The very fact that the bible can lead to the set of beliefs espoused by Sam Krishna should give you pause about endorsing it. How is it that a wise, even omniscient god did not foresee that his inspired words could lead to such vicious bigoted behaviour, which even you can see have been the cause of so much misery and death? A wise father would surely have placed something in the instruction manual making this kind of thing impossible.
However, if the bible is simply the recorded writings of a barbaric tribe, then the morality and ethics in it are consistent with the low level of civilization at the time, and are not a surprise: virtually every early kingdom practiced slavery, polygyny, believed in torturous capital punishments as a deterrent, was intolerant, and conceived of the wife and children as chattel of the father, and of subjects as chattels of the king.
Some of you will say that the new dispensation of mercy ushered in by Jesus fulfilled and superseded the old dispensation of justice. Can you really think that it was ever "good" to practice slavery? Do you seriously propose that massacre and genocide were the best solutions to any problems?
All I know is, that if I found that god was not capable of communicating in a clear enough fashion to prevent people like Sammy from advocating the vicious cruelty that he does, I would seriously doubt that such a god was worthy of any respect.
It is always amazing to me that a Quaker and a vicious little shit like Sammy can claim to be basing their ethical stance on the same thing. It only leads me to think that, in many ways, formal belief doesn't really matter at all. I have known and worked along side many people who called themselves christians. We marched against the Vietnam war, we marched for civil rights, we worked for women's reproductive freedom, we wrote letters and made statements against tyrannies (Communist and otherwise) around the world.
I think that if a person is hateful, vicious and full of self- loathing, like Sammy, then they will be able to find adequate support for their jaundiced view of humanity in the bible. What is disturbing, and which ultimately indicts christianity, is that there isn't anything in its foundation documents to counter tendencies such as his.
As far as the theocracy he is advocating, it has already been implemented, except for one particular. In it, people are executed for blasphemy; all proselytizing and practice of false religions is prohibited; stoning and other Old Testament punishments are carried out for adultery (almost exclusively against women); and all civil law is based strictly on scripture; the only difference is that in Pakistan, Iran, Sudan and Saudi Arabia the scripture is the Koran. An honest examination of the Old Testament laws and the effects of religion on society, compared to the effects of virtually eliminating religion from society in the US, have got to make you wonder about choosing religion. It is your choice: humanism leads to the scientific progress, freedom from disease, democracy, luxury and political freedoms of Western society in Europe, North America, Australia and elsewhere, while theocracy leads to the disease-ridden, authoritarian, poverty- stricken, slave states of Islam.
As far as it goes, Communism shared more characteristics with a political christianity than it ever did with humanism, which is democratic and liberal, in its essence. Communism demanded a faith in the future workers' state, and a faith in the mechanism of dialectical materialism. Of course, its methods are exactly those stipulated by Yahweh in the OT, and endorsed by Sammy on this list, only in the service of a different master. Humanism is waht happens when human beings finally decide to no longer be slaves and to stop serving masters of any kind. When you christians are fed up with grovelling and begging, you will be ready to become human beings, until then, you have the burden of explaining exactly why we shouldn't lump you in with Sammy and his ilk. After all, christianity has lead to things like this throughout its history: starting with the million dead as a result of christianity's debating tactics to solve the matter of Arius vs. Athanasius; through to the Inquisition and the witch trials, the wars between Catholic and Protestant states, the innumerable crusades against the infidel and pogroms against Jews...you know, we all condemn Communism on the basis of its horrible crimes and failures of a mere seventy years in power in the Soviet Union. I am sure we would consider any country that wished to adopt a Communist form of government to be deranged. Well, Christianity has a much longer, and much bloodier history, if you condemn one, why not the other? A humanist condemns both, and any other system which limit freedom, demand irrational obedience, and refuse to anser questions.
-- Power corrupts; Absolute power corrupts absolutely; God is all-powerful. Draw your own conclusions. Greg Erwin: ai815@freenet.Carleton.ca VP, Humanist Association of Canada godfree@magi.com "Ask me about excommunication"