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From: laura@utzoo.UUCP (Laura Creighton)
Newsgroups: net.flame,net.religion
Subject: Re: Law and Christianity (sort of)
Message-ID: <5077@utzoo.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 21-Feb-85 02:32:07 EST
Article-I.D.: utzoo.5077
Posted: Thu Feb 21 02:32:07 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 21-Feb-85 02:32:07 EST
References: <249@cmu-cs-k.ARPA>, <3299@umcp-cs.UUCP>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
Lines: 55

Charley,
It is necessary to take a long view when looking at the past actions
of Christians. You will find interesting discrepancies. For instance,
these days, there are very few Christians around who condone the
burning of non-christians as an act done out of obedience to God.
These days, most Christians feel that the people who commited such
atrocities ``in the name of Christ'' were, at best, mistaken and
at worst evil.

However, this is a relatively late development. Over the course of
history the evidence is clear that a great many Christians plainly
felt that it was their duty to commit what are now condemnable acts.

Worse, for all the ``official'' pronouncements to the contrary, there
are still a lot of  people who call themselves Christian and who
advocate the persecution of various other faiths. The mentality
of the witch burners is alive and well in Ontario. . . and other
places as well. By the time I was 12, I had run across it, and
been strapped and ``had the devil beaten out of me'' by some
very well meaning people who truly thought that this was what God
wanted them to do with pantheists.  Since they ran the school I
was attending at the time there was  little that I could do (or
at least that I thought I could do)  except take the weekly
strappings in stride -- until I left that school.

How much effort would it take to organise these people back into
killing people whose beliefs they found offensive? At the time
I thought that very little  effort would be required. And I wonder
how much resistence they would meet from their neighbours. Historically,
Christianity has been used as a wonderful vehicle for people to
justify the particular groups that they use to vent their hatred and as
a focus for their fears. From my perspective, whether this is ``correct''
or not is irrelevant -- any document that out and outs says that one
shall not ``suffer a witch to live'' is very, very dangerous. Anybody
who decides to kill me can use that particular quote as a fruitful
starting ground.

Is the word of those who do not believe that God actually meant this
line of John (so why is it there?) going to prevail over those who
read it and interpret it to literally  declare a religious open season
on witches? If so, why? In talking to a good many Christians on the
issue I have found that a surprising number of them think that there
either  ``are no real witches today'' or that anyone who professes to be
a witch is in need of psychiatric help, because ``one could not seriously
believe this''. Involuntary committal may be better than burning, but I
wonder. Is the primary  reason that Christians have given  up witch
burning that they think that either there never were witches or that, if
there were, they have killed all of them off? Better not invite them to
Pan Pagan Festival then...

I worry about this a lot. What do *you* think will keep a return of
the killing of heretics from occurring?

Laura Creighton (pagan heretic)
utzoo!laura