gam@amdahl.UUCP (Gordon A. Moffett) (11/19/84)
After having read this series of arguments I am becoming convinced
that net.religion.christian is a good idea.
Sorry, Rich (Rosen) but while I initially opposed net.religion.jewish
too, I see that different religious groups cannot be free to discuss
their common beliefs in a mixed forum. Christians make certain assumptions
about The Way Things Are (eg, Jesus is the son of God)
which they should not have to explain or justify to anybody.
This is in fact what makes them Christian, in the religious sense.
"I am a Christian BECAUSE I believe (a priori) Jesus is the son of God."
It might also be illuminating to others (non-Christians) to be
passive observers of Christians discussing their religion amongst themselves;
I am sure they have their own disagreements even given their
common beliefs.
Now before you leap up and say: "Well, then we are going to have
net.religion.christian.protestant and net.religion.christian.catholic?"
I hope that would not happen. Certainly Catholics and Protestants
have more in common than Jews and Christians, and this sort of further
subdivision I would oppose. But the ad-infinitum argument dismisses
the rational discussion of each proposed group, or claims that the EXACT
SAME REASONING will create a plethora of new groups. I claim that
this is bogus logic which does not consider the human interactions
and dialogues (like this one) that always preceeds new newsgroup creations.
So why does this matter? Because, by Tuesday I will have created
net.religion.christian, unless I change my mind or someone else does it
first.
--
Gordon A. Moffett ...!{ihnp4,hplabs,amd,nsc}!amdahl!gam
37 22'50" N / 122 59'12" W [ This is just me talking. ]