Searcher & Lori ... I'm feeling the need to stick my nose into this one.
I find it interesting how humanity, regardless of faith or self-perceived lack thereof, consistently manage to act in a manner that directly contradicts what seems to be society's stated desire. In order to reduce crime, we pass dumb laws that make a million people criminals overnight. In order to secure peace, we bomb each other senseless.
Thus we hit several apparent paradoxes. Consider guns ... regardless of the 2nd Amendment, I think we can all agree that the bullet is no way to govern or advance a society. Yet who rules? In the end, it's the people who have guns. And if they don't have them when they come to power, they get them once they're installed.
Or a Simpson's episode of recent memory: When the mayor abandoned the town, a council of "learned citizens" replaces him as municipal authority. They pass laws to give people what they, the learned citizens, believe people want, yet the public don't want the laws. In the end, it seems, the people would rather have been governed by the stupid ... it's easier to work out logic based on preconceived notions. Is this idea that far off from reality?
So in the end, the peaceful, intelligent people (the adjectives do NOT go hand-in-hand), who might (MIGHT) have the tools to determine the sum of the public desire and enact it properly, don't. The best ideas get dragged down in irrelevant greed. What has this to do with anything? Everything.
There is a point when you have to yell, "Enough." Consider the Parental Music Resource Center. What else but an organization devoted to censorship could get Twisted Sister's frontman, Dee Snider, cussing and railing in front of Congress? While the conservatives said, "Your profanity does nothing to help your cause," the expressionists might retort, "At least we now have your attention."
But what happens when you are obliged to be peaceful? What happens when the act of yelling "Enough" diminishes your credibility in the eyes of the audience you hope to affect?
Modern Christians seem bound by this idea that God says they can't be angry, can't aggressively drive a point to its conclusion. In a sense, it's unfair. To the other, it's the Christian's choice to abide by that apect of their faith.
So what happens when one Christian feels, as a conscience issue, that another allegedly Christian viewpoint is wrong? It's easy if you're pushing for the ideas that are considered conservative ... you have two-thousand years of political bullying to reenforce your position. But if you're trying to change the system to reflect an idea that you feel is closer to the core philosophy ... what then? To use an example ....
(w/necessary apologies to Lori)
If ... if, if, if .... If a Christian (say, Lori) reads/hears/sees another person pushing an allegedly Christian idea that she finds corrupt, that's her credibility as a human being and as a Christian that's going down the drain as well. Non-Christians, myself included, have a nasty habit of flinging Christian principle back in the face of Christians as hypocrisy fodder. Some of us don't have that conflict with our own philosophies, since they often espouse comparatively little as definitive. But if, in this case, Lori is to see a post which purports to reflect Christianity, but which she feels does a disservice to the sum of her faith and to the evangelical potential of her church (evangelism is vital here) ... what is she to do? If she remains silent, she is misrepresented. If she speaks out, she's a hypocrite. The situation kind of sucks.
I'm watching this kind of fight carry out daily in this forum. I can't speak for other of Lori's quotes included in Searcher's posts; but I do know that the one beginning with, "See why I don't go to church, tiassa?" came up during an exchange on the issues reflected above.
Maybe I don't get along with various Christian viewpoints, and as long as logic is a standard in resolving philosophical dichotomies, it seems that atheists have Christians against the wall. But how long before they fight fire with fire? As long as it's not Dresden, Hiroshima, or Mrs O'Leary's cow all over again, how can I deny them that tool?
Perhaps we might turn that other cheek, but if armed, stupid people are really running the show, all that philosophy will get you is a bunch of Christians with their heads beaten in.
thx,
Tiassa
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"Let us not launch the boat until the ground is wet." (Khaavren of Castlerock)
[This message has been edited by tiassa (edited October 18, 1999).]
