Re: ICR and its slurs

Russell Stewart (diamond@rt66.com)
Mon, 02 Jun 1997 13:21:40 -0600

At 10:38 AM 6/2/97 -0400, you wrote:
>At 8:50 PM -0600 5/29/97, Russell Stewart quoted me:
>
>>>Agreed. However, the assertion Russ makes that this state of affairs
>>>(widespread agreement on morals) is consistent with what we would expect if
>>>a universal system of morality exists is valid. That's important, because
>>>the opposite finding (no agreement on morals) would argue against a
>>>universal moral system.
>>
>Russell wrote
>
>>And that brings us to the second problem. You are forgetting that, for
>>most of history, Christians have *not* been able to agree on morality.
>
>Not really (I'm not really forgetting). The fact that a universal moral
>system exists doesn't guarantee that everyone -- even those who claim to
>accept it -- will practice it consistently.

But then how do we know that it exists?

>>Sure, they all believed that murder was wrong, but it was always a question
>>of what constituted murder. Is killing a Muslim murder? The Crusaders didn't
>>think so. What about a Jew? Or a "witch"? Or a Jew? Or an atheist?
>>Christianity
>>has shown no more moral cohesion than any other system of morality, and that
>>is strongly indicative that there really isn't anything truly objective or
>>transcendent about it.
>
>The fact that an individual is -- or claims to be -- a Christian, doesn't
>guarantee that he will practice Christian morality 100% of the time. The
>consequences vary from unfortunate to tragic -- I'm not trying to make
>light of it. But Christianity can be misapplied, as can other
>religious/philosophical systems, including yours.

I agree with you completely, Bill. But the problem is that neither you nor
I can provide objective *proof* that even truly sick people like the KKK or
the witch-burners were really misapplying Christianity.

_____________________________________________________________
| Russell Stewart |
| http://www.rt66.com/diamond/ |
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| Albuquerque, New Mexico | diamond@rt66.com |
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If Rush is Right, then I'll take what's Left.