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From: jonw@azure.UUCP (Jonathan White)
Newsgroups: net.flame,net.religion
Subject: Why attack Christianity?
Message-ID: <2624@azure.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 19-Mar-84 17:23:57 EST
Article-I.D.: azure.2624
Posted: Mon Mar 19 17:23:57 1984
Date-Received: Wed, 21-Mar-84 03:28:52 EST
Organization: Tektronix, Beaverton OR
Lines: 59

I think that the following comment from Jeff Sargent (posted to net.flame) 
would make an interesting topic of discussion:

   I broadcast my faith because it has helped me and people I know, so I believe
   it can help others.  Why do you attack Christianity?  What good do you expect
   to gain, or to help others gain, by attacking something which has done good
   for many people?  Why do you bother attacking something which has been
   attacked many times, which received some of its worst attacks when it was
   still fledgling, and survived them all?  Surely you see how futile that is.
   What profit does it give you (enjoyment, perhaps?) to wound Christians?

There is a strange tendency for Christians to view themselves as martyrs that
are struggling against the overwhelming forces of evil in the world, although
I think that an objective look at the past 2,000 years of history would reveal
that Christianity has done a lot more harm than good.  Consider, for example,
just exactly what things would be like if the Roman Catholic Church had managed
to hang on to the awesome power that it enjoyed in the middle ages.  Certainly
you wouldn't be reading this article on a computer terminal.  In fact, I doubt
that any of us would be enjoying the fruits of science, because science as we
know it would not exist; it would be considered heretical and its practitioners
would be regularly burned at the stake!

We would all be secure in the knowledge that the Earth was the center of the
universe and that everything in the Bible was the literal truth.  Yes sir,
the answer to any question could be found right there in that one book.  Why
would we even need science?  Everything that we need to know is in the Bible,
and any observation that conflicts with Biblical knowledge is false by
definition.

So why do I attack Christianity?  Because I don't think that it is necessary
to have a belief system that is based on nothing more solid than a bunch of
Hebrew myths, especially when that belief system is responsible for much
unnecessary bloodshed (the Spanish Inquisition, the Holy Wars, etc.), and also
responsible for setting back the social and scientific progress of mankind 
perhaps hundreds of years.  Even though Christian institutions no longer have 
the power to burn dissenters, the forces of Christianity are still hard at work
to promote their view no matter what the social or scientific cost. [1]

By the way, I don't dispute the statement that Christianity has done some
people some good.  However, I do think that the same results could have been
achieved in other ways that would ultimately be less destructive and divisive
to mankind.

			Jon White
			[decvax|ucbvax]!tektronix!tekmdp!azure!jonw


[1] A good example of this is "scientific" creationism.  Here we have a group of
people who so firmly believe the creation myth in the Bible that they want to
bend science to fit their particular view.  Never mind that once you allow a
supernatural force into science, that science falls apart at the seams (if it's
not falsifiable, it's not science!).

Another example is our former Secretary of the Interior, James Watt (a
born-again Christian).  His basic attitude is that since we are in our final
days, we might as well rape the land as much as possible.  Such Christian
philosophy I can do without!  (Note to would-be flamers:  I realize that there
are Christians who disagree with Watt and creationism; I'm just trying to point
out that religion and politics/science don't mix.)