bill@utastro.UUCP (William H. Jefferys) (03/27/85)
[Jeff Gillette] > But, back to my original point. If Don Black (or Rich Rosen, or anyone > else) ultimately shows himself/herself to be thoroughly narrowminded, > intolerant and bigoted, don't hold your breath waiting for me to make any > obligatory denunciations. And don't waste your breath saying that Jeff > Gillette supports intolerance and prejudice because he hasn't denied it > loudly enough. I'm not interested in playing that game. Truth is God's > Truth, and Truth will win out with my comment or without it. This type > of argument from silence is not golden, it's yellow. And I have no > interest in cowering before it. > [Chuck Hedrick] >If this group were a deliberative body, the situation would be very >different. If someone suggested that my local church should adopt Identity >Christianity, then I would be obligated to do what I could to stop it. In >that context, it might well be that "silence gives consent". But we are not >a deliberative body. We are not making any decisions, and there is no >obligation for people to speak up when they see something that they disagree >with. Indeed this group would quickly become impractical if we heard from >everyone that considered a posting to be wrong or even immoral. I was saddened to read these two articles, because I have a great deal of respect for both Jeff and Chuck. We should of course look for "that of God in every person", including Don Black. And perhaps it is not neccessary for everyone to respond to every single outrageous posting in net.religion. But we have a moral obligation to oppose the dangerous bigotry that Don Black's postings reveal. Six million Jews, and millions of others, paid with their lives for the indifference of their Christian neighbors during the Twenties and Thirties when Nazism was on the rise. Had more good, upstanding men and women spoken out when it counted, that tragedy might not have happened. And contrary to the attitude that I detect in Chuck's and Jeff's postings, the obligation to speak out begins long before we ourselves must face the threat personally. Pastor Martin Niemoeller wrote that when they came for the Jews, he did nothing, because it wasn't his problem. And when they came for the Communists, he did nothing, because he didn't want to get involved. But when the Nazis came for him, he looked around for help, and there was no one left to help him. We would do well to heed his warning. As for the reality of the holocaust: Don, my father was there at the liberation of Dachau. He has told me of the appalling things he saw there with his own eyes. If you say the holocaust did not happen, you are calling him a liar. -- "Men never do evil so cheerfully and so completely as when they do so from religious conviction." -- Blaise Pascal Bill Jefferys 8-% Astronomy Dept, University of Texas, Austin TX 78712 (USnail) {allegra,ihnp4}!{ut-sally,noao}!utastro!bill (uucp) bill%utastro.UTEXAS@ut-sally.ARPA (ARPANET)