From: nelson_p@apollo.hp.com (Peter Nelson)
Subject: Re: Anti-religious fanatics
Date: Thu, 20 Aug 1992 16:21:16 GMT
Organization: Hewlett-Packard Corporation, Chelmsford, MA

In article <3mgyw0g@rpi.edu> jacksonk@gehrig.cs.rpi.edu (Keith Jackson) writes:
>In article <Bt8E8E.84x@apollo.hp.com> nelson_p@apollo.hp.com (Peter Nelson) writes:
>>In article <gnfy0q_@rpi.edu> jacksonk@gehrig.cs.rpi.edu (Keith Jackson) writes:
>
>>  Certainly everything they did they said they did in the name of Christ;
>>  they certainly wrapped themselves in Christian symbols.  The ball is 
>>  in Mr. Jackson's court if he thinks the claim that they believed 
>>  they being good Christians is wrong.    I think it is Mr. Jackson 
>>  who is "incredibly naive".
>
>Not!  I can wrap myself in any symbol.  I can proclaim my  actions  to
>be  in  the  name of anything.  Doing so does not automatically tie my
>actions to whatever. 
  
  It does if you are a spokeman or authority for that "ism".  
  The Crusades, the Inquisition, etc, were blessed by major
  Christian leaders of the time.


>do some attrocity, but that doesn't mean that the rational  individual
>will come to the same conclusion.

  What does rationalitty have to do with it?  Humans aren't
  necessarily rational and I can make a good case that ANYONE
  who believes in invisible all-powerful, all-knowing beings 
  isn't rational anyway.


>                                                If a person under-
>stands the most basic tenants of  Christianity  (love  your  neighbor,
>turn  the  other  cheek,  etc.)

  But who's to say that these are "the most basic ones"?  There's
  lots of stuff in the bible, including violence, slavery, etc.
  Who gets to choose which stuff is "basic"?  "Love you neighbor
  is in Leviticus, part of the same Mosaic Law which includes 
  "not suffering a witch to live", not eating certain foods, 
  not allowing male homosexuality, not mixing certain materials
  in your clothing, and how to treat your slaves.  What makes any
  part of this "more basic" than any other part?
                                         

> that person cannot honestly and sanely justify murder, torture,
> and other nasty stuff.

  Who said anything about sane?   



>What you don't seem to understand is the complete paradox between what
>persons  in power say and what they do/believe.  If you can't see that
>in modern day politicians, you're blind! 

  What is the point of this comment?   The Crusaders and Inquisitors
  said that heretics should be tortured and killed, and then they
  tortured and killed them.   No contradiction there.



>>  We're talking about things like the 
>>  Spanish Inquisition or the Crusades; not just some random acts of
>>  violence that just happen to be committed by Christians.
>
>I know precisely what we're talking about.  You don't seem  to  under-
>stand  that  the  vast majority of Christians never committed any sub-
>stantial wrongs (murder, torture, etc.)


  So what?  The vast majority of Christians don't "not kill" (i.e.,
  the vast majority of Christians aren't Conscientous Objectors); they
  don't turn the other cheek, they fail to not lust after their
  neighbor's wife, ass, etc.   Yet wouldn't you agree that these 
  are Christian things?    The vast majority of NAZIs didn't
  personally kill Jews, either but this doesn't make it incorrect 
  to say that "the NAZI's killed the Jews".  If I'm not a member
  of a particular ism I'm going to judge that ism by the actions
  claims, etc, of its leaders and spokespeople. 

  I agree that today the average Chritian leader is not in favor 
  of killing heretics.  But if we take an average thoughout the 
  last millenia or so we see Christian leaders, both Catholic and
  Protestant committing or justifying many of the worst, most heinous 
  crimes against humanity that have occurred.  They have destroyed
  whole peoples and cultures, murdered millions, wiped out civil-
  izations, justified slavery, and so forth.  Most of this only 
  stopped this century.   Today's Christian leadership is NOT
  representative of the historical average.
                                           

>actions  in  the  past  2000  years,  the  Spanish Inquisition and the
>Crusades are insignificant.

  But that's only part of it!  My ancestors in Scandinavia were converted
  to Christianity by sword.  The Christians committed and justified 
  the destruction of New World cultures from Alaska to Tierra Del Fuego
  between 1500 and 1900.  The cultures, religions, customs and traditions
  of hundreds of Pacific Island peoples were erased by them during the 
  18th century.  The Anglican church led the destruction of the aboriginals
  of Australia.  The worst depradations of European imperialism in
  Africa in the 19th century were led or explained away by missionaries.
  Slavery was legal in most European nations until the 1840's, and in
  the US until the 1860's, and only a few small Protestant sects spoke
  out against it.  The majority did not.    So we're not talking about
  a few exceptions -- the current crop of "love thy neighbor" liberal
  Christians are the exceptions.



>>                                        if some national association
>>  of rabbis came out with a proclamation that it's bad to steal money
>>  from Jewish investors but OK to steal money from goyish investors
>>  then we would.
>
>I certainly wouldn't.  I would fault the leaders of the rabbinical as-
>sociation  for  abusing their influence. 

  Not me.  If I'm not a member of a group then I'm not going to 
  try to tell them what their beliefs "should" be or how they should
  interpret their own scriptural writings.   Consider the OT rule
  that you shouldn't boil a calf in its mother's milk.  It's not obvious
  to me that this means you can't have a cheeseburger, but if this is 
  the Talmudic interpretaion I'm not going to tell some Jew that he's
  got Jewish law all wrong.   I'm going to accept the concept that 
  "Jews can't mix milk products and meat" (regardless of the fact
  that the average Jew today in the US ignores these rules anyway).


---peter



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