🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <6917@uceng.UC.EDU> dmocsny@minerva.che.uc.edu (Daniel Mocsny) writes:
>In article <6195@crash.cts.com> rcf@pnet01.cts.com (Bob Forsythe) writes:
>>     Well, for one thing, Dan, I've never known a gay who felt it was their
>>responsibility to make the rest of the world act the same way they do.  And,
>
>We will never know, but consider the example set by the Christians.
>In their early history, they were a violently oppressed minority.
>The Romans fed them to the lions for public entertainment. Then, after
>Christians became the majority, they established huge, corrupt
>bureaucracies, instituted progroms and crusades and inquisitions,
>etc. I suspect that anytime one particular group gets too much
>power relative to other groups, it will be controlled by bastards,
>regardless of its putative charter, lofty aims and claims, etc.
>

When a religious organization is small and powerless, its members are
forced to develop their faith.  Since there are usually political,
economic, and frequently criminal prices to pay for the affiliation,
those who retain that affiliation usually take it seriously.

Paradoxically, this often leads to great belssings for the adherents; though
skeptics scoff, faith is powerful.  Anyway, time passes, non-believers
are attracted to the faith by virtue of its rewards, and the belief grows
in numbers.  Unfortunately, it usually also grows in economic and political
clout.  Humility shrivels and is replaced by pride and even arrogance.
People rely increasingly on political power instead of spiritual power.
What remains is only the shell of what once was a life-giving faith.

Note that while I said "religious organization," in fact most political
groups share the same pathology.  In Sunday's Red Star (the local
leftist daily :-( ), an econazi was telling one and all how Christmas
tree farmers must "be put out of business" by regulation or law for
environmental reasons.

>>BTW, if you could offer me an example of how fundamentalists are "interfered
                                                                    ^^^^^^^^^^
>>with", I'd like to hear it.
  ^^^^
"Your orders are therefore to hasten your operations with all possible
speed.  The Mormons must be treated as enemies, and must be exterminated
or driven from the state. . ."
                   Missouri Governor Boggs to General Clark of the Missouri
                   state militia in the fall of 1838 (sorry, I don't have
                   the exact date handy)

The next day, the heroic militia killed 17 Mormons, nobly making sure that
the women among the murdered at least had the pleasure of sexual intercourse
before their deaths.  (No doubt the women were beside themselves with joy and
gratitude.)

To be sure, the order was later rescinded--about 140 years later.

Nor was extermination the only "interference" Mormons faced.  Both Utah and
Idaho were forced to add bans on polygamy to their state constitutions
before they were admitted to the Union.  After admission, the duly elected
representative from Utah was refused a seat in the House of Representatives
because he had practiced polygamy.

But the writer wanted current grievances, no doubt, and probably wants to
exclude Mormons from the discussion anyway.  So how about:

1.)  Forced blood transfusions on the children of Seventh Day Adventists

2.)  Forced medical treatment on the children of Christian Scientists.
     Locally (Minneapolis, MN), the Hennepin County attorney is trying to
     get manslaughter charges reinstated against the mother and step-father
     of a boy who died of (I think) diabetic coma.  The charges were
     dismissed once by a judge who can actually read the 1st Amendment,
     but the prosecutor (who evidently cannot) is still trying to send
     the grieving parent and step-parent to jail.

     This same attorney investigated two cases of euthanasia where the
     physicians who administered the fatal medications are known, and
     decided not to prosecute.

3.)  Christians of many persuasions are daily forced to pay taxes to
     support any number of abhorrent and repugnant practices and programs.
     A trivial but visible example: Christians (and Jews, and Muslims,
     and many others) paid to have Robert Mapelthorpe's "work" produced
     and propagated.  Less trivial examples include support for numerous
     thugs and dictators whose only charm was that they were anti-
     communist--which you could fairly say of Hitler, too.
 
4.)  Amish people finally won a MN state supreme court victory that
     exempts them from having to display a slow-moving vehicle symbol
     on their buggies.  They object on religious grounds, and several
     fined and jailed.  It is settled in MN (for now), but I do not
     know about other states.

It is Politically Correct (i.e., wrong) to claim that the children are
too young to make informed choices and that Big Brother has an obligation
to protect them until they are old enough to choose to be as stupid as
their parents.

This conveniently ignores reality:  First, there is a price paid for
liberty.  That price is error.  The price some children pay for what I
consider to be a misinterpretation of Scripture is sad.  The price
children pay in Belfast and Beirut is sadder.  Second, it is nearly
always true that parents care for their children more than anyone else.
Parents may make errors.  So, too, can social workers.  Third, doctors
screw up, too.  Being treated medically != guaranteed health.

BTW: humans are not naturally monogamous.
-- 
: gray@rsvl.unisys.com                      : "There are four kinds of         :
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