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From: barry@ames.UUCP (Kenn Barry)
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: Napoleon on religion and politics
Message-ID: <638@ames.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 16-Nov-84 03:17:25 EST
Article-I.D.: ames.638
Posted: Fri Nov 16 03:17:25 1984
Date-Received: Sat, 17-Nov-84 20:12:20 EST
References: <410@uwmacc.UUCP> <614@loral.UUCP>
Distribution: net
Organization: NASA-Ames Research Center, Mtn. View, CA
Lines: 33

From Ray Simard:
> In article <410@uwmacc.UUCP> bllklly@uwmacc.UUCP (Bill Kelly) writes:
>>
>>     "How can you have order in a state without  religion?   Society  cannot
>>exist  without  the  inequality  of fortunes, which cannot endure apart from
>>religion.  When one man is dying of hunger near another who is ill  of  sur-
>>feit, he cannot resign himself to this difference unless there is an author-
>>ity which declares 'God wills it thus: there must be rich and  poor  in  the
>>world:  but  hereafter  and during all eternity, the division of things will
>>take place differently.'"                         -- Napoleon Bonaparte
>>
>>     I'm tempted to draw parallels  between  Napoleon's  view  and  Reagan's
>>leanings  towards  government  support  of  Christianity.   However, I think
>>Reagan is sincere, not Machiavellian, about most of his  beliefs  (religious
>>and otherwise).
> 
>      It is more than a little misleading and unfair to drag a quote  from  a
> bygone  era,  in a different location and culture, and use it in this way to
> promote a position. One must recall that, in the time  and  place  in  which
> Napoleon  said  this, the caste system was formally recognized and enforced,
> and believed good (as the quote  suggests).  Religion,  in  this  case,  was
> looked upon as a salve for the oppressed, a source of comfort and relief.

	Guess again, Ray. Napoleon comes *after* the French Revolution,
remember? "Liberte, egalite, fraternite". No official caste system. A
lot of social inequality, to be sure, but that's true in the US today,
also. So what's unfair?

-  From the Crow's Nest  -                      Kenn Barry
                                                NASA-Ames Research Center
                                                Moffett Field, CA
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