According to Russell Stewart:
> >Problem is, all the "Christian" evils you cite are based on *distortions*
> >of the teachings of Jesus, which even a casual reading of the four gospel
> >books will show.
>
> Just as all of the materialist evils that Jim points out are all
> distortions, or outright violations, of humanist morality.
If one is going to practice the "body count" method of history, one could
make a case that the avowedly materialist and/or non-Christian regimes
have been surpassingly more effective in this than the avowedly
Christian regimes. The State, particularly in this century, seems to be a
far greater villain than the Church, not discounting the severity of the
crimes of members of the Body of Christ. I count it against them more
since they should have known better.
Taking the Nazis (Hitler espoused a return to the Norse religion and
certainly had no truck with Christianity) and the Soviets along with the
Red Chinese one does not easily perceive a picture of self-correcting
materialism at work. Now I have no doubt that Mr. Stewart is as appalled
at the hellishness of these regimes as I am, but I wonder if he might not
be just a bit hard on the the Christians of the Crusades and the
Inquisition (which was instigated at the command of the temporal
rulers--Ferdinand and Isabella, though the Church was certainly complicit
in the execution of the horror and the 2000 odd Moors and Jews tortured
and slain) This is still dwarfed by the 100,000,000+ people tortured and
killed in this century by the three governments noted above. Robert
Conquest has done considerable work in this area and I am giving a *low*
figure.
I'm going to ask a few questions about the contradiction (as I see it) of
materialist heroism in the next post.
Gene
-- ____________________________________________________________Gene D. Godbold, Ph.D. Lab: 804 924-5167Research Associate Desk: 804 243-2764Div. Infectious Disease/Dept. Medicine Home: 804 973-6913and Dept. Microbiology Fax: 804 924-7500MR4 Bldg, Room 2115 email: anselm@virginia.edu300 Park Place Charlottesville, VA 22908 """""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""