[Vision2020] Arrest aftermath

[Douglas]

Dear visionaries,

With regard to Bob's posting, of course it is a logical possibility that a 
Christian sinning is doing so because of his Christianity, or his form of it.

Sin in a congregation can be a failure to live up to the standards of the 
group. But (because there are whacked-out cults) there are also instances 
when sin is *because* of obedience to the standards of the group. In a 
fallen world, people get sick. When they do, some of them congregate in 
hospitals for treatment. Some of them congregate less hygienic places where 
they infect one another.

To go back to the rotten apple analogy, it is true that one bad apple 
doesn't spoil the whole barrel. But this does not make a barrel full of bad 
apples a logical impossibility.

The question is whether or not there is such a thing as religious 
pathology. I know we agree there is. The respectable way to refer to one 
form of it is "fundamentalist Islam." We agree in principle. What I have 
broached is the question of whether or not the Muslim fundamentalists are 
more consistent or inconsistent with the Koran than their more moderate 
brethren. In a world where every two days someone is blowing himself up 
(along with others) in the name of Allah, I think it is a fair question.

And, if it gets to a certain level, it will stop being asked. In 1943, 
nobody in America was asking whether or not the Hitlerites were the true 
representatives of Nazism. Whether they were or not, they were the ones we 
had to fight.

Cordially,

Douglas