From: chenowet@rd1632.Dayton.NCR.COM (Steve Chenoweth)
Newsgroups: talk.religion.misc,sci.skeptic
Subject: Re: Fundamentalist Nightmare
Date: 9 Nov 92 17:21:25 GMT
Reply-To: chenowet@rd1632.Dayton.NCR.com (Steve Chenoweth)
Organization: NCR Technology & Development, Dayton, Ohio

In article <FISCHER.92Nov3012149@steiner.iesd.auc.dk> fischer@iesd.auc.dk (Lars Peter Fischer) writes:
> ...
>Outlawing homosexuality or any other minority activity is not a matter
>of economic hardship (Victorian England wasn't in a economic crisis)
>-- it's simply a matter of a society, organization, or system of
>beliefs needing a clear and visible enemy in order to define and
>delimit itself.
>
>In the past, western civilization has always had the need to outlaw
>something pretty harmless and put a lot of energy into eradicating it
>in order to establish a sense of belonging in citizens ...
>
>To our modern, highly organized and highly disciplined society, drugs
>addicts are the perfect scapegoats since they by their nature defy
>organization and discipline. To christianity homosexuals or
>prostitutes are much more useful as scapegoats than drug addicts since
>they fall outside institutions such as family, marriage, etc.

A classic USA instance of this fervor to stomp out defenseless enemies was the
1930's movement against marijuana.  This has been documented in a wide
variety of places by advocates of legalization.  Because the stuff grew
wild all over the country, it also gave reason to expand the narcotics
commission substantially, in the effort to get rid of the weed.  And users
were quickly turned into Public Enemies by the media of the time.  (The
movie "Reefer Madness" sort of sums up their portrayal.)

The author observes that any "society, organization, or system of beliefs"
can be responsible for creating and maintaining such situations. 
Noting that this thread is posted to talk.religion.misc, those who remain
generally suspicious of religious movements tend to see them as major
contributors to the tagging of scapegoats.  They wonder if it is possible
to have an intense theology which does not at the same time participate in 
identification and tracking down of "enemies."  As the title
of the thread suggests, the most openly religious-minded people often
seem (to them) to be at the same time most eager to spot trouble-making
groups which don't fit in with the program.

Let's face it, the scenarios for some organized religions do look a little like 
that of comic books -- you can't have much of a story line for a super hero
unless you invent super villains to go with.  Those of us in more long-standing
groups are a bit more refined, of course, and a lot of members take a dim view
of the ardent finger pointers.

Moderate folks contributing to this thread have suggested that,
while some people with different sexual orientations are ok, there
always are a few who are a problem (though the nature of the perceived
problems seemed to vary, including things like being open about their
"lifestyle").  Just to be fair, I'd like to pose the opposite sort of
question:  Is it possible to have a fervent, organized religion which
lacks members who have an "enemies" list?

Just wondering.  It'd be nice to be wrong on this.

-- 
Steve.Chenoweth@Dayton.NCR.com
Newsgroups: talk.religion.misc