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From: andree@uokvax.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.religion
Subject: Re: A Belated Reply to Paul Dubuc [from - (nf)
Message-ID: <3283@uiucdcs.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 23-Oct-83 00:14:56 EDT
Article-I.D.: uiucdcs.3283
Posted: Sun Oct 23 00:14:56 1983
Date-Received: Thu, 20-Oct-83 03:22:29 EDT
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#R:unc:-599000:uokvax:8300002:000:1411
uokvax!andree    Oct 14 18:46:00 1983

I feel that I must respond to Paul's long (LOOONG) letter, even though there
is a fair chance that he won't see it. So as to prevent the reoccurrence of
long, multi-topic letters, I am breaking the reply up by subject.

The first subject I'd like to look at is the general topic of the entire
letter. It seems that Paul is complaining about the `persecution' of
Christians, in that they can't promulgate their views in all the manners
they would wish. The first thing this brings to my mind is a paraphrase
from L. Sprague DeCamp's {\i Lest Darkness Fall:} `Religious freedom
includes the right to persecute those not of our religion.' This may seem
silly, but Christians are no more restricted in their ability to spread
their views than any other religion.

Well, they have almost as much freedom as any other religion; there is some
backlash since they have been the `privileged majority' for most of the
history of the western world. This arises from the same sillyness that
led to `affirmative action,' and is just as objectionable.  However,
Christians feel this restraint far more than other religions, as they
haven't had to suffer from it until recently.

So, to make Christians happy, let us have prayer every morning in class.
However, to maintain fairness, let's have one prayer for each religion
represented in the class. Of course, atheists can have a `to whom it
may concern' prayer. :-)

	<mike