
From jbrotema@coin.org Wed Mar 28 23:43:47 2001
Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2001 00:42:21 -0600
From: Jeff Brotemarkle <jbrotema@coin.org>
To: "David D. Eisenstein" <deisenst@coin.org>,
    Habadasher Soup -- David Ackerman <david_ackerman@yahoo.com>,
    "Cheryl L. Hill" <cheryllhill@yahoo.com>,
    Kelly Lasiter <kcl78@yahoo.com>,
    Lucrecia Culberson <lculbe6495@aol.com>,
    "Rev. Rhymes Moncure" <RevRhy@aol.com>, Val Hinshaw <vhinshaw@coin.org>
Subject: Re: More thought on religion

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----- Original Message -----
From: David D. Eisenstein <deisenst@coin.org>
To: Habadasher Soup -- David Ackerman <david_ackerman@yahoo.com>; Cheryl L.
Hill <cheryllhill@yahoo.com>; Jeff Brotemarkle <jbrotema@coin.org>; Kelly
Lasiter <kcl78@yahoo.com>; Lucrecia Culberson <lculbe6495@aol.com>; Rev.
Rhymes Moncure <RevRhy@aol.com>; Val Hinshaw <vhinshaw@coin.org>
Sent: Monday, March 26, 2001 11:59 AM
Subject: More thought on religion


> Hi all,
>
> Jeff, you wrote, "In my view, any religion that makes it impossible to
> understand other religions has bound its adherent to itself.  This does
> not destroy the truth of that religion, but it makes it difficult to
> witness effectively to anyone of any other faith."
>
> This is an excellent point.  I believe you are saying that Christianity
> makes it impossible to understand other religions.  In many, many ways,
> you are very right.  Christianity's God is a "jealous God" in the Old
> Testament, and in the new Testament, Jesus himself is quoted as saying
> that he is *the* light and *the* way to the Father, and that there is no
> other way to the Father than through him.
>

     There are some translators that imagine a more accurate translation
from the original Aramaic into English would be "I am a way, a truth, a
life".   Sorry I don't remember which one it was or I'd give his name here
to credit him for his work & allow you to look him up.

> What you say, "... what ticked me off about the old definition was
> the implication that Christianity is the one true religion and all the
> others are somehow therefore false."   Here here!!  I could not agree
> more!  And your question I love:  "Why can't we simply refer to them as
> other religions without labeling them false?"  We can and we should.  I
> hear your pain.
>
> I will take issue with one point.  Religions that bind their adherents to
> that one way of believing, providing scripture that proves the
> exclusionary right for that religion to be right and other religions
> therefore to be "wrong" or "false:"  You say that this exclusionary
> practice does not destroy the truth of that religion, but makes it
> difficult to witness effectively to anyone of any other faith.  I am
> wondering if, however, such exclusionary practices, not acknowledging what
> could be right or good or wholesome in other belief systems, indeed does
> not take away truth from such belief systems?

     Certainly you are right, there are some truths such a person holding to
such a belief system simply cannot understand.
     But take a man like St Francis, for instance.  He was a very holy man,
a very holy Christian, received the first ever historically recorded
stigmata, visited personally with the materialized in the flesh Jesus
Christ, Who appeared by St. Francis' bedside every night for several years.
This man had great success as a spiritual man and as a Christian, yet there
were some things he just couldn't understand, he had some limitations.  He
visited The Enemy during the Crusades in an attempt to make peace, which was
good, but he viewed part of his mission as that it was necessary to convert
those Muslims to Christianity, which would have been fine if he was also
willing to convert to Islam, but of course he wasn't.  He was limited in
that way, is what I'm saying, but was a very fine and successful Christian
in so many other respects.  & in my view many of the other respects were
more important than this one.

>
> Christianity holds a patent on God.  And unlike U.S.  Patents, this one
> never expires.  Jesus Christ is constantly being crucified, is constantgly
> ascending to His Father, and his adherents are constantly saying that
> *only* by viewing these sacred events as being the holiest of events and
> by putting your full trust in His teachings, can you use the
> "God-and-go-to-heaven-when-you-die" device of Christianity's patent;
> everything else relegating you to the "devil-and-go-to-hell."  I remember,
> Jeff, in earlier parts of our friendship, my being afraid to come near the
> Chautauqua Center, where you lived, because of the non-standard beliefs
> and religious practices that I sensed were being espoused there.  I
> remember that the idea I had at that time went something like this:  To be
> exposed to such beliefs would end up being a siren's song that would pull
> me away from My Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and I would nevermore be the
> same, and perhaps even become less holy by so visiting.

     Well, David, for some belief systems, that's a very valid fear.  I
remember as a teenager feeling that I couldn't believe as I had been brought
up in the Methodist Church, but being unsatisfied with what I saw as the
other choice, nonbelief.  I saw so many good points about Christianity that
I was not willing to argue with a Christian against his beliefs even though
I thought they were wrong.  I thought he might be better off with his
beliefs even if they were wrong, than he would be with my lack of belief.
     So as it turned out I never shared my doubts or tried to proselytize
anybody until I finally came up with a faith that I thought was as good as
Christianity in all respects yet did not have any of the defects I thought
Methodism had.  By that time I soon moved to the Chautauqua Center and at
that time I did not consider my beliefs as being a danger to anybody.  I did
consider my atheist beliefs to be a public health menace.

> I was afraid,
> because of some of the beliefs of my Christian friends, that even
> beholding such other beliefs would endanger my soul, or that "all those
> others out there are just cults," and I would get sucked into something.
>
> I now see this as utter pish-posh, at least with regards to the gentle,
> kindly light of Chautauqua.  Chautauqua wasn't the Moonies, and I didn't
> have to get my brain-washed and sell literature at airports.  I now see
> this as utter pish-posh, as I see Paul's admonition to some of the
> followers about "What traffic do you really have with such heathen?"  (I
> know this is a terrible misquote).  Well, maybe not *utter* pish-posh,
> because, like the Moonies, there are belief systems that *can* suck you
> into becoming like an automaton for their causes.  At least Chautauqua and
> Christianity (at its best) doesn't do that.  I think our friend Lucrecia
> may be able to enlighten us some on at least one of those other "sucky"
> belief systems, as I found out last night.
>

     Agreed that Chautauqua and most of its visitors were no danger and in
fact had beautiful faiths.  Agreed that some faiths, including what I once
briefly was as an atheist, are public health hazards.

> Any religion or system of beliefs that makes it self right to the
> exclusion of others, in my opinion, tarnishes its own truth by promoting
> such exclusionary ideals.  It is simply without grace.  It makes the
> religion far more of a religion of Oscar Hammerstein's and Richard
> Rodgers' song "Carefully Taught," than one of enlighted spirituality:
>
> Carefully Taught
>
> You've got to be taught to hate and fear,
> You've got to be taught from year to year,
> It's got to be drummed in your dear little ear,
> You've got to be carefully taught.
>
> You've got to be taught to be afraid
> of people Whose eyes are oddly made,
> and people whose skin is a diff'rent shade,
> You've got to be carefully taught.
>
> You've got to be taught before it's too late,
> Before you are six or seven or eight,
> To hate all the people your relatives hate,
> You've got to be carefully taught!
>
> You've got to be carefully taught!
>
>              (Copyright (C) 1949, Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein.)
>
> What do you think?
> Your friend,
> David
>
> ps:  Let's not forget that *enlightened Christianity* is not what I  here
> am bashing.  What I am bashing is supremism that masks itself as holiness,
> in *any* system of religion or human belief.
>

     You are exactly right on, David, I would not be able to put it in
better words.


