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Pastimes : Let's Talk About Our Feelings!!! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Michael M who wrote (69636)	1/1/2000 1:03:00 PM
From: Grainne	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 108807

You have not been scratched from my "OK to post to" list, Michael. I am just trying to catch up on a lot of posts, and if you posted to me in the last week or so, I just haven't gotten to read yours yet. Anyway, the post you objected to was in response to Bill Vaughn's comments: <<<<It is God, not man, who sets the values. The Fifth Commandment states quite clearly, "Thou shalt not kill." Were this country's laws not based on Judeo-Christian values, man would be free to kill any other any time without conscience or retaliation by the state. If man were left to his own devices, the caveman era would probably have survived to 2000 AD.>> While I am not going off on the "Christians are stupid idiots" road, I honestly believe that religion offers very little to society, and has been very divisive in the history of the world. Of course, religious and spiritual beliefs may be very beneficial to the individuals who hold them. However, in the big picture Christianity is not the most popular religion on earth today, Europe is becoming less Christian as time goes on, Christianity has only been in existence for 2,000 years, and most particularly, in response to Bill's post, all of the major religions have very similar ethical and moral underpinnings. To assert that "Thou shalt not kill" has been set by God, and that non-Christians do not have similar values actually insults billions of people alive today, and is untrue. I also do not believe that it is possible to push Christianity's excesses and failings back into medieval times. If you look at Hitler's Germany, for example, he was able to execute millions of people because of anti-Jewish sentiment held by most of the populace in his very Christian country, and by the Pope as well. Right now on a global basis, the anti-birth control stance of the Catholics influences family planning policy, with the result that too many children whose lives cannot be sustained are born. They live short, miserable lives filled with starvation and disease and pain. In America, it is the conservative Christians who, instead of practicing Jesus' creed of love, tolerance and acceptance, foment bigotry that leads to horrific hate crimes against homosexuals. The Ku Klux Klan is a totally Christian organization. Stalin was able to come to power because Christianity in Russia was a religion of the poor, who were held down in abysmal cerfdom and placated by the Christian belief that rewards would come after death. Finally the pendulum swung the other way. Everyone has the right to their own religious beliefs. Christianity has been very political as it cut its swath across humanity, though, and I do believe it is valid to discuss it in these terms. Certainly, pagans, atheists, Buddhists, and believers in many other religions also have high morals and ethics, and do not kill simply because it is wrong. I think it is dangerous to believe that healthy individuals have no self control, or that one must have religious beliefs to be a good and decent person, and every time someone asserts the idea here that it is better in some way to be Christian, I might disagree, because man is absolutely capable of setting his moral values without God in the equation at all.