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From: mangoe@umcp-cs.UUCP (Charley Wingate)
Newsgroups: net.religion
Subject: The Power of (Organized) Religion
Message-ID: <1817@umcp-cs.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 11-Oct-85 17:50:36 EDT
Article-I.D.: umcp-cs.1817
Posted: Fri Oct 11 17:50:36 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 12-Oct-85 07:32:52 EDT
References: <1852@pyuxd.UUCP>
Organization: U of Maryland, Computer Science Dept., College Park, MD
Lines: 39

In article <1852@pyuxd.UUCP> rlr@pyuxd.UUCP (Rich Rosen) writes:

>>  I don't think Hitler had
>> very much use for reliance on a higher power in the sense meant here,
>> yet I can't think of a better example of a man who promulgated notions
>> of innate racial/ethnic superiority, and for whom blind faith and
>> acceptance--of his followers in him--was an essential "virtue."

>No, my friend, it is your article that offers shoddy thinking.  I never
>claimed that religionists represent the SOLE perpetuators of these notions.
>Nonetheless, those notions are perpetuated by religion, among other things.
>All the modern perpetuators of those notions (Falwell, IC's, Khomeini,
>Farrakhan, etc.) are either tied directly to religion (as these examples
>show) or take their cues from religion, having learned the manipulative
>skills they use (in such movements as Nazism and other violent nationalistic
>movements) from religion.

It is much more accurate to say that these things are being done IN THE NAME
OF RELIGION.  There simply is no justification for the statement that 
religion invariably gives rise to such things is simply rediculous.  Jerry
Falwell doesn't exemplarize Christianity anymore than Khomeini exemplarizes
Islam.  The fact that one commonly finds these people associated with
religions is simply indicative of the tremendous intellectual power of the
thing.  These days, one sees bad science being misused to delude the
gullible and support the disreputable as often as one sees bad religion
being employed for the same purposes.  And, having seen Mr. Falwell's show,
there's little doubt in my mind that he does indeed represent bad religion.

Rich has conveniently ignored the Marxists and a host of other morally and
intellectually dubious movements to arrive at his conclusions.  He seems
conveniently to have forgotten the wanton destruction wrought by Pol Pot and
his kind in Cambodia and Laos.  The terror that is (depressingly) quite
common in Africa has little to do with religion.

Charley Wingate  umcp-cs!mangoe

"I say this because I want to be prime minister of Canada some day." - M Fox