Re: Johnny Hart - RIP


"J.D. Baldwin" <INVALID_SEE_SIG@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:evm9v5$na1$1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

In the previous article, Dan Kimmel <daniel.kimmel@xxxxxxx> wrote:
You sure seem awfully proud of that ignorance of yours.

It's not "ignorance," suggesting that this is stuff I ought to know
and don't. The Christian Bible is as irrelevant to me as the Koran
or the Upinishad or the Writings of Baha'u'lah are to you. You mean
you're ignorant of Baha'u'lah?

The Bible is one of the great works of Western literature. Anyone
born and raised west of Constantinople who doesn't know at least the
highlights of its stories is simply not fully educated. (Not
minimally educated, in my view, but whatever.) I don't believe in
Zeus or Aphrodite[1], but the Iliad is pretty damned "relevant" to me
-- and it's fairly obviously a lot lower on the "you should know this"
scale than the Bible. This has nothing to do with the fact that Jack
Chick and Ted Haggard want you to read the Bible. It has to do with
what an educated, functioning adult in this society is supposed to
know.

I get along quite nicely not studying Christian scripture. I don't feel
it's something I'm "supposed to know" in order to be educated and
functioning.

Your arrogance is really breathtaking. If I'm going to study religious
texts, it's not going to be of someone else's religion. And as an educated
person I do read a great deal, including history and literature. I just
don't feel any obligation to learn Christian texts any more than I need to
study the Koran.

But even that isn't the point (anymore). I am simply astonished that
someone could be as proud of his ignorance of anything as you are of
your ignorance of the New Testament story. Ignorance as such is
really nothing to be ashamed of -- until it becomes willful ignorance.

I know you think the "New [sic] Testament" is really, really important. And
that is your right, and I'll even defend that right. But it is *utterly*
irrelevant to me. Jesus is not a deity to me, nor a great "rabbi," nor a
"man with a message" I need to read. He's a figure in someone else's
religion, as irrelevant to my life as Mohammad or Confucius. (Well, not
quite. Not many of my ancestors had to fear being attacked or murdered by
followers of Confucius.)

This must be shocking to Chrsitians, that what you think (or once thought)
was so important can be of no consequence whatsoever to other people. Well,
get over yourself. Most of the people on the planet are NOT Christians.


.

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