manis@ubc-cs.UUCP (Vincent Manis) (09/15/86)
There is literally *no way* of using any form of logical argument to convince the "God's wrath" people, and it's not worth trying. To a real God's-wrather, it's God's wrath if a gay person dies of AIDS, but not if a baby dies of a blood transfusion which caused AIDS. A gay who suffers agony from AIDS over a period of a year or so before dying is suffering the consequences of his evil actions, but a non-gay who suffers agony from cancer over a period of ten years before dying is not. Fundamentalism is essentially hostile to logical argument, as it claims that all scriptural texts stand on their own as the complete, accurate word of God (thus denying the possibility of interpretation). As a non-Christian non-fundamentalist, I might point out that the God those people worship is a bit odd. Since dying in agony is a sign of God's wrath, and everybody dies (many in agony), then God is quite wrathful. Since many people who are otherwise good Christians (in the Swaggartine creed), even being saved doesn't protect you from God's wrath. In fact, the fundamentalist God is a rather brutal individual indistinguishable from the fundamentalist Satan. Maybe they've got them mixed up?