At Sun, 21 Feb 1999 15:43:11 -0500, you wrote:
>
>>Date: Sat, 20 Feb 1999 20:17:10 -0500
>>From: "joe dees" <joedees@bellsouth.net>
>>Subject: Re:virus: Showers
>>
>>Apparently you're familiar with the Church of Jesus
>>Christ Christian, the Christian Identity movement..
>>..They certainly respect themselves more than they
>>do anyone else (or anyone else's rights), and that's
>>precisely the point.
>
>Sure, sure. But..like..the Episcopalians? Could
>we stick to the established and generally accepted
>sects of Christianity..as opposed to the fringe
>groups and wackos? Wackos don't need religion
>to licence their insanity..like cancers, they acquire
>whatever symbols work most effectively in
>propogating their destructive mechanism. Surely
>you aren't painting all religion as "Jim Jones" are
>you? That's ludicrous.
>>It was an institutionalized practice which persisted
How do we get them to excise the "my way or the highway" meme?
>>for many years and was carried out by many acolytes,
>>and they considered themselves to be Christians.
>
>Cancers persist for many years, and they metastisize..
>A constant battle between the Body of Christ and the
>errant cells which would destroy it from within. This
>is why an immune system, Reason and Faith, are so
>critical to the continued survival of the collective.
>
>Lets try to be the macrophages of culture, and not
>an autoimmune leukemia, how 'bout?
>>Please allow me to humbly submit that you do not
>>possess the Divine right, based on your own approval
>>or disapproval of their actions, to decide for others
>>whether they belong to a particular religion or not.
>
>I ever made such a claim. I said that the killing of human
>babies has never been in keeping with the teachings of
>Jesus Christ, as I understand them. I stand in resolute
>opposition to anyone who would claim otherwise:
>Christian, Athiest, or Martian.
But not as THEY understood them. To change their actions, you must change their understanding, but this can prove adamantinely resistant to such change. How do you infect intolerance with respect?
>>Quite a Christian apologist you are; Sir Thomas More
>>and C.S. Lewis would be proud.
>
>Really? I'd like to think so, becuase from what I've
>read, they kick ass, intellectually. I haven't seen the inside
>of church, save weddings, for at least five years. I
>think the last time you could have called me Christian
>was probably in 3rd grade.
>
>>However, what about all the native Pagans they drowned,
>>hung and burned in Medieval Europe (not to mention the
>>Crusades, the anti Catharite campaign, the Pelagian
>>massacres, and on and on and on..when part and parcel
>>of someone's memeset is that they have the right, nay,
>>the duty to either convert you to it or kill you, that that
>>rabidly intolerant submemeset is one of the few things
>>that tolerant people cannot tolerate if they and their
>>freedom of thought are both to survive.
>
>Yadda, yadda, yadda.
>
>American's once owned slaves. Is the principle of America
>bad? Are Americans bad for being patriotic? Science has
>developed the wepons of war which threaten us all with
>annihiliation. Are the principles of science bad?
Slaveholding is in opposition to the American principles of freedom and equality for all, but many had to die in a brutal civil war in order to validate this principle, which was imperfectly understood and enunciated by our founders. Science is like any other tool (as I have said before), it is the intent behind the use of these principles that places them in the service if malevolent of benevolent ends. Can the basically illogical tenets of transcendent monotheism survive without the "convert or else" intolerance submemeset? It violates the principle of "your freedom to swing your fist ends where my nose begins." This is a valid question. If they can, let them. Being an advocate of personal freedom, I have no opposition to this. If they can't, then we must, as tolerant and freedom-loving people, indulge in the necessary paradox of being intolerant of intolerance, for freedom's sake.
>Do you blame a child for the sins of the father? The past
>is over and the dead cannot be redeemed. What we are
>left with, is the future. What can we do in the present,
>to make to future brighter than the past? Why pick fights
>with the Dark Ages when there is so much to do and enjoy?
>Lift your head up and look! It's Springtime! May we
>never see a winter as dark as the last. I'm not asking
>you to give up your skepticism, I'm asking you to
>acquire a more comprehensive perspective.
Nietszche once said, "Faith is not wanting to know." But it is much worse than that; the faith of the contemporary fundamentalist is wanting NOT to know, if it contradicts their beliefs, and furthermore, so vehemently damanding that others not know that they are willing to wage cultural jihad and sabotage the education of our young in order to achieve this end. People who value freedom of thought and knowledge for knowledge's sake simply cannot, in good faith, allow these coercions to stand.
>>Why should lies work simply because they're happy ones?
>
>What lies? I don't understand.
You're the one who told a story about clerical isolation and madness, then added the caveat that you didn't insist that it was true, just believeable; remember?
>>When I volunteered as a clinic escort, I had fundies gather
They are considerable. I was consoling my wife after she was called horrid things by these self-righteous thugs, and some fellow from across the line called out, "Hey, baby, come over here, and I'll show you what a REAL man's like!" I lost it and went after him, screaming, "You Fuckwad!", and it took six other escorts to restrain me. He ran like a rabbit, laughing. Three clinics were firebombed here a few years ago, within hours of each other, on Christmas Eve, as a present to Jesus on his birthday. These are NOT GOOD PEOPLE.
>>in prayer circles and beg Jesus to take me, by name, Right
>>Then. I had my car sabotaged and my home vandalized,
>>received death threats by mail and telephone, and had my
>>college records broken into in an attempt to learn something
>>that could be used against me. I live in Pensacola. We've
>>had three people gunned down in the street in the name
>>of Sweet Jesus, so don't you DARE try to tell me these
>>bastards are benign!
>
>I know. That is terrible. We live in a time of such vast
>technological change..from the perspective of religion,
>the ability to abort, combined with overpopulation and
>the shifting demands of a technological society..it all
>happened so fast. Fear, dislocation, bellicosity. It's a
>terrible, terrible thing..and you are courageous to stand
>for the principles of freedom. You put your property,
>your reputation, even your life on the line to defend those
>principles. That is what America is all about. You give
>me faith in Democracy.
>
>And in the heat of that confrontation, you cannot let your
>faith in those principles waver. You commit to action,
>and see it through. In is here, at a more refective place,
>that we can put off that armor for a moment and inspect
>our wounds.
>>They can. They can insist that you be the convertee
>>rather than the converter, and be not only willing but
>>also eager to murder in Jesus' Holy Name for the
>>Greater Glory of God, or taste their sword across
>>your throat.
>
>Get them on tape. Send it to the pope and ask for an
>opinion. Write that opinion on a big placard and put
>in in front of the clinic.
>Who says those insane bastards know anything about
>Christ? Did Christ ever lift a hind to strike in anger?
The Moneylenders in the Temple comes to mind.
>The only lesson I can remember which even comes
>close is his intervention into the stoning of Mary Magdelen.
>
>You have to fight fire with fire.
Wer have been fired upon in this city many times. The only time these people turn cheeks is to show their asses.
>>It has always been an us/them system, and only the us's
>>get the brotherly love; the rest get the rack.
>
>Too true. But, remember, even a violent conflict is just
>an exchange of information. Be careful that you don't
>find yourself infected with that same "us/them" meme.
>I'd hate to see you spit on an innocent.
I hate seeing them spit on too, especially when I know them personally.
>>Just this mode of thinking, and the lack of resistance
>>born of it, doomed six million Jews.
>
>Um..are we talking about Religion, or about Facism?
>As I recall, Hitler wasn't really interested in turning
>the other cheek.
>>A local Catholic priest Rev. Trosch, has also publicly
His parish was removed from him and he refused the silencing.
>>advocated the murder of abortion doctors, actually
>>going so far as to draw a cartoon of the assassination
>>of abortion doctors by Good Christians and submit it
>>for publication in a local newspaper.
>
>Do his superiors know about this? Have you contacted
>them to ask what a raving lunatic like that is doing
>wearing a frock?
>>The bad people already have their ideas, one of which
>>is the right to ram them down the throats of the rest
>>of us, and it's just going to get crazier until Y2K is
>>way behind us and the Rapture hasn't come.
>
>I wouldn't count on it. Life is all about focus..you
>concentrate on what you are doing becuase, if you
>waver for a minute, everything gets out of hand. It's
>like that continiously until you die. After that, it's
>up to the people who are left to carry on. Don't
>you go looking for the millenium to be any easier,
>or harder either. Tommorow is more or less like
>today. If we each know our purpose it can be more
>than today, not less.
I'm hoping it'll take the edge off the worst of the Fundie Christian craziness; as for the Muslins, no such luck; they march to a different calendar.
>Reed
>
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> Reed Konsler konsler@ascat.harvard.edu
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Joe E. Dees
Poet, Pagan, Philosopher