pc perf. bites bk & Coney Island High

[David Casseres]

Catherine P. sez

>... using
>*Christianity* as a convenient excuse for everything from the Crusades to
>Bloody Mary's reign of terror to KKK's burning crosses has been the lame
>tool of cowards to inflict evil on others with superficial impunity.

It's the excuse that was used by the Christians who perpetrated all those 
horrors.  So, lame tool of cowards, yes.  The part that should give 
Christians some conflict, as Diana implied, is that in each case you 
mention the cowards' lame excuse was *embraced* by the great majority of 
Christians all around them, even though it was rejected by some 
Christians somewhere else or in another time.

I'm reminded of Christopher Hitchens's remark about a particularly vile 
and bigoted anti-Catholic demagogue in Ireland, who was a Protestant 
minister and used his pulpit to foment violence against Catholics.  
Somebody said that this was the kind of man who gave religion a bad name, 
and Hitchens replied, no, it's religion that gives this kind of man a 
*good* name.

>However, it doesn't follow that all Xtns=Murderers or Racists. 
>Hypocrites have always attracted the most attention in any religion or
>ideology.  What has happened in the past is disturbing, but also sadly
>predictable.

Um, yes, the past is readily predictable!  Often sadly so.  And of 
course, not all Christians are murderers or racists.  Or Hindus, or 
Muslims, or Jews, etc.  But in the present, just as in the past, all but 
a tiny minority have acquiesced in the performance of all sorts of 
monstrous evil in the name of their religion, and not spoken out.  What 
about the future?


Cheers,
David