NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #31/NN_1992_31.iso/spool/sci/anthropo/1647

Internet Message Format | 1993-01-01 | 3.2 KB

Path: sparky!uunet!munnari.oz.au!uniwa!DIALix!tillage!gil
From: [e-mail] (Gil Hardwick)
Newsgroups: sci.anthropology
Subject: Cultural Appropriation and the New Age
Distribution: world
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
References: <[e-mail]>
Date: Fri, 01 Jan 93 03:32:52 GMT
Organization: STAFF STRATEGIES - Anthropologists & Training Agents
Lines: 56


In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] writes:

 > It is quite unfortunate that an in-depth discussion of this topic would
 > almost certainly result in a flame war, which is, of course, Usenet
 > culture impacting the free exercise of Christian religious beliefs
 > (i.e., the proclamation of the Good News).

If Usenet is anything at all like Australia, the reason we no longer
want to listen to such "Good News" is because we had it rammed down
our throats all the way through school, accompanied by canings when we
failed to sit straight and pay strict attention to the preacher. Still
today the Christians come around to preach at us on our doorstep, only
respecting *other* people's privacy and beliefs after the householders
learn to be as insistent and intolerant as they are.

Christianity has repeatedly demonstrated throughout history that it is
a cruel, vengeful, intolerant system of belief, and while there is no
restriction on its free exercise in Australia we have laws in place to
protect children from abuse in order to manage its worst impacts. We
strive also against their constant nagging and proselytising to ensure
that there may be a similar free exercise of religious belief accorded
others.

If the US was indeed founded on Christianity, that would certainly
explain the apocalyptic, millenarian scale of destructiveness of their
war against the Vietnamese people in defence of the Roman Catholic
regime which had established itself in Saigon under the auspices of
the previous French colonial administration, typically with no mandate
from among the people themselves.

You might recall, however, that it was people *protesting* against the
European Christian establishment which finally led to popular suffrage
in the US, as well as here in Australia. That process continues slowly
and painfully, as it can be seen quite clearly in South America, The
Philipinnes and Southern Africa, for example, among the last extensive
land masses to be dominated in modern times by Christian orthodoxy and
its bloody, murderous, poverty-stricken consequences.

Other than that, or any other myriad historical examples which can be
dated from the propagation and subsequent militarisation of the urban
mystical sects which had originated in North African monotheism during
the Roman Empire, known for their constant intrigue, squabbling and
fighting over some putative lineage of descent from Christ, the above
thread as it stands is surely of no particular interest to Anthropology.

On the other hand, I would be very happy indeed for a further thread
to continue here provided you demonstrate some willingness to allow
comparative academic debate based on research and field data, framed
within the discourse of Anthropology instead of orthodox Christianity
to the detriment of this discipline.

I look forward to it with glee, in fact.

Gil