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From: mangoe@umcp-cs.UUCP (Charley Wingate)
Newsgroups: net.religion
Subject: Re: Yellow Press in SciFi? (Response *from* Rosen)
Message-ID: <2697@umcp-cs.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 25-Jan-85 18:08:38 EST
Article-I.D.: umcp-cs.2697
Posted: Fri Jan 25 18:08:38 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 28-Jan-85 00:46:22 EST
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Combining the two lists of attrocities, I think we have clear evidence of
the ubiquity of evil.  I don't think that any subset thereof provides
sufficient evidence to convict any group of dispicability until the group
you are talking about is quite small.  The Nazi concentration camps may
suffice to convince one of the evil of Nazism, and therefore of its leaders,
but I do not think that one can condemn (for instance) all Germans, or even
all non-jewish residents of Nazi Germany.  A certain responsibility is
lacking.  In like fashion, I see no reason to lay the sins of the Inquisitors
upon, say, the current pope's shoulders.  Nothing he does or says can have
any effect upon the Inquisition.

     I take Jesus' statement that "You shall know them by their works" in a
very narrow fashion.  It seems to me that he was talking in terms of
individuals, not groups.  I therefore feel quite justified in rejecting the
Inquisitors, and even Martin Luther's antisemetism (but not his good
theology), without rejecting Christianity.

     Now I realize that we all have thresholds at which we refuse to tolerate
an institution which associates itself with too much evil.  My complaint is
that there seems to be a double-standard here; somehow the evils which
Christians have from time to time committed are more weighty than when the
same acts are done by non-religious groups.  There also seems to be a bias
against the examination of the good that the various institutions have
brought forth.  It seems to me that any reasonable comparison of, for
instance, Cambodia under Pol Pot and Medieval Europe is going to eventually
tilt in favor of the Europeans, given either my standards or those which
Rich Rosen has stated.

     I therefore discount any "Your evil cancels out my evil" arguments,
such as the referenced article would have us agree to.

Charley Wingate   umcp-cs!mangoe