Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!uwm.edu!psuvax1!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: brendan@cs.uq.oz.au (Brendan Mahony) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Violence toward sinners (was Re: G O) Message-ID: Date: 9 Apr 91 06:42:22 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Lines: 20 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu In fasano@unix.cis.pitt.edu (Cathy Fasano) writes: >Likewise (to put this in a context) -- we live in a society in which >drunken gangs of frat boys lurk around gay bars and beat up and kill >men who come out. To the extent that catagorical denounciations >of whole classes of people (even when the broadness of the denunciation >is purely rhetorical excess) encourage this kind of violence, they are >at least unwise if not actually sinful. Is it some quirk of the collective American personality that observing some action as sinful is tantamount to calling down holy Jihad on those participating in said action? For instance, "Gluttony is a deadly sin." Is this a call for people to maim and torture the overweight? Or, "Physical assalt is sinful." Is this a call for people to lynch muggers? -- Brendan Mahony | brendan@batserver.cs.uq.oz Department of Computer Science | heretic: someone who disgrees with you University of Queensland | about something neither of you knows Australia | anything about.