Letters to the Editor
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Conversion tactic (or bitter venting)
Those muslims will need practice turning the other cheek before they can become good Christians like the ones torturing them!
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No surprise there
Christians think nothing of condemning people to torture for all eternity for sinply not agreeing with them (going to hell), why would it be surprising that they'd condone torture in this world? Christianity has a long history of torture, one of the highlights of which was the Inquisition.
Agnotstics and Atheists wouldn't have that underlying philosophy (hell) going into the question. Also, when you don't believe in an afterlife what happens in this world is Much more important. If anything, I'm surprised the numbers aren't more skewed.
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Rome
You know, there was a very good reason why Rome threw them to the lions.
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What a ghastly thing to read
I am a Roman Catholic, a reasonably devout one at that, and I am absolutely appalled at what my government is doing in my name. I do not understand how anyone could call him/herself a Christian (and you can start at the White House with all those "born again" types and work your way down) and agree with our government's behavior. The reading for today (Thursday in the third week of Lent) in the old liturgy is from Jeremiah, the famous "Temple Sermon". In the year 609 B.C., the prophet Jeremiah rebuked the people of Israel in Jerusalem for their misplaced sense of confidence that the merit of the Temple would somehow prevent God's wrath against their unacceptable behavior. The chapter as a whole presents a stunning prophetic censure of a misplaced emphasis on forms and structures (literally) instead of appropriate ethical and ritual behavior. It reminds me of nothing so much as how these modern hypocrits clothe themselves in the mantle of righteousness and then behave as monsters:
"Thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Make your ways and your doings good: and I will dwell with you in this place. Trust not in lying words, saying: The temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, it is the temple of the Lord [read: born again, born again, born again]. For if you will order well your ways and your doings: if you will execute judgment between and man and his neighbor, if you oppress not the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow, and shed not innocent blood in this place, and walk not after strange gods to your own hurt: I will dwell with you in this place, in the land which I gave to your fathers from the beginning and for evermore, saith the Lord almighty."
How are these so-called Christians following this teaching? Did I not read only yesterday more horror stories of how our military had taken entire families, men, women, children, the elderly, babies, and herded them into houses and shot them in cold blood? Have we not disappeared people off of the face of the earth and held them in secrecy and tortured them? Is not everything we have done in Iraq contrary to anything approaching justice? We are behaving like rapacious animals, we are anathema in the eyes of the world, and rightly so.
Far be it from me to pass judgment on another person. And I do not know what awaits me in the hereafter. But I'm pretty sure that Bush and Co. are going to be frying for all eternity for what they have done in the name of the United States of America and its people.
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No surprise
I was raised a Catholic. I became an agnostic when the virtues they tought me at St. James, tolerance, virtue, love, sacrifice and acceptance of others, came to sharp blows with a church that demanded intolerance, virtuousness and sacrifice only to the church and acceptance of only the church dogma. I suspect most secularists and agnostics came to their state for the same reasons: they chose to embrace their religion's values over their religion.
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Look humanism is dead all over
The left has rejected humanism just as much as the Christians have.
I point to the California prison system and the complete and utter lack of interest on the California left in the little facts about that system that constitute torture of the people being held there.
For example, about one or two patients per week in the prison health care system die from medical malpractice or neglect. The prison health care system hires doctors that wouldn't be allowed to practice anywhere else in the country because they've had their licenses yanked in too many states.
That's why the system has been placed under receivership by a federal court.
You know how hard it is to get the avergae secular liberal California Democrat to care about that?
People at Salon have made a fetish out of Iraqi prisoners. But California prisoners are just so much garbage to them.
Prison abuse lawsuits have brought the system under federal scrutiny. Gray Davis refused to obey the federal court order to fix the system. And he was PROUD of that!
Sick prisoners being killed by incompetent doctors was something Gray Davis didn't think needed fixing.
Go ahead and vent against Christians all you want. The secular left has NOTHING to be proud of on that issue in this state.
If you want to promote humanism, then go for it.
But ragging on the right is not anywhere near the same as promoting humanism on the left. It's just a feel good diversion from the lapse of humanism on our side.
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This surprises me....NOT!
I've held for years that secular people are more inherently moral that the religious. If you're a born-again Christian, part of the reason you do good works is because you're afraid of going to Hell. You're being bribed with Heaven to be a nice person. If you're an atheist, you have no such incentive. You do good works because you feel it's the right thing to do. Good for its own sake is morally superior to good for self-interest.
So it surprises me not at all that Christians are more likely to feel that torturing another human being is acceptable. I wonder how they feel about torturing other Christians?