Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uwm.edu!rpi!julius.cs.uiuc.edu!apple!agate!shelby!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: ramsey@fieldofdreams.npirs.purdue.edu (Ed Ramsey) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: How to get to Heaven Message-ID: Date: 29 Jan 91 08:12:32 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: The National Pesticide Information Retrieval System, Purdue University Lines: 31 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu > It is just this kind of dogmatic belief and fundamental fear of death and > the unkown that has made Christianity such a historicaly cruel religion and, > in my eyes, entirely moraly corrupt. This is an interesting position. Since christianity is based on a living relationship with Jesus Christ, and since everything about Jesus Christ is focused on loving, caring for, and ministering to others to the point of ignoring oneself, and since for many of us who came from, at best, a-moral backgrounds and learned human, other-centered morality at Jesus' feet, I find it hard to understand this position, and must assume it is itself based on fear and misunderstanding. You may, if you chose, call light darkness and darkness light, but that doesn't make it so. -Ed -- Ed Ramsey ramsey@NPIRS.Purdue.Edu 317/494-6616 FAX 317/494-0535 "There is nothing more important to me than knowing Jesus as he really is." [The comment was "historically". Certainly lots of wars have been fought in Jesus' name, and lots of people persecuted. I don't consider the people who do such things proper Christians, but it has been prevalent enough that at some point it becomes hard to completely ignore. Certainly this sort of thing would be less likely with religions that consider all religions more or less equivalent, or with agnostic beliefs. It does seem to be connected with the Christian idea that we are *right* and everybody else is going to Hell. From there it seems not far to the idea that other people don't matter. --clh]