Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site ulysses.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!smb From: smb@ulysses.UUCP (Steven Bellovin) Newsgroups: net.religion Subject: Re: Inferring consent from silence Message-ID: <10032@ulysses.UUCP> Date: Tue, 26-Mar-85 19:06:04 EST Article-I.D.: ulysses.10032 Posted: Tue Mar 26 19:06:04 1985 Date-Received: Wed, 27-Mar-85 05:07:42 EST References: <5615@duke.UUCP> Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill Lines: 71 > From: nlt@duke.UUCP (N. L. Tinkham) > Subject: Inferring consent from silence > Message-ID: <5615@duke.UUCP> > Date: Mon, 25-Mar-85 17:06:29 EST > Let me add my voice to those of Jeff Gillette and Charley Wingate: > Silence does *not* necessarily imply consent. I read many, many > articles in this newsgroup expressing positions with which I disagree > and representing religions or groups within my own religion with > views different from my own. Only a few are interesting enough to > me to take the trouble to reply (and to reply to the news and mail > replies which may result from my own article) -- perhaps 1/2 of 1%. > Obviously -- isn't it obvious? -- it should not be inferred that I > agree with the other 99.5% of what is posted to net.religion. > N. L. Tinkham > duke!nlt This article is representative of several that have appeared recently in net.religion, defending a lack of responses to Don Black. Let me answer this one. People, can you not see the difference between doctrinal disagreements and *evil*? Is even obnoxious atheism the same threat to humanity as Nazism? We don't have to guess what flows from it; there was a gory example not 40 years ago. (Denials of the existence of the Holocaust are, of course, just another example of Goebbels' "Big Lie" technique -- and no, I don't think that I'm smearing someone by chance association.) Ever since the founding of net.religion, there's been a recurrent debate between some who cite the evils of the Inquisition as representative of Christianity, and those who reply that Torquemeda wasn't a real Christian. It's a pointless debate, since neither side will ever convince the other. Now, though, we have someone who's spreading anti-Semitic slander under the banner of Christianity. How many of the active Christians on the net -- even excluding those like hutch who didn't see Black's postings; we all know how unreliable the net can be -- said anything? Just one -- Bob Brown. *Just one Christian had the courage, the decency, the morality to stand up and denounce Black's attitudes as unchristian.* Between 1933 and 1945, a great tragedy took place, with (at the very least) the tacit assent of the people of Germany, Poland, the Ukraine, France, etc. Yes, there were individual acts of courage. The responses of Denmark and Holland are legendary. Just two weeks ago, an entire Dutch village was honored at Yad Vashem (the memorial in Jerusalem to the Holocaust victims) for their individual and collective heroic acts. But by and large, people were silent. (Nor are the Western powers free of guilt; see, for example, "The Abandonment of the Jews", recently published in hardback.) We now have an example of that sort of behavior on the net. There are no Storm Troopers waiting inside your terminals. No Gestapo agents are going to drag you away for replying to Don Black. Let me ask you -- is your silence really justifiable? There is a saying in the Talmud worth repeating: "If not me, who? And if not now, when?" I'll be away from net.religion for a few days; please don't misconstrue any silence on my part. --Steve Bellovin P.S. For those of you who have said that Jews are too sensitive about antisemitism, it's worth noting that *every* Jew (and several non-Jews) with whom I corresponded about Don Black recognized his ideology for what it is. This was before he defined the tenets of Identity "Christianity". As the saying goes, "even paranoids have real enemies". 50 years ago, too many Jews didn't recognize the danger until it was too late. I pray that that mistake is never made again.