Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!wuarchive!bcm!dimacs.rutgers.edu!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: lindborg@cs.washington.edu (Jeff Lindborg) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: How to get to Heaven Message-ID: Date: 8 Feb 91 07:52:20 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: University of Washington Computer Science Lines: 65 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu In article murphy@mips.com (Mike Murphy) writes: >Our moderator wrote something which troubled me: [...] > >First of all, I think more wars have been fought for nationalistic >reasons than for religious reasons. This gets tricky to measure because >it is common to invoke religion after the war is started, but from >my own study of history it seems that the root reasons of most wars, >especially modern-day ones, have very little to do with religion. This may be true for "modern day wars" but it was certainly NOT the case in earlier history. The difficulty stems from the fact that the Christian Church was, in essence, the political power of the land throughout the middle ages (after the crumbling of the feudal system and other reasons). Its difficult, then, the separate the actions of the "state" and the "Church" durring this time, bucause they were one in the same. >Christianity >gets blamed for a lot of stuff via "guilt by association", but that's >ignoring the real causes. Certainly true. Although the religious wars, the inquisition, and other persecution insituted BY the CHURCH cannot be said to be "guilt by association"... >I'm also not convinced that more tolerant religions produce fewer wars >or persecution. I would consider Asia in general to have a more tolerant >religious viewpoint (e.g. Buddhism and Confucian thought are more inclusive >than Christianity), yet they have not refrained from wars and bloodshed. Because Buddhism never really had the POWER the Church here did. (see above). Hence the wars were waged by the state and not by the Buddihist 'church' as it were. Buddhism has a VERY good track record when it comes to tyrany and repression. I believe this stems from the idea that they believe ANYONE can obtain enlightenment (ie be a 'Buddah' or enlightened one). They accept the validity of all religions and systems of beliefs etc... This is a tolerance that the Church will never be able to claim. >Another point of reference is that despite Christianity having declining >influence in the Western world, we can't really say that we have any >fewer wars or bloodshed than back in the "golden days" of Christian >political influence. Certainly not more bloodshed in the name of God anyway... >On the Christian side, the fact that I may believe someone is going to hell >doesn't necessarily mean that "other people don't matter", to quote clh. I'm not sure I agree. What about the slaughtering of the priests of Baal and the killing of 'pagans' in the name of God throughout the 'Old Testament'? Its clear that God does not grant non Jews with the same rights as humans as he granted to the Isrealite nation. I see no attempt to convert these people to their belief system, they were just killed with God's blessing. Someone who beleives this to be the inspired word of God must surely believe that non Christians are viewed as being less "worthy" or life and hence "don't matter" as much. >In fact it can be argued that the absence of religious >values has also led to the belief that "other people don't matter". It could be? Oh, please do. I'm interested in hearing your arguments because I heartily disagree. Jeff Lindborg