[Phys-L] Re: [SPAM-4.611] Re: THE WEDGE STRATEGY of The ID Movement

[hhaskell at MINDSPRING.COM (Hugh Haskell)]

At 00:05  -0400 10/15/05, Steve Clark wrote:

> > On Oct 13, 2005, at 3:50 PM, Hugh Haskell wrote:
> >
> >  > At 09:30  -0500 10/13/05, James E Mackey wrote:
> >  >
> >  >>
> >  >> Or one might say that the decline in moral basis in our society
> >  >> allows
> >  >> governments to do things that would have prompted massive
> >  >> opposition in
> >  >> earlier generations, when the US was still a "Christian?" nation
> >  >> and at
> >  >> least paid official "lip-service" to christian principles.
> >  >>
> >  >
> >  > And during earlier generations, when the US was still a "Christian
> >  > nation," blacks and women were routinely denied equal rights, were
> >  > openly discriminated against in employment and wages, blacks were
> >  > routinely "red-lined" by mortgage and loan companies, denied access
> >  > to adequate housing, Jews were openly excluded from certain
> >  > communities, contraception was illegal, gays were openly harrassed by
> >  > police, and denied employment, even fired if their sexual orientation
> >  > became known, women were given the right to vote only reluctantly,
> >  > and only after a prolonged struggle, blacks were routinely denied the
> >  > right to vote, intermarriage among races was at best frowned upon and
> >  > at worst illegal. In many parts of the country taking a stand for
> >  > equal rights for racial minorities, or even women was a
> >  > life-threatening action. Rape was considered mostly the fault of the
> >  > woman, unless the woman was white and the rapist black, in which case
> >  > it became a capital crime whether the accused rapist was ever tried
> >  > or not. Violence against women was widely condoned, even encouraged
> >  > in some societies.
> >  >
> The problem here is that you are ascribing Christian principles to
> people professing to be Christian. That doesn't make their behavior
> an accurate reflection of what the Bible requires. In fact, the Bible
> is full of condemnation of just the kind of injustices Hugh
> describes. A quick reading of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Proverbs, to name a
> few, shows all the things that God hates. And the Jews were
> constantly rebuked and punished for their inattention to the
> injustices perpetrated on the poor.

But the Bible is all over the place on many of these things, and it
authorizes some behaviors that today we consider pretty awful, like
slavery, beating wives and children, forcing rape victims to marry
their rapists, the wholesale slaughter of the losing side following a
battle and the enslavement of their women and children, and the list
goes on. the Bible is simply not internally consistent, so it is
quite possible for someone to find justification for completely
contradictory modes of behavior.

Some modern Christians are quite humanistic in their beliefs, while
others are downright medieval in theirs, and, alas, that branch seems
to be the fastest growing a the moment. One of the finest men I know
is a retired minister of the Southern Baptist Church, but he is so
out of synch with the current leadership of that sect that he has
essentially been thrown out, and the church he formerly led has been
formally ousted from the SB convention.

Yet both sides in this battle use the same Bible as their guide to
proper behavior toward their fellow humans.

Hugh

--

Hugh Haskell
<mailto:haskell@ncssm.edu>
<mailto:hhaskell@mindspring.com>

(919) 467-7610

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