Kevin's Watch

It's kind of funny that we talk about history and mathematics as things we can teach to third-graders, but philosophy and logical thought as something that can only be taught to adults.

To quote the Professor from "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe", "What DO they teach them in schools these days?"

If I were right (I'll condescend to use the conditional mood here), you wouldn't even know that you had been indoctrinated (a deep, sub-conscious level of programming, if you will). Nor would the teachers be aware that they had participated in this indoctrination. Within one generation they would all have gone through schooling and been indocctrinated themselves. This is how 'political correctness' appeared over a generation or so and came out of everywhere, rather than being imposed from the top down.

True or false: If you, as a person or organization, could get ahold of the nation's teachers, and control how they were prepared and what they would teach, the next generation of children would be yours to mold as you wish.

I'm just saying that if this has already happened, most people would have been molded by the philosophy guiding the schools of education. (OK, I'm actually saying that this HAS happened.)

Try asking any education administrator (the higher the better)
1)what is the nature of man?
2)what do you see to be his purpose in life? They will inevitably answer, "We don't deal in questions like that." *
But it is impossible to establish an educational system without having answered those two questions. You can't organize teaching of anything if you don't know why you are doing it.

*John Stormer "None Dare Call It Education".

rusmeister wrote:As I said in my response to wayfriend, I am not speaking of some active conspiracy. However, your response, if anything, only proves/reinforces my thesis. It is a denial of absolute Truth, as I have stated.

How have I denied absolute truth, and how can you prove it? I seriously doubt that you can show it to us. If there is anything beyond 'individual experience' of truth, I am more than eager to learn about it. But lacking this, all you are doing is trying to preach something that cannot be reasoned or supported.

Regardless, you have not answered my post adequately. Why is Christianity more correct than any other religion? If you claim that is the case, you are deluding yourself.

rusmeister wrote:It's kind of funny that we talk about history and mathematics as things we can teach to third-graders, but philosophy and logical thought as something that can only be taught to adults.

Incorrect. Logic is taught to school children every day.

rusmeister wrote:If I were right (I'll condescend to use the conditional mood here), you wouldn't even know that you had been indoctrinated (a deep, sub-conscious level of programming, if you will). Nor would the teachers be aware that they had participated in this indoctrination.

Indocrinated into what? Indocrinated into rejecting belief systems that believe that they do not require proof/evidence? I'll take that any day. The alternative is an intellectual dark age.

rusmeister wrote:If you, as a person or organization, could get ahold of the nation's teachers, and control how they were prepared and what they would teach, the next generation of children would be yours to mold as you wish.

Just like religions do.

rusmeister wrote: 1)what is the nature of man?
2)what do you see to be his purpose in life? They will inevitably answer, "We don't deal in questions like that."

I'll grab hold of you. What are your answers, and what is it - what can you show evidence for your answers?

Try asking any education administrator (the higher the better)
1)what is the nature of man?
2)what do you see to be his purpose in life? They will inevitably answer, "We don't deal in questions like that." *
But it is impossible to establish an educational system without having answered those two questions. You can't organize teaching of anything if you don't know why you are doing it.

*John Stormer "None Dare Call It Education".

christianity is a "faith", a religion.

we have determined, for ourselves, in this United States, that religious or spiritual training is best left out of the public schools and up to the parents in any way they see fit.

we think that's the only way we can publically educate the children of people who believe in religious freedom for all.

christians of every variety (and boy, aren't there a lot of them! ) are welcomed to build their own learning institutions and educate their children there. as they do.

the study of science is taught in public schools. what we know up to this point, of science, we impart to the students to educate them in inductive and deductive reasoning. just as we do math, literature, history, and hopefully, art.

it is a policy meant to uphold separation of church and state, which, once again, we believe to be the best way to keep the government out of our citizens' spiritual lives.

you are, therefore, in this country, free to believe what you want and teach your children what you want.

this is not a perfect system and it doesn't make everybody happy.
some of the religious think we, the people, should all believe the same thing and teach it to everyone. they think they know better what is good for everyone. that is fascism.

we also have, here in the good old US (and...for the time being) freedom of speech, which allows us to discuss these issues willy nilly without fear of government interference or reprisals.
which means, you can say whatever you think.
but you should also be prepared for the opposing opinion to have its voice as well.

*warning - opinion at hand*

christians, i find, as a general rule, do not usually care for the opposing viewpoint.
christian intellectualism seems an inept attempt to explain, to me, the nature of man, as it does not allow for scientific proofs.
the educators you mention in the above quote, do not deal in "the nature of man", merely in the science, history, and art of man. the argument that this is an evasive statement is fallacious.

Lucimay, great post!

Loremaster wrote:

rusmeister wrote:As I said in my response to wayfriend, I am not speaking of some active conspiracy. However, your response, if anything, only proves/reinforces my thesis. It is a denial of absolute Truth, as I have stated.

How have I denied absolute truth, and how can you prove it? I seriously doubt that you can show it to us. If there is anything beyond 'individual experience' of truth, I am more than eager to learn about it. But lacking this, all you are doing is trying to preach something that cannot be reasoned or supported.

Regardless, you have not answered my post adequately. Why is Christianity more correct than any other religion? If you claim that is the case, you are deluding yourself.

To answer your question directly:

I believe every religion is as equal as the other.

I do not set as my goal here "proving" Christianity. I DO set as my goal refuting that Christianity is less deserving of consideration than other religions or that it is not compatible with reason.

Because I do not wish myself to write books, and because the answers to your questions have already been asked and answered before, I will refer you to one of my favorite writers, who responded to that very question. Your statements are completely as dogmatic as mine. The difference is that I acknowledge that dogma, and that dogma can have a positive meaning, rather than merely being treated as an emotionally negative word.
G.K. Chesterton wrote a wonderful book called Hereticswww.cse.dmu.ac.uk/~mward/gkc/books/heretics/ , which I also commend to you, by the way, in which he laid out some of the most enduringly popular philosophical ideas and their proponents (of his day) and demonstrated their heresy (in the broadest sense of the word, meaning beliefs that are both destructive and wrong). In response to that book, he was challenged by a critic to lay out his own philosophy (which I happen to share). The book is called "Orthodoxy". It is far better than any measly posts I could write, and so strongly recommend it. It can be read online here www.cse.dmu.ac.uk/~mward/gkc/books/orthodoxy/ or obtained through any bookstore or library.

For a view on Christianity through the prism of history, I would challenge hard-line thinkers with "The Everlasting Man" , which consists of two fascinating parts - an overview of history from the standpoint of religious thought and the place of Christ in history. These works do not assume or require religious belief.

Loremaster wrote:
Incorrect. Logic is taught to school children every day.

This is a dogmatic statement that can only be true if we say "some school children" "somewhere". I would be justified in calling upon you to prove it. On the contrary, in society we see an alarming lack of logic and common sense everywhere.

Loremaster wrote:

rusmeister wrote:If I were right (I'll condescend to use the conditional mood here), you wouldn't even know that you had been indoctrinated (a deep, sub-conscious level of programming, if you will). Nor would the teachers be aware that they had participated in this indoctrination.

Indocrinated into what? Indocrinated into rejecting belief systems that believe that they do not require proof/evidence? I'll take that any day. The alternative is an intellectual dark age.

First, while I did not say that, I would point out that there are some truths that cannot be scientifically proven, yet we, while we might find exceptions to rules, would agree that the general truths are valid, for example, "Dog is man's best friend."
You present two alternatives that are not in the least opposed to each other; ergo, they are not 'alternatives'. If you will accept proof of what man knows inside himself - that which cannot be scientifically proven, yet we all know is true - that there is something fundamentally wrong about taking human life, for example - then we can speak about moral law as proof. Our reason can lead us to the conclusion that a given faith is true, and in fact did so in my case. But asking for scientific proof that a faith is true is irrational. We can only speak about reason, and we must accept that which is internal and common to all men as proof, or there can be no proof. The question then turns to whether there are things that are common to all humanity, such as relative consistency for a moral law. Lewis, ch. 1 "Mere Christianity" offers a fair amount of evidence for commonality and the subsequent conclusion of the existence of such a law.

Loremaster wrote:

rusmeister wrote:If you, as a person or organization, could get ahold of the nation's teachers, and control how they were prepared and what they would teach, the next generation of children would be yours to mold as you wish.

Just like religions do.

Exactly my point. If what I say is true, then every public school graduate will have undergone a religious indoctrination in the rejection of absolutes. If posters vehemently and emotionally objected to such an idea, would it not lend support to that idea? So we must apply reason, then, to decide if such an idea is true or not, rather than make dogmatic statements of our own, in turn.

Loremaster wrote:

rusmeister wrote: 1)what is the nature of man?
2)what do you see to be his purpose in life? They will inevitably answer, "We don't deal in questions like that."

I'll grab hold of you. What are your answers, and what is it - what can you show evidence for your answers?

I'm not sure what you would accept as valid evidence. If you are prejudiced against my evidence, or reject reason, then offering my evidence would be useless. Some of it is internal (such as the existence of the law of human nature), which means I know it to be true, but unless you acknowledge it to be true as well, nothing I say will sway you.

Again, the reading I have offered is a good start. I can think of no better introduction to what I believe than what Chesterton and Lewis have already said.

Lucimay wrote:

Try asking any education administrator (the higher the better)
1)what is the nature of man?
2)what do you see to be his purpose in life? They will inevitably answer, "We don't deal in questions like that." *
But it is impossible to establish an educational system without having answered those two questions. You can't organize teaching of anything if you don't know why you are doing it.

*John Stormer "None Dare Call It Education".

christianity is a "faith", a religion.

we have determined, for ourselves, in this United States, that religious or spiritual training is best left out of the public schools and up to the parents in any way they see fit.

we think that's the only way we can publically educate the children of people who believe in religious freedom for all.

christians of every variety (and boy, aren't there a lot of them! ) are welcomed to build their own learning institutions and educate their children there. as they do.

the study of science is taught in public schools. what we know up to this point, of science, we impart to the students to educate them in inductive and deductive reasoning. just as we do math, literature, history, and hopefully, art.

it is a policy meant to uphold separation of church and state, which, once again, we believe to be the best way to keep the government out of our citizens' spiritual lives.

you are, therefore, in this country, free to believe what you want and teach your children what you want.

this is not a perfect system and it doesn't make everybody happy.
some of the religious think we, the people, should all believe the same thing and teach it to everyone. they think they know better what is good for everyone. that is fascism.

we also have, here in the good old US (and...for the time being) freedom of speech, which allows us to discuss these issues willy nilly without fear of government interference or reprisals.
which means, you can say whatever you think.
but you should also be prepared for the opposing opinion to have its voice as well.

*warning - opinion at hand*

christians, i find, as a general rule, do not usually care for the opposing viewpoint.
christian intellectualism seems an inept attempt to explain, to me, the nature of man, as it does not allow for scientific proofs.
the educators you mention in the above quote, do not deal in "the nature of man", merely in the science, history, and art of man. the argument that this is an evasive statement is fallacious.

Hi Lucimay!
I actually don't have a problem with much of what you have said.
However, it confirms what I have been saying about indoctrination in pluralism and leaves what I have been saying out of the picture.

I realize the former is a broad statement - let it suffice for me to point to the fact that you speak of points of view, which on the whole, tends to intrinsically deny the existence of objective truth. What if I were to apply this to the sciences, - as some have done in favor of creationism or whatever? What if I said that it were merely my point of view that we need oxygen to live? There is nothing particularly rational about saying that since only the material world can be proven, only knowledge of the material world is true (or that there are no truths about the spiritual world).

Now I'm not trying to prove that Christianity is true, but I do insist that it has a rational basis for its claim.

Finally, you seem to have missed my point, which is to determine the very reason to organize any learning at all. This involves answering the questions I posed above. It doesn't matter whether you propose to teach mathematics, knitting, or how to steal a car in 60 seconds. Why should we organize schools at all? Why bother with this learning stuff? If you have no concept of the nature of man or our purpose in life, you can't give a coherent answer.

Hoping I haven't been offensive. I could be wrong on this, but my general sense is that people love to pull up stuff from whackos and point to it as a reason to reject the faith, whereas actually using your reason to examine the faith, rather than some of its practitioners, is necessary if you want to pride yourself on having debunked the faith through reason.
(It is a specific claim of Christianity that people are messed up, so using that as 'proof' that the faith is false only confirms the faith's teaching.)

Is that any more ept?

Pardon me.

rusmeister wrote:rather than openly teach some nuttiness in a subject, it covertly permeates the requirements of teachers and staff as well as texts/materials, and the result is to teach a dogmatic rejection of absolute moral truth.

That's a conspiracy, sorry.

Also, if teaching right from wrong is the beginnings of philosophy, how can you argue that we're not teaching our children philosophy? (I only meant that studying the philosophical theses of DesCartes etc. require some age behind the students. Surely the sharpest philosophical minds of the ages can't be appreciated by ten year olds?)

And as for the lens through which we view the world thing, I'm solidly sure that children are taught Christian values (or Muslim, or what have you) as they grow up. Going to public schools doesn't make that impossible, nor does it even hinder the process.

Is what bothers you that kids get older and decide what they believe in on their own, and possibly end up choosing atheism or what have you? I say, then we did a good job. They're not slaves to their parents ideology.

Wayfriend wrote: Also, if teaching right from wrong is the beginnings of philosophy, how can you argue that we're not teaching our children philosophy? (I only meant that studying the philosophical theses of DesCartes etc. require some age behind the students. Surely the sharpest philosophical minds of the ages can't be appreciated by ten year olds?)

I do agree with your qualification regarding age then. My thesis is that the American public school system has stopped teaching their students how to even approach philosophical concepts to consider for themselves. Perhaps there is a single gifted class offered in each high school that might take this on. But Hyperception's students in his freshman level classes need him to intruct them in how to think about many concepts for themselves, as they almost all have been taught to regurgitate what is presented and then discard it when they no longer need it for a test. He desires them to do more than that in regards to the material presented and finds that a challenge to overcome.

Wayfriend wrote:Pardon me.

rusmeister wrote:rather than openly teach some nuttiness in a subject, it covertly permeates the requirements of teachers and staff as well as texts/materials, and the result is to teach a dogmatic rejection of absolute moral truth.

That's a conspiracy, sorry.

Also, if teaching right from wrong is the beginnings of philosophy, how can you argue that we're not teaching our children philosophy? (I only meant that studying the philosophical theses of DesCartes etc. require some age behind the students. Surely the sharpest philosophical minds of the ages can't be appreciated by ten year olds?)

And as for the lens through which we view the world thing, I'm solidly sure that children are taught Christian values (or Muslim, or what have you) as they grow up. Going to public schools doesn't make that impossible, nor does it even hinder the process.

Is what bothers you that kids get older and decide what they believe in on their own, and possibly end up choosing atheism or what have you? I say, then we did a good job. They're not slaves to their parents ideology.

Have you taken a look at Gatto's "Underground History of American Education"? The whole thing is available free online. www.johntaylorgatto.com/chapters/ If you know anything of his credentials, you'd have to acknowledge that he's not a quack. Certainly the city of New York which several times awarded him "Teacher of the Year" and the State of New York, which conferred the statewide honor on him, acknowledged this.
The trouble is, we are so conditioned to kneejerk reactions, and the conclusions are ones we would find unacceptable, even if true, that people will refuse to accept it, on the whole. I accept it because it explains everything - all of the insanity I experienced in my 4 years of public teaching and certification. For me it was like a flash of lightning on a dark field in the middle of the night. If the key, however strangely shaped, fits the lock, then it is the right key.

There was a conspiracy, I suppose, but it's operating on auto-pilot now.

To try to clarify my meaning, indoctrination is something the teachers are required to believe, or at least profess. It is not something taught as a subject, so it is not something openly taught to kids. A clue to this is when the center of teaching becomes tolerance, diversity and multi-culturalism (which you are conditioned to have one understanding of and one emotional reaction to) rather than academic knowledge; when they are talked about more than the discipline; when in the discipline those concepts are constantly being sought out and highlighted. So I'm not arguing that they are not being taught a philosophy. I am arguing that it is covert, rather than overt. It is built into the requirements which all teachers and administrators must themselves meet, and the requirements for the schools that they must implement.

In answer to your last question, the answer is no. What bothers me is that they are covertly taught that what you believe doesn't matter; that faith or lack thereof is some compartmentalized portion of their lives, rather than the lens through which they see and interpret it. They then grow up and continue to reject absolute truth; to 'embrace' all truths but adopt none. One very true verse from the Bible - "Bring up a child in the way that he should go; and when he is old, he will not depart from it." And they don't.

Hoping I haven't been offensive. I could be wrong on this, but my general sense is that people love to pull up stuff from whackos and point to it as a reason to reject the faith, whereas actually using your reason to examine the faith, rather than some of its practitioners, is necessary if you want to pride yourself on having debunked the faith through reason.
(It is a specific claim of Christianity that people are messed up, so using that as 'proof' that the faith is false only confirms the faith's teaching.)

Is that any more ept?

um....not really.

question: who is this group you describe as "whacko"?

using my reason (flawed as it may be) to examine christianity i have determined that Constantine was a political genius.

i'm not interested in "debunking" "the faith" of any religion. believe what you want, just don't tell me that i should believe it too.
none of the evangelical propaganda has worked on me thus far.
i do not have "faith" in the veracity of the christian deity as described to me thus far by christians of every stripe in the last 49 years.

i am not of the mind that "people are messed up"
in fact, i regard them quite the opposite.

EDIT: absolute truth huh. what exatly are you referring to? your faith in the veracity of your religous beliefs? or what? i'm not being snide, this is a real question.
define "objective truth", please.
i would assume (and i'm sure to be corrected if i'm wrong) that an "objective truth" is that we are a species of bipeds wandering around on a mudball which orbits around a G-type star at the edge of a galaxy.
although shaded with my wry wit and humor, this is, for all intents and purposes, a statement of provable fact.
i would not consider it a statement of fact that "god exists."
i would also not consider it a statement of fact that "god doesn't exit."
belief is not objective. it is subjective.
i do not discount the existance of gods.
("thou shalt have no other god before me" not "there are no other gods" - nice disclaimer there!)
i simply discount necessary adherence to worshiping any of them.
or telling anyone else they should or shouldn't.

christianity does not answer the question of "the nature of man" to me.
neither does science.
i'm not stressed about it.

Lucimay wrote: question: who is this group you describe as "whacko"?


i am not of the mind that "people are messed up"
in fact, i regard them quite the opposite.

EDIT: absolute truth huh. what exatly are you referring to? your faith in the veracity of your religous beliefs? or what? i'm not being snide, this is a real question.
define "objective truth", please.

Hello again!
If you read the OP and the link and believe any part of it to contain genuine quotes, 'whackos' may be people making those sorts of quotes. However, for sake of argument, I'll limit the definition to religious extremists that would impose their views on faith on others by force.

I will clarify 'messed up' to mean what Christianity calls 'sin'. Modern indoctrination conditions people to have an emotional kneejerk reaction to this word and reject the possibility that it may describe an objective truth, however you care to name it. The man who cut you off in traffic because he placed his own needs above yours (or the girl who hits her brother out of spite or the man who abandons his children to fulfill his 'personal needs' or the invasion of a foreign country to secure its oil) is an example of an objective phenomenon that places self first even when it results in wronging others. We have this curious idea that we should behave in a certain (moral) way, and yet we do not actually behave that way. This has been described as moral law or the law of human nature, or one's conscience (con-science: that knowledge which is shared by all). (See "Mere Christianity" by C.S. Lewis, ch 1 for a better outlay of the concept.)

THAT is what I am referring to. If you can't acknowledge that, then we really don't have much to talk about.

okey dokey.


and...much as i like C.S. Lewis' fiction...

(See "Mere Christianity" by C.S. Lewis, ch 1 for a better outlay of the concept.)

i don't really need him to explain the idea of conscience to me. heh. thanks anyway.

I think teaching religion is very important in schools because it is a part of human history and teaches us to respect others beliefs. I also think that every religion should be taught. I think religion also helps us think more about the world and gives us a different view. The teachers should have the choice of what religion to follow and so should children.
I don't like it when just one religion is just taught, I have heard many American christians call Buddhist 'Pagan hevens'.

If we compare the reactions of fundie Christians with fundie Muslims to insults to their faith (formerly known as blasphemy), we see that Christians mostly demand the ceasing of said insults/blasphemy and otherwise meekly putting up with it, while typical radical Islam demands the death of the insulters and Jihad.

My argument would be that this has a lot to do with the position of fundie christians today - by and large, they are much more secure in the world than fundie muslims. I'm not saying that this justifies what fundie muslims are doing, I'm saying I think that the violence that comes from fundamentalists has partially to do with perceiving themselves as "under threat." These people seem very dangerous too. If they didn't think that society at large would strike back, I suspect they would act on their impulses (stop women from divorcing based on domestic abuse, make blacks slaves again, etc).

"Dawkins, you and your atheist friends cannot win. America WILL become a Christian Republic even if we have to write a whole new constitution. Millions of us are dedicated to this righteous cause. We will suceed. And then we will invade godless countries like "Great" Britain and kill all of your heathens. First we need to take care of things at home and in the Middle East but we will get around to Europe. You Godless freaks will die but then you will roast in hell for infinite time. Goodbye you loser"

I also love the stuff about mountains having people orbiting around them. I guess he doesn't realize that mountains are part of earth or something?

"Female circumcision is not barbaric. It is done for a reason, to keep the female pure. If only we adopted such practices here in the UK, then maybe women would be less inclined toward infidelity and therefore family values would still be an integral part of society. Family values instil a sense of discipline and respect, which we need as a counteraction against the modern trend of zero respect and zero discipline that is undermining the very fabric of our decaying society."

By the way, recently a circuit court in the USA decided that female circumcision wasn't grounds for an asylum case - a woman who has been circumcised isn't entitled to asylum here because, since it can't happen again, she isn't at risk of any persecution.

Actually, American public schools do the same thing - only rather than openly teach some nuttiness in a subject, it covertly permeates the requirements of teachers and staff as well as texts/materials, and the result is to teach a dogmatic rejection of absolute moral truth. (I say this as a certified teacher who went through the state program as an agnostic)

It is telling that there is absolutely no subject of 'philosophy' or 'religion' in public schools, but as soon as you walk into a public university, there it is among the requirements for general education - 6 (or whatever) credits - REQUIRED (and there they more openly teach a pluralistic approach that dogmatically rejects those truths).

Your views are interesting, but I can't say I've experienced this truth at all. In my humanities class in High School we read the King James version of Genesis first thing. In my Middle School in 8th grade we covered christianity (various sects), judaism, buddhism (two sects), hinduism, and islam. There was no overt anti-christian leanings, the class didn't mention anything like the crusades or the salem witch trials. Many students in my high school were big fans of Dante's Inferno, Moore's Utopia, and Petrarch's sonnets. While my AP American history class didn't classify christianity as the SOLE foundation of american gov't, we certainly acknowledged it as a major aspect and noted that John Locke (pointed to as the newest and most important influence) believed in god as a matter of faith.

And I live in a suburb of NJ which is incredibly liberal and which should be a bastion for godlessness. I know a number of jewish kids who left the temple because the teachers there are mostly subpar and uninteresting - they have good intentions, but they make kids BORED with their religion.

As I said in my response to wayfriend, I am not speaking of some active conspiracy. However, your response, if anything, only proves/reinforces my thesis. It is a denial of absolute Truth, as I have stated.

It's a denial that humans have a real handle on absolute truth, or that any human has successfully proved absolute truth, you're seriously twisting his words here.

I do not set as my goal here "proving" Christianity. I DO set as my goal refuting that Christianity is less deserving of consideration than other religions or that it is not compatible with reason.

I think it was said that christianity is NOT ANY MORE deserving.

The only place I see indoctrination is in the environmental sciences about global warming. While I agree with the theory and am worried about global warming, I found the textbook in my APES course to be extremely pushy and open-shut.

rusmeister wrote:It is true that there are whacko 'Christian' groups out there. SRD even chose to portray such groups, and they are the only ones shown actively practicing their faith in his books.

This is far from the truth. Donaldson shows a practicing Christian as a true hero (in fact the only positive "real world" character other than the heroine) in his Mordant's Need duology.

Hmm, doesn't Dr Berenford say some stuff about being Christian at the end of LFB? I'm not really sure...

I would argue that showing one faith-healing group in LFB doesn't qualify as anti-christian propaganda, and as Duchess points out above that father terisa morgan worked for (can't remember his name ) was a good guy for sure. BUT I would guess SRD might have problems dealing positively with christianity due to his own negative experiences w/ it.

Holsety wrote:Hmm, doesn't Dr Berenford say some stuff about being Christian at the end of LFB? I'm not really sure...

I would argue that showing one faith-healing group in LFB doesn't qualify as anti-christian propaganda, and as Duchess points out above that father terisa morgan worked for (can't remember his name ) was a good guy for sure. BUT I would guess SRD might have problems dealing positively with christianity due to his own negative experiences w/ it.

Yes, I believe Dr. Berenford says that he is a regular church attender in The Wounded Land. And he is certainly a very positive character - perhaps the only truly positive character in the "real" world.

I do not think that Donaldson has any problems with the Christians who care for the hungry, sick, and poor like the little pastor in Mordant's Need or in Dr. Berenford.

It is the people who are all loud talk about Christ and no positive action towards other people that he seems to have issues with.

I'll just mention in passing that SRD tossed in another few nice people to Runes of Earth.

If anything, I would say SRD hates authority figures - see Sherriff Lytton. IMO Stepehen R Donaldson is actually an anarchist. I mean come on, he writes about the collapse of law FFS...and in mordant's need castellan lebbick makes a royal prick of himself (while being badass) for quite some time.

In THe Gap, though, he comes across as more of a green/liberal/socialist/whatever, pounding on big business and pushing for control to return to the government of the world and to make the police more regulated by the gov't.