Path: utzoo!censor!geac!torsqnt!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!bonnie.concordia.ca!uunet!shelby!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: sc1u+@andrew.cmu.edu (Stephen Chan) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: How to get to Heaven Message-ID: Date: 3 Feb 91 03:31:20 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Lines: 34 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu ramsey@fieldofdreams.npirs.purdue.edu (Ed Ramsey) writes: > [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] Christianity is no different from any other belief system where there is truth and falsehood, right & wrong. Marxism is a fundamentally atheistic system of beliefs, yet there have been wars for and against communism throughout much of this century. "free access to markets" was a mercantilist idea which caused many invasions during the previous century. How about the idea of "National Socialism" in Germany during the 1930's? In American history, how about "manifest destiny" or the "Monroe Doctrine" as ideas which justified gross abuse of other human beings? How about "state's rights" as the issue during the Am. Civil War? Any time that there are strong convictions of what is right and what is wrong, conflict will occur. For Christians, the solution is not to water down our convictions about how we should behave or what is true, but to rather to develop our senses of compassion and tolerance towards other people. Without these faculties, we're not capable of correctly representing Christ. "Take the log out of your own eye first, and then you will see clearly enough to take the splinter out of your brother's eye" Stephen Chan