the
bird in question.

Your generalized test for "duckness" fails in several respects. All
birds, even non-ducks, lay eggs like a duck.  Most waterfowl (even
non-ducks like loons, geese, and swans) have large, webbed feet
positioned towards the rear of the body. This is an efficient
arrangement for swimming, but on land it's a little clumsy and makes
them "walk like a duck."  Some of these non-ducks even make noises
similar to those made by some ducks.  The whistling or tree ducks, on
the other hand, can walk with ease on land, and as you might judge
from their name, don't quack.

And at least as significant: when I say "the ducks on the pond behind
my house are annoying because they make a lot of noise early in the
morning and wake me up," people don't respond with: "those aren't
_real_ ducks, they just claim to be ducks."

: Of course Jesus is reported to have said it better:
: 
: 	"... by their fruit you will recognize them." (Matt. Chap. 7: Vs. 20)
:

Then the operational definition of christianity seems to become "that
which produces good fruits."

So, somebody who is kind, generous, etc. is now a christian?  That
will be a shock to a lot of buddhists, muslims, hindus, wiccans,
shamanists, samaritans (you remember that one don't you?  And yes,
there are still a few samaritans around), jainists, pantheists,
naturalists, humanists, and so on.  Some of the kindest, gentlest,
most generous people I know are devout atheists.

How can you judge a tree by its fruits, when you can't get people to
agree on what's a tree and what isn't?  Every time I try to judge
christianity by its fruits, there are always claims that the "bad"
fruits didn't come from "real" christians.  But, there is never any
claim that any of the "good" fruits don't come from "real" christians.

Christians seem to spend a great deal of time acusing each other of
not being christians.  Who should I believe?  Father MacGuiness told
me that roman catholicism was the "one _true_ religion," and others
are on some kind of scale of christianity with RC at 1.0,
anglicans/episcopalians (COE) and lutherans next, with your
presbyterians, methodists, baptists, etc. a bit further down the
scale, and COJCLDS (Mormans), Muslims, Jews, and everybody else at 0
(not christians).

The non-christian, abrahamic/monotheistic religions (Judaism and
Islam) didn't seem to rank any higher on the ol' christ-o-meter than
atheistic, pantheistic, or polytheistic beliefs. But, I got the
distinct impression that the other abrahamic religions were still
somehow better that the rest.  Maybe Dante was right and there are
various circles of hell, and Jews are damned to the first circle,
Muslims to the second, and people like me to the seventh.

It is one of my major accomplishments that I sat through ten or
fifteen hours of CFA (Catholic Faith for Adults) classes in a
conservative rural Minnesota parish and kept my mouth shut the whole
time.  Trying to have a rational discussion about religion with those
people would have been similar to trying to teach a mule to read --
you don't accomplish anything, and it annoys the mule.  [my aplogies
to whomever I stole that line from -- it sounds like Will Rogers, but
that's just a guess]

Of course, I was later told by another catholic that what Father
MacGuiness said wasn't necessarily the official position of the roman
catholic church.  Hell, you can't even count on an RC priest for the
straight RC version of the story.  Apparently F. MacGuiness had
invented some kind of fuzzy-logic "isChristian" predicate whose
implementation hadn't been verified by the official source code review
panel.

I've also heard evangelicals say that they seriously doubted that the
pope was a christian.

Since we can't get christians to agree on who's a christian, we move
on to the fruit judging event (Yow! Just like the county fair!).

One christian group is trying to force their religion into the science
classes in my school district.  Fortunately, only one of the five
members of the school board has had enough of his brain sucked out to
fall for this.  Who knows what will happen after the next local
elections.  The christians vowed to "keep fighting the battle until we
win."

Despite all the bullshit about organized satanistic abuse, the only
documented cases of organized religious child abuse are in christian
groups who think they have to "beat the devil out" of children.

Local christian groups are constantly trying to ban books -- they just
got _The_Lords_of_Discipline_ banned from the curriculum in a local
district.

Another group fire-bombed one local clinic and assaulted the staff and
patients at another clinic in the name of christ.  Lambs seem to have
become violent since the times when as a child I used to help bottle
feed orphaned lambs on my grandparent's farm.

One christian sect makes their children handle poisonous snakes to
prove their faith -- and some of them get bitten and die.

At the last U.S. republican national convention, Pat Buchannon
declared a "holy war" on me and people like me.  And don't try to tell
me that "family values" isn't doublespeak for white, conservative and
christian.

Christian scientists have allowed children to die of easily treated
medical conditions.

Thousands (if not millions) of people have been tortured and killed in
the service of christianity.  Even the thousand-year old conflict
between the celts and the anglo-saxons is now reported as a conflict
between protestants and catholics.

Of course, none of these things are consistent with "real"
christianity.

People have accused me of being hostile towards christianity, but how
am I supposed to react when christian groups declare a holy war on me
and talk about fighting battles against me until they win (and I
lose)?

[sorry, that got a little long-winded]

--
Grant Edwards                                 |Yow!  Place me on a BUFFER
Rosemount Inc.                                |counter while you BELITTLE
                                              |several BELLHOPS in the
grante@aquarius.rosemount.com                 |Trianon Room!!  Let me one of
                                              |your SUBSIDIARIES!