Dear Editor:
(In response to: ‘Believing what you know untrue,? The Citizen, March 7, page 6): Mr. Schwartz, you are right in some aspects. I ask you for forgiveness for whatever was done that hurt or offended you. Honestly, there are some aspects of ‘organized religion? that I dislike, too. Many people have used their religious beliefs, Christian or otherwise, to justify some bad decisions and very heinous acts.
I found a few statistics that might be of interest to you. Below is a list of some 20th century genocides with the death tolls:
Bosnia Herzegovina (1992-1995) 200,000; Rwanda Genocide (1994) 800,000; Cambodia Genocide (1975-79) 2,000,000; Nazi Holocaust (1938-1945) 6,000,000; Nanking Genocide (1937-1938) 300,000; Ukrainian Genocide (1932-1933) 7,000,000; and Armenian Genocide (1915-1918) 1,500,000.
Many of the genocides listed above have been motivated by either hatred because of ethnicity or an insatiable greed for power.
It is your implication that Christianity only leads to a lack of reason coupled with warmongering. All of humanity could use improvement with how we live and treat others. As for the inability of Christians to reason, I implore you to explore the following Christians: Nicolaus Copernicus, Galileo Galilei, Rene? Descartes, Blaise Pascal, John Wallis, Isaac Newton, Gregor Mendel and Louis Pasteur. I certainly appreciate the discovery of penicillin by Sir Alexander Fleming, who was also a Christian.
I have control over my behavior. I cannot control others. Nor can I change what other people have done, for good or ill. I will choose to do good. How about you?
Kristin Stocking