From: lydick@SOL1.GPS.CALTECH.EDU (Speaker-to-Minerals)
Newsgroups: alt.callahans
Subject: Re: The Nightstalker explains--and Caithelin has her say...
Date: 14 Nov 92 01:22:16 GMT
Reply-To: lydick@SOL1.GPS.CALTECH.EDU
Organization: HST Wide Field/Planetary Camera
NNTP-Posting-Host: sol1.gps.caltech.edu

Caithelin's news server is having problems and ucbvax seems to have gone out of
the mail/news gateway business, at least for the trime being, so Caithelin
asked me to post this for her.
------------------------------
Subject: Re: The Nightstalker explains--and Caithelin has her say...
Summary: respect...
Organization: Reed College, Portland, Oregon

--Well my system seems to be too full to post news (I can still read) so I'm
trying something new...sending this through the ucb gateway.  Here's hoping
it makes it.  I guess I really am certain I want to post this--


Caithelin looks around thoughtfully..."You know how there's always messages
when you go to reply, or at least there is on my machine, asking if you're
absolutely sure you want to do this...and for these kinds of threads I never
am...but I still feel like I have to, so here I am."  She looks sort of
sad.

>The Nightstalker looks around the place and sighs to himself.  RL is so
>much better he thinks, yet surely there is some value in being here.  He
>thinks to himself.
>
>'Intelligent discussion would be nice, something peaceful.'

She looks at Nightstalker for a minute..."Yes.  It would, wouldn't it?"
She's obviously a little peeved.

>"But", says The Holy Spirit within, "You are who you are, called to be
>that.  You cannot escape having you faith in The Father pervade all you
>say and do, and that means not always being accepted.  But, you must
>always love with the love of The Son, that led Him to die for all."

She shakes her head..."I don't want your self-righteous love.  I don't think
it has anything to do with your faith in your god."

>'Yes, to love, yet it is so hard when all you see is text on a screen.
>Words can be so harsh, how can I help myself to use the right ones, to
>convey the message of God's love and not to harm the ears of those who
>hear?'

"You don't have to "convey" the message of "God's love" by words.  Live it
if that's what you believe in, but don't go on to us about how you're called
to spread his love."

She sighs and looks frustrated and thoughtful and turns sadly to the crowd,
"How do you respect someone's beliefs when they believe in converting you,
when you strongly believe that prosletyzing is wrong?  How do you respect
someone's beliefs when they try to shove them down your throat?  Or phrase
their ideology in such a way that it makes you cringe?"

>"Not all will recieve, some will harden, some soften.  Just love, to
>say nothing would not be loving, to judge would not be loving."

"And how do you respect someone who insists on judging you negatively
because you don't follow his beliefs?"

She looks very sad and very frustrated.  And more than a little angry.  "I
think part of respecting each others views here is not prosletyzing at all.
We can talk about how we believe...but I don't think we should talk about
why someone else should believe the same thing we do.  Or how they're
stupid/bigotted/ignorant for not believing the same thing we do...or even
worse perhaps how it's really too bad and most unfortunate that they don't
believe the same way we do...  But again, that's my judgement and my
philosophy and I have no right to ask anyone else to share it."

Then she turns and stares back at Nightstalker..."Just one more
question...what's the difference between your precious religion (not
necessarily Christianity as a whole but his belief system) and ideology?
Any religion and any ideology?  I always sort of thought religion was a type
of ideology?"

Finally she laughs.  "But then I've always considered Science (specifically
physics and it's associate math) to be a religion....and perhaps far too
closely connected to Christianity for my comfort."

She looks around the bar for a moment and notices Blammor sitting near by
and goes to sit by him.  Leaning slightly against her old friend as she
tries to still her temper.

	Caithelin
Newsgroups: alt.callahans
Subject: Re: The Nightstalker explains--and Caithelin has her say...
Summary: respect...
Organization: Reed College, Portland, Oregon


-----------------Trying this again, our system seems to be kind of full

Caithelin looks around thoughtfully..."You know how there's always messages
when you go to reply, or at least there is on my machine, asking if you're
absolutely sure you want to do this...and for these kinds of threads I never
am...but I still feel like I have to, so here I am."  She looks sort of
sad.

>The Nightstalker looks around the place and sighs to himself.  RL is so
>much better he thinks, yet surely there is some value in being here.  He
>thinks to himself.
>
>'Intelligent discussion would be nice, something peaceful.'

She looks at Nightstalker for a minute..."Yes.  It would, wouldn't it?"
She's obviously a little peeved.

>"But", says The Holy Spirit within, "You are who you are, called to be
>that.  You cannot escape having you faith in The Father pervade all you
>say and do, and that means not always being accepted.  But, you must
>always love with the love of The Son, that led Him to die for all."

She shakes her head..."I don't want your self-righteous love.  I don't think
it has anything to do with your faith in your god."

>'Yes, to love, yet it is so hard when all you see is text on a screen.
>Words can be so harsh, how can I help myself to use the right ones, to
>convey the message of God's love and not to harm the ears of those who
>hear?'

"You don't have to "convey" the message of "God's love" by words.  Live it
if that's what you believe in, but don't go on to us about how you're called
to spread his love."

She sighs and looks frustrated and thoughtful and turns sadly to the crowd,
"How do you respect someone's beliefs when they believe in converting you,
when you strongly believe that prosletyzing is wrong?  How do you respect
someone's beliefs when they try to shove them down your throat?  Or phrase
their ideology in such a way that it makes you cringe?"

>"Not all will recieve, some will harden, some soften.  Just love, to
>say nothing would not be loving, to judge would not be loving."

"And how do you respect someone who insists on judging you negatively
because you don't follow his beliefs?"

She looks very sad and very frustrated.  And more than a little angry.  "I
think part of respecting each others views here is not prosletyzing at all.
We can talk about how we believe...but I don't think we should talk about
why someone else should believe the same thing we do.  Or how they're
stupid/bigotted/ignorant for not believing the same thing we do...or even
worse perhaps how it's really too bad and most unfortunate that they don't
believe the same way we do...  But again, that's my judgement and my
philosophy and I have no right to ask anyone else to share it."

Then she turns and stares back at Nightstalker..."Just one more
question...what's the difference between your precious religion (not
necessarily Christianity as a whole but his belief system) and ideology?
Any religion and any ideology?  I always sort of thought religion was a type
of ideology?"

Finally she laughs.  "But then I've always considered Science (specifically
physics and it's associate math) to be a religion....and perhaps far too
closely connected to Christianity for my comfort."

She looks around the bar for a moment and notices Blammor sitting near by
and goes to sit by him.  Leaning slightly against her old friend as she
tries to still her temper.

	Caithelin
Newsgroups: alt.callahans