Dan1123
Alright ...
Dan1123 ... finally
Might as well try to go in order, eh? Okay ... to start with your initial response ... I did, in fact, start a post, but I decided it ws far too reactionary and in the mood of what was taking place in other, more acrimonious debates. Yours is a good post; when I looked at mine and saw two sentences in the response I was writing about Camus and a long point-by-point of how Christians are a threat ... we can fairly conclude I was well off my point with that. And then this one heated up a little, so with that apologia ...
Re: Cute One Tiassa
What I really tend to wonder is why certain people here believe that Christianity is the greatest threat to humanity. People point to popularized stuff like the evolution debate, stem cell research, and stuff a few hundred years old like Galileo and the crusades.
I wanted to start with this portion of the post because I do, in fact, hear you sympathetically. However, if we look to the stuff from centuries past, and identify the faith points and human machinations involved in former atrocities, oppressions, and usurpations, and then compare those factors to the modern day, I submit that by and large the only two differences 'twixt then and now is A) a lack of true cohesion among the faithful and B) at least we aren't burning people at the stake. In this sense, we might look to the modern issues.
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Abortion/Sex Ed/Sexuality: I'll start with abortion; I think we all find it tragic, even those of us who defend its place in society. A number of factors contribute to unwanted pregnancies, and in the end I think the way to "end abortion" is to manage those contributing factors. For space's sake, can we say that I've been through those factors before? Because a legal ban on abortion won't accomplish the god-willed abortion-free society. I believe in the credo,
Every child a wanted child. This is
best accomplished by the simple principle that every reproduction should be desired at least, if not planned in accord with desire.
Education in general helps prevent abortion just like it does crime. Give people better things to do than f--k for desperation and they're likely to be more responsible with themselves. Sexual education, however, is a stickier issue. It's hard to tell when to start educating a child about it. But, as I've pointed out from Lysander Spooner a number of times, to keep a child in ignorance of vice is merely to keep a child ignorant. Teaching children how to protect themselves against the pitfalls of nature's needs seems wise. But instead of this practical issue, Christians often resort to speculations on morality. To educate kids about their sexuality is to encourage them to have sex ... I'm not the biggest fan of condom distribution in the schools, but what those parents who object are saying, in essence, is that they do not trust their own parenting. What they're saying is that if the schools made condoms available, the parents are afraid their children will become sluts. I was lucky when I bought my first condoms. The gravelly-voiced old lady behind the counter didn't bat an eye, merely grabbed the box, put it on the counter, took my money, pulled a drag off a cigarette, and said, "Good luck, honey."
The subjective moral implications of impropriety assigned sexuality have created a number of problems. The whole broad range of things I would list here save for the fact that I think you get the point can be summed up in the fact that my first lover cried because she wasn't a virgin for me; she had been raped by her father. We, a post-Puritain society, are thoroughly obsessed by sexuality. What, pray tell, did we accomplish spending forty-million dollars on fellatio? Where does this obsession come from? Well, insofar as I can tell, it comes from the Christian experience in the United States.
Or the anti-gay crusade ... suffice to say that I don't understand how letting gay people get on with their lives is going to hurt
anyone. It's not going to "make your kid gay" so to speak. If your child is gay, your child is gay; the functional difference becomes whether or not your child is allowed to sort out the emotions involved with that one. Someone once cited here, in a debate about sexuality, that homosexual teenagers kill themselves more often than heterosexual teenagers, and that this fact made homosexuality dangerous. Well, you know ... it's kind of hard when everybody makes you the butt of their jokes simply because they aren't smart enough to have a better sense of humor. For instance, when was the last time forty-nine per cent of your neighbors voted to remove
your civil rights? When has
Christian or
straight ever carried the same negative connotations as
faggot? Who was the last person pistol-whipped and left to die specifically for the crime of being heterosexual?
Bearing that this is just a part of the response to your post, I beg your further patience.
Stem-cell research: Well? When one works toward an immoral cause (e.g. continued suffering for lack of medical technology) by opposing the reduction of suffering, I consider that harmful. I might point out that the site did once (at least) debate stem-cell research and it was pointed out by the research supporters that new techniques would eventually eliminate the moral/ethical question posed. A few months later, scientists announced progress toward the elimination of the necessity of aborted fetal tissue. We're not there yet, but we're getting there. And the only people who don't want to get there are religious people who put their god and their salvation before the lives of others. I do consider this harmful.
Evolution/creationism: You know, I don't even know where to begin. Suffice to say that, of those creationists who wish scientific acceptance of their proposals, should try a method that does not involve rewriting the scientific process to accommodate unobservable, subjective data. In the end, in order to
scientifically prove that God created the Universe, the creationists will have to
scientifically prove that God existed at the time of creation. This, as most of us accept, is an impossibility on any number of levels. Certes, there's a possibility in the utmost metaphysical, and therein we see the key: can the creationists transform the metaphysical into the actual?
In the meantime, creationists are calling for the essential destruction of the scientific process in order to make their theology a science.
In other words, all scientific progress should be endangered simply so that we can let the Christians feel good. You know, I just don't see the Hindu League down protesting to the school board that the Hindu mythology isn't considered scientific fact.
How long and hard have we worked for cures to certain diseases? Now, according to the creationist standard, we can just shrug, say that it's scientifically proven to be God's will since we obviously haven't beaten cancer yet, and walk away in the faith that we are loved.
But just this week a person shot a pastor in the U.S. and another lobbed a grenade into a church in Pakistan--killing five I believe
I'm afraid I don't get the connection. So let me take a couple of swings at it in case I do.
(1) I would first question if you truly believe these incidents have anything to do with Christianity
per se? I recall the shooting in New York, and I don't recall hearing that it was particularly connected to anything. I could be wrong about that. Of the Pakistani attack ... was it religious or political? I share my government's opinion (a rare occasion?) that the Pakistan grenade attack was against the US, and not against Christianity. However, I see how that might not be the point.
(2) Violence
is right now because people have no better way. I'm not sure what else to say on that point, so ...
... I'm afraid I don't get the connection to the idea that Christianity is dangerous to humanity.
We have the contrast recently of the Taliban government and how their citizens were treated, but we fail to see the contrast between it and the U.S.'s freedoms (at least I have seen people say that lowering restrictions on FBI wiretaps will make the U.S. into a similar theocracy).
Um ...
Is the best we have the best we can do?
I always ask that question on the occasion of these kinds of comparisons. However, as has been pointed out by another poster at least, many many Christians are working to undermine those very freedoms you mentioned.
Then, most recently, we have the Pope finally speaking up about some of his preists doing horrible acts against kids. Of course, the media definitely isn't letting the church off the hook for that, showing hourly reports and making sure the whole country knows. The Catholic church is now paying for what happened.
I sympathize with Christianity in the fact that it doesn't reflect much about Biblical faith. It does, however, reflect much about dogma. I've pointed out Edwardianism and Victorianism before, juxtaposed the sexual repression and the chaos it caused ... in this case, I think the celibacy of the priests has bitten the church in its hindquarter.
But in all, do these seem like a threat to humanity?
In the long run, yes. Christians can adapt. There's no argument there. We see the evolution of doctrine and dogma, the changing and diversifying of beliefs. I've pointed out, in recent discussions of Muslim violence that Islam, technically, is six-hundred years younger than Christianity. And then I point to Christianity six-hundred years ago. Now ... what caused that change? Economy? Education? In my most sarcastic, I say that Muslims take God more seriously. What I mean by that is that, in the US at least, Christians have found things more important to them than God--money, prestige, fame ....
So in that sense, Christians are just like any other human beings. That they use their Constitutionally-protected doctrine to attempt to raise their social authority through the law is a problem and a threat. After losing the Oregon War, the OCA turned and put up a new ballot measure to amend the Oregon constitution to declare that God exists. It's a crock.
You know ... by any measure of propriety, I carry my own bag of improprieties. I'm a human being; of course we're all imperfect. But what I don't do is make it my religion and try to find ways to make it my right to be improper at other peoples' expenses. I saw what happened in Oregon; God help His flock if that ever happens again. It was the most evil spectre I've ever stood face to face against, and that includes the hail of gunfire. (Seriously, though ... at two-hundred yards in the dark emptying fifteen rounds into the woods ... you ain't hitting me.)
If the entirety of Christendom was set out to make an army to overthrow the world, would it not have enough now?
Judging by the way the world reacts to military usurpation these days ... quite frankly, if a Christian army were to try to overthrow the world it would be the final enactment of the sacrifice of the intellect. The world would, at that point, play the endgame.
But the Christians do try to use their numbers to control society. Ballot measures in the US ... ask any Brit about plantation theory and what it brings .... Part of it is that Christians in the US aren't used to not having the standard of the law on their side. To wit: Clothing-optional towns. Why do you have to write a law specifically to license people to conduct themselves in the state God delivered them to the world? In matters of expression and art, it was the NEA hearings after the Serranos and Mapplethorpe blowups that finally did it. After hearing about Christian values from that day forward (conservative legislators aimed their wrath at the NEA and Andres Serranos in year-2000 legislation pertaining to indigenous tribal diabetes research) the generation that was apparently so stupid that a song about the evils of alcohol could make us want to commit suicide started coming to certain offices of power. Christians who are detecting the erosion of their presupposed standard are fighting back, attempting to legislate their morals through the sheer number of Christians in the country. It's quite a site; one of my great faiths in Christians as human beings is that the OCA never has won beyond citywide elections.
Even the President of the United States, with the U.S. armed forces at his command is a Christian.
I know. I'm a pacifist so all warfare brings distaste, but this holy war is absolutely repulsive. If he hadn't stooped to bin Laden's level and made it about God, I would have much more respect for the current action. Of course, he doesn't want to include prenatal care in public healthcare unless we first recognize his theological position as fact ... his attorney general trying to publicly finance Christian activities ....
Don't try to argue that the current stuff is on the scale of taking over the world.
Well, I'm not expecting a three-day coup. But the simple fact is that liberty is a proven benefit in this world, and Christians work against it.
Hmmm ... the president wants to inject his theology into the government of the most influential nation in the history of the world; no, it's not taking over the world, but it's a duplicitous attempt to spread Christian faith through the government. Does that mean that since it's only a small impropriety, I shouldn't care?
The entire war effort is at most a sideline in the U.S. interest and economy, and the actions carried out have not been on a truly large scale
At present. Remember, Bush threatened the whole world. As a matter of opinion, who are we going to bomb next?
One thing, about Christian condemnation. I'm not so sure what the big deal is about someone condemning someone else. If the Christian idea of God is wrong, then what weight does a figment of someone's imagination judging you have?
I would ask Brian Moch and Hattie Cohen for their opinions of the weight of someone's imagination judging them, but they're dead. In 1992, amid a Christian-sponsored ballot to suspend civil rights based upon the gender of one's sexual partner, someone convicted these two of being gay and threw a firebomb into the house.
And there is another issue. I don't know,
Dan1123, it seems to carry an awful lot of weight right now. Think about it this way, and it does require some imagination. Just stop and think for a moment as if you were gay. And one day you wake up and the best efforts of your neighbors and fellow citizens has protected your civil rights by a 2% margin; that is, 49% of the people in your community think that you should not be allowed to have a job, your first amendment rights, or equal protection under the law merely because you're gay.
That's a hell of a lot of weight, Dan. In Oregon we fought hard. And we won. Two people died needlessly and the electoral fight went on for another eight years. At present, nobody's sure what the next step is, as we haven't heard a peep out of the
Oregon Citizens' Alliance for several months now.
Or those who would, were you gay, take away the benefits you earn at your work. Pretty heavy.
Would you like me to rehash the morbid stories about the number of sexually-abused children I knew who never told anyone what the problem was until they were ready to check out for good, and who never told anyone because they learned that God says you shouldn't say bad things about your parents. Effing heavy, I might say. But I only felt it from my end; it seemed pretty bad, but you never know--they might have enjoyed the suicidal tendencies.
Okay, that last one was harsh, but I do want to convey that this figment bears much weight in the world.
I think these all stem from the people here living in a Christian-saturated nation (the U.S.) and seeing how Christians among Christians become lazy in their faith ....
I will leave this entire paragraph without comment, Dan. I think you're nailing the concept pretty much dead-on at that point.
I'm going to hope for some sense of continuity; unfortunately, this post took hours due to interruptions, so I hope it doesn't seem to jagged. I'll try to be quicker with the other responses.
thanx,
Tiassa
