Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!harpo!floyd!clyde!ihnp4!houxm!mhuxi!mhuxj!mhuxl!ulysses!unc!tim From: tim@unc.UUCP (Tim Maroney) Newsgroups: net.religion Subject: A Belated Reply to Paul Dubuc [from Pam Troy] Message-ID: <5990@unc.UUCP> Date: Sun, 9-Oct-83 21:12:04 EDT Article-I.D.: unc.5990 Posted: Sun Oct 9 21:12:04 1983 Date-Received: Mon, 10-Oct-83 10:08:04 EDT Lines: 266 [ From Pamela Troy ] This piece is written in response to an article by Paul Dubuc in which he answered some questions I posted in an earlier article. In the interests of space, I have tried to hone my article down, so I may not be able to cover all of the points I would like to. However, I will try to answer the questions Paul has put to me. Paul maintains that "our human laws need to be based on some unalterable, external standard," and he begins by asking me these two questions about the motivations behind the system of ethics held by an atheist, my father. l) How would my individual acts of lying, stealing, and cruelty make the world an uglier, more dangerous place? Why should I care about the rest of the world if I can get away with these things and make myself happy? If there is no God to whom I owe obedience, why can't I live by my own rules, as I see fit? It's fine for others to live by the rules of society. But why should I? (especially if there is nothing powerful enough to stop me) 2) Why should I care about the world? What is there inherent in atheism that compels me to be "good"? Why should you accept your father's standard of conduct (other than the fact that he is your father and you love and respect him)? Individual acts of lying, stealing, and cruelty make the world an uglier, more dangerous place, not only for the victims of these actions, but for the liar, the thief, and the brute. A person who does not respect the rights of those around him is not likely to have his own rights respected, and I have known few cheats and bullies who have gotten away with it for very long. Most dishonest people are frightened souls who live in terror of being discovered, and I've never known a bully who was very happy with the knowledge that he is feared and detested by his neighbors. Society, though not omnipotent, can be pretty powerful, and it has a way of enforcing its own rules. You should care about the world because it is where you live. For an atheist, what else is there? I accept my father's standard of conduct because he has done very well for himself and his family in living by it. He went through four years of Louisiana politics with his integrity intact, and I consider that quite an accomplishment. No, there is no God in atheism threatening to hit me with a stick if I do something wrong. My father believes something is made right or wrong by its effects on other people, not by whether a supernatural being likes it or not. (From Paul) There have been those who have done heinous things in the name of Christianity, but the Bible exposes them for the hypocrites they are. As for Atheism, we would do well to remember that everything that Josef Stalin did in his purge was legal. The law of Russia was his own. (From Pam) In this paragraph you reveal a rather self-serving double standard.... You ask us to separate bad Christians from good, acknowledging only the good ones as true Christians. (From Paul) I don't think it is too much to say that if anyone is going to call themselves a Christian they should submit themselves to the biblical standard of conduct. To redefine Christianity to make it more conformable to our own ideas is a subtle form of idolatry. (Making God in man's image). I'm afraid I did not make myself clear. I was objecting to the fact that you were insisting that I judge Christians by their highest common denominator, those Christians who practice tolerance, while you yourself were judging atheists by their lowest common denominator, Josef Stalin and his like. Later, we discussed whether or not Stalin could be a hypocritical atheist. (Paul) My point was that Stalin's actions were not hypocritical to atheism....The only thing that I can see that is hypocritical to an atheist is for him/her to act as if God exists....Atheism appeals to no authority for its validity. Atheism has no inherent standard of "right" and "wrong", only the arbitrary standard of individual atheists. Answer this for me: How can human rights be considered intrinsic, unalienable, and unalterable if there is no authority higher than man to appeal to? If atheism's flaw is that it appeals to no higher authority, then Stalin should have been immune to this flaw, and your use of him as an example is meaningless. Stalin WAS appealing to a higher authority to justify his actions. That authority was Marx. Look at history. When populations have been massacred and cultures destroyed, it has not been by the "fuzzy-minded" atheists who are not positive about right and wrong. Crimes against humanity tend to be committed by somebody clutching a book, and claiming that it and it alone holds the key to what is good and what is bad. Higher authorities will always be the bane of the human race. I will discuss this at greater length later. (From Paul) 1) Is it bigotry to reprimand a teacher for telling a student that he thinks it is wrong to have pre-marital sex because it is proscribed by the Bible? If not, then is it okay to prevent teachers from telling a student that pre-marital sex is acceptable based on another value system? It certainly is bigotry. A teacher should be free to offer his opinions to a student SO LONG AS THEY ARE PRESENTED AS OPINIONS AND BELIEFS, NOT AS FACTS. For example, it would be all right for me to say, "As a witch, I do not consider responsible pre-marital sex wrong." It would NOT be all right if I said, "Pre-marital sex is ducky and anyone who disagrees is a crazy old prude who should have his head examined." Actually, I know of very few cases of a teacher actually promoting pre-marital sex in the classroom. I do know of a case where a teacher was accused of doing just that because she had not explicitly stated that pre-marital sex was wrong. 2) Do you think that teachers should be allowed to present the scientific evidences for Creationism along with those for Evolutionism in the classroom? Certainly, as long as the evidence presented is as scientifically researched and as carefully documented as that for evolution, and so long as the presentation does not confine itself to one creation model. There are a great many, you know, aside from the Christian version. 3) If atheism describes the lack of religion, then what right does the government have to insist on a purely atheistic environment in the public schools? If atheism is a religion, then how does the separation of church and state principle apply to it? How are we to guard against our children being inculcated with atheism if theistic viewpoints are removed from consideration in the schools? Atheism is not merely the lack of religion, and I would not call the environment at public schools atheistic. If it were, the students would be actively taught that religion was bad. This is not the case. Your children would be in danger of being "inculcated with atheism" only if theistic considerations were removed from your home or your church, or if the schools started teaching that religion was pernicious. (From Pam) Would my children be forced to participate in Christian religious services, such as prayer to Jesus?...If my child does not take part, how can you insure that he won't be targeted by a Christian teacher and subjected to pressure to convert? (From Paul) On the contrary, non-Christians should be prevented from taking part in many Christian religious services. Forced participation in re- ligious activities accomplishes nothing. I'm glad you don't believe in involuntary prayer, but you have not answered my question. There are, I know, some people who like to advertise their religion in the way they dress, in religious jewelry, or by prayer. All of these things are allowed in the public schools, so long as they are done in a non-disruptive way. But suppose an unbelieving student, for whatever reason, does not wish to be identified as such? Certainly he has the right to his anonymity. A school prayer, which publicly separates believers from unbelievers, would shatter this privacy. Tim wants me to add this: Paul, you have said that you believe in state-sponsored religious services. You have also said that you believe that those of other faiths should be "prevented from taking part" in some Christian services. This means that people could be excluded from state-sponsored affairs on the basis of religion. I would oppose any such measure to the death if necessary, just as our founding fathers would have. Now back to Pam. In my previous article I had cited Numbers 3l, in which Moses orders the slaughter of captured Midianite women and male children, as an example of a passage which could be used to justify brutality against unbelievers. Here is part of Paul's response: To shed some additional light on Numbers 3l, first read Numbers 25.... Notice how God judges his own people before he does the Midianites. When you consider what rituals were involved in the Midianites' worship of the God Baal you might begin to see a different motive for the men of Israel saving the women. You might also see a reason for the anger of Moses at this, and why he saw that the virgins were spared. You may not agree with my God's view or morality or understand his hatred of sin. But your interpretation of Numbers 3l doesn't tell the whole story. Christians cannot use the Old Testament examples you mention to justify taking God's judgement of sin into their own hands. The coming of Christ modified God's judgement of sin greatly. I don't think I needed to "interpret" Numbers 3l. What happens in these verses is quite baldly described, and it is exceedingly barbaric and cruel. But I did read Numbers 25, and encountered the following heartwarming passages: And Israel abode in Shittim and the people began to commit whoredom with the daughters of Moab. And they called the people unto the sacrifices of their gods: and the people did eat and bowed down to their gods. And Israel joined himself unto Ba'al-pe'or: and the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel. And the Lord said unto Moses, Take all the heads of the people, and hang them up before the Lord against the sun, that the fierce anger of the Lord may be turned away from Israel. And Moses said unto the judges of Israel, Slay ye every one his men that were joined unto Ba'al-pe'or. And, behold, one of the children of Israel came and brought unto his brethren a Mid'i-antish woman in the sight of Moses and in the sight of all the congregation of the children of Israel... And when Phin'e-has, the son of El-a'zar, the son of Aaron the priest, saw *it*, he rose up from among the congregation and took a javelin in his hand; and he went after the man of Israel into the tent, and thrust both of them through, the man of Israel, and the woman through her belly. So the plague was stayed from the children of Israel. And those that died in the plague were twenty and four thousand. You do know, don't you, what an agonizingly long time it takes to die from a stab in the gut? The fact that God could be just as beastly to his own people neither surprises not reassures me. I knew the first time I read Numbers 3l that the motives of the men of Israel saving the women were not exactly pure, but this hardly justifies murdering not only them but their male children. And Moses' magnanimous gesture of sparing the virgins becomes in itself questionable when he invites the Israelites to keep the girl children "alive for yourselves." He seems motivated not so much by moral indignation as by the fear of venereal disease breaking out among the tribes. A pity he didn't have a nice efficient gas chamber to get rid of these diseased creatures. I find your last statement rather mystifying in light of your insistence on "intrinsic, unalienable, and unalterable" human rights. My "relative, fuzzy, and irrelevant" sense of ethics hold that right and wrong are not something that can be changed by the wave of a divine wand. It was an atrocity when the Phalangists murdered the Palestinian refugees at Shantila, and it was no less an atrocity when Moses did the same with the Midianites. It was a filthy crime several years ago when a young man shot and killed a black man for jogging with a white woman on the grounds that they were destroying our country by "race-mixing". It was also a filthy crime when Phineas impaled Zimri and Cozbi because he had gotten it into his head that he was protecting Israel from a plague. The suffering of these people was no less intense because they lived many centuries ago. I am mystified at the double standard so many Christians seem to carry when it comes to Moses' actions in the Old Testament. Herod's massacre of the innocents was terrible because it was against God. Moses' massacre was O.K. because it pleased God. I find this concept of right and wrong dangerous and revolting. What's to stop your God from deciding once again that these methods are pleasing to him, or to stop some Christian from deciding that he has? (From Paul) What do you think will guarantee justice and truth? Nothing. There is no society that can consistently uphold, much less recognize these virtues. You, yourself, acknowledge in your article that there are many Christians who "misinterpret" the word and have a poor understanding of the concept of conversion, so justice and truth cannot be guaranteed in a Christian society, or, for that matter, in any society which is based on a dogmatic system. The best we can do is avoid injustice and untruth by having a government which adopts a "hands-off" attitude towards religious beliefs. This means not promoting any particular religion or belief, leaving it strictly to the individual to decide, and restricting only those actions which interfere with the rights of others. I enjoyed your article, and I hope I have answered your questions as plainly and as intelligently as you answered mine. Pamela Troy