lazarus@brahms.BERKELEY.EDU (Andrew J &) (08/24/86)
In article <20344@rochester.ARPA> ray@rochester.ARPA (Ray Frank) writes: >How absurd it would be for a christian living in Israel to claim that Israel >did not have a Jewish heritage simply because there were a few non-Jewish >folks living there. A few non-Jewish folks did little to nothing to shape >the culture and heritage of Israel. > As we knew all along, what you really mean by 'common religious heritage' turns out to be: nearly everyone in the 13 colonies was (in some sense) a Christian. What has escaped you is that *unlike Israel* the US Founding Fathers decided they wanted a comparatively secular state. One good reason was that the various sects which you claim as our religious heritage were always at each other's throats. As I understand it, you feel that America should be a more Christian nation -- presumably your brand of Christianity. Over time, the population of the US has become even more religiously diverse than it was in 1776. It's hard for me to believe that your vision of religion in America is what freethinkers like Jefferson had in mind. andy
rlr@pyuxd.UUCP (Whatever I'm calling myself this week) (09/21/86)
> Tell me, how can you OVERrepresent a belief system shared by the vast majority > of the population? ... Only if you... Oh, sorry, I'm interrupting. Please continue. > Only if you fail to acknowledge that other belief systems > have played a part. (Which wasn't been the case when I was in school.) Well, Clayton, you did sort of take the words out of my mouth. The one problem is that you yourself have shown that your own education is sorely lacking and often biased. Not your fault, of course, but one tends to not see the holes in one's own education, to forget that such an education may itself have instilled certain attitudes about this "vast majority" religion. The examples abound in your own article (ignorance about the history of many groups in this country). (Amazing. When talking about "true Christians", many Christians will admit that not that many people in this country who put down the "default" of Christian as their religion (e.g., on government forms) aren't really all that Christian. But when it comes to counting who is the "vast majority" of this country, who gets bragging rights for "common religious heritage", things somehow change radically...) > I suggest that you read a bit more about the Founding Fathers. There were > free-thinkers like Thomas Paine & Ben Franklin; there were quite unorthodox > Christians like Thomas Jefferson who spent much of their time being attacked > by more traditional Christians. If you think a Deist can be described by the term "unorthodox Christian", I have to wonder how you would describe others. Are Jews "partial Christians"? Are Quakers "quasi-Christians"? Is everyone described from the reference point of being some sort of Christian? That you think this way shows that you have a severe bias problem in relating Christians and Christianity to the rest of the world. Unfortunately, partially due to the way Christians often teach Christianity, this is all too common. > The intolerance of the Puritans wasn't what led to the Salem Witch Trials -- > it was their fear and panic. Again, the victims of the Salem Witch Trials > weren't religious dissenters -- and the people of Salem didn't prosecute > these people for witchcraft because they saw them as "Devil-worshippers", > but because the people had convinced themselves that they were being > physically injured by witches. We may find the idea laughable today that > someone could cause injury by spells -- but if we THOUGHT someone was using > chemicals to cause injury and insanity today, we would prosecute them -- > and their religious beliefs would be irrelevant. Thank you for proving my point again, Clayton. (I should be paying you money or something. :-) Fear and panic ABOUT WHAT??? About people who simply behaved differently or believed differently from the norm being a "threat". Sounds like the source of the fear and panic WAS *PRECISELY* intolerance! >>> Maybe when you went to school the only groups discussed were "white >>> christians", but that's not how American history is taught anymore. When >>> I was in school, the religious beliefs of the Indians were discussed. The >>> religious beliefs of blacks were not discussed, because the African >>> religions never took root in this country. >> Clayton, let me give you some advice. If you are seeking to convince Mikki >> and myself and others of the rightness of your argument (that the way American >> history is/was taught is not biased towards Christianity), it is probably not >> a good idea to show that you have been a victim of such bias in your own >> education. It proves Mikki's point. > How does my comment above prove that I'm a victim of that bias? Because I > say that black African religious beliefs never took root in this country? > Care to provide some proof otherwise? Thanks to Ms. Seebacher's article of a while ago (<526@sphinx.UChicago.UUCP>), we have some examples of "proof otherwise". Clayton, you're not a stupid person. Do you honestly believe that all these black people came off the boats on which they were literally shipped here and instantaneously became Christians? It might be nice to think that the "benign missionary work" performed on black people brought here as slaves was instantaneous and universal. One look at how Christianity is experienced by black Christians will show you that there is a heritage in THEIR Christian experience that is their own, being rooted in their own cultural history. Again, not "common". Have you ever even heard of Rastafarians, or of Marcus Garvey, or of anything dealing with the black experience in this country? I ask this in a seemingly arrogant way only because you seem so very proud of being ignorant of history. > I would not claim to know what religious beliefs my ancestors held -- and > if I claim something really unusual, I better have some evidence for it. Clayton, if EVER anyone wrote a single sentence that was the ultimate "let me set up Rich Rosen to really zing me" remark, this was surely it! I'll say it one more time, and then I'll anxiously await your response: When you offer significant evidence about your personal beliefs of the same caliber that you have demanded from Mikki, then and only then would you be justified in making the types of remarks you have about her and about what she has said. Until then, wear this scarlet letter "H" for "hypocrite", OK? -- Life is complex. It has real and imaginary parts. Rich Rosen bellcore!pyuxd!rlr
gamiddleton@watmath.UUCP (Guy Middleton) (09/21/86)
In article <2962@pyuxd.UUCP> rlr@pyuxd.UUCP (Whatever I'm calling myself this week) writes: > ... > (Amazing. When talking about "true Christians", many Christians will admit > that not that many people in this country who put down the "default" of > Christian as their religion (e.g., on government forms) aren't really all > that Christian. ... What kind of forms? I had thought that the United States "separation of church and state" principle would preclude the government asking citizens what their religion might be. -- -Guy Middleton, University of Waterloo MFCF/ICR