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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!unc!mcnc!bch
From: bch@mcnc.UUCP (Byron Howes)
Newsgroups: net.religion
Subject: Re: Matthew 7:6
Message-ID: <441@mcnc.mcnc.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 1-Apr-85 00:28:19 EST
Article-I.D.: mcnc.441
Posted: Mon Apr  1 00:28:19 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 2-Apr-85 05:09:59 EST
References: <1399@decwrl.UUCP>
Reply-To: bch@mcnc.UUCP (Byron Howes)
Organization: North Carolina Educational Computing Service
Lines: 62
Summary: 

In article <1399@decwrl.UUCP> black@nisysg.DEC writes:
>
>     In the last couple of weeks, the net has served to solidify some of
>my beliefs and opinions.  I believe even more that Christianity is the most
>persecuted religion, and that it will get worse before it gets better. 
 
I can hardly see how anything that has taken place in net.religion can be
called persecution.  Alot of us don't like your ideas, sure, and frankly
consider them to be highly offensive (to put it mildly) but a little name
calling isn't persecution.  If I haven't spoken up about the "Communist
Menace" it's because from where I stand the groups associated with your
particular point of view are a far more real and present danger to my
freedom.
>
>     This net is obviously not the place to expect a free, open discussion
>of any religious topic unless a) it is 100% complementary of Judaism, or
>b) it fits into "established" religions, or c) it is a Humanistic topic about
>why Deism is wrong.  I hope I cracked a few ivory towers.  I hope it
>has stirred some thoughts in the minds of true Christians about who you are
>and where you should be going.  And WHO doesn't want you to find out.  And
>why.  
 
I'm not going to buy that for a minute!  How much more free and open can you
have it!  We criticize you, you criticize us.  Nobody is censored.  Any 
number of people have asked you serious questions about the foundations of
your belief.  You haven't answered one of them.  Instead you rant and rave
about being persecuted.  

I, for one, have a decidedly non-standard series of beliefs that are as
far in one direction from "established" Christianity as yours are in the
other.  (I guess I'm what Charley Wingate would call a "weak" Christian.)
There's been a fair amount of discussion and criticism about them but, hey,
I'm tough -- I'll be quiet till the flames die down but I'm not going to
run away.

There have also any number of things that are uncomplimentary to Judaism
discussed here, but there is a not-so-fine line between uncomplimentary
and derogatory.  It is a line which, I fear, you have crossed.  My 
disagreement with your point of view, however, is less because it is
antisemetic (or at least I believe it is) and more because it is simply
anti-people or anti- anyone who is not of *our* common heritage.  If
you believe that North America is the promised land that we northern
European barbarian types are to inherit, then you probably don't think
much of the Native Americans whose land this was before we rather rudely
took it.  This hasn't been discussed, but it seems a clear implication.
What is your opinion of the Japanese Internment camps set up by the
U.S. Government in WWII?  How do blacks fit into the scenario of the
Promised Land and the Chosen People?  

>     I guess what it boils down to is that I've said enough--on this net.
>As you all seem to desire, I'm going to crawl back into my cave with
>the other dinosaurs.  (They actually make better company than some humans.)
>
>
>Veni, vidi, vici.
 
Oooooh!  The Big Lie!  Proclaim a victory and turn tail.  Gimme a break.

-- 

						Byron C. Howes
				      ...!{decvax,akgua}!mcnc!ecsvax!bch