From: utzoo!decvax!harpo!npoiv!rah
Newsgroups: net.religion
Title: Re: Jeremiah"s prophecy
Article-I.D.: npoiv.1926
Posted: Tue Feb  8 13:46:43 1983
Received: Fri Feb 11 03:07:22 1983
References: presby.175

A few general philosophical points and a comment about Christian acts
of mayhem and carnage.

As should be obvious from our own experiences, calling something a given
title does not make it that.  I.e. I have seen many systems called
"user friendly", of which very few really seemed to fit up to any
reasonable definition of "user-friendliness."

According to Christian teachings, one must have a personal conversion
to Christianity, one cannot be born a Christian.  (For political
reasons, various churches have in the past few hundred years, asserted
that they could "claim" infants for themselves in anticipation of that
conversion)  Thus, merely being born in a "Christian" country or family
does not make one a "Christian."  Further, merely claiming to have had
a conversion without following the teachings of Jesus is not truly
Christian.

Remember that "Christianity" became a state religion of Europe, and
was that way for a long time, even though a minority of the citizens
would really be Christians according to the definition above.

It is not surprising that many acts were committed by people invoking
"Christianity", after all that was the only name they could invoke
other than "infidel."

Having said that, I readily admit that there are still a number of people
who will pass the stricter definition of "Christian"
who committed atrocities of which I am ashamed.

However, I think the atrocities committed by the second, more restrictive
group are far fewer than those imposed under Communism or some of the
other modern rulers.

Rich Hammond