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From: mangoe@umcp-cs.UUCP (Charley Wingate)
Newsgroups: net.religion
Subject: Re: Wingate on different kinds of evil
Message-ID: <2912@umcp-cs.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 31-Jan-85 14:16:39 EST
Article-I.D.: umcp-cs.2912
Posted: Thu Jan 31 14:16:39 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 2-Feb-85 01:09:53 EST
References: <2697@umcp-cs.UUCP> <409@pyuxd.UUCP>
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Organization: U of Maryland, Computer Science Dept., College Park, MD
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In article <409@pyuxd.UUCP> rlr@pyuxd.UUCP (Pesmard Flurrmn) writes:

>However, the evils of religion (esp. Christianity) ARE in fact closely tied
>with the tenets of the religion itself:  the element of superiority, of
>required gospel-spreading to "heathens", of imposing morality on other
>people.

Nowhere in the Gospels is it stated that we have an obligation to "impose
morality" on people.

>Those very evils---the pogroms, the Inquisition, the Crusades, the Nazi
>anti-Semitism (argue if you will that it was not carried out from a very
>"Christian" perspective),

My pleasure.  Perhaps you are not aware of Nazism's consistent attempts to
supress Christianity.  Perhaps you have never been to Spielberg Prison in
Brno, Czechoslovakia and seen the Nazi shrine.  But to continue--

>                          and today's Moral (?) Majority (?)---are ROOTED
>in the model of so-called Christian thought.  There *are* those Christians
>who have shirked such notions and have a much more rational bent on their
>place in the world (shared with others) and in a free society.
>Unfortunately, the more vocal, more active, and perhaps even the greater
>number of Christians still adhere to the mindset of Christian rightness and
>superiority.  Listen to those who proclaim proudly "I cannot share the world
>with you.  I cannot allow you to legitimize things I disapprove of.  It's
>wrong because it's against the word of god."

So-called is the right word; while one can certainly point at "christian"
western Europe for examples of this kind intolerance, it is clearly not
consistent with the gospels or even with St. Paul, upon whose shoulders blame
is frequently placed.  The appearance of similar behavior in other places
indicates to me that it is an expression of a basic human tendency; ideology
is the excuse, not the cause.  The continuance of Jewish repression under
the Soviets suggests to me that religion was only a minor factor in the
pogroms, for instance.

I should also point out that the period in which christianity was most 
relentlessly rationalistic, the late middle ages, also produced some of the
worst repression and intolerance, and not just toward non-christians, either.

Charley Wingate   umcp-cs!mangoe

"It's always winter--"  "and never Christmas!"