On Fri, 24 Jan 1997, Hitomi Ichinohei wrote:

On Fri, 24 Jan 1997, Cynewulf wrote:

	Oh, I agree on that entirely... if you don't like it, don't read 
it.  But since when is publicity, television, and book burnings 
'artifacts of the Christian communities'?  I thought this was an argument 
against censorship, or an explanation of japanese values - when did it 
become an exercise in religion-bashing?  Book-burners?  Funny... I 
could've sworn the Dominican friars, and the Franciscan and 
Benedictine monks, actually transcribed and preserved vaste quantities of 
classical literature.  You had an interesting argument going, but those 
cheap, far-too-easy to make shots at christianity really didn't help 
advance it any.

I have to appologize for that, but I am really only familiar with what I
have seen of Christians in my own country and with what happened here in
North America.  Christians in Japanese history are known to have killed,
murdered, and stole in the name of their God, without any reason given but
that their God is the only one.  Many texts, histories, and other
artifacts of cultural significance were lost because of the Christians,
both in Asia and in Europe and the rest of the world.  In Europe, women
were killed because they healled people.  One of the doctrines that was
litterally put to us by crusifying people was that women had no place in
healing or in political life.  If they did so, then they are against the
Christian God and should die by any means at hand.

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.

Again, Christianity does not teach that, any of it, so it's not
Christianity in general's fault.

Unfortuantely, this is the view of what Christianity is, and is unlikely
to change, without the Christians stopping a lot of things, including
lying about what happens in the country, burning of books, tapes, and
materials, atacking a business for producing materials with which they
do not agree, even when such materials are not produced, with either lies
about the company, management, or even physical attacks.

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.

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.

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

I doubt anyone is going to bash back.  NP.

Damon Casale, scyth@miis.edu / scyth@andrew.cmu.edu
Spam, spam!  WONDERFUL spam!  ^_^