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From: laura@utzoo.UUCP (Laura Creighton)
Newsgroups: net.religion
Subject: Re: Yellow Press in SciFi?
Message-ID: <4918@utzoo.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 12-Jan-85 22:19:13 EST
Article-I.D.: utzoo.4918
Posted: Sat Jan 12 22:19:13 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 12-Jan-85 22:19:13 EST
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Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
Lines: 27

Sorry, Chuqui, but if you read Latin you can get out a lot of
letters and records of inquisitors, and witch-burners and read them.
Most of these people *really* and *truly* believed that they were
on a divine mission to stamp out evil. Most of this was coupled with
a belief that these were ``the last days''. Their confessions read
as the Confessions of St. Augustine (though not really as well -- 
Augustine having written what is arguably the best work of literature
in the Latin language) -- extremely sincere, and extremely concerned
and well-intentioned.

Now one can say ``God doesn't want Christians to commit atrocities'' 
``these people committed atrocities'' therefore ``they were not good
Christians (where ``good'' in this context means acting in accordance
with God's will)'' but you are going to have to accept that these
people had a different definition of ``atrocity'' than we have. For
them, the ``atrocity'' was the existence of {witches/heretics/pagans/atheists}
not their removal.

Look beyond Salem if you want to look at these more carefully. The Salem
witch trials are not exemplary of witch trials at all.

The scariest question is, what atrocities are we committing *now* while
equally well convinced that we are doing the ``right'' or even the ``holy''
thing?

Laura Creighton
utzoo!laura