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From: chuqui@nsc.UUCP (Chuqui Q. Koala)
Newsgroups: net.religion
Subject: Re: Yellow Press in SciFi? (Response to Rosen)
Message-ID: <2204@nsc.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 13-Jan-85 22:48:48 EST
Article-I.D.: nsc.2204
Posted: Sun Jan 13 22:48:48 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 14-Jan-85 05:15:23 EST
References: <368@pyuxd.UUCP> <4582@cbscc.UUCP>
Reply-To: rlr@pyuxd.UUCP (Rich Rosen, C/O Chuqui Q.)
Organization: The Warlocks Cave
Lines: 113
Summary: 

[THANKS TO CHUQ FOR THE USE OF MACDUFF]

>The point of my article (sorry you missed that, read it again if you care)
>was that Jeff's statements are not a valid historical perspective on the
>"dangers" of religion. [PAUL DUBUC]

The point of *my* article (apparently YOU missed THAT) was that it WAS a
very valid historical perspective.  You might disagree, but the evidence
contradicts that viewpoint.

>We are talking about history, Rich.  Do I have to spell it out to you?
>Stalin's Purge.  The Gulag.  The invasions of Cambodia and Afganistan.
>No freedom of the press, speech or religion (I know, you don't care about
>religion).  No USENET! :-)

The Salem witch trials.  The Spanish Inquisition.  (No, I'm not going to
say it.)  The pogroms.  Later in your article you describe these as
"isolated incidents" (while the incidents mentioned above you arbitrarily
choose not to refer to as "isolated").  More on this later.

>Are you comfortable with these?  Are these humanistic?  I learned a
>long time ago that I should not judge atheism by actions like these ...

No, you didn't, otherwise you wouldn't be doing it now.  No, they're
clearly not "humanistic".  They simply represent an example of non-religion
that emulates the abuse of religious power that came before it.

>Why do you and Jeff persist in implying that similar actions
>are inherent to the Christian standard of belief (i.e. the Bible)?

For the same reason that you persist in implying that the actions are
inherent to any non-Christian standard of belief.  Only more evidence has
been presented that shows that the mindset that advocates religious
control of people's lives (if you can't convince them that listening to
your ideals is the best way, use a torture device) leads to (and, in fact,
justifies, by some obscure line of thinking) that type of action.

>I don't see any justification for the Inquisition in the ethics of Christ
>as taught in the Bible.

Others did.  And some still do.

>Even Luther's own bigoted admonishments against the Jews resulted
>in little persecution of them in his time.  It is horrible that the Nazis
>were able to stir up those sentiments a few centuries later.

Yeah, real horrible.  Just goes to show what such beliefs about
superiority/inferiority of one's own/other people's beliefs/lives/etc.
lead to.  (I guess such things didn't happen in *his* time because it
took some amount of time for his admonishments to be "interpreted" in the
more "correct" way.)

>That still leaves isolated horrors like Salem.  But they were isolated.
>Salem can easily be viewed as a miniature of the situation that existed
>over most of Europe prior to the Reformation.

How can "a miniature of the situation that existed over most of Europe"
be referred to as "isolated"?

>These, along with the
>atheistic communist atrocies I mentioned are more of a lesson against
>the dangers seemingly inherent in absolute authority whether those in
>authority adhere to a particular religious belief or not.

Absolutely.

>Those in power are able to twist the Bible to support self-serving ends and
>stifel corrective input.  

This is happening as we speak.

>no one could just move to the next town to avoid the escalation of
>trouble.  At any rate, the carnage imputed to Christians, especially
>since the Reformation, has nowhere near approched the magnitude of anti-
>religious regimes even in our own century.  Anyone who is going to make
>a case againt religion using such critera had better realise that there
>is a much stronger case for religion using those same criteria.  

>It is a very lop-sided use (abuse, rather) of historical fact to pretend that
>things like the Reformation never happened and to imply that actions like
>those done in the Inquisition are inherent in the religion I espouse.

"Things like the Reformation" (which helped perpetuate some of the same
attitude that preceded it in things like the Inquisition) hardly constitute
some great sudden leap forward in human dignity as you seem to say.  It
is more similar to a mass murderer agreeing henceforth only to maim people:
better, but not much, and still quite bad.

> What
>other purpose does it serve to dig up the Inquisition as far as present
>day Christians or biblical belief are concerned?  I fear for the lives
>of the next generation of Christians if this attitude is not given up.

Yeah, me, too.  I remember that article someone wrote a few months ago that
talked about the future in which Christians would be persecuted and
derided the way today's Christians do to others.  Perhaps this is what
Paul fears in a non-religious directed world.  But this is nothing more
than projection.  He is worried that he will be treated no better by a
non-religious world than the way his antecedents treated other people who
didn't adhere to the religious line.  This is perhaps a legitimate fear.
With such a mentality of superiority so widespread, it's not unlikely that
that phase of it would be duplicated in a non-religious world.  The idea
behind spreading more rational modes of thought is that hopefully more
rational modes of morality will prevail.  Paul clearly equates non-religion
with anti-religion, in the sense that "anti" implies some form of
suppression.  It ain't necessarily so.  If you work so that it doesn't
become so.
-- 
From the ministry of silly talks:		Chuq Von Rospach
{allegra,cbosgd,decwrl,hplabs,ihnp4,seismo}!nsc!chuqui  nsc!chuqui@decwrl.ARPA

Do not wait until tomorrow to tell someone you care. Tomorrow doesn't
always come.