XPost: sci.psychology.psychotherapy, alt.consciousness, talk.origins   
   From: mightymartianca@hotmail.com   
      
   On Wed, 8 Sep 2004 20:37:48 +0000 (UTC),   
   Uncle Davey via Google  wrote:   
   >   
   > But there are those who have persecuted believers in the past and they   
   > will do so again in the future.   
      
   And there are those that have persecuted non-believers.   
      
   > It is written "all those who would   
   > live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution".   
      
   Except that there have been periods of history where those that did not   
   believe Jesus was God and the savior where themselves persecuted against.   
   Even now, an atheist in the United States. no matter how honorable or   
   qualified, could achieve any high office.  Worse, some good Christian folk   
   might even think him unAmerican, a threat to their religion and potentially   
   even a traitor, simply because he does not accept the existence of the  God   
   of Abraham.   
      
   >In the near   
   > future I plan, God willing to digitalise some recordings I made near   
   > the end of the Soviet Union when I was priviledged to be helping some   
   > very persecuted brethren and put them on my website.   
      
   As long as you give equal time to the people brutalized by Christian   
   fundementalists.   
      
   I'm not attacking Christianity, I'm attacking a mindset that refuses all   
   compromise, that not only claim that they are right, but that are willing to   
   suppress those that disagree.   
      
   The Soviet Union was one country, twisted by power-hungry men seeking to   
   break the old ties to the equally dictatorial Czars (who, ironically, were   
   among the last monarchs to proclaim their divine right to rule from the God   
   of Abraham).  It wasn't atheism that drove them, but rather the need to cut   
   away the symbolism of the old Christian Russia. Atheism was a political   
   tool, which I don't think you'd find many atheists today approving of.   
      
   The Soviet Union attempted to replace religion with party doctrine.  It   
   created a cult of personality around Lenin, changing him from Revolutionary   
   leader into an ideological saint, treated with the same reverence that   
   Christian saints before had been.  That is not my idea of a secular society,   
   but rather one where one religion was simply swapped for another.  Where the   
   Christian religion in Russia was wound around the Bible, saints and the   
   power of the Orthodox Church, the new religion was wound around Marx's   
   writings, the Communist Party and the culthood of Lenin (and later, the   
   temporary deification of Stalin).   
      
   The same pattern was seen in China, where the Maoists attempted to make a   
   clean break from Chinese tradition, particularly Confucisism.  Sadly, I   
   think the Maoists may have been more successful and destroying China's   
   heritage than the Leninists and Stalinists were in Russia.   
      
   My idea of a secular society is one where freedom of worship is guaranteed,   
   where every faith is treated equally, and where government governs for all   
   the people, and without faovritism towards any one faith or sect therein.   
   It does not intrude religious beliefs into the activities of government.   
   The government should be blind to whether one is a Catholic, Methodist,   
   Muslim, Jew, Wiccan or atheist, and yet all of these, and the entire   
   spectrum of beliefs, should be tolerated.  In such a society, it may mean   
   that certain religous-based moral codes may be violated by notions of   
   abortion, euthanasia and gay marriage, but those religious people will   
   understand that such a society also protects their beliefs and their faith   
   from the interference of the state.   
      
   I'm not asking you to agree with my atheism, Davey, nor am I demanding that   
   your church approve of abortion, euthanasia or homosexual marriages.  I'm   
   asking that you ponder a society where every man is allowed to decide these   
   things on his own, or in a group that he freely follows, without official   
   encumbrance from any branch or representative of government.  Let your   
   conscience rule your own actions, but don't seek to let it rule the actions   
   of others, and let any morals or ethics to be accepted by society in general   
   be governed by the principles of basic individual freedoms.   
      
   That's what I mean when I reject fundementalism, or any movement by any   
   individual or group to enforce their own beliefs or lack of beliefs upon   
   other people.  Though I would fight to my last breath to prevent your   
   omphalism or your Calvinism from being taught in public schools in my   
   country or to be given government favor or sanction, by the same token I'd   
   fight against any Secular Humanist who attempted to stop you from publicly   
   declaring your beliefs.   
      
   --   
   Aaron Clausen   
   mightymartianca@hotmail.com   
      
   WOODY: How's it going Mr. Peterson?   
   NORM : It's a dog eat dog world out there, Woody, and I'm wearing   
          milkbone underwear.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)