Pardon me for posting this rather angry response, but I felt I had to after 
what this person posted.


Goosed scribed:

On Fri, 24 Jan 1997, Hitomi Ichinohei wrote:


Don't blame the Christians for that.  Blame whatever sect it was that
did that, or else blame the people in power who called themselves
Christians.  I'm guessing that these were Catholics, since those were
the ones that made it to Japan way back when.

Excuse me.  I'll be the first to admit that in the past Catholics like
myself have committed atrocities.  but this list is *NOT* about
religious bashing. Thank you very much.

Would you believe Christians do that to each other?  It happens in some
of the countries in Africa.  Protestant materials are banned, the people
are harrassed, sometimes tortured and executed for their beliefs BY THE
CATHOLICS IN POWER.  Whether this is because that's what Catholicism
allows or because it's the fault of the people in power calling
themselves Catholics, I don't know.  I'd *hope* it's the latter, but
I've heard too many things about Catholics to say for sure.  Not to bash
the average lay-Catholic, but I've heard bad things about the
higher-ups.

Catholicism most certainly *DOES NOT* teach that, but like any other large
religion we have fanatics who pervert what is taught for their own
beliefs.  Also, unlike many other religions, the Catholic leadership still
has a large amount of political power and there are groups and governments
that do take advantage of that.  Please don't judge all of us by the actions
of a few.  I noticed that you said that you didn't mean to bash our laity,
but that is *exactly* what you have done.

I have seen this happen too many times to be impressed with a lot of
Christianity, but you are right in the fact that I have no reason to
advance those views here.

Well, those who *act* like Christians, instead of just merely claiming
to be, are ashamed of it too, believe me.

Again, I know you well enough by now to realize that you didn't mean to
imply that all Catholics only claim to be Christian, but that is exactly
what you've done.

I hereby appologize to the Christians on this list for my inappropriate
comments.

I doubt anyone is going to bash back.  NP.

I wouldn't bash hitomi's post because she didn't say anything that was
offensive or untrue.  You on the other hand have.  Once *YOU* have learned
some tolerance for other groups, Damon, I'll be more then happy to discuss
anything you want to but until then, please keep your religion bashing
off the list.

My apologies to everybody else, but I found what he wrote to be unthinking
and intolerable.  yes, the Catholic Church has its problems, but isn't
it more in the Christian ethic he professes to follow to try to help us
fix it rather then condemning all of us for it?

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