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Mark Twain Forum <[log in to unmask]>
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Tue, 14 Dec 2004 11:20:26 -0600
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Michael Scott Williams wrote:
 >>  As long as those people aren't religious fundamentalists, whom we
KNOW are wrong, right Harold?  <<

    Good point, Michael.  A point that I'm very familiar with, as I have
many family members, and friends as well, that are fundamentalists, whom
I love very dearly.  In fact, I, formerly, am one myself, so I
apprecaite this balance to my post.
     God is ineffable, sure.  No one has a handle on  "She-He-It",
including SC.  And it's very un-fundamentalish (sic) to see it this
way.  So how do we handle the Islamic Wahhabists, the fundamentalist
branch of Islam, -- the ones that support the overthrow of the Western
World; particularly of America?
    I guess we could bomb them into submission, and death, to rid the
world of them.  Or, thru an expanded view of God,  we could include
them, -- love them, -- into the human family; as imagebears just as we.
But to do this, we'd have to let go of our own fundamentalist thinking.
Something needs to be done; we're (the human race) are killing each
other over this crap.  Maybe we don't know God, and none of us has a
handle on "Him", but, Good God!, we don't have to kill each other in his
name.  Do we?

Mike continues:
 >> I know I'm not in ANY position to judge whether someone's religious
views are correct -- I don't know.  <<

    Mike, I don't know you from Adam's cat.  But I can say this for
sure:  "You are not a fundamentalist."  Fundamentalist don't know that
they don't know.

Mike again:
 >>  To take his understanding as something we all need to take on as
his own goes against Twain's own appreciation for being "your own
thinker," so it goes -- to reason things out on your own.  <<

    Now you're talkin'.  And that's why I say, teaching Letters from
Earth in our schools would be a good start in learning how to think for
ourselves, and not just take answers unquestioned, -- like those from
the pulpits, as Twain would say.

     Thanks Mike, for your correction, and saving me from giving
everyone a false impression of what I meant.  Thanks for being
straight-forward, and plain speaking....  The world needs more of
that....  And, it's very Twainish to do so.

Harold

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