Subject:
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Re: Taking things on faith (was Re: POV-RAY orange color
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Sun, 22 Aug 1999 21:10:42 GMT
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Reply-To:
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lpieniazek@novera.ANTISPAMcom
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Viewed:
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1655 times
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Scott Edward Sanburn wrote:
>
> Moderate? Communist? HA! I am about as much Communist as George Lucas is poor.
> ;) You can ask Larry P. even. Right Larry? :)
Yup, I'll vouch for Scott.
> Scott S.
>
> P.S. I think this is one subject that will never be resolved between
> non-believers and believers, some will convert, some won't, so I try to keep out
> of it as much as I can, because I have been in many arguments such as this about
> my faith and God in many different settings, from home to church to work to
> college. I will never falter in my beliefs over someone's objections like
> Larry's, I can respect them, but I do not agree with them, and I probably will
> never convert Larry to being a believer. So why waste the energy?
Eminently sensible advice. I'm certainly not out to convert anyone to
atheism. If you need me to tell you how to think, you need some sort of
crutch anyway, so why not pick one that to the uncritical thinker comes
off as sort of internally self consistent? Being an atheist is a lot
more work, and requires a lot more critical thought, than being gnostic
or theist... If you're not very bright, it's not for you.
I just:
1) call people on their assertions when they're being particularly
foolish, and
2) get a bit stirred up by people fronting christianity as some sort of
pacific gig, then using their christianity to impose their views, their
rituals, and their restrictions on behaviour on others.
As I've said before, all I really want from others is to be left alone
unless I choose to enter into voluntary arrangements with them. You'll
NEVER find me imposing my views on anyone else. Arguing for them,
certainly, but if someone wants to, for example, set up a commune, more
power to them I say. Just don't ask ME to pay for it.
Christianity has a long history of not doing that, not being tolerant,
not leaving others with different viewpoints alone. Pick an era, and
you'll find some group or another busily oppressing people in the name
of the lord.
Now I know there are lots of good christians out there. But I'd put to
you it's in spite of their beliefs, not because. Christianity is
fundamentally flawed.
They'll argue that the crusaders looting the libraries of Alexandria,
the Spanish stealing gold and raping indians, the Salem witchhunters
burning innocent girls, the imperialists who started the
Spanish-American war so that we could grab some colonies in the name of
"bringing christianity to our little brown brothers" and then looked the
other way while the former colonies were pillaged, the Swiss calvinists
turning away the Jews and helping the Nazis bank their loot, the priest
in NYC who took my dad's last dollar when he married him and my mother,
so he couldn't get home to Detroit without begging for money, the Pope
condemnming billions to starvation because abstinence is the only
morally acceptable way of controlling reproduction, the Klansmen who
dragged a man to death behind their truck, the Serbs raping muslim women
and catholics, the gay-intolerant people in my own home county who
hounded a teacher to death, and a host of other atrocities weren't
performed by christians... no, no, not christians! Merely someone with
the cross in their hand who said they were christian.
But the people performing them believed they were. If christianity is as
slippery and hard to define as John said it is, what good is it as a
moral code?
So when someone trumpets how great it is and good and wholesome and
wonderful, you can be sure I'll be there to pop that bubble.
BTW, don't think I have a special hatred for christianity... islam has
lots of blood on its hands too, believe me. But christianity is what
we're talking about.
Really, I gotta stop posting to this thread. Maybe this time I even
will.
--
Larry Pieniazek larryp@novera.com http://my.voyager.net/lar
- - - Web Application Integration! http://www.novera.com
fund Lugnet(tm): http://www.ebates.com/ Member ref: lar, 1/2 $$ to
lugnet.
NOTE: I have left CTP, effective 18 June 99, and my CTP email
will not work after then. Please switch to my Novera ID.
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