>
> I wouldn't feel obliged to obey a law that I >believed to be wrong, either. So what's my >problem with this rant? I guess it's this: I >wouldn't submit to wrongful coercion because I'm >answerable to a higher authority -- it's the old >dilemma of the apostles in Acts: "we must obey >God rather than men." On the other hand, *your* >grounds for disregarding certain social rules >appear to be that you are answerable to *no* >authority higher than yourself. This is an >impasse. If we don't agree on the matter of >dependence on authority, we can't really get >anywhere in a debate.
>

Why do you think I am so vehemently opposed to censorship of just about any kind? Because I *know* who it is who always tries to enact censorship. The people who censor are the people who think they know the "truth". Islamic Fundamentalists censor anything that is contradictory or blasphemous to Islam. Facist censor anything that hints of Communism. Communist censor anything that has to do with religion. Christians censor anything having to do with the occult or "depraved" behavior.

I would not submit to Christian censorship any more than I would submit to Communist or Facist censorship.

The "truth" is the only reason you are even possibly maybe sort of not-really-but-well-kind-of supporting what might possibly kind of sort of in some places be considered "censorship" is because you believe you know what's right for me. And I will not stand down in the face of a conceit like that.

>
> This is the source of the preponderance of >aggravation that I endure. You, and an easy >majority of the rest of Americans out there, >want God the Boot-Licker, or God the Glad Hand. >Or, possibly, God the Salad Bar Item.

No. I want a God who makes sense. I want a God who isn't arbitrary. I want a God who inspires a book that isn't self-contradictory, or at least doesn't require great mental gyrations and questionable logic to make not self-contradictory. I want a God who makes himself known to *everyone*, not just a select few.

Do you know what I would do if I were God? Nothing. Because I'd realize that I was nothing more than a crutch for weak minded people who can't accept that they're not special, that they're nothing more than an especially intelligent primate, and I'd have the decency to dry up and blow away like so many other unecessary items of our ancestral past.

-- Dave