Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 exptools 1/6/84; site ihuxq.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!floyd!harpo!ihnp4!ihuxq!ken
From: ken@ihuxq.UUCP (ken perlow)
Newsgroups: net.religion
Subject: Responsibility and obedience
Message-ID: <797@ihuxq.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 22-Mar-84 19:04:39 EST
Article-I.D.: ihuxq.797
Posted: Thu Mar 22 19:04:39 1984
Date-Received: Fri, 23-Mar-84 21:23:43 EST
Organization: AT&T Bell Labs, Naperville, IL
Lines: 33

--
The original statement from Jeff Sargent was that a proper Christian
attitude is: "We are not responsible for results, only for obedience."
I likened this statement to the "only obeying orders" defense invoked
at Nurenburg.

Jeff and other devout individuals have posted or written me saying that
Christian obedience is not the same thing, that God is good and doesn't
ask anyone (well, Jeff anyway) to inconvenience people.  And the score
is Christians 1, Nazis 0, so that proves what happens when you're up to
no good.

Well, I'm glad you blindly obedient folks can tell the difference.
I'm still scared.  Why?  There's plenty of very devout people out there
who ARE inconveniencing people in the name of their religions (obviously
not just Christians).  They have no guilty conscience--they have no
conscience at all--because they are simply the instrument of God's
just and good work.  They believe it sincerely, and they say so.

Once you give up having to think about what you're doing you cannot
be trusted to act responsibly.  Responsible people think about what
they're doing.  It's interesting how Western society denigrates
premeditation.  Crimes of passion are hardly crimes at all.  Enough
of that aside.  Responsible to whom?  Yourself, god, whatever you
wish.  But if you give up thinking, you are a zombie, and as such,
capable of wholesale slaughter followed by a good night's sleep.
-- 
                    *** ***
JE MAINTIENDRAI   ***** *****
                 ****** ******    22 Mar 84 [2 Germinal An CXCII]
ken perlow       *****   *****
(312)979-7261     ** ** ** **
..ihnp4!ihuxq!ken   *** ***