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From: savage@ssc-vax.UUCP (Lowell Savage)
Newsgroups: net.religion.christian
Subject: Assumed evil in non-christians and assumed good in christians
Message-ID: <20@ssc-vax.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 27-Jun-85 22:27:53 EDT
Article-I.D.: ssc-vax.20
Posted: Thu Jun 27 22:27:53 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 5-Jul-85 04:32:45 EDT
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Organization: Boeing Aerospace Co., Seattle, WA
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*** REPLACE THIS LINE WITH YOUR MICRO, PLEASE ***

Some time ago (I don't always have time to do this sort of thing), I
posted an article responding to "AP bias..." (I don't recall the exact
title) where someone was complaining that the press was biased against
Christians and why not, since a poll showed that 75% of the members of
the press were non-christian.  I responded by rhetorically wondering if
perhaps this article, or the facts it pointed to, were related to an
attitude among christians that they shouldn't (morally) "dirty" them-
selves in "certain" occupations (including the press).  I then proceeded
to state my reasoning for Christians to get involved in those which
basically boiled down to 1) improving the state of the occupations,
and 2) converting members of those occupations to christianity.

Now the guts of this article.  I got a couple of polite, but firmly
worded letters about what I can only trace to one sentence in my res-
ponse.  The sentence was "At the very least, perhaps a Christian
will displace a non-christian and prevent the evil that that non-
christian might otherwise have caused."  The mail asked me to clarify
my position since I seemed to take the position that all christians
are "good" and all non-christians are "evil".  This is two lines in
an article of 33 lines which if read in full, I believe has a different
thrust.  Also, I assumed (there's that nasty word again), that given
the title of the newsgroup, most, if not all articles would be addressed
to a christian audience.  By that assumption, I do not mean that non-
christians wouldn't read the articles, but that if they did, they would
understand that the intended reader would be christian.  Then, I
will note that I did not say ALL non-christians are evil nor that ALL
christians are good.  Finally, I did make the proviso that the christian
that decided to go into one of "those" occupations should still hold
his/her moral standards above those around her/him.  In other words, I
remained consistent with my belief that christians are merely evil people
who are different from the rest of society because their evil has been
forgiven and they have some help in doing the good that they should do
and refraining from the evil that they should not do.

But in spite of all that, I have to admit, upon rereading the article,
I seem to have a slight tendency toward stereotype which needed correction.
I apoligize to those who were offended (whether it bothered them enough
to mail to me or not) and hereby state that my arguments in that article
should be slightly changed so that the group I denoted as "christians"
would be "people that are attempting to do what is morally just", and
"non-christians" would be everyone else.  (Yes, even those who are not
actively attempting to do evil will be in the "non-christian" group; as
much evil is ALLOWED as is CAUSED.)  But I think that a large majority
of the first group will be Christian and a large majority of the second
will be non-christian simply because, of the people that I know, the
generous, loving, friendly, helping people tend to be Christian, while
those who are more self-centered, mean, unfriendly tend to be non-christian.
I know some non-christians that are more loving, generous... than most
christians I know, and Christians that are so concerned with how good
they are that they forget that they are only good because Christ forgave
them and they become insufferably snobbish.  But there are general tendencies
that I percieve as quite pronounced.  This might be a clarification of
my original article, Christians who are capable in certain occupations
that have a great deal of affect on my life (particularly those who are
afraid that the dealings that are common in that occupation are immoral
or unjust) are just the people that are most likely to be trust-worthy
in those occupations.  Thus, they are just the people that I want to have
working in those occupations.  Now, if a non-christian is going to do
as morally good and just a job as a Christian, then I guess that my
original posting (and this one) is directed to him/her.

				There's more than one way to be savage

				Lowell Savage