david@ssc-vax.UUCP (David Norris) (04/09/84)
[@] Jan Wolter: > It is a mistake to attack Christianity wholesale, because there is much > variation in belief and doctrine among Christians. I think you will find that Christian churches agree on much more than they disagree on (this from a local Episcopal priest, who should know his business). > Historically, Christianity has tended to be anti-life. In the extreme, > all the joys and beauties of life are rejected as sinful. Please provide Scriptural references which show that Christianity is anti-life and all the joys and beauties of life are sinful. > We have seen > pious Christians who claim it is sinful to dance, laugh, love, or sing. Have "we", now? :-) I know one Christian who believes it is sinful to dance (I don't). As far as I know, he never impressed that belief on anyone. I have never met a Christian who believed it was sinful to laugh or to sing (although the Church of Christ, I think, does not believe in using musical instruments. But then singing 100 year old songs to organ music doesn't do a lot to uplift me, either...) But I take the strongest objection to "love." What kind of love? If you mean certain sexual acts, then I will join in and state that I believe them sinful. If any "Christian" tells you that love is sinful, ask him what two commandments his Lord emphasized above all others. > It has been called a sin to heal the sick or to study the natural sciences. The gospels indicate that Jesus did not take such a dim view of healing. And Paul tells us to be "wise as serpents". > Compounding this is the denial of man's goodness. We are born sinful, and > no number of good acts can redeem us. Only submission to Christ can redeem > us, and most of us will fail in that and be punished by eternal torment. > Good acts are often viewed as irrelevant. This is one of the main tenets of the Christian faith. Why this "compounds" the problem, I don't know. The implication is that man is basically good (the humanist position?), and that good acts are (or should be) of some value in deciding one's fate in the afterlife. From what little I know of history, man doesn't put on a very good show for being basically "good". An old maxim tells us that you can see what is inside something by squeezing it. Squeeze an orange, you get orange juice; squeeze a Christian, and Christ should come out. So tell me: are humans, on impulse, more likely to do good or evil? 1/2 hour in the rush hour gives me a ready answer. > Less important than the above, there has been a tendency in Christianity > to advocate twisted reasoning. Partly in an attempt to reconcile the > contents of a book which is thousands of years old with modern physics, > and partly to prove faith correct (a weird concept), Christians have > originated some of the most twisted, ill-founded logical arguments known > to man (e.g. all proofs of the existence of God). In a world where men > badly need all the rationality they can muster, we don't need minds > clouded by pious pseudo-rationality. If you are not going to provide examples of this twisted reasoning :-(, then at least provides references to works you have read which demonstrate this twisted reasoning. I would personally like to see your arguments against any of C. S. Lewis' works. I'm sorry, Jan, but many of your arguments against Christianity seem to be against individuals and institutions. -- David Norris :-) -- uw-beaver!ssc-vax!david
smb@ulysses.UUCP (Steven Bellovin) (04/12/84)
From: david@ssc-vax.UUCP (David Norris) Subject: Why attack Christianty... Message-ID: <45@ssc-vax.UUCP> Date: Mon, 9-Apr-84 14:31:17 EST > We have seen > pious Christians who claim it is sinful to dance, laugh, love, or > sing. Have "we", now? :-) I know one Christian who believes it is sinful to dance (I don't). As far as I know, he never impressed that belief on anyone. The idea that dancing is sinful was (and perhaps is) a tenet of many major Baptist groups. I remember a conversation a few years ago on the subject of student demonstrations. I attended Columbia during the late 60's, so I had many war stories (anti-war stories?) to tell. My friend (who incidentally had a master's in theology, and went to grad school originally to become a minister) related stories about demonstrations at Wake Forest University in 1965. The students were protesting the ban on dancing on campus; they bunny-hopped around the school... And of course, there are regular attacks on rock music, even the rhythms of rock. (The words may be lustful or even on occasion satanic ("please allow me to introduce myself..."), but the rhythm? > It has been called a sin to heal the sick or to study the natural sciences. The gospels indicate that Jesus did not take such a dim view of healing. And Paul tells us to be "wise as serpents". Many fundamentalist groups feel that healing should be left to G-d. The best-known current example is the case of Pamela Hamilton, a 13-year old (or is it 16?) who has been receiving chemotherapy under court order, because her parents don't believe in doctors. The Amish reject technology (but not modern medicine, interestingly enough). I've even heard Christianity cited as a reason for rejecting direct deposit of paychecks. (No, I'm not making this up -- there was a case just two years ago in North Carolina where a state trooper filed suit because the state government wanted to pay everyone via electronic funds transfers, and he claimed that this violated his rights under the First Amendment.) I agree that most of this (with the possible exception of the ban on dancing) does not reflect mainstream Christian thought in this country. But all these positions and more are proclaimed in the name of G-d. They're not true Christians? Maybe, maybe not. How can I tell? For that matter, how can you? You've defined a Christian as one who acts like one, but frankly, to a non-Christian it's hard to tell who's truly following the words of Jesus. The snake-handlers in the south cite some awfully-persuasive verses to justify their beliefs; I'm not in a position to say that they're wrong. Me -- I don't really care what other folks believe, so long as they leave me alone. It's an exageration to say that religion is something that should be practiced in private by consenting adults, but not by very much.