Re: Culture Wars, Old and New (Was: I Am Homophobic)

On Friday, December 7, 2001, at 11:58  AM, Kendall Clark wrote:

	A damn book!  :-)

Seriously, Kendall, I appreciate the extent of your reply.  You too, 
Bij.  I had no idea that the critical strand ran so far into the 
Church's past.  I'm slightly more familiar with the more modern 
arguments... although it is hard to square their dry, mystical 
abstraction with the human *agony* of the sort of evil I was referring 
to (bloodshed and physical torment, rather than the evil of "deception," 
illusion, or even the psychic pain of most loss).

I always found refreshing the assertions of some of my fundamentalist 
X-tian friends that one had to accept and be grateful for the world and 
rules God gave one, because He was God, by God, and if you didn't go 
along he would torture you forever in Hell (well, they phrased it a 
little diff., but that was the thrust and they didn't mince words too 
much).  Least you knew where you stood with the Bastard, in that system.

//mbz