response 351 of 372:

Jun 21 22:11 UTC 2002

I would say that the Christian faith varies enough that it is totally
understandable, if not legit, that some variations of Christianity emphazize
that they are way different than other variations.

I've certainly heard descriptions of God and his relationship to people coming
out of mouths of Christians that I have completely disagreed with and don't
think are at all biblical.  They clearly think the same of me.

What's wrong with extreme diversity in the group?  Pretending that all
Christians are united over more than a sentence's worth of information (that
they all interpret differently) is as silly as pretending that all whites are
united about something.

response 353 of 372:

Jun 21 23:35 UTC 2002

Re brighn's "many casual Christians believe that [12/25] is the day 
Jesus was born," and bap's response to it in 335:

The word "casual" is important, if in the sense of that word you'll 
allow not only informal and unserious but also uneducated.  Little 
kids, for example, will tell you that "Christmas is Jesus's birthday," 
as will some adults -- the same ones that think Canada is part of the 
US, or Hawaii isn't.  Such people exist.  

But the most hardcore fundamentalist Christians I have ever known not 
only knew that Christmas and most of its symbols and rituals have pagan 
origins, but also were concerned enough about that fact to abolish all 
traditional Christmas (and Easter) celebrations from their homes and 
congregations.  These people had more hard facts than any highschool 
atheist I've ever heard trying to pontificate.  Fundamentalism is not, 
in my experience of it, the result of ignorance or stupidity, as 
comforting as it might be to think so.  The highschool atheist who 
thinks he or she can disillusion Christians by telling them about the 
pagan origins of Christmas is indeed ignorant and/or stupid.  They 
already know, dude, and the dirty look you get from them is because 
you're a boring twit, not because you've educated "the fundies" in some 
unpleasant truth.

response 355 of 372:

Jun 21 23:50 UTC 2002

Ooh, good new topic:

I know lots of Christians of all types, and it is my impression that 
most of them bear no ill will -- none, zilch, zero -- toward Jews, and 
very little toward Christians of other persuasions.  The ones they 
don't like, if they know about them at all, are the Pagans.  A 
mainstream (ELCA Lutheran) minister once told me that he has 
participated with Rabbis in many Jewish-Christian weddings, and has 
even participated in a couple of Muslim-Christian weddings, but he 
would never participate in a Pagan-Christian wedding.  His theological 
basis for it seemed solid, I guess, but you could make equally solid 
cases against Jewish-Christian and Muslim-Christian weddings (like, oh 
I don't know, they don't think Jesus was the son of God?), so there is 
something peculiar to Paganism.  My theory: It was there first; it's 
extremely seductive; Christianity never fully supplanted it; and now 
it's coming back for your sons and daughters.

response 357 of 372:

Jun 22 02:47 UTC 2002

Re:  " #327 (brighn):   #324> The First Amendment is clear. The Constitution
is also clear.

If it is so absolutely clear, then why did it take nearly 200 years for the
truth to be revealed??  Rather than running to hide behind the government,
why can't you just suck it up and get along the way that minorities have
gotten along for 1000s of years?

Re:  "#331 (janc)  The concept of majority rule without the concept of
individual rights is not democracy.  It's an abomination.

That may be, but you have a somewhat warped concept of what individual rights
are.

And re:  "People should also not be denied jobs because they are the wrong
religion.  And the government, which is supposed to be the enforcer of this
impartiality.

The government has absolutely no business being the "enforcer."  If an
individual wishes to discriminate, it is his absolute right to do so.  More
than likely it is a stupid thing for him to do and he will probably suffer
from it, but that's his problem, not the government's.

Re:  "
 Yeah, you aren't the only person who thinks that people who don't "profess
a love of God" have no "discernable positive values".

Either your logic skills are deficient, you are deliberately misinterpreting
what I wrote, or you misread what I wrote.  Why don't you try again.

Re:  "Why would Jews prefer to live in a community of Christians who love God,
rather than, say, a community of Muslims or Wiccans or Jews who love God?"

Why are you introducing an irrelevant question here?  Are you attempting to
change the course of the discussion because your arguments on the original
subject are too weak?


Re:  "The subtext of your comment is not only that only people who love God
can be moral, but that only love of the Christian God counts," and that this
should be obvious even to members of other religions. Well, it's not obvious.
It's stupid."

If you see that as the "subtext" then indeed it may indicate some stupidity;
however, it is not on my part.

Re:  "#344 (jmsaul): The people who run the country are white male Christians"

Does Alan Greenspan know this?  Or Henry Kissinger?  And, aren't you one of
the folks who think that the real vice president is Joe Lieberman?

response 359 of 372:

Jun 22 03:17 UTC 2002

God, klg, I had almost come to the conclusion that Bruce was the expressing
the most distrubing viewpoint I'd seen on Grex, and you go and make less than
a half dozen posts and make Bruce look like a flaming liberal.
 
"why can't you just suck it up and get along the waythat minorites have gotten
along for 1000s of years?" Which would THAT be? The Inquisition? The Taliban?
The Roman slaughter of the Christians? The Christian slaughter of the Jews?
Over in Asia, not much better... the American slave trade... the American
treatment of Native Americans... Gods, man, are you SERIOUS? PLEASE tell me
that you're just trolling, and at least I'll think you might have that soul
you profess to have.

response 361 of 372:

Jun 22 04:51 UTC 2002

klg:  Joe said:

    I promise you, the one Jewish family in a town full of Southern
    Baptists *doesn't* want to hear about Jesus at government-sponsored
    function.

 You said:

    But, even assuming that you are correct, they may be very willing to
    tolerate it for a number of very good reasons.

 for example:

    2.  It is preferable to live among people who profess a love of G-d
        than to live in a community without discernable positive values.

We may reasonably assume you are attempting to make a point here.  I believe
it is no great stretch to say you are suggesting that Jews would be willing
to tolerate hearing about Jesus at government-sponsored functions because
they see it as preferable to living in a community without discernable
positive values.

This argument is plausible only if we are presuming that Jews see "living
in a community without discernable positive values" as the most likely
alternative to living in a community where the government talks to you
about Jesus all the time.

So I conclude that you think that the absence of Christian domination of
American society would lead to an absence "discernable positive values"
and you think this is so obvious that even Jews would be likely to see it
that way.

You say I've misinterpreted what you wrote, and that I have to be stupid to
do so.  I am of the opinion that I am not stupid and that there is no other
plausible interpretation of what you wrote.

You may disabuse me of this notion by telling me what exactly you did mean
by the last sentance quoted above.  Or if anyone else is sufficiently
un-stupid to know what you were talking about, perhaps they can explain
your meaning.

response 363 of 372:

Jun 22 05:07 UTC 2002

I concur that klg first created the false dichotomy of "Christian" and
"lacking in discernable moral values," and then denied the creation of such
a dichotomy. I thik the playground tactics of my lasy few posts has been in
direct response to the playgound tactics of klg and bru, but I should stop
it anyway...

response 365 of 372:

Jun 22 12:48 UTC 2002

janc:  It has been over 30 years since my Logic course, but I
do believe that it would still hold that if A then B does not
prove that if not A then not B.

response 367 of 372:

Jun 22 14:56 UTC 2002

Re #357:  Three men, out of how many?

response 369 of 372:

Jun 22 18:36 UTC 2002

Michael, my family is a non-imaginary, non-paranoid Jewish-Christian
encounter.  My Dad's Jewish and my Mom's Christian (originally Northern
Baptist, but her immediate family went Unitarian after meeting my Dad's
family).  Diverse urban neighborhoods are one thing.  Non-urban communities
in the Bible Belt are quite another.  I've talked to people who got hassled
for being Unitarian, Jewish, you name it -- no, people don't force them to
say the Lord's Prayer at Gunpoint, but they do get in their face about Jesus.
Things are different in the South.

response 371 of 372:

Jun 23 03:16 UTC 2002

Can you defend the statement you actually did make, say in the context of the
Taliban?