Re: virus: Atheism and Agnosticism (demon thread)

Ethan Froese (efroese@mail.coin.missouri.edu)
Fri, 26 Apr 1996 12:51:37 -0500 (CDT)


C'mon, "...nothing but oppression." ???? That's a bit harsh! I'm no saint
and narry a Sunday finds me in church. But I can think we could come up
with a few examples that lean towards the positive side of religion.
To say that the christianity causes only oppression is a wide,
unthoughtful, shot gun blast from the hip, at it's
best. All I need to find is one example of how religion has done other,
than oppression, and you lose! Let's be careful with our words, they have
more power and influence than we like to believe.
"...when you stare into the abyss, the abyss also stares into you (or
something like that)" Nietzche
^

On Tue, 16 Apr 1996, John A wrote:

> You wrote:
>
> >
> > Personally, to try to remain objective, I would have to disagree with
> > your views that Christianity is the demon. The "demon" would have to be
> > all religions which ask its followers to risk everything based upon some
> > faith that there is something to gain in an afterlife and that there is
> > an accessible enlightenment. In addition, the "demon" manifests itself
> > with its followers because they all too passively accept these ten
> > commandments or koran or whatever and use it to justify enslavement,
> > genocide, sexism, and the list extends for miles and miles...
> >
> > Cecille
> >
> If you look at christianity's (by christianity I mean mormonism,
> catholicism, and other christian sects) track record in history, you'll
> find nothing but oppression. At first christianity brought education to
> pagan (or "uncivilized") peoples. With this, though, christianity
> brought it's doctrine. Science and truth are just fine for christianity,
> until they contradict christian doctrine. Then things get ugly. Millions
> were killed in the crusades; the inquisition took out more people than
> Hitler could handle. In more recent history, christianity has been used
> to support slavery, "manifest destiny", unequal rights for women,
> censorship and numerous other social evils. Right now there are
> missionary groups that are travelling to places in Africa and South
> America to give tribes that have no written language a means to
> translate the bible. They are basicaly going to these places and
> informing them that their nakedness is evil, and that they are going to
> burn in hell because they are "immoral animals". Members of these tribes
> are intellectualy powerless to prevent this; they believe that spirits
> govern most of the workings of the world. When the "good", "moral"
> christians are finished washing these poor peoples brains out nice and
> clean, they leave them programmed and "holy", with no minds of thier own.
>
> I am not saying that every christian everywhere is inherently evil. When
> dealing with a religion, one must examine what is true of the religion
> as a whole. There are many christians that are very good people. The
> religion taken as a whole, however, yields what I have shown.
>
> We call Jeffery Dahmer a demon because he killed thrity or forty people.
> (I am not sure exactly)Christianity has killed billions. Why can't
> christianity be a demon as well?
> --
> John Aten
> jwa@inx.net
> =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
> "Truth demands to be declared even if it is ugly
> and unethical" -F. Nietzsche
>
> "Of each thing ask, what is it? What is its nature?
> What is it of itself" -Marcus Aurelius
>
>