alt.atheism	re about the bible quiz answers in article healta saturn wwc edu healta saturn wwc edu tammy r healy writes the cheribums are on the ark of the covenant when god said make no graven image he was refering to idols which were created to be worshipped the ark of the covenant wasn t wrodhipped and only the high priest could enter the holy of holies where it was kept once a year on the day of atonement i am not familiar with or knowledgeable about the original language but i believe there is a word for idol and that the translator would have used the word idol instead of graven image had the original said idol so i think you re wrong here but then again i could be too i just suggesting a way to determine whether the interpretation you offer is correct dean kaflowitz
alt.atheism	re amusing atheists and agnostics in article timmbake mcl timmbake mcl ucsb edu clam bake timmons writes fallacy atheism is a faith lo i hear the faq beckoning once again wonderful rule deleted you re correct you didn t say anything about a conspiracy correction hard atheism is a faith yes rule don t mix apples with oranges how can you say that the extermination by the mongols was worse than stalin khan conquered people unsympathetic to his cause that was atrocious but stalin killed millions of his own people who loved and worshipped him and his atheist state how can anyone be worse than that i will not explain this to you again stalin did nothing in the name of atheism whethe he was or was not an atheist is irrelevant get a grip man the stalin example was brought up not as an indictment of atheism but merely as another example of how people will kill others under any name that s fit for the occasion no look again while you never said it the implication is pretty clear i m sorry but i can only respond to your words not your true meaning usenet is a slippery medium deleted wrt the burden of proof so hard atheism has nothing to prove then how does it justify that god does not exist i know there s the faq etc but guess what if those justifications were so compelling why aren t people flocking to hard atheism they re not and they won t i for one will discourage people from hard atheism by pointing out those very sources as reliable statements on hard atheism look i m not supporting any dogmatic position i d be a fool to say that in the large group of people that are atheists no people exist who wish to proselytize in the same fashion as religion how many hard atheists do you see posting here anyway maybe i mm just not looking hard enough second what makes you think i m defending any given religion i m merely recognizing hard atheism for what it is a faith i never meant to do so although i understand where you might get that idea i was merely using the bible example as an allegory to illustrate my point and yes by we i am referring to every reader of the post where is the evidence that the poster stated that he relied upon evidence for what who i think i may have lost this thread why theists are arrogant deleted because they say such and such is absolutely unalterably true because my dogma says it is true i am not prepared to issue blanket statements indicting all theists of arrogance as you are wont to do with atheists bzzt by virtue of your innocent little pronoun they you ve just issued a blanket statement at least i will apologize by qualifying my original statement with hard atheist in place of atheist would you call john the baptist arrogant who boasted of one greater than he that s what many christians do today how is that in itself arrogant guilty as charged what i meant to say was the theists who are arrogant are this way because they say other than that i thought my meaning was clear enough any position that claims itself as superior to another with no supporting evidence is arrogant thanks for your apology btw i m not worthy only seriously misinformed with your sophisticated put down of they the theists your serious misinformation shines through explained above bake timmons iii there s nothing higher stronger more wholesome and more useful in life than some good memory alyosha in brothers karamazov dostoevsky
alt.atheism	re yet more rushdie re islamic law jaeger buphy bu edu gregg jaeger writes in article vice ico tek com bobbe vice ico tek com robert beauchaine writes bennett neil how bcci adapted the koran rules of banking the times august so let s see if some guy writes a piece with a title that implies something is the case then it must be so is that it gregg you haven t provided even a title of an article to support your contention this is how you support a position if you intend to have anyone respect it gregg any questions and i even managed to include the above reference with my head firmly engaged in my ass what s your excuse this supports nothing i have no reason to believe that this is piece is anything other than another anti islamic slander job you also have no reason to believe it is an anti islamic slander job apart from your own prejudices i have no respect for titles only for real content i can look up this article if i want true but i can tell you bcci was not an islamic bank why yes what s a mere report in the times stating that bcci followed islamic banking rules gregg knows islam is good and he knows bcci were bad therefore bcci cannot have been islamic anyone who says otherwise is obviously spreading slanderous propaganda if someone wants to discuss the issue more seriously then i d be glad to have a real discussion providing references etc i see if someone wants to provide references to articles you agree with you will also respond with references to articles you agree with mmm yes that would be a very intellectually stimulating debate doubtless that s how you spend your time in soc culture islam i ve got a special place for you in my kill file right next to bobby want to join him the more you post the more i become convinced that it is simply a waste of time to try and reason with moslems is that what you are hoping to achieve mathew
alt.atheism	re christian morality is in article vice ico tek com bobbe vice ico tek com robert beauchaine writes yet i am still not a believer is god not concerned with my disposition why is it beneath him to provide me with the evidence i would require to believe the evidence that my personality given to me by this god would find compelling the fact is god could cause you to believe anything he wants you to but think about it for a minute would you rather have someone love you because you made them love you or because they wanted to love you the responsibility is on you to love god and take a step toward him he promises to be there for you but you have to look for yourself those who doubt this or dispute it have not givin it a sincere effort simple logic arguments are folly if you read the bible you will see that jesus made fools of those who tried to trick him with logic our ability to reason is just a spec of creation yet some think it is the ultimate if you rely simply on your reason then you will never know more than you do now to learn you must accept that which you don t know
alt.atheism	re after years can we say that christian morality is in article t rusnews w w mantis co uk mathew mantis co uk mathew writes mccullou snake cs wisc edu mark mccullough writes in article ursa bear com halat pooh bears jim halat writes atoms are not objective they aren t even real what scientists call an atom is nothing more than a mathematical model that describes certain physical observable properties of our surroundings all of which is subjective this deserves framing it really does atoms aren t even real tell me then those atoms we have seen with electron microscopes are atoms now so what are they figments of our imaginations the evidence that atoms are real is overwhelming but i won t bother with most evidence at the moment ha ha ha sorry but having studied cell biology i have to say that i can see it through an electron microscope therefore it is real is a laughable statement stuff deleted thank you i thought i was in the twilight zone for a moment it still amazes me that many people with science backgrounds still confuse the models and observables with what even they would call the real world jim halat in article ursa bear com halat panther bears jim halat writes in article apr princeton edu datepper phoenix princeton edu david aaron tepper writes you were a liberal arts major weren tcha guess you never saw that photo of the smallest logo in the world ibm made with noble gas atoms krypton xenon i forget the specifics atoms trees electrons are all independently observable and verifiable morals aren t see the difference just for the record not that any kind of information would be likely to affect your thinking i have an msee focus in electromagnetics from penn a photo of the smallest logo in the world does not an atom make what was observed is something we can measure that matches what the mathematical model we call an atom had predicted much in the same way that we need both a particle model and a wave model for light the atomic model is a mathematical representation of physical phenomena a model that can and probably will continue to change over time that makes it subjective the model that is however the model gives us an objective way to talk about the physical world to put it another way the quantum mechanical model of the atom allows for discussion of the atom that will give repeatable and unambiguous results which is objective however as bohr and einstein duked it out mid century the interpretation of those reapeatable observable measurements is quite subjective bohr said that the observable randomness of atomic motion was inherent in the nature of the universe einstein said particle motion was deterministic but it was our measurement shortcomings that introduced the randomness they were talking about the exact same results though jim halat
alt.atheism	re amusing atheists and agnostics timmbake mcl ucsb edu bake timmons writes there lies the hypocrisy dude atheism takes as much faith as theism admit it some people might think it takes faith to be an atheist but faith in what does it take some kind of faith to say that the great invisible pink unicorn does not exist does it take some kind of faith to say that santa claus does not exist if it does and it may for some people i suppose it certainly isn t as big a leap of faith to say that these things and god do exist i suppose it depends on your notion and definition of faith besides not believing in a god means one doesn t have to deal with all of the extra baggage that comes with it this leaves a person feeling wonderfully free especially after beaten over the head with it for years i agree that religion and belief is often an important psychological healer for many people and for that reason i think it s important however trying to force a psychological fantasy i don t mean that in a bad way but that s what it really is on someone else who isn t interested is extremely rude what if i still believed in santa claus and said that my belief in santa did wonderful things for my life making me a better person allowing me to live without guilt etc and then tried to get you to believe in santa too just cuz he did so much for me you d call the men in white coats as soon as you could get to a phone bake timmons iii nanci just babbling if you know and are sure of the author of this quote please send me email nm w andrew cmu edu spring is nature s way of saying let s party
alt.atheism	southern baptist convention freemasonry with the southern baptist convention convening this june to consider the charges that freemasonry is incompatible with christianity i thought the following quotes by mr james holly the anti masonic flag carrier would amuse you all the following passages are exact quotes from the southern baptist convention and freemasonry by james l holly m d president of mission and ministry to men inc n th st beaumont tx the inside cover of the book states mission ministry to men inc hereby grants permission for the reproduction of part or all of this booklet with two provisions one the material is not changed and two the source is identified i have followed these provisions freemasonry is one of the allies of the devil page iv the issue here is not moderate or conservative the issue is god and the devil page vi it is worthwhile to remember that the formulators of public school education in america were freemasons page jesus christ never commanded toleration as a motive for his disciples and toleration is the antithesis of the christian message page the central dynamic of the freemason drive for world unity through fraternity liberty and equality is toleration this is seen in the writings of the great writers of freemasonry page he jesus christ established the most sectarian of all possible faiths page for narrowness and sectarianism there is no equal to the lord jesus christ page what seems so right in the interest of toleration and its cousins liberty equality and fraternity is actually one of the subtlest lies of the father of lies page the southern baptist convention has many churches which were founded in the lodge and which have corner stones dedicated by the lodge each of these churches should hold public ceremonies of repentance and of praying the blood and the name of the lord jesus christ over the church and renouncing the oaths taken at the dedication of the church and or building page tony
alt.atheism	re amusing atheists and agnostics in article madhausc rfqo ql netcom com madhaus netcom com maddi hausmann writes clam bake timmons bill shit stirrer connor sorry gotta disagree with you on this one maddi not the resemblence to bill the nickname i prefer half bake d timmons bob beauchaine bobbe vice ico tek com they said that queens could stay they blew the bronx away and sank manhattan out at sea
alt.atheism	re requests in article healta saturn wwc edu healta saturn wwc edu tammy r healy writes bob if you re wanting an excuse to convert to christianity you gonna have to look elsewhere damn and i did so have my hopes up bob beauchaine bobbe vice ico tek com they said that queens could stay they blew the bronx away and sank manhattan out at sea
alt.atheism	re thoughts on christians in article sandvik sandvik kent apple com sandvik newton apple com kent sandvik writes as i know you can t get any physical problems by passive christianity unlike smoking it s not that hard to avoid christianity today anyway just ignore em right on keith err kent whadda you mean you didn t see the smiley bob beauchaine bobbe vice ico tek com they said that queens could stay they blew the bronx away and sank manhattan out at sea
alt.atheism	re what s a shit shoveler to do was re amusing atheists and in article qvn pinnj shelley u washington edu jimh carson u washington edu james hogan writes when the various bill conners and bobbys post here i felt that their passive aggressive knock that chip off my shoulder type of approach meant that attempts at reasoned argument would be wasted i still think that however while more primitive responses teasing bronx cheers sarcasm are somewhat satisfying apologies to anyone who still thinks bobby is a performance artist some of them feed in to a pointless circular round of ad hominem name calling witness precisely my position as a newbie i tried the point by point approach to debate with these types it wasted both my time and my lifespan ignoring them is not an option since they don t go away and doing so would leave one with large stretches of complete anonymity in this group what s left healthy flaming i m sure on occassion i ve appeared to be little more than a caustic boob to some of the bobby types but why waste breath arguing with someone whose most rational though process involves his excretory system and i stand by my record of recognizing these people long before most of the rest of the group so let s see what this timmons character has in store for us bob beauchaine bobbe vice ico tek com they said that queens could stay they blew the bronx away and sank manhattan out at sea
alt.atheism	re christian morality is in article eastman uucp dps nasa kodak com writes in article vice ico tek com bobbe vice ico tek com robert beauchaine writes yet i am still not a believer is god not concerned with my disposition why is it beneath him to provide me with the evidence i would require to believe the evidence that my personality given to me by this god would find compelling the fact is god could cause you to believe anything he wants you to but think about it for a minute would you rather have someone love you because you made them love you or because they wanted to love you first i don t expect them to love me if they don t even know i exist secondly i wouldn t expect them to love me simply because they were my creator i would expect to have to earn that love the responsibility is on you to love god and take a step toward him he promises to be there for you but you have to look for yourself are you daft how do i love something i don t believe exists come back when you ve learned to love your third testicle those who doubt this or dispute it have not givin it a sincere effort simple logic arguments are folly if you read the bible you will see that jesus made fools of those who tried to trick him with logic our ability to reason is just a spec of creation yet some think it is the ultimate if you rely simply on your reason then you will never know more than you do now to learn you must accept that which you don t know at which point you have stepped over the line and become a complete asshole even though it s your first offense i won t let it slip becuase i ve heard it too goddamned many times you love jesus because deep in your heart you re a cannibalistic necrophiliac because i say so and i m much more qualified to assess your motivations than you are fortunately there are some things i get to accept on evidence rather than faith one of them being that until christians like yourself quit being so fucking arrogant there will never be peace you ve all made sure of that bob beauchaine bobbe vice ico tek com they said that queens could stay they blew the bronx away and sank manhattan out at sea
alt.atheism	re theism and fanatism was islamic genocide in article bb b ca i dbstu rz tu bs de i dbstu rz tu bs de benedikt rosenau writes in article qv q fn horus ap mchp sni de frank d s uucp frank o dwyer writes theism is strongly correlated with irrational belief in absolutes irrational belief in absolutes is strongly correlated with fanatism correlation is not causation and a belief that absolutes exist is not the same thing as a belief in absolutes any more than belief in a shortest route from thurles to clonmel is the same thing as a knowledge of the irish roadsystem correlation is not necessarily causation however as you might have noticed the above allows to conclude that the correlation between religion and fanatism is based on common features of religious belief sorry for the long quotes but i dont see where to cut huh are you barking mad hardly theism is not as strongly correlated with fanaticism as you say plus you could find stronger correlations if you were actually interested in the truth instead of being as you seeming are a bigot theism is correlated with fanaticism i have neither said that all fanatism is caused by theism nor that all theism leads to fanatism the point is theism increases the chance of becoming a fanatic one could of course argue that would be fanatics tend towards theism for example but i just have to loook at the times in history when theism was the dominant ideology to invalidate that conclusion that that is the basic mechanism behind it imo the influence of stalin or for that matter ayn rand invalidates your assumption that theism is the factor to be considered gullibility blind obedience to authority lack of scepticism and so on are all more reliable indicators and the really dangerous people the sources of fanaticism are often none of these things they are cynical manipulators of the gullible who know precisely what they are doing now some brands of theism and more precisely some theists do tend to fanaticism i grant you to tar all theists with this brush is bigotry not a reasoned argument and it reads to me like a warm up for censorship and restriction of religious freedom ever read animal farm define irrational belief e g is it rational to believe that reason is always useful irrational belief is belief that is not based upon reason the latter has been discussed for a long time with charley wingate one point is that the beliefs violate reason often and another that a process that does not lend itself to rational analysis does not contain reliable information well there is a glaring paradox here an argument that reason is useful based on reason would be circular and argument not based on reason would be irrational which is it the first part of the second statement contains no information because you don t say what the beliefs are if the beliefs are strong theism and or strong atheism then your statement is not in general true the second part of your sentence is patently false counterexample an axiomatic datum does not lend itself to rational analysis but is assumed to contain reliable information regardless of what process is used to obtain it compared the evidence theists have for their claims to the strength of their demands makes the whole thing not only irrational but antirational i can t agree with this until you are specific which theism to say that all theism is necessarily antirational requires a proof which i suspect you do not have the affinity to fanatism is easily seen it has to be true because i believe it is nothing more than a work hypothesis however the beliefs say they are more than a work hypothesis i don t understand this can you formalise your argument frank o dwyer i m not hatching that odwyer sse ie from hens by evelyn conlon
alt.atheism	re you will all go to hell decay cbnewsj cb att com dean kaflowitz writes in article c lh p k portal hq videocart com dfuller portal hq videocart com dave fuller writes jsn psuvm psu edu writes you blashephemers you will all go to hell for not believing in god be prepared for your eternal damnation what do you mean be prepared surrounded by thumpers like yourself has proven to be hellish enough and i m not even dead yet well here s how i prepared i got one of those big beach umbrellas some of those gel pack ice things a big coleman cooler which i ve loaded up with miller draft so i like miller draft so sue me a new pair of new balance sneakers a sony watchman and a couple of cartons of bonton cheddar cheese popcorn stuff deleted actually you get a ton of weapons and ammunition followers and hole up in some kind of compound and wait for alan a deguzman calvin i m so smart it s almost scary i guess calculus mathematica i m a child progeny disclaimer the university can t afford my opinions hobbes most children are
alt.atheism	re you will all go to hell in article c lh p k portal hq videocart com dfuller portal hq videocart com dave fuller writes jsn psuvm psu edu writes you blashephemers you will all go to hell for not believing in god be prepared for your eternal damnation what do you mean be prepared surrounded by thumpers like yourself has proven to be hellish enough and i m not even dead yet well here s how i prepared i got one of those big beach umbrellas some of those gel pack ice things a big coleman cooler which i ve loaded up with miller draft so i like miller draft so sue me a new pair of new balance sneakers a sony watchman and a couple of cartons of bonton cheddar cheese popcorn i haven t decided what to wear yet what does one wear to an eternal damnation dean kaflowitz
alt.atheism	re what s a shit shoveler to do was re amusing atheists and in article timmbake mcl timmbake mcl ucsb edu bake timmons writes james hogan writes fine sentiments from his very first post jim assumed an attack of ad hominem sarcastic innuendo i e shit to be shoveled he conveniently forgets this of course and then whines about his boredom ad hominem sarcastic innuendo absolutely forgotten hardly bored not really i try not to confuse life on a a with life i just can t overcome the urge to tease taunt folks who bound faq less onto a a with such a chip on their shoulder to listen to you one might think we belonged to some church i appreciate the patience of others who questioned your posting on a line by line content basis though it s hard to know what impact that might have had as compared to say shovelling fact if he were truly interested in ending the thread he wouldn t have posted his last shit to be shoveled i think i only lamented that whatever the initial satisfactions past a certain point circular abuse heaping was just that bake timmons iii there s nothing higher stronger more wholesome and more useful in life than some good memory alyosha in brothers karamazov dostoevsky sincere questions why are you here what are you looking for jim
alt.atheism	re societally acceptable behavior in qvh tinnsg citation ksu ksu edu yohan citation ksu ksu edu jonathan w newton writes in article c qgm dl news cso uiuc edu cobb alexia lis uiuc edu mike cobb writes merely a question for the basis of morality moral ethical behavior societally acceptable behavior i disagree with these what society thinks should be irrelevant what the individual decides is all that is important this doesn t seem right if i want to kill you i can because that is what i decide who is society i think this is fairly obvious not really if whatever a particular society mandates as ok is ok there are always some in the society who disagree with the mandates so which societal mandates make the standard for morality how do they define what is acceptable generally by what they feel is right which is the most idiotic policy i can think of so what should be the basis unfortunately i have to admit to being tied at least loosely to the feeling in that i think we intuitively know some things to be wrong awfully hard to defend though how do we keep from a whatever is legal is what is moral position by thinking for ourselves i might agree here just because certain actions are legal does not make them moral mac michael a cobb and i won t raise taxes on the middle university of illinois class to pay for my programs champaign urbana bill clinton rd debate cobb alexia lis uiuc edu with new taxes and spending cuts we ll still have billion dollar deficits michael a cobb and i won t raise taxes on the middle university of illinois class to pay for my programs champaign urbana bill clinton rd debate cobb alexia lis uiuc edu nobody can explain everything to anybody g k chesterton
alt.atheism	re societally acceptable behavior i guess i m delving into a religious language area what exactly is morality or morals i never thought of eating meat to be moral or immoral but i think it could be how do we differentiate between not doing something because it is a personal choice or preference and not doing something because we see it as immoral do we fall to what the basis of these morals are also consensus positions fall to a might makes right or as you brought out if whatever is right is what is societally mandated then whoever is in control at the time makes what is right mc mac michael a cobb and i won t raise taxes on the middle university of illinois class to pay for my programs champaign urbana bill clinton rd debate cobb alexia lis uiuc edu nobody can explain everything to anybody g k chesterton
alt.atheism	re christian morality is in article eastman uucp dps nasa kodak com writes yet i am still not a believer is god not concerned with my disposition why is it beneath him to provide me with the evidence i would require to believe the evidence that my personality given to me by this god would find compelling the fact is god could cause you to believe anything he wants you to but think about it for a minute would you rather have someone love you because you made them love you or because they wanted to love you oh no not again there is a difference between believing that god exists and loving him for instance satan certainly believes god exists but does not love him what unbelievers request in situations like this is that god provide evidence compelling enough to believe he exists not to compel them to love him on the first day after christmas my truelove served to me leftover turkey on the second day after christmas my truelove served to me turkey casserole that she made from leftover turkey days deleted flaming turkey wings pizza hut commercial and m tlu a gic bait ken arromdee arromdee jyusenkyou cs jhu edu
alt.atheism	re gulf war and peace niks in article apr batman bmd trw com jbrown batman bmd trw com writes hawaii we liberated it from spain well you were going well until you hit this one hawaii was an independent country a coup by americans led to a request to annex it the us refused but eventually did annex it several years later during the spanish american war on the first day after christmas my truelove served to me leftover turkey on the second day after christmas my truelove served to me turkey casserole that she made from leftover turkey days deleted flaming turkey wings pizza hut commercial and m tlu a gic bait ken arromdee arromdee jyusenkyou cs jhu edu
alt.atheism	re christian morality is in article eastman uucp dps nasa kodak com writes the fact is god could cause you to believe anything he wants you to but think about it for a minute would you rather have someone love you because you made them love you or because they wanted to love you same old bullshit not being given to delusions and wishful thinking i do not have the option of either loving or obeying that which i have so reason to believe the responsibility is on you to love god and take a step toward him he promises to be there for you but you have to look for yourself those who doubt this or dispute it have not givin it a sincere effort more bullshit i assure you in my misguided youth i made a sincere effort it was very painful being a rational person raised in christian home many others could tell the same story you choose not to believe anyone s experience which contradicts your smug theories bill mayne
alt.atheism	re societal basis for morality in apr cnsvax uwec edu nyeda cnsvax uwec edu david nye writes reply to cobb alexia lis uiuc edu mike cobb if morals come from what is societally accepted why follow that what right do we have to expect others to follow our notion of societally mandated morality pardon the extremism but couldn t i murder your brother and say that i was exercising my rights as i saw them was doing what felt good didn t want anyone forcing their morality on me or i don t follow your morality i believe that morality is subjective each person is entitled to his own moral attitudes mine are not a priori more correct than someone elses this does not mean however that i must judge another on the basis of his rather than my moral standards while he is entitled to believe what his own moral sense tells him the rest of society is entitled to pass laws spelling out punishments for behavior that is offensive to the majority why how might makes right how can they force their morality on me why can t i do what i want who are they to decide what if i disagree most criminals do not see their behavior as moral the may realize that it is immoral and not care they are thus not following their own moral system but being immoral good point but it is being immoral in our opinion we don t let them choose we make the decision that their actions are wrong for them for someone to lay claim to an alternative moral system he must be sincere in his belief in it and it must be internally consistent some sociopaths lack an innate moral sense i admit to lean toward the idea of an innate moral sense but have little basis for it as of yet how far can such a concept be extended and thus may be incapable of behaving morally while someone like hitler may have believed that his actions were moral we may judge him immoral by our standards do you mean that we could say it would be wrong for us to do such a thing but not him after all he was behaving morally in his own eyes and doing what he chose on what basis do we condemn other societies besides here s the buzz words on the idea that there are some actions wrong for all humans in all societies holding that morality is subjective does not mean that we must excuse the murderer why not do we have to be objective suddenly david nye nyeda cnsvax uwec edu midelfort clinic eau claire wi this is patently absurd but whoever wishes to become a philosopher must learn not to be frightened by absurdities bertrand russell mac michael a cobb and i won t raise taxes on the middle university of illinois class to pay for my programs champaign urbana bill clinton rd debate cobb alexia lis uiuc edu nobody can explain everything to anybody g k chesterton
alt.atheism	re nicknames in article bb b fe i dbstu rz tu bs de i dbstu rz tu bs de benedikt rosenau writes ssauyet eagle wesleyan edu scott d sauyet writes okay how about scott can anybody hear me sauyet ssauyet eagel wesleyan edu could you speak up i can t hear you my sole intention was learning to fly
alt.atheism	re free moral agency in article c pxqs lm darkside osrhe uoknor edu bil okcforum osrhe edu bill conner writes dean kaflowitz decay cbnewsj cb att com wrote now what i am interested in is the original notion you were discussing on moral free agency that is how can a god punish a person for not believing in him when that person is only following his or her nature and it is not possible for that person to deny what his or her reason tells him or her which is that there is no god dean i think you re letting atheist mythology great start i realize immediately that you are not interested in discussion and are going to thump your babble at me i would much prefer an answer from ms healy who seems to have a reasonable and reasoned approach to things say aren t you the creationist guy who made a lot of silly statements about evolution some time ago confuse you on the issue of divine justice according to the most fundamental doctrines of christianity when the first man sinned he was at that time the entire human race and any punishment meted out would necessarily affect the entire race of which he was the sole representive all humans coming after him would being of the same race species share in that judgement it has nothing to do with who deserves what from the perspective of god humanity is but one category of created things and that category is condemned duh gee then we must be talking christian mythology now i was hoping to discuss something with a reasonable logical person but all you seem to have for your side is a repetition of the same boring mythology i ve seen a thousand times before i am deleting the rest of your remarks unless i spot something that approaches an answer because they are merely a repetition of some uninteresting doctrine or other and contain no thought at all i have to congratulate you though bill you wouldn t know a logical argument if it bit you on the balls such a persistent lack of function in the face of repeated attempts to assist you in learning which i have seen in this forum and others in the past speaks of a talent that goes well beyond my own meager abilities i just don t seem to have that capacity for ignoring outside influences dean kaflowitz
alt.atheism	re is morality constant was re biblical rape my last response in this thread fell into a bit bucket and vanished though appearing locally i ll repost it since i always feel slighted when someone appears to ignore one of my postings in a conversational thread i don t want rob to think i m doing so since this is now dated however don t feel compelled to respond in article apr watson ibm com strom watson ibm com rob strom writes i was making two separate points both of which attack face value bible interpretation to judge the bible s value today you judge it based on the way it is used today that is what do commentators actually say what do rabbis teach etc i suspect you meant this in context of the jewish tradition you have been referring to one problem with a highly interpreted tradition like this is what happens when a schism occurs and over time certain large and influential branches of the heretical group come to favor exactly a face value interpretation to judge the bible s value when originally written you a read it in the context of its time not with today s assumptions and b compare it to the practices of surrounding people while the context of the time is important value judgments must ultimately be according to current understanding or at least to some base standard relative stability success of a society e g this is obviously true in comparing it to practices of surrounding people for instance according to the bible the surrounding people were immoral savages with repulsive and inhuman habits we need to look rather at what those peoples were really like for instance in what way is it better to worship a single god whose presence is symbolically strongest in a tent or temple over multiple gods some of whose presence is symbolically represented in a statue by the bible s own terms idolatry is inherently evil but i see no evidence that the followers of the various other religions of the area and time were particularly bad people relative to the people in the bible scissors and cloth now in the past our ancestors did cut cloth with scissors but they at least knew that their inhumane neighbors cut it with their bare teeth so this was a relatively enlightened step forward from their earlier barbarism and made the transition to modern civilized paper cutting that much easier sounds good but it presupposes teeth rending neighbors which i see no support for one can argue that post facto assertion of inhumane neighbors can be used to make moral points but that doesn t mean that the actual neighbors really were inhuman more to the point such dehumanization of the people across the river or over the mountain or even of a different people dwelling among us is all too common that complex and benign moral traditions have evolved based on particular mythic interpretations of that history is interesting but i still don t think it fair to take that long tradition of interpretation and use it to attack condemnation of the original history note that i m speaking of historical interpretation here for instance claiming that hammurabi s an eye for an eye was primitive brutal retribution while moses version was an enlightened benign fine because the tradition has since interpreted the phrase that way as of years ago or so they probably both meant the same thing to be sure i m arguing from a parochial perspective i belong to this tiny tribe which has struggled against overwhelming odds for survival as a distinct tribe and this book is the book of my tribe the book commands us to dedicate ourselves to study to improve the world and to set an example as a light to the nations we ve revered the book and i think we ve been successful as scientists as artists and musicians as leaders in important humanitarian causes it s hard for me to separate the success of my people from the virtue of our book you d have to argue that we d have done significantly better with a different book or with no book or that another tribe with a different book or with no book has done significantly better i don t belittle the accomplishments particularly the intellectual ones of the jewish people i have given up on trying to think by analogy since i don t know of any other tribe that is at all similar the closest i can think of are the romany but i don t know enough about them to make a meaningful comparison i think a tradition of reflective study of flexible rather than dogmatic interpretation is a good thing i think that with such an attitude a case could be made that you could have done as well starting with a captain america comic or whatever the babylonian equivalent would have been jim perry perry dsinc com decision support inc matthews nc these are my opinions for a nominal fee they can be yours jim perry perry dsinc com decision support inc matthews nc these are my opinions for a nominal fee they can be yours
alt.atheism	re satanic verses once again this posting has been delayed for about a week by falling between some software cracks in article bu edu jaeger buphy bu edu gregg jaeger writes as promised here is rafiq zakaria s discussion of the nature of the so called satanic verses from which rushdie s title has been taken rafiq zakaria muhammad and the quran penguin here follows an introduction to the controversial incident and an apologetic explanation purporting to show why it couldn t actually have happened the historicity of the episode doesn t matter to what follows i don t know whether i m quoting gregg or zakaria below anyway back to current affairs rushdie has by his own admission drawn on the version given by the orientalist watt among others this incident is not something rushdie or watt or anyone else dug up from nowhere it is a well known story a myth if you will known according to umar khan to every muslim school boy and girl and so presumably to rushdie and to gibreel farishta and then allowed his imagination to run wild yes this is what writing fiction is all about rushdie was writing about a crisis of faith and chose this myth to present it by placing the actor gibreel in the role of the angel whose name he took rushdie was not writing a history or theology book and nowhere claims or implies that this is what actually happened it s somewhat like stories woven around the relationship between jesus and the reformed prostitute mary magdalene another myth or those referring to the arthurian mythos or the grail legend or the wandering jew or dozens of others if you can stand to read the work of a blasphemer consider salman rushdie s children s book haroun and the sea of stories for an idea of the way a storyteller a specific storyteller works with existing story lines to ridicule muhammad s integrity no muhammad s mahound s integrity is not really impugned in this part of the story and there s no reason to think this was rushdie s intent gibreel as the archangel produces the verses divine and satanic though he doesn t know their provenance it is not implied in a straight reading that muhammad influences them not my voice i d never know such words i m no classy speaker never was never will be but this isn t my voice it s a voice mahound s eyes open wide he s seeing some kind of vision staring at it oh that s right gibreel remembers me he s seeing me my lips moving being moved by what whom don t know can t say nevertheless here they are coming out of my mouth up my throat past my teeth the words being god s postman is no fun yaar butbutbut god isn t in this picture god knows whose postman i ve been it s ambiguous is mahound somehow manipulating gibreel is it satan or something else the answer is not given to be sure the question is raised this novel explores faith and the role of revelation in religion among other things addressing loss of faith implicitly raises questions about the truth of revelation but this novel proposes no answers at least not directly the very existence of a newsgroup named alt atheism raises the same questions more forcefully and does propose some answers which is the real relevance if rushdie s mild fictional exploration is filth and lies and he asked for what he got are we next on the fatwa list that s a rhetorical question of course jim perry perry dsinc com decision support inc matthews nc these are my opinions for a nominal fee they can be yours jim perry perry dsinc com decision support inc matthews nc these are my opinions for a nominal fee they can be yours
alt.atheism	re who says the apostles were tortured another article that fell between the cracks in article qiu innpq srvr engin umich edu ingles engin umich edu ray ingles writes as evidence for the resurrection it is often claimed that the disciples were tortured to death for their beliefs and still did not renounce their claim that jesus had come back from the dead now i skimmed acts and such and i found a reference to this happening to stephen but no others where does this apparently very widely held belief come from is there any evidence outside the bible is there any evidence in the bible i sure haven t found any briefly no there is widespread folklore but no good documentary evidence or even solid rumor concerning the deaths of the apostles further the usual context of such arguments as you observe is no martyrs for a lie i e the willingness of these people to die rather than recant is evidence for the truth of their belief this adds the quite stronger twist that the proposed martyrs must have been offered the chance of life by recanting since we don t even know how or where they died we certainly don t have this information by the way even in the case of stephen it is not at all clear that he could have saved himself by recanting the willingness of true believers to die for their belief be it in jesus or jim jones is well documented so martyrdom in and of itself says little see kings for a biblical account of the martyrdom of priests of baal jim perry perry dsinc com decision support inc matthews nc these are my opinions for a nominal fee they can be yours
alt.atheism	re who has read rushdie s the satanic verses another one rescued from the bit bucket over the years the furor over this book has been discussed on a a and elsewhere on the net generally the discussion comes down to the contention on the one hand that tsv contains such blood libel against islam as to merit if not death than at least banning and probably some sort of punishment and on the other that rushdie particularly as a non muslim in a western country had every right to write and publish whatever he chose regardless of whether some muslims find it offensive without fear of persecution or death i am naturally inclined to the latter position but find myself in an interesting position because i think this is a fine book only incidentally concerned with islam and moreover i m damned if i can find anything malevolently offensive in it over the years when i have made this point various primarily muslim posters have responded saying that yes indeed they have read the book and had called it such things as filth and lies i would rank rushdie s book with hitler s mein kempf or worse and so on unfortunately these comments are usually generalities and attempts to follow up by requesting explanations for what specifically is so offensive have met either with stony silence more generalizations or inaccurate or out of context references to the book which lead me to believe that few of them have actually read it corrections and attempts to discuss the text in context have been ignored anyway since i seem to be the only one following this particular line of discussion i wonder how many of the rest of the readership have read this book what are your thoughts on it jim perry perry dsinc com decision support inc matthews nc these are my opinions for a nominal fee they can be yours jim perry perry dsinc com decision support inc matthews nc these are my opinions for a nominal fee they can be yours
alt.atheism	re is morality constant was re biblical rape this response originally fell into a bit bucket i m reposting it just so bill doesn t think i m ignoring him in article c w pv jxd darkside osrhe uoknor edu bil okcforum osrhe edu bill conner writes jim perry perry dsinc com wrote some stuff about biblical morality though bill s quote of me had little to do with what he goes on to say bill i m sorry to have been busy lately and only just be getting around to this apparently you have some fundamental confusions about atheism i think many of these are well addressed in the famous faq your generalisms are then misplaced atheism needn t imply materialism or the lack of an absolute moral system however i do tend to materialism and don t believe in absolute morality so i ll answer your questions how then can an atheist judge value an atheist judges value in the same way that a theist does according to a personal understanding of morality that i don t believe in an absolute one doesn t mean that i don t have one i m just explicit as in the line of postings you followed up that when i express judgment on a moral issue i am basing my judgment on my own code rather than claiming that it is in some absolute sense good or bad my moral code is not particular different from that of others around me be they christians muslims or atheists so when i say that i object to genocide i m not expressing anything particularly out of line with what my society holds if your were to ask why i think morality exists and has the form it does my answer would be mechanistic to your taste that a moral code is a prerequisite for a functioning society and that humanity probably evolved morality as we know it as part of the evolution of our ability to exist in large societies thereby achieving considerable survival advantages you d probably say that god just made the rules neither of us can convince the other but we share a common understanding about many moral issues you think you get it from your religion i think i get it and you get it from early childhood teaching that you don t like what god told people to do says nothing about god or god s commands it says only that there was an electrical event in your nervous system that created an emotional state that your mind coupled with a pre existing thought set to form that reaction i think you ve been reading the wrong sort of comic books but in prying through the gobbledygook i basically agree with what you re saying i do believe that my mental reactions to stimuli such as god commanded the genocide of the canaanites is mechanistic but of course i think that s true of you as well my reaction has little to do with whether god exists or even with whether i think he does but if a god existed who commanded genocide i could not consider him good which is supposedly an attribute of god all of this being so you have excluded yourself from any discussion of values right wrong goood evil etc and cannot participate your opinion about the bible can have no weight whatsoever hmm yes i think some heavy faq reading would do you some good i have as much place discussing values etc as any other person in fact i can actually accomplish something in such a discussion by framing the questions in terms of reason for instance it is clear that in an environment where neighboring tribes periodically attempt to wipe each other out based on imagined divine commands then the quality of life will be generally poor so a system that fosters coexistence is superior if quality of life is an agreed goal an absolutist on the other hand can only thump those portions of a bible they happen to agree with and say this is good even if the act in question is unequivocally bad by the standards of everyone in the discussion the attempt to define someone or a group of people as excluded from discussion such that they cannot participate and their opinions given no weight whatsoever is the lowest form or reasoning ad hominem poisoning the well and presumably the resort of someone who can t rationally defend their own ideas of right wrong and the bible jim perry perry dsinc com decision support inc matthews nc these are my opinions for a nominal fee they can be yours jim perry perry dsinc com decision support inc matthews nc these are my opinions for a nominal fee they can be yours
alt.atheism	re origins of the bible in article apr cs nott ac uk eczcaw mips nott ac uk a wainwright writes hi i have been having an argument about the origins of the bible lately with a theist acquaintance he stated that thousands of bibles were discovered at a certain point in time which were syllable perfect this therefore meant that there must have been one copy at a certain time the time quoted by my acquaintace was approximately years after the death of jesus you can tell your friend from me that i was in a publisher s warehouse one time and saw thousands of copies of the joy of cooking and every one of them was syllable perfect i have since sold all i own and become a follower of the joy of cooking the incident i mentioned convinced me once and for all that the joy of cooking is inspired by god and the one true path to his glory dean kaflowitz may the sauce be with you
alt.atheism	re amusing atheists and agnostics in article qsum inng k shelley u washington edu jimh carson u washington edu james hogan writes i think you ve missed the point take alt atheism for instance it s an exponent based anagram when fully extended it translates to dig tunnels deep store grain everywhere prepare for the coming struggle you ll no doubt recognize this as a quote from chairman mao thus i think you ll have to admit that atheists have a lot more up their sleeve than you might have suspected agnostics will be sent to the gulag under the mao atheist new order now where did i put my little red book or was that green jim if god is dead and the actor plays his part sting his words of fear will find their way to a place in your heart history without the voice of reason every faith is its own curse will teach us without freedom from the past things can only get worse nothing
alt.atheism	re christian morality is dan schaertel dps nasa kodak com wrote since this is alt atheism i hope you don t mind if we strongly disagree the fact is god could cause you to believe anything he wants you to but think about it for a minute would you rather have someone love you because you made them love you or because they wanted to love you the responsibility is on you to love god and take a step toward him he promises to be there for you but you have to look for yourself indeed knock and it shall be opened to you dan why didn t this work i firmly believed in god for years but i eventually realised i was only deluding myself fearful to face the truth ultimately the only reason what kept me believing was the fear of hell the mental states i had sillily attributed to divine forces or devil s attempts to destroy my faith were nothing more than my imagination and it is easy to achieve the same mental states at will my faith was just learned fear in a disguise those who doubt this or dispute it have not givin it a sincere effort god is demanding too much dan what was it i believed in for years if sincere effort is equivalent to active suspension of disbelief what it was in my case i d rather quit if god does not help me to keep the faith i can t go on besides i am concerned with god s morality and mental health does she really want us to believe in herself without any help revelations guidance or anything i can feel if she has created us why didn t she make the task any easier why are we supposed to love someone who refuses to communicate with us what is the point of eternal torture for those who can t believe i love god just as much as she loves me if she wants to seduce me she ll know what to do simple logic arguments are folly if you read the bible you will see that jesus made fools of those who tried to trick him with logic our ability to reason is just a spec of creation yet some think it is the ultimate if you rely simply on your reason then you will never know more than you do now your argument is of the type you ll know once you try yet there are many atheists who have sincerely tried and believed for many years but were eventually honest enough to admit that they had lived in a virtual reality what else but reason i can use i don t have the spiritual means christians often refer to my conscience disagrees with the bible i don t even believe i have a soul i am fully dependent on my body indeed i am this body when it goes up with flames so does my identity god can entertain herself with copies of me if she wants to learn you must accept that which you don t know what does this mean to learn you must accept that you don t know something right o but to learn you must accept something i don t know why this is not the way i prefer to learn it is unwise to merely swallow everything you read suppose i write a book telling how the great invisible pink unicorn tm has helped me in my daily problems would you accept this since you can t know whether it is true or not note that the gipu is also omnipotent omnipresent and loves just about everyone besides he and she is guiding every writer on this planet you and me and not just some people who write legendary stories years ago your god is just one aspect of his and her presence petri petri pihko kem pmp mathematics is the truth pihatie c finou oulu fi physics is the rule of sf oulu kempmp the game finland phoenix oulu fi chemistry is the game
alt.atheism	re gulf war selling arms in article v rusnews w w mantis co uk mathew mathew mantis co uk writes mccullou snake cs wisc edu mark mccullough writes from a parallel thread much about definitions of bombs etc deleted aaaahhh tell me how many innocents were killed in concentration camps mm hmm now how many more were scheduled to enter concentration camps had they not been shut down because they were captured by the allies mm hmm now civilians died in that war so no matter what you do civilians die what is the proper course don t sell the bastard arms and information in the first place ruthlessly hunt down those who do especially if they re in positions of power mathew i agree this it seems is the crux of your whole position isn t it that the us shouldn t have supported hussein and sold him arms to fight iran i agree and i agree in ruthlessly hunting down those who did or do but we did sell arms to hussein and it s a done deal now he invades kuwait so do we just sit back and say well we sold him all those arms i suppose he just wants to use them now too bad for kuwait no unfortunately sitting back and letting things be is not the way to correct a former mistake destroying hussein s military potential as we did was the right move but i agree with your statement reagan and bush made a grave error in judgment to sell arms to hussein so it s really not the gulf war you abhor so much it was the u s s and the west s shortsightedness in selling arms to hussein which ultimately made the war inevitable right if so then i agree more deleted mathew regards jim b
alt.atheism	re studies on book of mormon i think that the transcedental temptation by paul kurtz has a good section on the origins of mormonism you might want to look at scott o
alt.atheism	re amusing atheists and agnostics in article timmbake mcl timmbake mcl ucsb edu bake timmons writes from timmbake mcl ucsb edu bake timmons subject amusing atheists and agnostics date apr gmt some big deletions many atheists show a poor understanding of human nature so many people who would otherwise sympathize with their cause only shake their heads in disbelief at such childish ranting another in a string of idiotic generalizations gad i m surprised i got this far down in the post i guess some just like seeing their names up on a crt like me phil trodwell this space i d be happy to ram a goddam volt cattle for rent prod into that tub with you right now but not cheap this radio hunter s thompson
alt.atheism	re where are they now perhaps it s prophetic that the week where are they now appears and i can claim to be a still active old timer my news software gets bit rot and ships outgoing articles into a deep hole somewhere anyway here s a repost in article qi innf n senator bedfellow mit edu tcbruno athena mit edu tom bruno writes which brings me to the point of my posting how many people out there have been around alt atheism since i ve done my damnedest to stay on top of the newsgroup but when you fall behind you really fall behind these days you don t have to fall far behind last monday admittedly after a long weekend but i had messages just in those few days aside from a hiatus while changing jobs last fall i ve been here since has anyone tried to keep up with the deluge inquiring minds want to know also does anyone keep track of where the more infamous posters to alt atheism end up once they leave the newsgroup just curious i guess hell norway the rubber room at the funny farm seminary it is not given to us to know jim perry perry dsinc com decision support inc matthews nc these are my opinions for a nominal fee they can be yours
alt.atheism	strong weak atheism did that faq ever got modified to re define strong atheists as not those who assert the nonexistence of god but as those who assert that they believe in the nonexistence of god there was a thread on this earlier but i didn t get the outcome adam no nickname cooper adam john cooper verily often have i laughed at the weaklings who thought themselves good simply because acooper macalstr edu they had no claws
alt.atheism	re faith and dogma in article apr edt neat cs toronto edu tgk cs toronto edu todd kelley writes in light of what happened in waco i need to get something of my chest sadly understandable faith and dogma are dangerous yes religion inherently encourages the implementation of faith and dogma and for that reason i scorn religion to be fair you should really qualify this as semitic western religions but you basically go ahead and do this later on anyway i have expressed this notion in the past some christians debated with me whether christianity leaves any room for reasoning i claimed rationality is quelled out of christianity by faith and dogma again this should really be evaluated at a personal level for example there was only one jesus presumably and he probably didn t say all that many things and yet seemingly billions and billions of christian sects have arisen perhaps there is one that is totally dedicated to rationalism and believes in christ as in pantheism it would seem to go against the bible but it is amazing what people come up with under the guise of personal interpretation a philosopher cannot be a christian because a philosopher can change his mind whereas a christian cannot due to the nature of faith and dogma present in any religion this is a good point we have here the quintessential christian he sets up a system of values beliefs for himself which work very well and every event experience is understandable and deablable within the framework of this system however we also have an individual who has the inability at least not without some difficulty to change which is important because the problem with such a system is the same as with any system one cannot be open minded to the point of testing hypotheses against the basic premise of the system without destroying whatever faith is invested therein unless of course all the tests fail in other words the fairer way would be to test and evaluate moralities without the bias responsibility of losing retaining a system i claimed that a christian philosopher is not a christian but is a person whose beliefs at the moment correspond with those of christianity consider that a person visiting or guarding a prison is not a prisoner unless you define a prisoner simply to be someone in a prison can we define a prisoner to be someone who at the moment is in a prison can we define a christian to be someone who at the moment has christian beliefs no because if a person is free to go he is not a prisoner similarly if a person is not constrained by faith and dogma he is not a christian interesting but again when it seems to basically boil down to individual nuances although not always i will admit and probably it is the mass oriented divisions which are the most appalling it becomes irrelevant unfortunately i admit it s a word game i m going by the dictionary definition of religion religion n concern over what exists beyond the visible world differentiated from philosophy in that it operates through faith or intuition rather than reason webster s now let s go beyond the word game i don t claim that religion causes genocide i think that if all humans were atheist there would still be genocide there will always be humans who don t think there will always be humans who don t ask themselves what is the real difference between themselves and people with different colored skin or a different language or different beliefs granted religion is like the gun that doesn t kill anybody religion encourages faith and dogma and although it doesn t directly condemn people it encourages the use of just because thinking it is just because thinking that kills people in which case the people become the bullets and the religion as the gun merely offers them a way to more adequately do some harm with themselves if i may be so bold as to extend your similie sure religion has many good qualities it encourages benevolence and philanthropy ok so take out only the bad things like faith dogma and tradition put in the good things like careful reasoning and science the result is secular humanism wouldn t it be nice if everyone were a secular humanist to please the supernaturalists you might even leave god in there but the secular emphasis would cause the supernaturalists to start thinking and they too would realize that a belief in a god really doesn t put anyone further ahead in understanding the universe ok i m just poking fun at the supernaturalists also understandable of course not all humans are capable of thought and we d still have genocide and maybe even some mass suicide but not as much i m willing to bet on that todd todd kelley tgk cs toronto edu department of computer science university of toronto best regards adam john cooper verily often have i laughed at the weaklings who thought themselves good simply because acooper macalstr edu they had no claws
alt.atheism	re yet more rushdie re islamic law in article c qt p mvo blaze cs jhu edu arromdee jyusenkyou cs jhu edu ken arromdee writes in article bu edu jaeger buphy bu edu gregg jaeger writes i think many reading this group would also benefit by knowing how deviant the view as i ve articulated it above which may not be the true view of khomeini is from the basic principles of islam from the point ov view of an atheist i see you claim khomeini wasn t practicing true islam but i m sure that he would have said the same about you how am i a member of neither group supposed to be able to tell which one of you two is really a true muslim this is a very good point i have already made the clear claim that khomeini advocates views which are in contradition with the qur an and have given my arguments for this this is something that can be checked by anyone sufficiently interested khomeini being dead really can t respond but another poster who supports khomeini has responded with what is clearly obfuscationist sophistry this should be quite clear to atheists as they are less susceptible to religionist modes of obfuscationism so to answer your question the only way you can judge is by learning more about islam that is by reading the qur an and understanding it s basic principles once one has done this it is relatively easy to see who is following the principles of islam and who is acting in a way at odds with islam khomeini by attributing a superhuman status to twelve muslim historical leaders is at variance with one of basic principles of islam which is that no human being is metaphysically different than any other human being and in no sense any closer to god in metaphysical nature gregg
alt.atheism	re yet more rushdie re islamic law in article vice ico tek com bobbe vice ico tek com robert beauchaine writes in article bu edu jaeger buphy bu edu gregg jaeger writes this supports nothing i have no reason to believe that this is piece is anything other than another anti islamic slander job i have no respect for titles only for real content i can look up this article if i want true but i can tell you bcci was not an islamic bank seeing as i m spending my time responding to propaganda in responding to this little sub thread i really don t feel a deep need to do more than make statements to the effect that the propaganda is false if someone wants to discuss the issue more seriously then i d be glad to have a real discussion providing references etc but you must admit that this is a more thorough argument supporting a proposition than your it s propganda because i say so i hope you can see why we might not find this argument compelling if you want to refute a point then do so but do it right well again i am doing as much as the poster i was replying too i am quite busy and really don t have the time to respond in full scholarly form to every accusation that is flippantly made by someone who s being clearly antagonistic and have you ever considered that perhaps these people actually believe what they say that they are not just spreading propaganda i have considered it but if someone spreads falsehoods out of ignorance then they are still spreading falsehoods those falsehoods generally do not come out of nowhere but are produced by people who know that what they are saying is at least not the whole truth i still consider such spreading of falsehoods propaganda on some level i m not in a position to say since i know nothing about the situation that does not in my estimation qualify me as having my head up my ass bob i never accused you of having your head up your ass it takes me quite some time in dealing with someone before accusing them of having their head up their ass i was accusing the original poster benedikt i believe of being so impaired cheers gregg
alt.atheism	re who says the apostles were tortured the willingness of true believers to die for their belief be it in jesus or jim jones is well documented so martyrdom in and of itself says little it does say something about the depth of their belief religion has both deluded believers and con men the difference is often how far they will follow their beliefs i have no first hand or even second hand knowledge of how the original apostles died if they began a myth in hopes of exploiting it for profit and followed that myth to the death that would be inconsistent real con men would bail out when it was obvious it would lead to discomfort pain and death the story in kings regarding the prophets of baal is of no help in this debate one can easily assume that they believed that no overwhelming vindication of elijah would be forthcoming he was simply a fool who would be shown to be so the fire from heaven was swift and their seizure and deaths were equally swift
alt.atheism	re yet more rushdie re islamic law in article c r c b unix portal com danb shell portal com dan e babcock writes in article c qt p mvo blaze cs jhu edu arromdee jyusenkyou cs jhu edu ken arromdee writes in article bu edu jaeger buphy bu edu gregg jaeger writes i think many reading this group would also benefit by knowing how deviant the view as i ve articulated it above which may not be the true view of khomeini is from the basic principles of islam from the point ov view of an atheist i see you claim khomeini wasn t practicing true islam but i m sure that he would have said the same about you how am i a member of neither group supposed to be able to tell which one of you two is really a true muslim easy just read the koran because the koran is perfect there is no possibility of disagreement okay i see smilies so this isn t supposed to be a serious post on the other hand i would suppose it does has some motivation behind it apparently the idea is to poke fun at religion but there is presumably some sort of reasoning behind it as an argument this statement is worthless presuming the qur an is a perfect religious text whatever that might be there is still plenty of room for disagreement about its implications for issues far from essentials i ve already responded to the question of how a judgment might be made between two people who in fact do disagree about islam which doesn t presume anything about the qur an other than its having sufficient clarity for all important disputes about the basic principles of islam this hardly constitutes a claim that no two people could have disagreements about all issues relevant to islam gregg
alt.atheism	re societally acceptable behavior in article c qgm dl news cso uiuc edu cobb alexia lis uiuc edu mike cobb writes from cobb alexia lis uiuc edu mike cobb subject societally acceptable behavior date mon apr gmt merely a question for the basis of morality moral ethical behavior societally acceptable behavior who is society how do they define what is acceptable how do we keep from a whatever is legal is what is moral position mac wow you got me thinking now this is an interesting question in that recently there has been a move in society to classify previously socially unacceptable yet legal activities as ok in the past it seems to me there were always two coexisting methods of social control first and most explicit is legal control that is the set of actions we define as currently illegal and having a specifically defined set of punishments secondly and somewhat more hidden is social control these are the actions which are considered socially unacceptable and while not covered by legal control are scrictly controled by social censure ideally if socialization is working as it should legal control is hardly ever needed since most people voluntarilly control their actions due to the pressure of social censure the control manifests itself in day to day life as guilt and morality i ve heard it said and fully believe that if it weren t for the vast majority of people policing themselves legal control would be absolutely impossible lately last years however there has been a move to attempt to dissengage the individual from societal control ie if it ain t illegal then don t pick on me i m not saying this is wrong merely that it is a byproduct of a society which has a high education level a high exposure to alternative ideas via the popular media a high level of institutionalized individual rights and a me oriented culture i guess what i m saying is that we appear to be in a state of transition here in the western world in that we still have many ideas about what we can can t allow people to do based entirely on personal squeamishness yet we are fully bent on maximizing individual freedoms to the max as long as those freedoms don t impinge on another s imho society is trying to persue two mutually exclusive ends here while we appreciate and persue individual rights these satisfy the old territoriality and dominance instincts the removal of socialized inherent fears based on ignorance will result in the continued destabilization of society i got no quick fix i have no idea how we can get ourselves out of this mess i know i would never consent to the roll back of personal freedoms in order to stabilize society yet i believe development of societies follow a darwinian process which selects for stability can we find a social model which maximizes indiv freed s yet is stable perhaps it is possible to live with a non stable society anybody see a way out comments ps therefore answer to question we don t do we want to phil trodwell this space i d be happy to ram a goddam volt cattle for rent prod into that tub with you right now but not cheap this radio hunter s thompson
alt.atheism	re gulf war was re death penalty was re political atheists in article v rusnews w w mantis co uk mathew mathew mantis co uk writes don t sell the bastard arms and information in the first place ruthlessly hunt down those who do especially if they re in positions of power i looked back at this and asked some questions of various people and got the following information which i had claimed and you pooh poohed the us has not sold iraq any arms their navy is entirely made of f ussr vessels their airforce not including stuff captured from kuwait which i am not as sure about doesn t include any us equipment their missiles are all non us their tanks are almost all soviet with about french tanks older ones the only us stuff in the iraqi arsenal is a few m s those were not sold to iraq iraq captured them from other countries like kuwait information is hard to prove you are claiming that the us sold information prove it now how did the us build up iraq again i just gave some fairly conclusive evidence that the us didn t sell arms to iraq information is hard to prove almost certainly if the us did sell information then that fact is classified and you can t prove it if you can provide some useful evidence that the us sold arms or valuable intelligence to iraq i am very interested but not if you just make claims based on what everyone knows mccullou whipple cs wisc edu never program and drink beer at the same m time it doesn t work
alt.atheism	re who has read rushdie s the satanic ve in article r cl innknk bozo dsinc com perry dsinc com jim perry writes anyway since i seem to be the only one following this particular line of discussion i wonder how many of the rest of the readership have read this book what are your thoughts on it i read it i found it wonderful for some reason no flames please i was reminded of hemingway carl orff and van gogh not all at once though geoff arnold pc nfs architect sun select geoff arnold east sun com what if they made the whole thing up the great lie by four guys two thousand years ago over wine the tear garden
alt.atheism	re after years can we say that christian morality is reply to frank d s uucp frank o dwyer the problem for the objectivist is to determine the status of moral truths and the method by which they can be established if we accept that such judgements are not reports of what is but only relate to what ought to be see naturalistic fallacy then they cannot be proved by any facts about the nature of the world this can be avoided in at least two ways by leaving the good undefined since anyone who claims that they do not know what it is is either lying or so out of touch with humanity as to be undeserving of a reply if the good is undefined undefinable but you require of everyone that they know innately what is right you are back to subjectivism by defining the good solely in terms of evaluative terms ditto here an evaluative statement implies a value judgement on the part of the person making it at this point the objectivist may talk of self evident truths pretty perceptive that prof flew but can he deny the subjectivist s claim that self evidence is in the mind of the beholder of course by denying that subject object is true dichotomy please explain how this helps i don t see your argument if not what is left of the claim that some moral judgements are true if nothing then no moral judgements are true this is a thing that is commonly referred to as nihilism it entails that science is of no value irrepective of the fact that some people find it useful how anyone arrives at relativism subjectivism from this argument beats me this makes no sense either flew is arguing that this is where the objectivist winds up not the subjectivist furthermore the nihilists believed in nothing except science materialism revolution and the people the subjectivist may well feel that all that remains is that there are some moral judgements with which he would wish to associate himself to hold a moral opinion is he suggests not to know something to be true but to have preferences regarding human activity and if those preferences should include terrorism that moral opinion is not true likewise if the preferences should include noterrorism that moral opinion is not true why should one choose a set of preferences which include terrorisim over one which includes noterrorism oh no reason this is patently absurd and also not the position of the subjectivist as has been pointed out to you already by others ditch the strawman already and see my reply to mike cobb s root message in the thread societal basis for morality david nye nyeda cnsvax uwec edu midelfort clinic eau claire wi this is patently absurd but whoever wishes to become a philosopher must learn not to be frightened by absurdities bertrand russell
alt.atheism	re he has risen reply to kmr po cwru edu keith m ryan our lord and savior david keresh has risen he has been seen alive spread the word jeez can t he get anything straight i told him to wait for three days god david nye nyeda cnsvax uwec edu midelfort clinic eau claire wi this is patently absurd but whoever wishes to become a philosopher must learn not to be frightened by absurdities bertrand russell
alt.atheism	college atheists i read an article about a poll done of students at the ivy league schools in which it was reported that a third of the students indentified themselves as atheists this is a lot higher than among the general population i wonder what the reasons for this discrepancy are is it because they are more intelligent younger is this the wave of the future david nye nyeda cnsvax uwec edu midelfort clinic eau claire wi this is patently absurd but whoever wishes to become a philosopher must learn not to be frightened by absurdities bertrand russell
alt.atheism	re amusing atheists and agnostics reply to timmbake mcl ucsb edu bake timmons the same kind of ignorance is demonstrated in just about every post in this newsgroup for instance generalizations about christianity are popular which newsgroup have you been reading the few anti christian posts are virtually all in response to some christian posting some you will all burn in hell kind of drivel i m a soft atheist courtesy of the faq but even i know enough about the bible to see that it repeatedly warns of false prophets preaching in the name of god bake it is transparently obvious that you are a theist pretending to be an atheist you probably think you are very clever but we see this all the time but the possibilities of creator and eternity carry with them too much emotional power to dismiss merely on the basis of this line but of course you have dismissed them because you are an atheist right just like any other religion hard atheism is a faith in other words you didn t read the faq after all david nye nyeda cnsvax uwec edu midelfort clinic eau claire wi this is patently absurd but whoever wishes to become a philosopher must learn not to be frightened by absurdities bertrand russell
alt.atheism	re what s a shit shoveler to do was re amusing atheists and reply to jimh carson u washington edu james hogan so what s someone with a prediliction to shit shoveling to do when the latest i know what you atheists are about arrival on a a shows up ignore the bills bobbys bakes try to engage in reasonable discourse while flame fests have been among some of the most entertaining threads here other tugs of war with folks like bobby have grown old before their time i take the view that they are here for our entertainment when they are no longer entertaining into the kill file they go david nye nyeda cnsvax uwec edu midelfort clinic eau claire wi this is patently absurd but whoever wishes to become a philosopher must learn not to be frightened by absurdities bertrand russell
alt.atheism	re amusing atheists and agnostics timmbake mcl ucsb edu half bake timmons writes maddi whirr click whirr frank o dwyer might also be contained in that shell pop stack to determine whirr click whirr killfile keith allen schneider frank closet theist o dwyer maddi the mad sound o geek hausmann no no no i ve already been named by killfile keith my nickname is maddi never a useful post hausmann and don t you dare forget it half there s nothing higher stronger more wholesome and more useful in life than some good memory alyosha in brothers karamazov dostoevsky you really should quote ivan karamazov instead on a a as he was the atheist maddi hausmann madhaus netcom com centigram communications corp san jose california kids please don t try this at home remember i post professionally
alt.atheism	re death penalty was re political athei date tue apr from mathew mathew mantis co uk there s a great film called manufacturing consent noam chomsky and the media it s a canadian film i saw it at the berlin film festival this year if you get a chance go and see it i can t really recommend any books from having read them i m thinking of ordering a book which a reviewer claimed gives a good introduction to his political activism i could dig up the title mathew could it be the chomsky reader edited by james peck published by pantheon
alt.atheism	re amusing atheists and agnostics date apr gmt from bake timmons timmbake mcl ucsb edu remember koresh dried for your sins and pass that beef jerky umm umm though i wasn t there at least i can rely on you now to keep me posted on what what he s doing what a cook off
alt.atheism	re societally acceptable behavior cobb alexia lis uiuc edu mike cobb writes merely a question for the basis of morality moral ethical behavior societally acceptable behavior who is society society is the collection of individuals which will fall under self defined rules in terms of un decisions all the sets of peoples who are represented at the un are considered part of that society if we then look at us federal laws provided by representatives of purely us citizens then the society for that case would be the citizens of the us and so on how do they define what is acceptable acceptable are those behaviours which are either legislated for the society by representatives of that society or those behaviours which are non verbally and in effect non consciously such as picking your nose on the oprah winfrey show no one does it but there is no explicit law against doing it in many cases there are is no definition of whether or not a behaviour is acceptable but one can deduce these behaviours by observation how do we keep from a whatever is legal is what is moral position in an increasingly litigation mad society this trap is becoming exceedingly difficult to avoid with the infusion and strengthening of ethnic cultures in american and australian to bring in my local perspective culture the boundaries of acceptable behaviour are ever widening and legislation may eventually become the definition of moral behaviour for instance some cultures dominant religion call for live sacrifice of domesticated animals most fundamental christians would find this practice abhorrent however is it moral according to the multicultural american society this kind of problem may only be definable by legislation obviously within any society there will be differences in opinion in what is acceptable behaviour or not and much of this will be due to different environmental circumstances rather than merely different opinions one thing is for sure there is no universal moral code which will suit all cultures in all situations there may however be some globally accepted mores which can be agreed upon and instantiated as a globally enforcable concept the majority of mores will not be common until all peoples upon this earth are living in a similar environment if that ever happens jeff nonickname clark
alt.atheism	re you will all go to hell in article apr nuscc nus sg cmtan iss nus sg tan chade meng dan writes from cmtan iss nus sg tan chade meng dan subject re you will all go to hell date tue apr gmt in article jsn psuvm psu edu jsn psuvm psu edu writes you blashephemers you will all go to hell for not believing in god be prepared for your eternal damnation arrgg another one of those another letter to the big guy dear god please take them back to heaven leave us rational intelligent people alone love meng the unenlightened one tan chade meng there is light at the end of the tunnel singapore cmtan iss nus sg it s an on coming train meng i have a better prayer dear god please save the world from the likes of these tammy
alt.atheism	re you will all go to hell in article c s zm e cbnewsj cb att com decay cbnewsj cb att com dean kaflowitz writes from decay cbnewsj cb att com dean kaflowitz subject re you will all go to hell date tue apr gmt in article c lh p k portal hq videocart com dfuller portal hq videocart com dave fuller writes jsn psuvm psu edu writes you blashephemers you will all go to hell for not believing in god be prepared for your eternal damnation what do you mean be prepared surrounded by thumpers like yourself has proven to be hellish enough and i m not even dead yet well here s how i prepared i got one of those big beach umbrellas some of those gel pack ice things a big coleman cooler which i ve loaded up with miller draft so i like miller draft so sue me a new pair of new balance sneakers a sony watchman and a couple of cartons of bonton cheddar cheese popcorn i haven t decided what to wear yet what does one wear to an eternal damnation dean kaflowitz you should wear your nicest boxer shorts and bring plenty of spf sunscreen i ll grab my bathing suit towerl and some veggie hotdogs and we can have bonfire cookout does that sound good enough to you dean every a a poster is invited tammy no trim healy
alt.atheism	re death penalty gulf war long from jbrown batman bmd trw com actually it was the fact that both situations existed that prompted us and allied action if some back water country took over some other back water country we probably wouldn t intervene not that we don t care but we can t be the world s policman or if a coup had occured in kuwait instead of an invasion then we still wouldn t have acted because there would not have been the imminent danger perceived to saudi arabia but the combination of the two an unprovoked invasion by a genocidal tyrant and the potential danger to the west s oil interests caused us to take action there are many indications that would have taken place had saddam been wanting or planning on going into saudi arabia there were none this has been openly stated by ex pentagon analysts pull from jbrown batman bmd trw com i m not setting up a strawman at all if you want to argue against the war then the only logical alternative was to allow hussein to keep kuwait diplomatic alternatives including sanctions were ineffective actually reports from other mid east countries showed that hussein was ready to make concessions due to the sanctions we just didn t want him to we wanted to crush him as well as battle test all these high tech toys we ve built over the years from jbrown batman bmd trw com probably because we re not the saviors of the world we can t police each and every country that decides to self destruct or invade another nor are we in a strategic position to get relief to tibet east timor or some other places we re also hypocrites of the first magnitude obviously we don t give a shit about freedom and democracy all we care about is our oil oh and the excuse now that the soviets are gone from the board to keep a sizable military presence in the gulf region care to make bets about when all our troops will come home basically saddam was ok with us he was a killer who tortured his own people used gas on them and other horrors he was a brutal dictator but he was our brutal dictator once he said fuck you to the us he became the next hitler the same for noriega he was a bastard but he was our bastard until he changed his mind and went his own way then we had to get rid of him david hunt graduate slave my mind is my own towards both a mechanical engineering so are my ideas opinions palestinian and carnegie mellon university use golden rule v jewish homeland t h e r e i s n o g o d t h e r e i s n o g o d email bluelobster cmu edu working towards my piled higher and deeper it will be a great day when scientists and engineers have all the r d money they need and religions have to beg for money to pay the priest
alt.atheism	re societally acceptable behavior in article c s tv h news cso uiuc edu cobb alexia lis uiuc edu mike cobb writes in qvh tinnsg citation ksu ksu edu yohan citation ksu ksu edu jonathan w newton writes in article c qgm dl news cso uiuc edu cobb alexia lis uiuc edu mike cobb writes merely a question for the basis of morality moral ethical behavior societally acceptable behavior i disagree with these what society thinks should be irrelevant what the individual decides is all that is important this doesn t seem right if i want to kill you i can because that is what i decide exactly although this may be a dissapointing answer there has to be an interplay of the two personal ethos and societal morality a person s self generated learned set of beliefs are usually expressed on a purely mental verbal level and don t usually find expression in society except in an impure not in the sense of bad state sometimes this has to be so who is society i think this is fairly obvious not really if whatever a particular society mandates as ok is ok there are always some in the society who disagree with the mandates so which societal mandates make the standard for morality also what if one feels oneself to be part of more than one society in a very real sense to use the obvious example there is a political society and a racial society and a gender society and sometimes they do not always agree on every issue how do they define what is acceptable generally by what they feel is right which is the most idiotic policy i can think of so what should be the basis unfortunately i have to admit to being tied at least loosely to the feeling in that i think we intuitively know some things to be wrong awfully hard to defend though yes perhaps with an infamous do what you want so long as it doesn t hurt others the problem with this is that it is merely saying what you can do it is not a morality in that it doesn t propound any specifically preferred behaviours how do we keep from a whatever is legal is what is moral position by thinking for ourselves i might agree here just because certain actions are legal does not make them moral i ll add a hearty me two however one could just as well say just because certain actions are moral does not make them legal one still doesn t really get an impression of which one is truly right mac michael a cobb and i won t raise taxes on the middle university of illinois class to pay for my programs champaign urbana bill clinton rd debate cobb alexia lis uiuc edu with new taxes and spending cuts we ll still have billion dollar deficits michael a cobb and i won t raise taxes on the middle university of illinois class to pay for my programs champaign urbana bill clinton rd debate cobb alexia lis uiuc edu nobody can explain everything to anybody g k chesterton best regards adam john cooper verily often have i laughed at the weaklings who thought themselves good simply because acooper macalstr edu they had no claws
alt.atheism	re societally acceptable behavior in article c sa s news cso uiuc edu cobb alexia lis uiuc edu mike cobb writes i guess i m delving into a religious language area what exactly is morality or morals i hope there is not one with a subject like this you just have a spiral what would then be a morality of a morality of morals labels don t make arguments one really needs a solid measuring stick by which most actions can be interpreted even though this would hardly seem moral for example the best thing for me is to ensure that i will eat and drink enough hence all actions must be weighed against this one statement whatever helps this goal is moral whatever does not is immoral of course this leads such a blank space there are so many different ways to fulfill a goal one would need a hyper morality to apply to just the methods i never thought of eating meat to be moral or immoral but i think it could be how do we differentiate between not doing something because it is a personal choice or preference and not doing something because we see it as immoral do we fall to what the basis of these morals are seems to me we only consider something moral or immoral if we stop to think about it long enough on the other hand maybe it is our first gut reaction which who knows perhaps here we have a way to discriminate morals i don t instinctively thing vegetarianism is right the same way i instinctively feel torture is wrong but if i thought about it long enough and listened to the arguments i could perhaps reason that it was wrong is that possible see the difference also consensus positions fall to a might makes right or as you brought out if whatever is right is what is societally mandated then whoever is in control at the time makes what is right mc mac michael a cobb and i won t raise taxes on the middle university of illinois class to pay for my programs champaign urbana bill clinton rd debate cobb alexia lis uiuc edu nobody can explain everything to anybody g k chesterton best regards adam adam john cooper verily often have i laughed at the weaklings who thought themselves good simply because acooper macalstr edu they had no claws
alt.atheism	re societal basis for morality in article c sad dm news cso uiuc edu cobb alexia lis uiuc edu mike cobb writes in apr cnsvax uwec edu nyeda cnsvax uwec edu david nye writes reply to cobb alexia lis uiuc edu mike cobb if morals come from what is societally accepted why follow that what right do we have to expect others to follow our notion of societally mandated morality pardon the extremism but couldn t i murder your brother and say that i was exercising my rights as i saw them was doing what felt good didn t want anyone forcing their morality on me or i don t follow your morality i believe that morality is subjective each person is entitled to his own moral attitudes mine are not a priori more correct than someone elses this does not mean however that i must judge another on the basis of his rather than my moral standards while he is entitled to believe what his own moral sense tells him the rest of society is entitled to pass laws spelling out punishments for behavior that is offensive to the majority why how might makes right how can they force their morality on me why can t i do what i want who are they to decide what if i disagree well i agree with you in the sense that they have no moral right to inflict these rules but there is one thing i might add at the very least almost everybody wants to avoid pain and if that means sacrificing some stuff for a herd morality then so be it most criminals do not see their behavior as moral the may realize that it is immoral and not care they are thus not following their own moral system but being immoral good point but it is being immoral in our opinion we don t let them choose we make the decision that their actions are wrong for them right and since they grew up and learned around us they have some idea of our right and wrong which i think must in part be incorporated very rarely do you see criminal behaviour for philosophical reasons for someone to lay claim to an alternative moral system he must be sincere in his belief in it and it must be internally consistent some sociopaths lack an innate moral sense i admit to lean toward the idea of an innate moral sense but have little basis for it as of yet how far can such a concept be extended stuff deleted do you mean that we could say it would be wrong for us to do such a thing but not him after all he was behaving morally in his own eyes and doing what he chose on what basis do we condemn other societies besides here s the buzz words on the idea that there are some actions wrong for all humans in all societies holding that morality is subjective does not mean that we must excuse the murderer why not do we have to be objective suddenly david nye nyeda cnsvax uwec edu midelfort clinic eau claire wi this is patently absurd but whoever wishes to become a philosopher must learn not to be frightened by absurdities bertrand russell mac michael a cobb and i won t raise taxes on the middle university of illinois class to pay for my programs champaign urbana bill clinton rd debate cobb alexia lis uiuc edu nobody can explain everything to anybody g k chesterton best regards adam adam john cooper verily often have i laughed at the weaklings who thought themselves good simply because acooper macalstr edu they had no claws
alt.atheism	re you will all go to hell in article healta saturn wwc edu healta saturn wwc edu tammy r healy writes you should wear your nicest boxer shorts and bring plenty of spf sunscreen i ll grab my bathing suit towerl and some veggie hotdogs and we can have bonfire cookout does that sound good enough to you dean every a a poster is invited is there room for nudists after all if you believe most upstanding moral churches nudity is a sin my sole intention was learning to fly
alt.atheism	re free moral agency in article minster york ac uk cjhs minster york ac uk writes are you saying that their was a physical adam and eve and that all humans are direct decendents of only these two human beings then who were cain and able s wives couldn t be their sisters because a e didn t have daughters were they non humans genesis and the days of adam after he begat seth were eight hundred years and he begat sons and daughters felicitations chris ho stuart it is still incestuous adam what happened to my sig cooper
alt.atheism	test ignore test adam john cooper verily often have i laughed at the weaklings who thought themselves good simply because acooper macalstr edu they had no claws understand one another i fear i am beyond your comprehension gandalf
alt.atheism	re amusing atheists and anarchists in article timmbake mcl timmbake mcl ucsb edu bake timmons writes mccullou whipple cs wisc edu writes the line about atheists haveing something up their sleeves is what seemed to imply that sorry been reading too much on the clipper project lately and the paranoia over there may have seeped in some what is the clipper project btw the clipper initiative is an announcement by clinton that all the secure voice phones will use the same crypto chip as a de facto government standard problem is the government is admitting that they hold the keys to break the code easily and the justice department will be using the keys to listen in on illegal activities many people are really scared about such an initiative because it is a major step towards outlawing real crypto protection on things like email if you read the press release the project was developed by nsa and given to nist it uses two keys s and s that the government claims are needed to break the code they claim that these keys will be handed to two different companies and when they get a warrant to do a wiretap the chip is nicknamed the wiretap chip they have to get the keys from both companies people have poked holes through and through the press release official version and shown how it is nowhere near as nice as it sounds and i have given the simplified version people over on sci crypt are really scared about this proposal it seems mccullou whipple cs wisc edu never program and drink beer at the same m time it doesn t work
alt.atheism	re the pope is jewish date tue apr gmt from r bruce rakes bruce cortex dixie com mcgoy unicorn acs ttu edu david mcgaughey writes i always thought that the pope was a bear you know because of that little saying does a bear shit in the woods is the pope catholic there must be some connection between those two lines and i always heard it is the bear catholic does the pope oh nevermind r bruce rakes software systems manager elekta instruments inc executive park w suite atlanta ga voice fax email bruce elekta com anyone from alabama knows it should be is the bear catholic does a pope shit in the woods the pope may not be a bear but the bear is a god paul bear bryant football coach god university of alabama
alt.atheism	re faith and dogma tgk cs toronto edu todd kelley writes in light of what happened in waco i need to get something of my chest faith and dogma are dangerous religion inherently encourages the implementation of faith and dogma and for that reason i scorn religion i don t necessarily disagree with your assertion but i disagree with your reasoning faith bad dogma bad religion faith dogma religion bad bad religion bad unfortunately you never state why faith and dogma are dangerous if you believe faith and dogma are dangerous because of what happened in waco you are missing the point the branch davidians made the mistake of confusing the message with the messenger they believed koresh was a prophet and therefore believed everything he said the problem wasn t the religion it was the followers they didn t die because of faith and dogma they died because of their zealotry or in the case of the children the zealotry of their parents i have expressed this notion in the past some christians debated with me whether christianity leaves any room for reasoning i claimed rationality is quelled out of christianity by faith and dogma so christians are totally irrational irrational with respect to their religion only what are you saying one s belief in a christian god does not make one totally irrational i think i know what you were getting at but i d rather hear you expand on the subject a philosopher cannot be a christian because a philosopher can change his mind whereas a christian cannot due to the nature of faith and dogma present in any religion again this statement is too general a christian is perfectly capable of being a philosopher and absolutely capable of changing his her mind faith in god is a belief and all beliefs may change would you assert that atheists would make poor philosophers because they are predisposed to not believe in a god which of course may show unfair bias when studying say religion i claimed that a christian philosopher is not a christian but is a person whose beliefs at the moment correspond with those of christianity consider that a person visiting or guarding a prison is not a prisoner unless you define a prisoner simply to be someone in a prison can we define a prisoner to be someone who at the moment is in a prison can we define a christian to be someone who at the moment has christian beliefs no because if a person is free to go he is not a prisoner similarly if a person is not constrained by faith and dogma he is not a christian so christianity is a prison eh ever heard of parole you have read far too much into this subject a christian is one who follows the religion based on the teachings of a man named jesus christ nowhere does this definition imply that one cannot change one s mind in prison however you can t just decide to leave one is voluntary the other is not the two are not compatible religion is like the gun that doesn t kill anybody religion encourages faith and dogma and although it doesn t directly condemn people it encourages the use of just because thinking it is just because thinking that kills people i prefer to think of religion as a water pistol filled with urine seriously though some but certainly not all religions do condemn groups of people the common target is the infidel a curious being who is alternately an atheist a non insert specific religious affiliation here a person of a different race or an egyptian please explain how just because thinking kills people and please state more in your answer than waco of course not all humans are capable of thought and we d still have genocide and maybe even some mass suicide but not as much i m willing to bet on that i ll see your conscientious peacenik and raise you a religious zealot with bad acne by the way i wasn t aware mass suicide was a problem waco and jonestown were isolated incidents mass suicides are far from common kevin marshall computer science department virginia tech marshall csugrad cs vt edu blacksburg virginia
alt.atheism	church o satan was re islamic authority sic over women david rice ofa fidonet org writes who marshall csugrad cs vt edu kevin marshall what q kc dj csugrad cs vt edu km yeah hilarious satanists believe satan is a god but not km the only god satan is a part of christian mythology km therefore one cannot reasonably worship satan without km acknowledging the existence of a christian god satanists km see satan as their master and they see god and satan as km adversaries of similar power satanists believe in the km eventual overthrow of god and a transfer of all power to km their master kevin marshall a great many satanists do not believe in satan some do some don t i d go so far as to assert that most orthodox satanists do not worship satan church of satan etc but rather worship self to hear lavey say it only idiots and fools believe in satan and or allah he knew that suckers are born every minute maximus wb anton lavey s interpretation of satanism has always puzzled me i read his satanic bible a few years ago for a social studies project as well as a book by arthur lyons called the cult of devil worship in america the latter included a very interesting interview with the black pope in which he did indeed say that satan was merely an instrument for one to realize the self when i refer to satanism i am referring to the mishmash of rural satanic ritualism and witchcraft which existed before the church of satan i don t consider lavey s church to be at all orthodox nor do i consider its followers satanists lavey combined the philosophies of nietzsche crowley and reich slapped in some religious doctrine added a little touch of p t barnum and christened his creation the church of satan no doubt the title was a calculated attempt to attract attention i suppose he could have just as easily called it the church of free sex at any rate it worked for a while in its heyday the church had a huge following including such hollywood celebrities as sammy davis jr and jayne mansfield i have a picture of lavey with sammy by the way i find the idea of a satanist not believing in satan about as credible as a christian not believing in christ but if you include the church of satan then i suppose i need to alter my definition webster s dictionary and the american heritage dictionary will have to do the same kevin marshall computer science department virginia tech marshall csugrad cs vt edu blacksburg virginia
alt.atheism	re who has read rushdie s the satanic verses in article edm apr gocart twisto compaq com edm twisto compaq com ed mccreary writes while we re on the topic of books has anyone else noticed that paine s the age of reason is hard to find i ve been wanting to pick up a copy for a while but not bad enough to mail order it i ve noticed though that none of the bookstores i go to seem to carry it i thought this was supposed to be classic what s the deal me too our local used book store is the second largest on the west coast and i couldn t find a copy there i guess atheists hold their bibles in as much esteem as the theists bob beauchaine bobbe vice ico tek com they said that queens could stay they blew the bronx away and sank manhattan out at sea
alt.atheism	re islamic genocide in article qu o horus ap mchp sni de frank d s uucp frank o dwyer writes in article qkovl k fido asd sgi com livesey solntze wpd sgi com jon livesey writes false dichotomy you claimed the killing were not religiously motivated and i m saying that s wrong i m not saying that each and every killing is religiously motivate as i spelled out in detail which killings do you say are religously motivated for example i would claim that the recent assassination of four catholic construction workers who had no connection with the ira was probably religously motivated at the time of writing i think that someone who claims the current violence is motivated by religion is reaching what would you call is when someone writes the killings in n i are not religously motivated now it s possible to argue that religion in the past is a major contributing factor to the violence in the present but i don t know of any evidence that this is so and i m not enough of a historian to debate it given that the avowed aim of the ira is to take northern ireland into a country that has a particular church written into its constitution and which has restriction on civil rights dictated by that church i fail to see why the word past is appropriate but to claim that the killings in n i are not religously motivated is grotesque all that means is that the church and believers are doing what they always do with history they can t face they rewrite it you re attacking a different claim my claim is that when an ira terrorist plants a bomb in warrington s he does not have as a motive the greater glory of god sorry frank but what i put in quotes is your own words from your posting qi b ec horus ap mchp sni de don t tell us now that it s a different claim if you can no longer stand behind your original claim just say so i mean the same thing when i say the killings in n i are not religously motivated as i do when i say when a terrorist plants a bomb s he doesn t have a religious motive the example is meant to clarify not to be a new claim the different claim to which i refer is the claim which you were seemingly attacking in the previous post namely that religion is not a major historical cause of the present violence i don t assert that nor do i assert its opposite you don t have to hand us a bunch of double talk about what i was seemingly attacking i quoted what i was attacking jon
alt.atheism	re the inimitable rushdie in article apr monu cc monash edu au darice yoyo cc monash edu au fred rice writes in qi jkj fido asd sgi com livesey solntze wpd sgi com jon livesey writes my understanding is that uk blasphemy laws yes they exist in the uk although they are little used apply only to anglican christianity how does this fit in with your claim that there is no state religion in the uk why don t you ask the approx two million british muslims who break it five times a day and have never ever been prosecuted under it then ask how easy it is to hold a christian church service in saudi arabia jon
alt.atheism	re who has read rushdie s the satanic verses in article r cl innknk bozo dsinc com perry dsinc com jim perry writes anyway since i seem to be the only one following this particular line of discussion i wonder how many of the rest of the readership have read this book what are your thoughts on it i read it when it first came out and the controversy broke put my name on the waiting list at the library that way if the book was really offensive none of my money would find its way to the author or publisher and read it cover to cover to use a phrase that seems popular here right now and i liked it the writing style was a little hard to get used to but it was well worth the effort coming from a similar background rushdie grew up in bombay in a muslim family and moved to england i grew up in new delhi it made a strong impression on me and he used many of the strange constructions of indian english the yaar at the end of a sentence butbutbut the occasional hindi phrase etc at the time i still sorta kinda thought of myself as a muslim and i couldn t see what the flap was all about it seemed clear to me that this was allegory it was clear that he described some local prostitutes who took on the names and personae of muhammed s wives and had not as my grandfather thundered implied that muhammed s wives were prostitutes in short every angry muslim that had read even part of the book seemed to have missed the point completely and i won t mention the fact that the most militant of them had never even seen the book oops i just did perhaps in a deep sense the book is insulting to islam because it exposes the silliness of revealed religion why does an omnipotent deity need an agent she can come directly to me can t she how do we know that muhammed didn t just go out into the desert and smoke something and how do we know that the scribes he dictated the quran to didn t screw up or put in their own little verses and why can muhammed marry more than four women when no other muslim is allowed to although i think the biggest insult to islam is that the majority of its followers would want to suppress a book sight unseen on the say so of some holy guy not to mention murder the author over the years when i have made this point various primarily muslim posters have responded saying that yes indeed they have read the book and had called it such things as filth and lies i would rank rushdie s book with hitler s mein kempf or worse and so on i had much the same response when i tried to talk about the book a really silly argument after all how many of these same people have read mein kampf it just made me wonder what are they afraid of why don t they just read the book and decide for themselves maybe the reaction of the muslim community to the book and the absence of protest from the liberal muslims to khomeini s fatwa outrage was the final push i needed into atheism s shamim mohamed uunet noao cmcl arizona shamim shamim cs arizona edu take this cross and garlic here s a mezuzah if he s jewish a page of the koran if he s a muslim and if he s a zen buddhist you re on your own member of the league for programming freedom write to lpf uunet uu net
alt.atheism	re the universe and black holes was re years in article apr iastate edu kv iastate edu warren vonroeschlaub wrote let s say that we drop a marble into the black hole it races ever faster towards the even horizon but thanks to the curving of space caused by the excessive gravity as the object approaches the event horizon it has further to travel integrating the curve gives a time to reach the event horizon of infinity so the math says that nothing can enter a black hole not true only an observer at rest at infinite distance from the black hole will see the particle take infinite time to reach the horizon in the particle s own reference frame it takes a very finite time to reach the horizon and the singularity the math does indeed predict this take a look at mitchner thorne and wheeler s gravitation peter walker don t forget to sing they say there s a heaven for those who will wait some say it s better but i say it ain t i d rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints the sinners are much more fun only the good die young
alt.atheism	re yet more rushdie re islamic law in article bu edu jaeger buphy bu edu gregg jaeger writes in article qla g afp fido asd sgi com livesey solntze wpd sgi com jon livesey writes i hope an islamic bank is something other than bcci which ripped off so many small depositors among the muslim community in the uk and elsewhere grow up childish propagandist bbci was an example of an islamically owned and operated bank what will someone bet me they weren t real islamic owners and operators an islamic bank is a bank which operates according to the rules of islam in regard to banking this is done explicitly by the bank this was not the case with bcci so now you are saying that an islamic bank is something other than bcci would you care to explain why it was that when i said i hope an islamic bank is something other than bcci you called me a childish propagandist jon
alt.atheism	re yet more rushdie re islamic law in article apr monu cc monash edu au darice yoyo cc monash edu au fred rice writes the difference as i understand it is that when one invests one shares in the risk of the venture whereas when a bank lends money while charging interest the bank takes little risk the entire business of a bank is the management of risk that s what a bank is for that s what people who work for banks do something like that anyway financial stuff ain t my thing ok but in that case why are you posting about it what i hear you saying is i don t understand this stuff but if islam says it s so it s so jon
alt.atheism	re cruel was re political atheists in article qnpe inn b gap caltech edu keith cco caltech edu keith allan schneider writes livesey solntze wpd sgi com jon livesey writes they spent quite a bit of time on the wording of the constitution i realise that this is widely held belief in america but in fact the clause on cruel and unusual punishments like a lot of the rest was lifted from the english bill of rights of just because the wording is elsewhere does not mean they didn t spend much time on the wording in the part of the posting you have so helpfully deleted i pointed out that they used the wording from the english bill of rights apparently changing what they understood by it and i asked why then should we two hundred years later be bound by what keith allan schneider thinks they understood by it we have already looked in the dictionary to define the word isn t this sufficient since the dictionary said that a lack of mercy or an intent to inflict injury or grief counted as cruel sure people can be described as cruel in this way but punishments cannot so one cannot say a cruel fate your prevarications are getting increasingly unconvincing i think jon
alt.atheism	re cruel was re political atheists in article apr bmerh bnr ca dgraham bmers bnr ca douglas graham writes in article qnedm a fido asd sgi com livesey solntze wpd sgi com jon livesey writes in article ql mdinn gap caltech edu keith cco caltech edu keith allan schneider writes they spent quite a bit of time on the wording of the constitution i realise that this is widely held belief in america but in fact the clause on cruel and unusual punishments like a lot of the rest was lifted from the english bill of rights of according to jerry mander s in the absence of the sacred good book btw the great binding law of the iroquois confederacy also played a significant role as a model for the u s constitution furthermore apparently marx and engels were strongly influenced by a study of iroquois society using it as the prime example of a successful classless egalitarian noncoercive society mander goes on to say that both the u s and the u s s r would do well to study the original document figure out where each went wrong and try to get it right next time that s fascinating i heard that the chinese rather than the italians invented pasta jon
alt.atheism	re political atheists in article qnp inn gap caltech edu keith cco caltech edu keith allan schneider writes livesey solntze wpd sgi com jon livesey writes perhaps the chimps that failed to evolve cooperative behaviour died out and we are left with the ones that did evolve such behaviour entirely by chance that s the entire point no that s the point of evolution not the point of natural morality unless of course as i have suggested several times already natural morality is just a renaming are you going to proclaim a natural morality every time an organism evolves cooperative behaviour yes natural morality is a morality that developed naturally but your yes is actually stronger than this you are agreeing that every time an organism evolves cooperative behaviour you are going to call it a natural morality what about the natural morality of bee dance huh bee dance is a naturally developed piece of cooperative behaviour jon
alt.atheism	re political atheists in article apr daffy cs wisc edu mccullou snake cs wisc edu mark mccullough writes in article ql a afp fido asd sgi com livesey solntze wpd sgi com jon livesey writes in article ql ajinn kj gap caltech edu keith cco caltech edu keith allan schneider writes well chimps must have some system they live in social groups as we do so they must have some laws dictating undesired behavior ah the verb to must i was warned about that one back in kindergarten so why must they have such laws jon hey must is a verb in some languages just happens it is only a modifier in english but the verb of the sentence is to have this is modified by must i know that must is a verb in some languages i m complaining about the assertion containing the word must jon
alt.atheism	re a little too satanic in article mimsy umd edu mangoe cs umd edu charley wingate writes jon livesey writes what i said was that people took time to copy the text correctly translations present completely different issues so why do i read in the papers that the qumram texts had different versions of some ot texts did i misunderstand reading newspapers to learn about this kind of stuff is not the best idea in the world newspaper reporters are notoriously ignorant on the subject of religion and are prone to exaggeration in the interests of having a real story that is a bigger headline let s back up to at this point we have the masoretic text the various targums translations commentaries in aramaic etc and the septuagint the ancient greek translation the masoretic text is the standard jewish text and essentially does not vary in some places it has obvious corruptions all of which are copied faithfully from copy to copy these passages in the past were interpreted by reference to the targums and to the septuagint so when they took the time to copy the text correctly that includes obvious corruptions now the septuagint differs from the masoretic text in two particulars first it includes additional texts and second in some passages there are variant readings from the masoretic text in addition to fixing predating the various corrupted passages it must be emphasized that to the best of my knowledge these variations are only signifcant to bible scholars and have little theological import so when they took the time to copy the text correctly that does not exclude variant readings from the masoretic text which are of little theological import the dead sea scroll materials add to this an ancient copy of almost all of isaiah and fragments of various sizes of almost all other ot books there is also an abundance of other material but as far as i know there is no sign there of any hebrew antecdent to the apocrypha the extra texts in the septuagint as far as analysis has proceeded there are also variations between the dss texts and the masoretic versions these tend to reflect the septuagint where the latter isn t obviously in error again though the differences thus far are not significant theologically there is this big expectation that there are great theological surprises lurking in the material but so far this hasn t happened the dss are important because there is almost no textual tradition in the ot unlike for the nt hey you re the expert jon
alt.atheism	re amusing atheists and agnostics in article ofp qp vpdinppwh andrew cmu edu nanci ann miller nm w andrew cmu edu writes timmbake mcl ucsb edu bake timmons writes there lies the hypocrisy dude atheism takes as much faith as theism admit it besides not believing in a god means one doesn t have to deal with all of the extra baggage that comes with it this leaves a person feeling wonderfully free especially after beaten over the head with it for years i agree that religion and belief is often an important psychological healer for many people and for that reason i think it s important however trying to force a psychological fantasy i don t mean that in a bad way but that s what it really is on someone else who isn t interested is extremely rude what if i still believed in santa claus and said that my it should be noted that belief in god is in itself no more a behavoral imperative than lack of belief it is religion which causes the harm not the belief in god dan
alt.atheism	re faith and dogma in article r mr eov aurora engr latech edu ray engr latech edu bill ray writes todd kelley tgk cs toronto edu wrote faith and dogma are dangerous faith and dogma are inevitable christians merely understand and admit to the fact give me your proof that no god exists or that he does whichever position you take you are forced to do it on faith it does no good to say you take no position for to show no interest in the existence of god is to assume he does not exist stuff deleted as many posters have said in as many posts lately this is just not true for to show no interest in the existence of god takes no faith at all you make the presumption that the knowledge of the possibility of something is enough to require faith to render that possibilty of no interest it is a very different thing to say that you don t believe something than it is to say that you don t have sufficent reason to believe something is even interesting to think about it s not either or sometimes is just something else more interesting that occupies your mind i agree that faith and dogma are inevitable but not necessarily applied to god and religion it takes both faith and dogma to expect the sun to come up every morning but there is overwhelming reason every single day day in and day out for everyone to put his faith and dogma there not so with the christian religion jim halat halat bear com bear stearns whatever doesn t kill you will only serve to annoy you nyc i speak only for myself
alt.atheism	re christian morality is in article eastman uucp dps nasa kodak com dan schaertel wrote in article vice ico tek com bobbe vice ico tek com robert beauchaine writes yet i am still not a believer is god not concerned with my disposition why is it beneath him to provide me with the evidence i would require to believe the evidence that my personality given to me by this god would find compelling the fact is god could cause you to believe anything he wants you to but think about it for a minute would you rather have someone love you because you made them love you or because they wanted to love you i wouldn t punish him with eternal torture if he didn t love me but then i m a decent chap it seems your god isn t the responsibility is on you to love god and take a step toward him he promises to be there for you but you have to look for yourself i ve looked and he wasn t another promise broken those who doubt this or dispute it have not givin it a sincere effort lying bastard how do you know what effort i have and have not given simple logic arguments are folly if you read the bible you will see that jesus made fools of those who tried to trick him with logic our ability to reason is just a spec of creation yet some think it is the ultimate if you rely simply on your reason then you will never know more than you do now to learn you must accept that which you don t know can anyone eaplain what he s just said here peter don t forget to sing they say there s a heaven for those who will wait some say it s better but i say it ain t i d rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints the sinners are much more fun only the good die young
alt.atheism	re you will all go to hell in article c s zm e cbnewsj cb att com decay cbnewsj cb att com dean kaflowitz wrote in article c lh p k portal hq videocart com dfuller portal hq videocart com dave fuller writes jsn psuvm psu edu writes you blashephemers you will all go to hell for not believing in god be prepared for your eternal damnation what do you mean be prepared surrounded by thumpers like yourself has proven to be hellish enough and i m not even dead yet well here s how i prepared i got one of those big beach umbrellas some of those gel pack ice things a big coleman cooler which i ve loaded up with miller draft so i like miller draft so sue me a new pair of new balance sneakers a sony watchman and a couple of cartons of bonton cheddar cheese popcorn i haven t decided what to wear yet what does one wear to an eternal damnation dean kaflowitz dress casual only in heaven is there a dress code black tie and self important expression don t forget to sing they say there s a heaven for those who will wait some say it s better but i say it ain t i d rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints the sinners are much more fun only the good die young
alt.atheism	re genocide is caused by atheism in article apr monu cc monash edu au darice yoyo cc monash edu au fred rice writes in qi fc jkj fido asd sgi com livesey solntze wpd sgi com jon livesey writes in article apr monu cc monash edu au darice yoyo cc monash edu au fred rice writes some here on alt atheism think that by condemning the actions of some of those who call themselves muslims they are condemning islam do you read minds mr rice you know what posters think now not just what they write for myself i only have what people are posting here to go on and that s what i am commenting on i think you may have misunderstood me i mean that one does not really criticize islam necessarily by bringing khomeini etc into the argument for whether he is or is not following islam has to be determined by examining his actions against islamic teachings islamic teachings are contained in the qur an and hadiths reported sayings and doings of the prophet that s funny i thought you were making a statement about what people think in fact i see it quoted up there jon
alt.atheism	re genocide is caused by atheism in article apr monu cc monash edu au darice yoyo cc monash edu au fred rice writes by the way jon i found a reference to my claim that the percentage of the population that suffers from depression has been increasing this century as you requested i will start a new heading thread to post it under cool then we can discuss the increase in radio and tv use the increase in the use of fossil fuels the increase in air travel and consumption of processed bread and you can instruct us on which of them causes increased depression jon
alt.atheism	re genocide is caused by atheism in article qugin tf horus ap mchp sni de frank d s uucp frank o dwyer writes in article qkogg k fido asd sgi com livesey solntze wpd sgi com jon livesey writes and in that area what you care about is whether someone is sceptical critical and autonomous on the one hand or gullible excitable and easily led on the other indeed i may and one may be an atheist and also be gullible excitable and easily led i would say that a tendency to worship tyrants and ideologies indicates that a person is easily led whether they have a worship or belief in a supernatural hero rather than an earthly one seems to me to be beside the point sure but whether or not they are atheists is what we are discussing not whether they are easily led not if you show that these hypothetical atheists are gullible excitable and easily led from some concrete cause in that case we would also have to discuss if that concrete cause rather than atheism was the factor that caused their subsequent behaviour jon
alt.atheism	re faith and dogma marshall csugrad cs vt edu kevin marshall r eba hsq csugrad cs vt edu wrote i don t necessarily disagree with your assertion but i disagree with your reasoning faith bad dogma bad religion faith dogma religion bad bad religion bad unfortunately you never state why faith and dogma are dangerous faith and dogma are dangerous because they cause people to act on faith alone which by its nature is without justification that is what i mean by the word faith belief without justification or belief with arbitrary justification or with emotional irrational justification for example when someone says that god exists that they don t know why they believe god exists they can just feel it that s faith dogma is bad because it precludes positive change in belief based on new information or increased mental faculty so christians are totally irrational irrational with respect to their religion only what are you saying one s belief in a christian god does not make one totally irrational i think i know what you were getting at but i d rather hear you expand on the subject faith and dogma are irrational the faith and dogma part of any religion are responsible for the irrationality of the individuals i claim that faith and dogma are the quintessential part of any religion if that makes the much overused in this context buddism a philosophy rather than a religion i can live with that science is not a religion because there is no faith nor dogma a philosopher cannot be a christian because a philosopher can change his mind whereas a christian cannot due to the nature of faith and dogma present in any religion again this statement is too general a christian is perfectly capable of being a philosopher and absolutely capable of changing his her mind faith in god is a belief and all beliefs may change would you assert that atheists would make poor philosophers because they are predisposed to not believe in a god which of course may show unfair bias when studying say religion have you noticed that philosophers tend to be atheists if a philosopher is not an atheist s he tends to be called a theologian a christian tends to consider christianity sacred christianity is a special set of beliefs sanctioned by god himself and therefore to conceive of changing those beliefs is to question the existence of that being who makes no mistakes faith comes into play dogma comes into play the lord works in mysterious ways is an example of faith being used to reconcile evidence that the beliefs are flawed sure interpretations of what god said are changed to satisfy the needs of society but when god says something that s it it was said and that s that since god said it it is unflawed even if the interpretations are flawed science as would be practiced by atheists in contrast has a built in defence against faith and dogma a scientist holds sacred the idea that beliefs should change to suit whatever is the best information available at the time and and and a scientist understands that any current beliefs are deficient in some way the goal is to keep improving the beliefs the goal is to keep changing the beliefs to reflect the best information currently available that s the only rational thing to do that s good philosophy can you see the difference science views beliefs as being flawed and new information can be obtained to improve them how many scientists would claim to have complete and perfect understanding of everything none it would put them out of a job religion views its beliefs as being perfect and the interpretations of those beliefs must be changed as new information is acquired which conflicts with them please explain how just because thinking kills people and please state more in your answer than waco it s easier for someone to kill a person when s he doesn t require a good rational justification of the killing i don t consider he s jewish or he was born of jewish parents or this document says he s jewish to be good rational justification by the way i wasn t aware mass suicide was a problem waco and jonestown were isolated incidents mass suicides are far from common clinton and the fbi would love for you to convince them of this it would save the us taxpayer a lot of money if you could todd
alt.atheism	re faith and dogma in r mr eov aurora engr latech edu ray engr latech edu bill ray wrote faith and dogma are inevitable christians merely understand and admit to the fact give me your proof that no god exists or that he does whichever position you take you are forced to do it on faith it does no good to say you take no position for to show no interest in the existence of god is to assume he does not exist consider special relativity it hasn t be proved nor has it been disproved no one has a proof one way or the other but many people are interested in it i ve satisfied myself that nothing could indicate absolutely the existence of god one way or the other the two possibilities are supernaturalism and naturalism of course no set of circumstances can be inconsistent with supernaturalism but similarly no set of circumstances can be inconsistent with naturalism in naturalism any phenomenon that could be described as god is considered part of the natural world to be studied as any other natural phenomenon gravity for instance for example if a loud godlike voice vociferously announced i am god i exist and i will prove it by reversing the force of gravity and if then gravity did indeed reverse a naturalist probably a scientist would say boy we sure didn t understand gravity as well as we thought we did and that loud voice is something new perhaps we didn t understand thunder as well as we thought we did either i contend that proper implementation of the christian faith requires reasoning but that reasoning cannot be used to throw out things you don t like or find uncomfortable hedonistic sexual behavior is condemned in the bible and no act of true reason will make it any less condemned hatred murder gossip all these are condemned is there god ordained murder in the bible you bet and if god ever orders me to kill you i will but i will first use the gideon like behavior of verifying that god actually ordered the hit and will probably discuss it in an abram like fashion i m sure glad you don t know where i live since you don t seem to realize it is impossible for you to distinguish between voices in your head and god s voice i can hear you now this is how jim jones and david koresh justify their behavior delusional religious cults bear the same relationship to christianity that rape bears to consentual sex form but no substance when the southern baptist church or the methodist church begin to do this then you have reason to blame mainstream religion for the behaviors of these people or should i associate every negative behavior i witness in any non christian with you you seem to have missed my point even if jim jones and david koresh were not religious people my point remains that faith and dogma are dangerous and religion encourages them jim jones and david koresh also encouraged them my point does not rely on jim jones and david koresh being religious todd
alt.atheism	re faith and dogma in article r mr eov aurora engr latech edu ray engr latech edu bill ray writes todd kelley tgk cs toronto edu wrote faith and dogma are dangerous faith and dogma are inevitable christians merely understand and admit to the fact give me your proof that no god exists or that he does whichever position you take you are forced to do it on faith it does no good to say you take no position for to show no interest in the existence of god is to assume he does not exist absolutely not true without religion either an established one or one you invent for yourself the theist and atheist are equally not interested in god because without religious revelation there is no information about god available strip away the dogma and the theists atheists are no different simply holding a different opinion on a matter of little practical importance i contend that proper implementation of the christian faith requires reasoning but that reasoning cannot be used to throw out things you don t like or find uncomfortable hedonistic sexual behavior is condemned in the bible and no act of true reason will make it any less condemned hatred murder gossip all these are condemned is there god ordained murder in the bible you bet and if god ever orders me to kill you i will but i will first use the gideon like behavior of verifying that god actually ordered the hit and will probably discuss it in an abram like fashion sorry but that doesn t help what test will you apply to decide whether it is god or satan with whom you are speaking how will you know that you have not simply gone insane or having delusions you are like a loaded gun i can hear you now this is how jim jones and david koresh justify their behavior delusional religious cults bear the same relationship ah you not as stupid as i assumed when the southern baptist church or the methodist church begin to do this then you have reason to blame mainstream religion for the behaviors of these people or should i associate every negative behavior i witness in any non christian with you yes we re all in this together each human making up a small part of the definition of humanity dan
alt.atheism	re thoughts on christians in article vice ico tek com bobbe vice ico tek com robert beauchaine wrote in article sandvik sandvik kent apple com sandvik newton apple com kent sandvik writes as i know you can t get any physical problems by passive christianity unlike smoking it s not that hard to avoid christianity today anyway just ignore em right on keith err kent whadda you mean you didn t see the smiley ouch i guess i didn t sorry but my comment was just more irony into the fire cheers kent sandvik newton apple com alink ksand private activities on the net
alt.atheism	re who has read rushdie s the satanic verses in article vice ico tek com bobbe vice ico tek com robert beauchaine wrote in article edm apr gocart twisto compaq com edm twisto compaq com ed mccreary writes while we re on the topic of books has anyone else noticed that paine s the age of reason is hard to find i ve been wanting to pick up a copy for a while but not bad enough to mail order it i ve noticed though that none of the bookstores i go to seem to carry it i thought this was supposed to be classic what s the deal me too our local used book store is the second largest on the west coast and i couldn t find a copy there i guess atheists hold their bibles in as much esteem as the theists if i remember correctly prometheus books have this one in stock so just call them and ask for the book cheers kent sandvik newton apple com alink ksand private activities on the net
alt.atheism	age of reason was who has read rushdie s this is the story of kent the archetype finn that lives in the bay area and tried to purchase thomas paine s age of reason this man was driving around to staceys to books inc to well cleanlighted place to daltons to various other places when he asked for this book the well educated american book store assistants in most placed asked him to check out the thriller section or then they said that his book has not been published yet but they should receive the book soon in some places the assistants bluntly said that they don t know of such an author or that he is not a well known living author so they don t keep copies of his books such is the life and times of america years after the revolution cheers kent sandvik newton apple com alink ksand private activities on the net
alt.atheism	re some thoughts in article c rekj y darkside osrhe uoknor edu bil okcforum osrhe edu bill conner writes james felder spbach lerc nasa gov wrote logic alert argument from incredulity just because it is hard for you to believe this doesn t mean that it isn t true liars can be very pursuasive just look at koresh that you yourself cite this is whole basis of a great many here rejecting the christian account of things in the words of st madalyn murrey o hair face it folks it s just silly why is it okay to disbelieve because of your incredulity if you admit that it s a fallacy it isn t and i wasn t aware that this o hair chick was a reader of a a so that doesn t support your assertion that the argument is the whole basis of a great many here rejecting dan
alt.atheism	re thoughts on christians in article c rgkb fs darkside osrhe uoknor edu bil okcforum osrhe edu bill conner writes kent sandvik sandvik newton apple com wrote the social pressure is indeed a very important factor for the majority of passive christians in our world today in the case of early christianity the promise of a heavenly afterlife independent of your social status was also a very promising gift reason slaves and non romans accepted the religion very rapidly if this is a hypothetical proposition you should say so if it s fact you should cite your sources if all this is the amateur sociologist sub branch of a a however it would suffice to alert the unwary that you are just screwing around what would you accept as sources this very thing has been written in lots of books you could start with erich fromm s the dogma of christ doug graham dgraham bnr ca my opinions are my own
alt.atheism	re cruel was re political atheists in article r j d e fido asd sgi com livesey solntze wpd sgi com jon livesey writes in article apr bmerh bnr ca dgraham bmers bnr ca douglas graham writes according to jerry mander s in the absence of the sacred good book btw the great binding law of the iroquois confederacy also played a significant role as a model for the u s constitution furthermore apparently marx and engels were strongly influenced by a study of iroquois society using it as the prime example of a successful classless egalitarian noncoercive society mander goes on to say that both the u s and the u s s r would do well to study the original document figure out where each went wrong and try to get it right next time that s fascinating i heard that the chinese rather than the italians invented pasta that s fascinating i take it that you re expressing skepticism at the idea that those ignorant savages could have influenced the constitution of the people who stole their continent you could be right but it sounds plausible to me is there any reason that you dismiss it out of hand here s some more recent scholarship has shown that in the mid s indians were not only invited to participate in the deliberations of our founding fathers but that the great binding law of the iroquois confederacy arguably became the single most important model for the albany plan of union and later the articles of confederation and the constitution that this would be absent from our school texts and from history and from media is not surprising given the devotion americans feel to our founding myth great men gathered to express a new vision that has withstood the test of time if it were revealed that indians had a role in it imagine the blow to the american psyche by when most of these men and others gathered to creat the albany plan of union the first try at confederation they invited forty two members of the iroquois grand council to serve as advisors on confederate structures benjamin franklin freely acknowledged his interest in the iroquois achievement in a famous speech at albany congress it would be a strange thing if six nations of ignorant savages sic should be capable of forming such a union and be able to execute it in such a manner that it has subsisted for ages and appears indissoluble and yet that a like union should be impractical for ten or a dozen english colonies according to grinde franklin convened meetings of iroquois chiefs and congressional delegates in order to hammer out a plan that he acknowedged to be similar to the iroquois confederacy grinde is professor donald grinde jr of the university of california at riverside whose book the iroquois and the founding fathers of the american nation addresses this issue doug graham dgraham bnr ca my opinions are my own
alt.atheism	re studies on book of mormon date tue apr gmt from carolyn jean fairman cfairman leland stanford edu agrino enkidu mic cl andres grino brandt asks about mormons there are some mention about events places or historical persons later discovered by archeologist one of the more amusing things in the bom is a claim that a civilization existed in north america aroun where the mystical plates were found not only did it use steel and other metals but it had lots of wars very ot no one has ever found any metal swords or and traces of a civilization other than the native americans this is just one example from free inquiry winter the following is an introduction to the article joseph smith and the book of mormon by george d smith the introduction is written by paul kurtz mormonism the church of jesus christ of latter day saints claims a worldwide membership million it is one of the world s fastest growing religions with as many as new converst in alone because of the church s aggressive missionary program covering more than one hundred countries it is spreading even to third world countries mormonism is both puritanical in moral outlook and evangelical in preachment the church is run along strict authoritarian lines led by a president who allegedly receives revelations directly form god and a group of twelve apostles who attempt to maintain orthodoxy in belief and practice the church is opposed to abortion pornography sexual freedom women s rights and other in its view immoral influences of secular society and it forbids the use of tobacco alcohol coffee and tea centered in salt lake city the church is extremely wealthy and politically powerful in utal and many other western states among well know present day mormons are ezra taft benson former secretary of agriculture the osmond family the mariotts of the hotel empire and a score of high placed government officials the mormon church was founded in western new york in by joseph smith who claimed that by divine revelation be had found gold plates containing hieroglyphics buried on a hill and that with the help of visits from the angel moroni he had been able to translate the writing into the book of mormon the basis of mormon belief this book written by the commandment of god claims that the ancient hebrews settled in america about b c e and were the ancestors of the american indians mormons believe that those who have been baptized in the true church will be reunited after death and that deceased non mormon family members can be baptized by proxy and thus join their relatives in the hereafter because of these beliefs mormons have been considered outcasts by mainline christian denominations and as heretics by religious fundamentalists joseph smith was a controversial figure in his day he was both worshiped as a saint and denounced as a fraud because of persecution he led his band of loyal followers from palmyra new york westward to ohio and then to illinois where in he was shot to death by an agry mob brigham young who reportedly had as many as eighty wives took over the leadership of the church and led the mormons further westward to found the new zion in salt lake city following the teachings of joseph smith in the practice of polygamy was perhaps the mormons most controversial practice in nineteenth century america while other religions go back many centuries muhammadanism years christianity and judaism and attempts to examine their beginnings are difficult extensive historical investigation of mormon roots is possible some mormons are willing to examine this history objectively bu others maintain that such scrutiny is dangerous to the faith in the following pages free inquiry presents two articles about the mormon church first george d smith a lifelong member of the church provides a detailed critical examination of joseph smith and his claim the the book of mormon was divinely revealed second we present a portion of an interview with philosopher sterling mcmurrin also a mormon since birth who questions the treatment of the history of the church by mormon authorities paul kurtz the article itself is super c jimtims p psilink com
alt.atheism	re christian morality is in article eastman uucp dps nasa kodak com writes simple logic arguments are folly if you read the bible you will see that jesus made fools of those who tried to trick him with logic why don t you cite the passages so that we can focus on some to discuss then following jesus you can make fools of us and our logic if you rely simply on your reason then you will never know more than you do now indeed if you can justifiably make this assertion you must be a genius in logic and making fools of us should be that much easier qpliu princeton edu standard opinion opinions are delta correlated
alt.atheism	logic of jesus dps nasa kodak com pontificated simple logic arguments are folly if you read the bible you will see that jesus made fools of those who tried to trick him with logic can you cite an example of this please post an answer as i don t want to receive e mail james t green jgreen oboe calpoly edu at all times and in all nations the priest has been hostile to liberty thomas jefferson
alt.atheism	re islamic authority over women kmr po cwru edu keith m ryan pontificated q how many moslem men does it take to rape a woman a five one to commit the act and four to witness the penetration a guilty verdict can be rendered only if there is a confession or if there are at least two male witnesses to the crime adultery and rape are proved only if four witnesses have seen the actual penetration an occurrence that presumably does not happen often is this from the quran or however it s spelled james t green jgreen oboe calpoly edu at all times and in all nations the priest has been hostile to liberty thomas jefferson
alt.atheism	re so help you god in court i ve heard that in california they ask you to swear without any mention of a god what states actually include god in the courtroom oath james t green jgreen oboe calpoly edu at all times and in all nations the priest has been hostile to liberty thomas jefferson
alt.atheism	re after years can we say that christian morality is in article apr abo fi mandtbacka finabo abo fi mats andtbacka writes in r fpv p horus ap mchp sni de frank d s uucp writes in article apr abo fi mandtbacka finabo abo fi mats andtbacka writes ah that old chestnut your claim that moral objectivism scientific objectivism i don t agree with it now try proving through some objective moral test that my disagreeing is incorrect your claim which you have deleted now was not universal not objective i ve deleted it now in the interest of brevity go back a step and you ll see it was still in your post yes that was my claim if you can refute it then please do so firstly an apology you hadn t deleted your claim and i was mistaken in saying you had sorry for any offence caused secondly how can i refute your definition i can only point up its logical implications and say that they seem to contradict the usage of the word objective in other areas indeed by your definition an objective x is an oxymoron for all x i have no quibble with that belief other than that it is useless and that objective is a perfectly good word so what is objective not the age of the universe anyway as i show above how many ages can the universe have and still be internally self consistent i d be amazed if it was more than one how many different moral systems can different members of society have indeed single individuals in some cases and humanity still stick together begging the question people can have many opinions about the age of the universe and humanity can still stick together you are saying that the universe has a real age independent of my beliefs about it why the age of the universe like most scientific facts can be emirically verified through means that ll give the same result no matter who performs the testing albeit there are error bars that may be on the largish side this assumes that the universe has a real age or any kind of reality which doesn t depend on what we think why should an extreme biblical creationist give a rat s ass about the means of which you speak i ve heard of no way to verify morality in a consistent way much less compute the errors of the measurement care to enlighten me the same is true of pain but painkillers exist and can be predicted to work with some accuracy better than a random guess i wrote elsewhere that morality should be hypotheses about observed value if a moral system makes a prediction it will be better if that can be tested and is falsifiable in the same way as a prediction this drug will relieve pain people s ideas about the age of object x are not objective you can have any idea you like and i can t stop you universae and their ages is another ballgame they are what they are and if you dislike some detail of them that s a problem with your opinion of them sure assume an objective reality and you get statements like this i claim that morality is an opinion of ours and as such subjective and individual if i m wrong then some more or less objectively real thing exists which you label objective morality can you back up this positive claim of existence can you back up your positive claim above no that s because it s an assumption i make the same assumption about values on the basis that there is no logical difference between the two and the empirical basis of the two is precisely the same point morals are in essence personal opinions usually ideally well founded motivated such but nonetheless personal the fact that a real large lot of people agree on some moral question sometimes even for the same reason does not make morals objective it makes humans somewhat alike in their opinions on that moral question which can be good for the evolution of a social species and if a real large lot nice phrase of people agree that there is a football on a desk i m supposed to see a logical difference between the two perhaps you can explain the difference to me since you seem to see it so clearly take a look on the desk i e perform a test if football then accept theory else do tell people they re hallucinating now take a look at morality see anything if so please inform me which way to look and why to look that particular way as opposed to some other get my drift no just look are you claiming never to know what good means science is a whole other matter altogether says you prove that those who disagree are wrong that s a simple matter of proving the track record of the scientific method i think it s great and should be applied to values i may be completely wrong but that s what i conclude as a result of quite an amount of thought frank o dwyer i m not hatching that odwyer sse ie from hens by evelyn conlon
alt.atheism	re some thoughts in article c reyf ce darkside osrhe uoknor edu bil okcforum osrhe edu bill conner wrote kent sandvik sandvik newton apple com wrote in article vice ico tek com bobbe vice ico tek com robert beauchaine wrote someone spank me if i m wrong but didn t lord liar or lunatic originate with c s lewis who s this campollo fellow anyway i do think so and isn t there a clear connection with the i do believe because it is absurd notion by one of the original christians origen there is a similar statement attributed to anselm i believe so that i may understand in both cases reason is somewhat less exalted than anyone posting here could accept which means that neither statement can be properly analysed in this venue bill i think you have a misunderstanding about atheism lack of belief in god does not directly imply lack of understanding transcendental values i hope you would accept the fact that for instance buddhists appreciate issues related to non empirical reasoning without the need to automatically believe in theism i think reading a couple of books related to buddhism might revise and fine tune your understanding of non christian systems cheers kent sandvik newton apple com alink ksand private activities on the net
alt.atheism	re christian morality is in article pww spac at rice edu pww spacsun rice edu peter simple logic arguments are folly if you read the bible you will see that jesus made fools of those who tried to trick him with logic our ability to reason is just a spec of creation yet some think it is the ultimate if you rely simply on your reason then you will never know more than you do now to learn you must accept that which you don t know can anyone eaplain what he s just said here i can t it seems jesus used logic to make people using logic look like fools no that does not sound right he maybe just told they were fools and that s it and people believed that hmm does not sound reasonable either i find it always very intriguing to see people stating that transcendental values can t be explained and then in the next sentence they try to explain these unexplained values highly strange cheers kent sandvik newton apple com alink ksand private activities on the net
alt.atheism	re thoughts on christians in article c rgkb fs darkside osrhe uoknor edu bil okcforum osrhe edu bill conner wrote kent sandvik sandvik newton apple com wrote the social pressure is indeed a very important factor for the majority of passive christians in our world today in the case of early christianity the promise of a heavenly afterlife independent of your social status was also a very promising gift reason slaves and non romans accepted the religion very rapidly if this is a hypothetical proposition you should say so if it s fact you should cite your sources if all this is the amateur sociologist sub branch of a a however it would suffice to alert the unwary that you are just screwing around well as i remember jacoby s mythmaker talks about this to cite one source but i m not sure if all christians have read this book in addition my social experiences is from being raised and educated as a lutheran having a lot of christian friends and i even have played in two christian rock bands so over to you do you have any counter claims sources et rest that shows that christianity does not have the concept of a social promise that is independent on the social status cheers kent sandvik newton apple com alink ksand private activities on the net
alt.atheism	re islamic authority over women in article c rb g u darkside osrhe uoknor edu bil okcforum osrhe edu bill conner wrote to credit religion with the awesome power to dominate history is to misunderstand human nature the function of religion and of course history i believe that those who distort history in this way know exaclty what they re doing and do it only for affect however to underestimate the power of religion creating historical events is also a big misunderstanding for instance would the year old war have ever started if there were no fractions between the protestants and the vatican cheers kent sandvik newton apple com alink ksand private activities on the net
alt.atheism	re death penalty was re political atheists in article c rlyz mt darkside osrhe uoknor edu bil okcforum osrhe edu bill conner wrote this is fascinating atheists argue for abortion defend homosexuality as a means of population control insist that the only values are biological and condemn war and capital punishment according to benedikt if something is contardictory it cannot exist which in this case means atheists i suppose i would like to understand how an atheist can object to war an excellent means of controlling population growth or to capital punishment i m sorry but the logic escapes me and why just capital punishment what is being questioned here the propriety of killing or of punishment what is the basis of the ecomplaint bill ever heard of secular humanism please check out what this stands for and then revise your statements above cheers kent sandvik newton apple com alink ksand private activities on the net
alt.atheism	re genocide is caused by atheism in article r kt e fido asd sgi com livesey solntze wpd sgi com jon livesey writes in article qugin tf horus ap mchp sni de frank d s uucp frank o dwyer writes in article qkogg k fido asd sgi com livesey solntze wpd sgi com jon livesey writes and in that area what you care about is whether someone is sceptical critical and autonomous on the one hand or gullible excitable and easily led on the other indeed i may and one may be an atheist and also be gullible excitable and easily led i would say that a tendency to worship tyrants and ideologies indicates that a person is easily led whether they have a worship or belief in a supernatural hero rather than an earthly one seems to me to be beside the point sure but whether or not they are atheists is what we are discussing not whether they are easily led not if you show that these hypothetical atheists are gullible excitable and easily led from some concrete cause in that case we would also have to discuss if that concrete cause rather than atheism was the factor that caused their subsequent behaviour i m not arguing that atheism causes such behaviour merely that it is not relevant to the definition of atheism which is lack of belief in gods frank o dwyer i m not hatching that odwyer sse ie from hens by evelyn conlon
alt.atheism	re islamic genocide in article r gi e fido asd sgi com livesey solntze wpd sgi com jon livesey writes in article qu o horus ap mchp sni de frank d s uucp frank o dwyer writes in article qkovl k fido asd sgi com livesey solntze wpd sgi com jon livesey writes false dichotomy you claimed the killing were not religiously motivated and i m saying that s wrong i m not saying that each and every killing is religiously motivate as i spelled out in detail which killings do you say are religously motivated for example i would claim that the recent assassination of four catholic construction workers who had no connection with the ira was probably religously motivated at the time of writing i think that someone who claims the current violence is motivated by religion is reaching what would you call is when someone writes the killings in n i are not religously motivated i d say it was motivated by a primitive notion of revenge and by misguided patriotism otherwise i d have to wonder how come mainland catholics are not killed by mainland protestants and southern catholics are not killed by southern protestants and so on take away all plausible causes bar religion and the violence diminishes markedly gee why is that now it s possible to argue that religion in the past is a major contributing factor to the violence in the present but i don t know of any evidence that this is so and i m not enough of a historian to debate it given that the avowed aim of the ira is to take northern ireland into a country that has a particular church written into its constitution and which has restriction on civil rights dictated by that church i fail to see why the word past is appropriate the country also has a different official language written in its constitution and vice versa maybe they re motivated by a love of irish poetry your argument is fallacious jon for what it s worth i agree with all that you say about ireland above and more frank o dwyer i m not hatching that odwyer sse ie from hens by evelyn conlon
alt.atheism	re islam and scientific predictions was re genocide is caused by atheism in article apr monu cc monash edu au darice yoyo cc monash edu au fred rice writes deletion god is the one who created the night the day the sun and the moon each is travelling in an orbit with its own motion qur an the positive aspect of this verse noted by dr maurice bucaille is that while geocentrism was the commonly accepted notion at the time and for a long time afterwards there is no notion of geocentrism in this verse or anywhere in the qur an well that is certainly different but it looks as if there is a translation found for everything by the way i am most surprised to hear that night and day move in an orbit and that the sun travels in an orbit without saying that earth does too sounds geocentric to me benedikt
alt.atheism	re after years can we say that christian morality is in article r inr lvi horus ap mchp sni de frank d s uucp frank o dwyer writes deletion and if a real large lot nice phrase of people agree that there is a football on a desk i m supposed to see a logical difference between the two perhaps you can explain the difference to me since you seem to see it so clearly rest deleted that s a fallacy and it is not the first time it is pointed out it s not a fallacy note the if if a supermajority of disinterested people agree on a fundamantal value we re not doing ethics yet benedikt then what is the difference between that and those people agreeing on a trivial observation the reference to it s not yet being ethics is dubious you have used the terms absolute objective and others interchangeably same with moral values values at all worth measuers and usefulness you infer from them as if they were the same to the if when the if is not fulfilled your intermission is a waste of time assuming that you don t intend this it is reasonable to conclude that you want to argue a point you have made a interesting statement here namely that of the disinterested observer there is no such thing in morals probably the shortest proof for objective and morality being a contradiction for one you have never given a set of morals people agree upon unlike a football further you conveniently ignore here that there are many who would not agree on tghe morality of something the analogy does not hold i have however given an example of a value people agree on and explained why people will agree that their freedom is valuable i have also stated that such a value is a necessary condition for doing objective ethics the if assertion above and that is what i m talking about there isn t a point in talking about ethics if this can t be agreed fine and that freedom is valuable is not generally agreed upon i could name quite a lot of people who state the opposite not that that wasn t mentioned before in other words you have nothing to fulfill your strong claims with one can expect sufficiently many people to agree on its being a football while you have to give the evidence that only vanishing number disagrees with a set of morals you have to give i m not doing morals ethics if we can t get past values as i say the only cogent objection to my freedom example is that maybe people aren t talking about the same thing when they answer that it is valuable maybe not and i want to think about this some especially the implications of its being true clutching a straw i don t believe in mappings into metaphysical sets were loaded terms are fixpoints those who deny the morality of freedom make quite clear what they say their practice is telling yes there are even those who are willingly unfree it is quite common in religions by the way for one there is a religion which is named submission don t even try to argue that submission is freedom further the above is evidence not proof proof would evolve out of testing your theory of absolute morals against competing theories garbage that s not proof either if it were so it would argue my case but i am afraid that that is considered proof the above is one of the arguments you reiterate while you never answer the objections evidence that you are a preacher name that fallacy there is something universally valued in a moral context benedikt
alt.atheism	re yet more rushdie re islamic law in qla g afp fido asd sgi com livesey solntze wpd sgi com jon livesey writes in article bu edu jaeger buphy bu edu gregg jaeger writes in article qi l jkj fido asd sgi com livesey solntze wpd sgi com jon livesey writes i hope an islamic bank is something other than bcci which ripped off so many small depositors among the muslim community in the uk and elsewhere deletions bbci was an example of an islamically owned and operated bank what will someone bet me they weren t real islamic owners and operators and yet it actually turned out to be a long running and quite ruthless operation to steal money from small and often quite naive depositors an islamic bank is something which operates in a different fashion to your modern bank as i have explained here on another thread before for example islamic banks don t pay fixed interests on deposits but a return on investments which varies according to the market and is not fixed like interest is islamic banks are a relatively new phenomenon in the islamic world there are no islamic banks in the west including the usa to my knowledge i doubt if the market for them exists there at least not while islamic banks are at a relatively early stage of their development as is the case now bcci is most certainly not an islamic bank did bcci ever pay a fixed interest rate on deposits if the answer to this question is yes then bcci was not an islamic bank as islamic banks are specifically set up to not pay or charge interest whether some muslims partially owned the bank or whatever is completely irrelevant fred rice darice yoyo cc monash edu au
alt.atheism	re death penalty gulf war long this is the most unmitigated bilge i ve seen in a while jim brown obviously has possession of the right wing token diplomatic alternatives including sanctions were ineffective in december former national security adviser zbigniew brzezinski told a senate committee that sanctions were costing iraq million per day and that the multinational coalition could take all the time in the world iraq he suggested was losing badly every day it defied the un demands while the community of nations won every day with no taking of life or loss of life fcnl washington newsletter the world is full of evil and circumstances are not perfect many innocents suffer due to the wrongful actions of others it it regretable but that s the way it is wrongful actions of murderers like leaders of the us government perhaps regrettable of course the way it is certainly not the media is not totally monolithic there are even conservative sources out there if you know where to look hurrah for rush good heavens an escapee from rush limbot land conservative my ass and btw the reason i brought up the blanket bombing in germany was because you were bemoaning the iraqi civilian casualties as being so deplorable yet blanket bombing was instituted because bombing wasn t accurate enough to hit industrial military targets in a decisive way by any other method at that time but in the gulf war precision bombing was the norm bullshit in the gulf massacre of all ordnance used was smart the rest that s was just regular dumb ol iron bombs and stuff have you forgotten that the pentagon definition of a successful patriot launch was when the missile cleared the launching tube with no damage or that a successful interception of a scud was defined as the patriot and scud passed each other in the same area of the sky and of the that was the smart stuff hit again try to follow me here that means of this smart arsenal missed the stories of hundreds of thousands of iraqi civilian dead is just plain bunk prove it i have a source that says that to date the civilian death count er excuse me i mean collateral damage is about s no one has attempted to calculate the costs of an execution in washington state but studies elsewhere suggest it costs far more than incarceration california is spending more than million annually on capital cases and until this year hadn t executed anyone since texas the national leader in the number of executions spends an estimated million per execution that compares to an average cost of incarceration in washington state of per maximum security prisoner per year shamim mohamed uunet noao cmcl arizona shamim shamim cs arizona edu take this cross and garlic here s a mezuzah if he s jewish a page of the koran if he s a muslim and if he s a zen buddhist you re on your own member of the league for programming freedom write to lpf uunet uu net
alt.atheism	re gulf war was re death penalty was re political atheists in article o rusnews w w mantis co uk mathew mathew mantis co uk writes mccullou snake cs wisc edu mark mccullough writes i looked back at this and asked some questions of various people and got the following information which i had claimed and you pooh poohed the us has not sold iraq any arms what about the land mines which have already been mentioned i asked around in one of the areas you suggested yourself and presented the information i got no mention of us landmines was given other countries like kuwait information is hard to prove you are claiming that the us sold information prove it information is hard to prove almost certainly if the us did sell information then that fact is classified and you can t prove it oh very neat dismiss everything i say unless i can prove beyond a shadow of a doubt something which you yourself admit i can never prove to your satisfaction thanks i ll stick to squaring circles mathew okay so you are going to blindly believe in things without reasonable evidence i didn t realize you were a theist i am doubting a claim presented without any evidence to support it if you are able to present real evidence for it then great but unsupported claims or even claims by such and such news agency will not be accepted if you want to stick to the sheer impossible instead of the merely difficult then fine the statement that if such a fact is classified then you can t prove it is a simple matter of pragmatics and the law if you have access to classified information that you know to be classified and you reveal it there is a good chance that you or someone else the person who revealed it to you is going to jail i never said that you couldn t prove it to my satisfaction i merely said that it was difficult who said i try and make things easy for people i am arguing with unless of course they need the handicap mccullou whipple cs wisc edu never program and drink beer at the same m time it doesn t work
alt.atheism	re gulf war and peace niks in article r lva vq fido asd sgi com livesey solntze wpd sgi com jon livesey writes in article apr batman bmd trw com jbrown batman bmd trw com writes in article apr bmerh bnr ca dgraham bmers bnr ca douglas graham writes wait a minute doug i know you are better informed than that the us has never invaded nicaragua as far as i know the us invaded nicaragua several times this century including october andf again in february haiti was occupied in thanks jon i had forgotten about the and invasions if i had ever learned of them i mean i really forgot but i read the context as more recent such as when the sandinistas were expecting an imminent invasion from the u s which never happened i stand corrected thanks panama we invaded true twice this century the us created panama in the first place by fomenting and then intervening in a civil war in the then republic of colombia us troops landed in colombia to help with the uprising and then colombia was duly dismembered and replaced by two countries in order that the us could build the panama canal in the new republic of panama i remembered this one this one and bush s invasion were the two i mentioned above good ol teddy r he knew how to get things done jon regards jim b
alt.atheism	re christian morality is in article eastman uucp dps nasa kodak com writes in article ousrvr oulu fi kempmp phoenix oulu fi petri pihko writes dan schaertel dps nasa kodak com wrote what does this mean to learn you must accept that you don t know something right o but to learn you must accept something i don t know why this is not the way i prefer to learn it is unwise to merely swallow everything you read suppose i write a book telling how the great invisible pink unicorn tm has helped me in my daily problems would you accept this since you can t know whether it is true or not no one asks you to swallow everything in fact jesus warns against it but let me ask you a question do you beleive what you learn in history class or for that matter anything in school i mean it s just what other people have told you and you don t want to swallow what others say right right there is no way to get into a sceptical heart you can not say you have given a sincere effort with the attitude you seem to have you must trust not just go to church and participate in it s activities were you ever willing to die for what you believed the branch dividians were they believed and trusted so much that it became impossible to turn back to reality what you are advocating is total irreversible brainwashing dan
alt.atheism	re genocide is caused by atheism in article r oe hqd horus ap mchp sni de frank d s uucp frank o dwyer writes in article r kt e fido asd sgi com livesey solntze wpd sgi com jon livesey writes in article qugin tf horus ap mchp sni de frank d s uucp frank o dwyer writes in article qkogg k fido asd sgi com livesey solntze wpd sgi com jon livesey writes and in that area what you care about is whether someone is sceptical critical and autonomous on the one hand or gullible excitable and easily led on the other indeed i may and one may be an atheist and also be gullible excitable and easily led i would say that a tendency to worship tyrants and ideologies indicates that a person is easily led whether they have a worship or belief in a supernatural hero rather than an earthly one seems to me to be beside the point sure but whether or not they are atheists is what we are discussing not whether they are easily led not if you show that these hypothetical atheists are gullible excitable and easily led from some concrete cause in that case we would also have to discuss if that concrete cause rather than atheism was the factor that caused their subsequent behaviour i m not arguing that atheism causes such behaviour merely that it is not relevant to the definition of atheism which is lack of belief in gods throw away the faq we can all just ask mr o dwyer since he can define the thing that the rest of us only talk about jon
alt.atheism	re gulf war selling arms in article l rusnews w w mantis co uk mathew mathew mantis co uk writes jbrown batman bmd trw com writes mathew i agree this it seems is the crux of your whole position isn t it that the us shouldn t have supported hussein and sold him arms to fight iran i agree and i agree in ruthlessly hunting down those who did or do but we did sell arms to hussein and it s a done deal now he invades kuwait so do we just sit back and say well we sold him all those arms i suppose he just wants to use them now too bad for kuwait no unfortunately sitting back and letting things be is not the way to correct a former mistake destroying hussein s military potential as we did was the right move but i agree with your statement reagan and bush made a grave error in judgment to sell arms to hussein but it s still happening that s the entire point only last month john major hailed it as a great victory that he had personally secured a sale of arms to saudi arabia the same month we sold jet fighters to the same indonesian government that s busy killing the east timorese i heard about the arms sale to saudi arabia now how is it such a grave mistake to sell saudi arabia weapons or are you claiming that we shouldn t sell any weapons to other countries straightforward answer please it s all very well to say oops we made a boo boo better clean up the mistake but the us and uk keep making the same mistake they do it so often that i can t believe it s not deliberate this suspicion is reinforced by the fact that the mistake is an extremely profitable one for a decrepit economy reliant on arms sales who benefits from arms sales hint it isn t normally the gov t it is the contractor that builds that piece of equipment believe it or not the us and uk don t export the huge quantities of arms that you have just accused them of doing arms exports are rare enough that it requires an act of congress for non small arms to most countries if not all do you believe in telling everyone who can do what and who can sell their goods to whom mathew mccullou whipple cs wisc edu never program and drink beer at the same m time it doesn t work
alt.atheism	re yet more rushdie re islamic law in article apr monu cc monash edu au darice yoyo cc monash edu au fred rice wrote stuff deleted now i do not believe in blindly following anyone no matter how knowledgeable he or she may be in islamic law if someone tells me islam says such and such i immediately say show me the support for this statement from the qur an and sunnah i believe this to be my islamic duty for according to one hadith of the prophet peace and blessings of god be with him if your leader tells you to enter a fire and you do it and kill yourself then you have sinned for doing wrong even though you were blindly following the instructions of your leader i am responsible for my own actions not abu hanifa or imam malik etc even if i am blindly following the opinions of abu hanifa etc with this in mind to my understanding we must look at the reasoning behind such opinions of muslims that support khomeini s fatwa now to my understanding the hadith upon which those who support khomeini s fatwa is relating to a particular instance that occurred during war time now brother in general it is imho ridiculous and wrong to say that a hadith relating to the actions of war is usable during times of peace i think any sensible human being can see this so i personally think that the reasoning of some of our ulema in this matter is faulty for they think it is legitimate to use acts of war in times of peace regarding this particular subject if you think i am wrong please feel free to say so with your reasoning from qur an and hadith please not because somebody said so i want the reasoning from al qur an and the sahih hadiths perhaps we should take our discussion to soc religion islam please email me rashid if you think we should do this by the way i also disagree with your opinion regarding the punishment for apostasy the viewpoint i follow that there is in general no punishment for apostasy is very strongly supported by qur an and hadith this is very well shown in the book punishment in islamic law by mohamed s el awa american trust publications i reiterate that i would agree with you that there is little justification for the punishment of apostasy in the qur an in islamic history as well apostasy has rarely been punished belief is considered a matter of conscience and since there is to be no compulsion in the matter of belief apostates have been generally left to believe or not believe as they will however when an apostate makes attacks upon god and his messenger the situation changes now the charge of apostasy may be complicated with other charges perhaps charges of sedition treason spying etc if the person makes a public issue of their apostasy or mounts public attacks as opposed to arguement against islam the situation is likewise complicated if the person spreads slander or broadcasts falsehoods again the situation changes the punishments vary according to the situation the apostate is in anyhow the charge of aggravated apostasy would only be a subsidiary charge in rushdie s case there is a distinction in the qur an between a formal war situation and being in the situation where someone unilaterally wages war by their actions creates disorder makes mischief etc against the muslims and creates a situation that results in harm to muslims here a small group or even a single individual could be said to be engaged in such a practise in other words there is a clear difference between a formal war situation where two clearly defined parties wage war conclude treaties exchange prisoners etc and dealing with attacks that come from isolated individuals or groups against islam it is the second situation the unilateral attack and the spreading of fasad that would apply in the case of rushdie the matter of rushdie is not a simple matter of banning an offensive book banning the book is secondary a full set of circumstances following the publication of the book come into play as well including the deaths of many muslims and rushdie s and his publishers media games now i do not believe in blindly following anyone no matter how knowledgeable he or she may be in islamic law if someone tells me islam says such and such i immediately say show me the support for this statement from the qur an and sunnah i believe this to be my islamic duty for according to one hadith of the prophet peace and blessings of god be with him if your leader tells you to enter a fire and you do it and kill yourself then you have sinned for doing wrong even though you were blindly following the instructions of your leader i am responsible for my own actions not abu hanifa or imam malik etc even if i am blindly following the opinions of abu hanifa etc now to my understanding the hadith upon which those who support khomeini s fatwa is relating to a particular instance that occurred during war time now brother in general it is imho ridiculous and wrong to say that a hadith relating to the actions of war is usable during times of peace i think any sensible human being can see this so i personally think that the reasoning of some of our ulema in this matter is faulty for they think it is legitimate to use acts of war in times of peace regarding this particular subject i am not sure which hadith you are referring to above i believe that one of the qur anic verses on which the fatwa is based is every verse in the qur an has a corresponding circumstance of revelation but in no way is the understanding the tafsir of the verse restricted solely to the particular historical circumstance in which it was revealed if this was the case then we could say that all the laws and regulations that were revealed when the muslims were not involved in conflict should be suspended when they were at war the logic does not follow in complex real life situations there may be many verses and many hadiths which can all be related to a single complicated situation the internal relationships between these verses may be quite complex such that arriving at an understanding of how the verses interlock and how each applies to the particular situation can be quite a demanding task it is not necessarily a simple this or that process there may be many parameters involved there may be a larger context in which a particular situation should be viewed all these matters impinge on the situation in other words there is a great deal involved in deciphering the qur an the qur an asks us to reflect on its verses but this reflection must entail more than simply reading a verse and its corresponding hadith if the reflection is for the sake of increasing personal piety then each person has his own level of understanding and there is no harm in that however if the reflection is in order to decide matters that pertain to the state to the gestation of laws and rulings to the gestation of society the dispensing of justice the guidance of the community then there are certain minimum requirements of understanding that one should achieve jaffar ibn muhammad as sadiq a s relates some of these requirements as taught by the prophet s a in a hadith he who does not distinguish in the book of allah the abrogating verse from the abrogated one and a specific one from a general one and a decisive from an ambiguous and does not differentiate between a permission and an obligation and does not recognize a verse of meccan period from a medinite one and does not know the circumstances of revelation and does not understand the technical words of the qur an whether simple or compound and does not comprehend the knowledge of decree and measure and is ignorant of advancing and delaying in its verses and does not distinguish the clear from the deep nor the manifest from the esoteric nor the beginning from the termination and is unaware of the question and the answer the disjoining and the joining and the exceptions and the all inclusive and is ignorant of an adjective of a preceding noun that explains the subsequent one and is unaware of the emphasized subject and the detailed one the obligatory laws and the permissions the places of the duties and rules and the meaning of the lawful and the unlawful and does not know the joined words and the words that are related to those coming before them or after them then such a man does not know the qur an nor is he among the people of the qur an based on these and other hadiths and in accordance with many qur anic verses why should not a company from every group remain behind to gain profound understanding tafaqquh in religion and to warn people when they return to them so that they may beware a science of jurisprudence arose the requirements for a person to be considered a mujtahid one who can pronounce on matters of law and religion are many i ve listed a few major divisions below there are of course many subdivisions within these headings knowledge of arabic syntax conjugation roots semantics oratory knowledge of tafsir and principles of tafsir logic mantiq a knowledge of hadiths a knowledge of transmitters rijal knowledge of the principles of juriprudence qur an sunnah consensus reasoning the study of qur an and sunnah for purposes of law involves discussion of imperatives awamir discussion of negative imperatives nawahi discussion of generalities and particularities aam wa khas discussion of unconditional and conditional discussion of tacit meanings discussion of the abstract and the clear discussion of the abrogator and the abrogated the principles of application of the law involves principles of exemption principles of precaution principles of option principles of mastery the jurisprudent is bound to go through a very rigorous process in pronouncing judgement on a given situation it is not a matter of looking at one verse and one hadith now no one should blindly follow anyone but there is a difference between blind following and acceding to the opinion of someone who is clearly more knowledgeable and more qualified than oneself there is the famous hadith of the prophet s a in which he says the fuqaha religious scholars are the trustees of the prophet as long as they do not concern themselves with the illicit desires pleasures and wealth of this world the prophet s a was asked o messenger of god how may we know if they so concern themselves he s a replied by seeing whether they follow the ruling power if they do that fear for your religion and shun them i do not yet know enough about the imams of the four sunni madhabs to comment on how this hadith applies to them or to the contemporary scholars who base themselves upon them the prophet also refered to the fuqaha as the fortress of islam my only point is to make it clear that arriving at a legal judgement calls into play a certain amount of expertise the specifics of this expertise is delineated in the qur an and hadith those who acquire this expertise are praised in both the qur an and hadith those who without the requisite knowledge pronounce on matters that affect society state and religion are cautioned the only reason i said anything at all about the rushdie affair in this group is because the whole basis for the discussion of the fatwa that is apostasy was wrong when one discusses something they should at least base their discussion on fact secondly khomeini was condemned as a heretic because he supposedly claimed to be infallible another instance of creating a straw man and then beating him perhaps we should take our discussion to soc religion islam please email me rashid if you think we should do this i agree that we should move the discussion to another newsgroup unfortunately i do not have any access to email so private discussion or a moderated group is out of the question i cannot post to a moderated group like soc religion islam how about soc culture arabic or talk religion misc as salaam a laikum
alt.atheism	re yet more rushdie re islamic law in article bu edu jaeger buphy bu edu gregg jaeger wrote i have already made the clear claim that khomeini advocates views which are in contradition with the qur an and have given my arguments for this this is something that can be checked by anyone sufficiently interested khomeini being dead really can t respond but another poster who supports khomeini has responded with what is clearly obfuscationist sophistry this should be quite clear to atheists as they are less susceptible to religionist modes of obfuscationism don t mind my saying this but the best example of obfuscation is to condemn without having even your most basic facts straight if you want some examples go back and look at your previous posts where you manage to get your facts wrong about the fatwa and khomeini s supposed infallibility as salaam a laikum
alt.atheism	re consciousness part ii kev strikes back kevin anthoney kax cs nott ac uk wrote about my reply diplomatic it a society that is constantly on the verge of flaming usenet diplomacy is the best way to ensure the voice of reason gets through isn t it i realize i m fighting occam s razor in this argument so i ll try to explain why i feel a mind is necessary kevin unfortunately you are now delving into field i know too little about algorithms your reasoning as i see it is very much along the lines of roger penrose who claimed that mathematical insight cannot be algorithmic in his book the emperor s new mind concerning computers minds and the laws of physics however penrose s claim that he has mathematical insight or your similar claim that wavefunctions collapse only when we consciously take a look could be just illusions we are obviouslu taking very different viewpoints i try to ponder on the problem of consciousness from an evolutionary perspective realising that it might not be anything special but certainly useful thinking back of what i wrote do you think worms have minds or not they are able to experience pain at least they behave just like that yet it is conceivable that we might some day in the future perform a total synthesis of c elegans from the elements would such a worm have a mind firstly i m not impressed with the ability of algorithms they re great at solving problems once the method has been worked out but not at working out the method itself this is true to some extent however i do not think that our brains work like computers at all in fact there is substantial evidence skarda skarda freeman that brains work more or less chaotically generating enough randomness for mental states to evolve our brains work much like genetic algorithm generators i suppose the trick still has to be there in some form to be discovered does this mean that all the ideas we will ever have are already pre programmed into our brains this is somewhat unlikely given that our brains ultimately are encoded in chromosomes worth of genetic material much of which isn t used indeed this is extremely unlikely given the vast impact of nurture on our mind and brain i suggest however that before trying to understand our consciousness as a collection of algorithms kevin take a look at the references i mentioned and think again i still think the best experts on the nature of a conscious mind are neurologists neuropsychologists and biologists but do not flame me for my opinions since they study beings that are conscious the reason i am repeating my advice is that this discussion cannot lead to anywhere if our backgrounds are too different and please do not bring qm into this discussion at all not all physicists are happy with the claim that our consciousness plays some special role in physics i would say it doesn t the other problem with algorithms is their instability not many algorithms survive if you take out a large portion of their code yet people survive strokes without going completely haywire there are side effects but patients still seem remarkably stable also neurons in perfectly healthy people are dying at an alarming rate can an algorithm survive if i randomly corrupt various bits of it s code again brains are not computers don t forget this this does not mean they need something else to work they just work differently their primary purpose is perception and guidance of action self awareness and high intelligence are later appearances the next problem is the sticky question of what is colour replace colour with the sensation of your choice presumably the materialist viewpoint is that it s the product of some kind of chemical reaction the usual products of such a reaction are energy different chemicals is colour a mixture of these you are still expecting that we could find the idea of green in our brains somewhere perhaps in the form of some chemical this is not how i see it the sensation green is a certain time dependent pattern in the area v of our visual cortex and it is distributed with the help of areas v and v to the rest of the brain indeed a firing pattern i have sometimes thought of our consciousness as a global free induction pattern of these local firing patterns but this is just idle speculation scientific american s september issue was a special issue on mind and brain have you already read it from cover to cover there are two articles on visual perception so you might be interested but again please note that subjective experiences cannot be observed from a third person perspective if we see nothing but neuronal activity we cannot go on to conclude that this is not the mind kalat writes about numerous examples where electric stimulation of different areas of brain have led to various changes in the patients state of mind for instance a patient whose septal area was stimulated without his knowledge by remote control during a psychiatric interview was quickly cured of his depression and started discussing a plan to seduce his girlfriend stimulations in the temporal lobe have sometimes led to embarrassing situations when the patients have started flirting with the therapist in conclusion there is evidence that brains are essentially necessary for subjective experiences brain damage is usually equivalent to some sort of mind damage conscious processes involve substantial brain activity in various areas of brain when we think of colours our visual cortex is activated etc consciousness is an afterthought we become conscious of our actions with a half a second delay and our brains are ahead of our conscious will by at least ms thus i think it is fruitful to turn the question why do i see colours around and ask what is this i that seems to be observing since it seems that our conscious mind is not the king of our brains if this is so a computer won t see colour because the chemistry is different does an algorithm that sees colour have a selective advantage over an equivalent that doesn t it shouldn t because the outputs of each algorithm ought to be the same in equivalent circumstances so why do we see colour this depends on what is meant by seeing colours does a neural network that is capable of recognising handwritten numbers from to see the numbers if it is capable of sorting them if you are asking why does an animal who is conscious of itself as an observer have an evolutionary advantage over an animal who doesn t i have a good answer read my previous posting where i wrote why a sense of identity helps social animals to swap roles and act more morally so that they don t unconsciously kill each other with newly discovered weapons a bit extreme but this is the basic idea when early homo became more and more efficient in using tools a sense of identity and the concept of self had to evolve in line with this development indeed respect for others and conscious altruistic behaviour might be evolutionary advantages for social animals such as early humans if i remember correctly quantum mechanics consists of a wavefunction with two processes acting on it the first process has been called unitary evolution or u is governed by schroedinger s equation and is well known the second process called various things such as collapse of the wavefunction or state vector reduction or r and is more mysterious it is usually said to occur when a measurement takes place although nobody seems to know precisely when that occurs when it does occur the effect of r is to abruptly change the wavefunction if minds are required for this does this mean that until human minds came to the scene wavefunctions never collapsed but remained in the superpositions for aeons my how powerful we are this has been discussed before and i think this topic is irrelevant since we do not agree that minds are necessary and neither do physicists anyway i m speculating that minds would be in part x there seems to be some link between consciousness and r in that we never see linear superpositions of anything although there are alternative explainations for this i ve no idea how a brain is supposed to access part x but since this is only speculation that won t matter too much my main point is that there might be a place for minds in physics i agree but not in the sense you apparently mean above physics needs sharp minds to solve many real problems i ll go back to my nice padded cell now if that s ok with you it s ok if you don t forget to take with you the references i wrote about in my previous posting plus the following kalat james w biological psychology rd ed wadsworth publishing company belmont ca skarda c explaining behavior bringing the brain back in inquiry skarda c freeman w how brains make chaos in order to make sense of the world behavioral and brain sciences petri petri pihko kem pmp mathematics is the truth pihatie c finou oulu fi physics is the rule of sf oulu kempmp the game finland phoenix oulu fi chemistry is the game
alt.atheism	re consciousness part ii kev strikes back scott d sauyet ssauyet eagle wesleyan edu wrote in apr cs nott ac uk kevin anthony kax cs nott ac uk writes firstly i m not impressed with the ability of algorithms they re great at solving problems once the method has been worked out but not at working out the method itself crossword example deleted have you heard of neural networks i ve read a little about them and they seems to overcome most of your objections i m sure there are many people who work with neural networks and read this newsgroup please tell kevin what you ve achieved and what you expect i am not saying that nns will solve all such problems but i think they show that it is not as hard as you think to come up with mechanical models of consciousness indeed i think dualism is a non solution or as dennett recently put it a dead horse petri petri pihko kem pmp mathematics is the truth pihatie c finou oulu fi physics is the rule of sf oulu kempmp the game finland phoenix oulu fi chemistry is the game
alt.atheism	re consciousness part ii kev strikes back in article apr ousrvr oulu fi kempmp phoenix oulu fi petri pihko writes kevin anthoney kax cs nott ac uk wrote this post is probably either brilliant or insane do let me know which a brilliant example of using the introspective objection against materialist theories of consciousness diplomatic i realize i m fighting occam s razor in this argument so i ll try to explain why i feel a mind is necessary firstly i m not impressed with the ability of algorithms they re great at solving problems once the method has been worked out but not at working out the method itself as a specific example i like to solve numerical crosswords not the simple do the sums and insert the answers type the hard ones to do these with any efficiency you need to figure out a variety of tricks now i know that you can program a computer to do these puzzles but in doing so you have to work out the tricks yourself and program them into the computer you can of course obfuscate the trick and write the program so that it is uncovered but as far as i can see the trick still has to be there in some form to be discovered does this mean that all the ideas we will ever have are already pre programmed into our brains this is somewhat unlikely given that our brains ultimately are encoded in chromosomes worth of genetic material much of which isn t used one way around this is to bring the environment into the equation but again as far as i can see this still has an air of if you see object x then perform action y and we don t seem to get anywhere the algorithm has to anticipate what it might see and what conclusions to draw from it s experience the other problem with algorithms is their instability not many algorithms survive if you take out a large portion of their code yet people survive strokes without going completely haywire there are side effects but patients still seem remarkably stable also neurons in perfectly healthy people are dying at an alarming rate can an algorithm survive if i randomly corrupt various bits of it s code the next problem is the sticky question of what is colour replace colour with the sensation of your choice presumably the materialist viewpoint is that it s the product of some kind of chemical reaction the usual products of such a reaction are energy different chemicals is colour a mixture of these if this is so a computer won t see colour because the chemistry is different does an algorithm that sees colour have a selective advantage over an equivalent that doesn t it shouldn t because the outputs of each algorithm ought to be the same in equivalent circumstances so why do we see colour however such a view is actually a nonsolution how should minds be able to act as observers feel pain and pleasure and issue commands any better than the brain moreover how do the interactions occur a bit of idle speculation if i remember correctly quantum mechanics consists of a wavefunction with two processes acting on it the first process has been called unitary evolution or u is governed by schroedinger s equation and is well known the second process called various things such as collapse of the wavefunction or state vector reduction or r and is more mysterious it is usually said to occur when a measurement takes place although nobody seems to know precisely when that occurs when it does occur the effect of r is to abruptly change the wavefunction i envisage r as an interaction between the wavefunction and something else which i shall imaginitively call part x it seems reasonable to assume that something causes r although that something might be the wavefunction itself in which case part x is simply the wavefunction note though that we d need more than u to explain r anyway i m speculating that minds would be in part x there seems to be some link between consciousness and r in that we never see linear superpositions of anything although there are alternative explainations for this i ve no idea how a brain is supposed to access part x but since this is only speculation that won t matter too much my main point is that there might be a place for minds in physics i ll go back to my nice padded cell now if that s ok with you petri kevin anthoney kax cs nott ac uk don t believe anything you read in sig files
alt.atheism	re christian morality is in article eastman uucp dps nasa kodak com dan schaertel wrote the life death and resurection of christ is documented historical fact not by any standard of history i ve seen care to back this up sans the lies apologists are so fond of however all the major events of the life of jesus christ were fortold hundreds of years before him neat trick uh not really most of the prophesies aren t even prophesies they re prayers and comments taken from the torah quite out of context seems xians started lying right from the beginning there is no way to get into a sceptical heart you can not say you have given a sincere effort with the attitude you seem to have my we re an arrogant ass aren t we you must trust not just go to church and participate in it s activities you re wrong to think we haven t the trust was in something that doesn t exist were you ever willing to die for what you believed i m still willing to die for what i believe and don t believe so were the loonies in waco so what besides the point s not to die for what one believes in the point s to make that other sorry son of a bitch to die for what he believes in doesn t anyone else here get tired of these cretins tirades peter the damed and damned proud of it don t forget to sing they say there s a heaven for those who will wait some say it s better but i say it ain t i d rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints the sinners are much more fun only the good die young
alt.atheism	re cults vs religions in article r bfe hg aurora engr latech edu ray engr latech edu bill ray wrote james thomas green jgreen trumpet calpoly edu wrote so in conclusion it can be shown that there is essentially no logical argument which clearly differentiates a cult from a religion i challenge anyone to produce a distinction which is clear and can t be easily knocked down how about this one a religion is a cult which has stood the test of time or a religion is a cult that got co opted by people who are better at compartmentalizing their irrationality peter don t forget to sing they say there s a heaven for those who will wait some say it s better but i say it ain t i d rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints the sinners are much more fun only the good die young
alt.atheism	re gulf war and peace niks in article e rusnews w w mantis co uk mathew mathew mantis co uk writes jbrown batman bmd trw com writes the problem with most peace niks it they consider those of us who are not like them to be bad and unconscionable i would not have any argument or problem with a peace nik if they held to their ideals and stayed out of all conflicts or issues especially those dealing with the national defense but no they are not willing to allow us to legitimately hold a different point of view they militate and many times resort to violence all in the name of peace yawn another right wing wasp imagining he s an oppressed minority perhaps camille paglia is right after all personal attacks i would not have any argument or problem with a peace nik if they stayed out of all conflicts or issues i bet you wouldn t you d love it deliberate misinterpretation of a persons statement by cutting out the part of the statement he tries to blunt the thrust of the sentence he never addresses the issue of extreemist peace people not holding true to their ideals but what makes you think that sitting back saying nothing about defense issues and letting people like you make all the decisions is anything to do with their ideals ignoring the challenge he ignores the challenge that extreemists for peace tend to be quite insistent that everyone accept their ideals for the world and have even turned quite violent witness chicago summer mathew paranoia he assumes that anyone who argues against his viewpoint must masturbate over guns n ammo fire up the oven it isn t hot enough mccullou whipple cs wisc edu never program and drink beer at the same m time it doesn t work
alt.atheism	re death penalty gulf war long in article optima cs arizona edu sham cs arizona edu shamim zvonko mohamed writes this is the most unmitigated bilge i ve seen in a while jim brown obviously has possession of the right wing token diplomatic alternatives including sanctions were ineffective in december former national security adviser zbigniew brzezinski told a senate committee that sanctions were costing iraq million per day and that the multinational coalition could take all the time in the world iraq he suggested was losing badly every day it defied the un demands while the community of nations won every day with no taking of life or loss of life fcnl washington newsletter as i understand that number is deceptive the reason is that the money cost was in non oil sales for the most part iraq still is not allowed to sell oil or do many of the things under the initial sanctions but is still surviving and btw the reason i brought up the blanket bombing in germany was because you were bemoaning the iraqi civilian casualties as being so deplorable yet blanket bombing was instituted because bombing wasn t accurate enough to hit industrial military targets in a decisive way by any other method at that time but in the gulf war precision bombing was the norm bullshit in the gulf massacre of all ordnance used was smart the rest that s was just regular dumb ol iron bombs and stuff have you forgotten that the pentagon definition of a successful patriot launch was when the missile cleared the launching tube with no damage or that a successful interception of a scud was defined as the patriot and scud passed each other in the same area of the sky of the i have heard figures closer to but i won t quibble your figures most was dropped in carpet bombing of regions only occupied by enemy troops a b drops a lot of bombs in one sortie and we used them around the clock not to mention other smaller aircraft using dumb munitions the patriot uses a proximity fuse the adjusted figures for number of patriot kills of ss derivitives is that figure came not from some fluke in the pentagon but a someone working with such stuff in another part of dod the statement precision bombing was the norm is true around areas where civilians were close to the target we dropped by tonnage very little bombs in populated regions explaining the figures and of the that was the smart stuff hit again try to follow me here that means of this smart arsenal missed this figure is far below all the other figures i have seen if it is indeed accurate then how do you explain the discrepancy between that figure and other figures from international organizations most figures i have seen place the hit ratio close to which is still far higher than your or does your figure say a bomb missed if the plane took off with it and the bomb never hit the target regardless of whether or not the bomb was dropped such methods are used all the time to lie with statistics the stories of hundreds of thousands of iraqi civilian dead is just plain bunk prove it i have a source that says that to date the civilian death count er excuse me i mean collateral damage is about i have never seen any source that was claiming such a figure please post the source so its reliability can be judged mccullou whipple cs wisc edu never program and drink beer at the same m time it doesn t work
alt.atheism	re david coresh is god on one of the morning shows i think is was the today show david koresh s lawyer was interviewed during that interview he flipped through some letters that david koresh wrote on one of letters was written in hebrew near the bottom of the page koresh adonai did anyone else see that what could this mean by him david writing this
alt.atheism	re smullyanism for the day in article r tpi pu dr pepper east sun com geoff east sun com geoff arnold sun bos r h coast near the top writes this raymond smullyan quote is too big for a sig but deserves posting imho to big for a sig no way keith home of the billdboard sig files ryan private note to jennifer fakult this post may contain one or more of the following sarcasm cycnicism irony or humor please be aware of this possibility and do not allow yourself to be confused and or thrown for a loop if in doubt assume all of the above the owners of this account do not take any responsiblity for your own confusion which may result from your inability to recognize any of the above read at your own risk jennifer
alt.atheism	re christian morality is in article apr cs nott ac uk kax cs nott ac uk kevin anthoney writes in article eastman uucp dps nasa kodak com writes the fact is god could cause you to believe anything he wants you to but think about it for a minute would you rather have someone love you because you made them love you or because they wanted to love you there s a difference between believing in the existence of an entity and loving that entity god could show me directly that he exists and i d still have a free choice about whether to love him or not so why doesn t he kevin anthoney kax cs nott ac uk don t believe anything you read in sig files kevin makes a good point here and when that theists miss all too often that is the belief in a diety is not necessarily coupled with agreement love of that diety so really they have yet another bit of convincing to do just beyond belief i guess the standard argumet goes something like well once you believe in god you know god is love and you will choose to love him if it wasnt so widely accepted and asserted it d be laughable best regards adam adam john cooper verily often have i laughed at the weaklings who thought themselves good simply because acooper macalstr edu they had no claws understand one another i fear i am beyond your comprehension gandalf
alt.atheism	re christian morality is in article eastman uucp dps nasa kodak com dan schaertel writes in article ousrvr oulu fi kempmp phoenix oulu fi petri pihko writes dan schaertel dps nasa kodak com wrote i love god just as much as she loves me if she wants to seduce me she ll know what to do but if he she did you would probably consider it rape probably because it is rape simple logic arguments are folly if you read the bible you will see that jesus made fools of those who tried to trick him with logic our ability to reason is just a spec of creation yet some think it is the ultimate if you rely simply on your reason then you will never know more than you do now your argument is of the type you ll know once you try yet there are many atheists who have sincerely tried and believed for many years but were eventually honest enough to admit that they had lived in a virtual reality obviously there are many christians who have tried and do believe so so nothing it may work for some but not for others it doesn t give any insight into an overall god or overall truth of a religion it would seem to be dependent solely on the individual as well as individually created and since christians have failed to show us how there way of life is in any wy better than ours i do not see why the attempt to try it is necessary or even particularly attractive to learn you must accept that which you don t know what does this mean to learn you must accept that you don t know something right o but to learn you must accept something i don t know why this is not the way i prefer to learn it is unwise to merely swallow everything you read suppose i write a book telling how the great invisible pink unicorn tm has helped me in my daily problems would you accept this since you can t know whether it is true or not no one asks you to swallow everything in fact jesus warns against it but let me ask you a question do you beleive what you learn in history class or for that matter anything in school i mean it s just what other people have told you and you don t want to swallow what others say right well we will nerver know for sure if we were told the truth or not but at the very least there is a bit more evidence pointing to the fact that say there was a military conflict in vietnam years ago then there is a supernatural diety who wants us to live a certain way the fact that jesus warned against it means nothing i warn against it too big deal the life death and resurection of christ is documented historical fact this is not true the first two choices here life and death are scantily documented and the last one is total malarky unless one uses the bible and that is totally circular perhaps it be better to use the imagination or one s ignorance someone else will address this i m sure and refer you to plenty of documentation as much as anything else you learn how do you choose what to believe and what not to i could argue that george washington is a myth he never lived because i don t have any proof except what i am told however all the major events of the life of jesus christ were fortold hundreds of years before him neat trick uh how is this there is nothing more disgusting than christian attempts to manipulate interpret the old testament as being filled with signs for the coming of christ every little reference to a stick or bit of wood is autmoatically interpreted as the cross what a miscarriage of philology there is no way to get into a sceptical heart you can not say you have given a sincere effort with the attitude you seem to have you must trust not just go to church and participate in it s activities were you ever willing to die for what you believed well since we have skeptical hearts thank goodness there is no way to get into us here we have the irreconcilable difference christians glorify exactly what we tend to despise or snub trust belief faith without knowledge if i am lucky one day and i happen to be thinking of god at the same time my enkephalins go up then i may associate this as a sign of god it will feel right and i will trust without knowing maybe religosity does not seem to be anything that is conclusively arrived at but rather it seems to be more of a sudden affliction i believe many of us were willing to die for what we believed many of us were not the question is is suchg an attitude reflective of a correct or healthy morality it would seem not to be the same thing could reflect fanaticism for example and is any case an expression of simple selfishness adam adam john cooper verily often have i laughed at the weaklings who thought themselves good simply because acooper macalstr edu they had no claws understand one another i fear i am beyond your comprehension gandalf
alt.atheism	from soc religion christian i found this little gem i don t know if anyone has any interest comments hi everyone i m a commited christian that is battling with a problem i know that romans talks about how we are saved by our faith not our deeds yet hebrews and james say that faith without deeds is useless saying you fools do you still think that just believing is enough now if someone is fully believing but there life is totally lead by themselves and not by god according to romans that person is still saved by there faith but then there is the bit which says that god preferes someone who is cold to him i e doesn t know him condemned so a lukewarm christian someone who knows and believes in god but doesn t make any attempt to live by the bible now i am of the opinion that you a saved through faith alone not what you do as taught in romans but how can i square up in my mind the teachings of james in conjunction with the lukewarm christian being spat out can anyone help me this really bothers me in christ will adam adam john cooper verily often have i laughed at the weaklings who thought themselves good simply because acooper macalstr edu they had no claws understand one another i fear i am beyond your comprehension gandalf
alt.atheism	re college atheists in article apr nuscc nus sg cmtan iss nus sg tan chade meng dan writes nm w andrew cmu edu nanci ann miller writes nyeda cnsvax uwec edu david nye writes i read an article about a poll done of students at the ivy league schools in which it was reported that a third of the students indentified themselves as atheists this is a lot higher than among the general population i wonder what the reasons for this discrepancy are is it because they are more intelligent younger is this the wave of the future what is the figure for the general population the last i heard of americans believe in reincarnation can somebody quote a stat i don t have a stat but unfortunately i did read generally that both smoking and belief in the supernatural occultish garbage is on the rise here i would guess that it probably has something to do with the ease of which ideas and thoughts are communicated on a college campus so in a world where theists are forced to contend with and listen to atheists and theists of other religions some are bound to have a change in their beliefs over four years there is nowhere to run funny in my country it works the other way round univ life is v v stressful for most people remember we re an asian population xtians like to prey on these people there is nowhere to run from them this is very interesting i thing the principle is sort of the same though all philosophical ideas are generally tried out and tested mostly during college years whether the idea is christian or atheist doesn t always matter but i d like to say it s because atheists are more intelligent the unenlightened one tan chade meng the wise man tells his wife that he understands her singapore cmtan iss nus sg the fool tries to prove it regards adam adam john cooper verily often have i laughed at the weaklings who thought themselves good simply because acooper macalstr edu they had no claws understand one another i fear i am beyond your comprehension gandalf
alt.atheism	some thoughts on christian books dn i think i took on this liar lunatic or the real thing dn the last time or was it the time before anyway let dn somebody else have a turn i can t debate it with a dn straight face or perhaps for something completely dn different we could just ridicule him or gather up all the dn posts from the last two times we did this and email them to dn him as an aside can you believe that somebody actually dn got a book published about this must have been a vanity dn press i would recomend to anyone out there to visit your local christian bookstore and become aware of the stuff they sell quite interesting most of the stuff is far from intelectual about the level of chick pamphelets if it is a common fundie bookstore it should have at least one section about how you should hate wiccans pagans catholics mormons rock musicians and anyone else who is not as fanatical as them hate for the love of god tm it is even more interesting watching the people who frequent such places very scary people they hear voices from god telling them whatever they want to hear if they were not christians most of them would be locked away maybe this is why federal money was reduced to mental institutions by the reagan administration had to get their religious leaders out where would christianity be if jesus got eight to fifteen years with time off for good behavior new york state senator james h donovan on capitol punishment alan beware to touch these wires is instant death anyone found doing this will be prosecuted
alt.atheism	re what it means to be human was parsifal in article apr cs ucla edu brad pierce pierce cs ucla edu writes the bedrock of spiritual unreason is the belief that resonant yet but theology is full of reason even if it is as we believe based on false premises etc etc ill defined terms e g spirit transcendental mind self consciousness ultimate reality soul elan vital etc have meaning sadly adherents of spiritual movements are seldom satisfied hold on there no meaning to consciousness or mind or self with this harmless illogicality they seem inexorably drawn to a belief what illogicality in the primacy of the spiritual and transcendental over the material and empirical i e the primacy of pipe dreams jabberwocky and illusion over facts science and reason since when is for instance non behaviourist psychology a pipe dream surely the major purpose of the science of psychology is to understand the workings of the mind all creatures all feelings all thoughts all perceptions all processes and all phenomena are manifestations of the mundane i e matter energy space and time those who believe otherwise albeit some do not supplicate god are not atheists manifestations of the mundane sounds rather transcendental to me in fact matter energy space and time are well measured but mysterious concepts does an atheist really have to believe in your reductionism or be cast out as not following the true faith richard wilson logica industry ltd
alt.atheism	re christian morality is acooper mac cc macalstr edu turin turambar me department of utter misery said re dan schaertel s article if i followed the quoting right as much as anything else you learn how do you choose what to believe and what not to i could argue that george washington is a myth he never lived because i don t have any proof except what i am told however all the major events of the life of jesus christ were fortold hundreds of years before him neat trick uh how is this there is nothing more disgusting than christian attempts to manipulate interpret the old testament as being filled with signs for the coming of christ every little reference to a stick or bit of wood is autmoatically interpreted as the cross what a miscarriage of philology i think it may also be worthwhile pointing out that if we take the appellation rabbi seriously then jesus had a full grasp of contemporary scripture mat jesus saith unto them did ye never read in the scriptures mat jesus answered and said unto them ye do err not knowing mat the scriptures nor the power of god following from this he would have been in a wonderful position to fulfil prophesies and the nt says as much mat but how then shall the scriptures be fulfilled mat that thus it must be mat but all this was done that the scriptures of the mat prophets might be fulfilled then all the disciples mat forsook him and fled if the books comprising the referred to scripture had not been accessible then it probably would be a different matter tony
alt.atheism	another request for darwin fish hello gang there have been some notes recently asking where to obtain the darwin fish this is the same question i have and i have not seen an answer on the net if anyone has a contact please post on the net or email me thanks john chadwick johnchad triton unm edu or
alt.atheism	re another request for darwin fish darwin fish can be bought from join the darwinners tm send to receive your official evolving fish wherever you want to spread the good news darwinners sunset blvd ste l a ca the greatest theory ever told jenny forty years from now nursing homes will be filled with demented hackers studying their blank laptop screens nicely placed on knitted quilts to keep their knees warm k mitchum
alt.atheism	re faq sheet mike mcangus mam mouse cmhnet org wrote by the way news announce newusers has an article can t remember which one that recommends reading a newsgroup for month before posting this makes sense because you get an idea who the players are and what the current discussions are about am i the only one who followed that advice no i spent a month just reading too mainly because i did not know much about the way atheists think i even printed out the faqs and discussed it with a friend before i started posting alt atheism deals with religious issues more appropriately lack of religious beliefs which are by their very nature very controversial it makes sense to read what is being discussed and how just to make sure you are not repeating something others have said better petri petri pihko kem pmp mathematics is the truth pihatie c finou oulu fi physics is the rule of sf oulu kempmp the game finland phoenix oulu fi chemistry is the game
alt.atheism	re gulf war was re death penalty was re political atheists mark mccullough mccullou snake cs wisc edu wrote details of us built chemical plant at al alteer near baghdad however the plant s intended use was to aid the iraqi infrastructure it is not an example of selling a weapon may sound nitpicking but are we going to refuse to sell valuable parts that build the infrastructure because of dual use technology i am contending that in this case and in the case of the sale of pesticides by uk companies that they knew full well that it was to be used for the production of chemical weapons even if that was not its officially stated purpose i personally don t think that letting iran conquer iraq would have been a good thing for that matter neither do i for the reasons you state it is the hypocrisy and claims the us did not help iraq that make me angry plus the fact that the usa seems to believe it has the right to interfere where is sees fit i e has an interest rather than a duty to intervene where it is required this is demonstrated by the failure of the us to do anything about east timor and the region is becoming destabilised the usa might have done something approaching the right thing given my reservations about the uncessary number of civillian casualites but for wholly the wrong reasons and after having a hand in creating the situation that in no way would affect the us later military action against iraq i did not suggest it would and it would be ridiculous to assert otherwise i was simply indicating the usa has previously aided iraq intel on manufacturing techniques or something of that nature no apparently data orginally from satellites although i doubt that iraq would have been given the raw data concerning troop concentrations aaron turner aaron minster york ac uk
alt.atheism	re death penalty gulf war long shamim zvonko mohamed sham cs arizona edu wrote bullshit in the gulf massacre of all ordnance used was smart the rest that s was just regular dumb ol iron bombs and stuff have you forgotten that the pentagon definition of a successful patriot launch was when the missile cleared the launching tube with no damage or that a successful interception of a scud was defined as the patriot and scud passed each other in the same area of the sky and of the that was the smart stuff hit again try to follow me here that means of this smart arsenal missed i used to have full figures on this including the tons of bombs dropped and the number of cluster bomblet munitions used i had heard the of the laser guided weapons hit which is an unprecedented rate of success of the iron weapons hit again unprecedented the following is a rough estimate but this means of the tons of bombs dropped by us aircraft around tons missed i m not sure what proportion of this was dropped of baghdad rather than troop concentrations in iraq and kuwait much of the tonnage dropped was cluster munitions as were all the mrls rounds and many of the artillery rounds napalm and fuel air explosives were also used remember how we were told that weapons of mass destruction such as fae were very naughty indeed
alt.atheism	re death penalty gulf war long mark mccullough mccullou snake cs wisc edu wrote this figure is far below all the other figures i have seen if it is indeed accurate then how do you explain the discrepancy between that figure and other figures from international organizations most figures i have seen place the hit ratio close to which is still far higher than your or does your figure say a bomb missed if the plane took off with it and the bomb never hit the target regardless of whether or not the bomb was dropped such methods are used all the time to lie with statistics answering the last sentence claimed that they had a success rate of without initially explaining until pressed that this meant that of the aircraft came back having dropped their bombs somewhere regardless of whether they had hit the intended target or indeed anything al all aaron turner
alt.atheism	re death penalty gulf war long mark mccullough mccullou snake cs wisc edu wrote prove it i have a source that says that to date the civilian death count er excuse me i mean collateral damage is about i have never seen any source that was claiming such a figure please post the source so its reliability can be judged this figure would not simply be deaths by bombing but also death later from disease the sewer system of baghdad was deliberately targeted and starvation i believe but when i get a copy of the latest research in june or july that this was the figure proposed in the census bureau report on the matter the report was suppressed and the cb attempted to sack the author of the report but failed due to procedural technicality the author is now on permanent leave aaron turner
alt.atheism	re gulf war selling arms mark mccullough mccullou snake cs wisc edu wrote i heard about the arms sale to saudi arabia now how is it such a grave mistake to sell saudi arabia weapons or are you claiming that we shouldn t sell any weapons to other countries straightforward answer please saudi arabia is an oppressive regime that has been recently interfering in the politcs of newly renunified yemen including assasinations and border incursions it is entirely possible that they will soon invade unluckily for yemen it is not popular in the west as they managed to put aside political differences during reunification and thus the west has effectively lost one half north as a client state aaron turner
alt.atheism	re free moral agency in article c v mr z darkside osrhe uoknor edu bil okcforum osrhe edu bill conner writes deleted stuff from andrew wrt which atheist myth is bill re to andrew the myth to which i refer is the convoluted counterfeit athiests have created to make religion appear absurd counterfeit atheists hmmmm so we re just cheap knock offs of the true atheists religion demonstrates itself to be absurd constantly personally if someone asks i m happy to point out how this is so rather than approach religion including christainity in a rational manner and debating its claims as the are stated atheists concoct outrageous parodies and then hold the religious accountable for beliefs they don t have what is more accurately oxymoric is the a term like reasonable atheist man what is your pill wrt atheists if you re going to make such contentious statements back them up at least read news time and time again we ve hashed out the beliefs various religous doctrines hold try debating reasonably with someone who makes a statement like more accurately oxymoric is the a term like reasonable atheist then take a look at the responses we ve given tammy seem pretty reasonable nay even polite to me accusations of myths a flyin here s a good example of of what i said above read the post again i said acoording to which means i am referring to christian doctrine as i understand it if i am speaking for myself you ll know it my purpose in posting was to present a basic overview of christain doctrines since it seemed germane i saw your reference to according to in the original article then you do such an excellent job of spewing dogma that well the implication was pretty clear if wrong in this case jeez a misunderstanding let it go more statements to wrap this thing up if you read my post with same care as read the faq we wouldn t be having this conversation if you had written your post with the same as care as the faq has been we wouldn t be having this discussion gems about evidence deleted yes human reason does always come back to the existence of god we re having this discussion are we not jeez do i have to point this out to you this discussion is not all instances of human reason therefore your implication is false well this is interesting truth is to be determined by it politically correct content granted it s extremely unhip to be a wasp male and anything european is contemptable but i thought this kind of dialogue the purpose of a a was to get at the truth of things but then i remember the oxymoron reasonalble atheist and i understand how lame can you get who said anything about the truth of things read the faq very carefully please then report your findings about where it says the purpose of a a is to find the truth of things and stop impressing your own misguided image of atheists upon us it s really pissing me off bill
alt.atheism	discordian subgenius books addresses etc as requested here are some addresses of sources of bizarre religious satire and commentary plus some bijou book reviewettes loompanics unlimited po box port townsend wa usa publishers of one of the most infamous mail order book catalogue in the world anarchism discordianism libertarianism cryogenics money making legal and illegal privacy and security self defense and all kinds of other stuff that keeps christians awake at nights the church of the subgenius po box dallas tx usa the original end times church for post human mutants a high temple for scoffers mockers and blasphemers be one of the few to board the x ist saucers in and escape space god jhvh s stark fist of removal j r bob dobbs god of sales is waiting to take your money and ordain you magazines sick audio cassettes and assorted offensive cynisacreligious material periodic lists of addresses of pink religious cults and contact points for the world wierdo network expect a slow response to mail only conspiracies are well organized you will eventually get what you pay for if you give them some slack counter productions po box london se rl uk a uk source of obscure books a wide ranging selection surrealism anarchism subgenius discordianism robert anton wilson lovecraftian horror cyberpunk forteana political and social commentary wilhelm reich orgone tech obscure rock music sf and so on send an sae and maybe a bribe they need your money and ask for a catalogue tell them mathew sent you i ve ordered from these folks three or four times now and they re about as fast and efficient as you can expect from this sort of operation forbidden planet various sites in the uk in particular along london s new oxford street just down the road from tottenham court road tube station mass market oddness subgenius robert anton wilson loompanics and of course huge quantities of sf not a terribly good selection but they re in the high street reviewette loompanics greatest hits isbn x loompanics a selection of articles picked from the books in loompanics catalogue subjects include christian dispensationalism how right wing christians encouraged the cold war satanic child abuse myths religion and censorship plus lots of anarchist and libertarian stuff situationism computers and privacy and so on guaranteed to contain at least one article that ll offend you like for example the interview with bradley r smith the holocaust revisionist a good sampling of stuff in a coffee table book of course whether you want to leave this sort of stuff lying around on your coffee table is another matter quote the fundamentalists leap up and down in apoplectic rage and joy their worst fantasies are vindicated and therefore or so they like to think their entire theology and socio political agenda is too meanwhile teen age misanthropes and social misfits murder their enemies classmates families friends even complete strangers all because they read one of anton lavey s cooks or listened to one too many ac dc records the born agains are ready to burn again and not just books this time reviewette the book of the subgenius j r dobbs the subgenius foundation isbn simon schuster described by rolling stone as a sick masterpiece for those who can still laugh at the fact that nothing is funny anymore the official bible of the subgenius church containing the sacred teachings of j r bob dobbs instant answers to everything causes catalytic brain cell loss in seconds the secret of total slack how to relax in the safety of your delusions and pull the wool over your own eyes nuclear doom and other things to laugh at quote he has been known to answer questions concerning universal truths with screams with suggestive silence by peeing down his pants leg his most famous sermon was of cosmic simplicity bob standing on the stage with his hands in his pockets smoking looking around and saying nothing heated arguments still rage among the monks often erupting into fatal duels as towhether the master consulted his wristwatch during this divine period of grace reviewette high weirdness by mail rev ivan stang isbn x simon schuster an encyclopedia of wierd organizations you can contact by mail space jesuses christian vs christian ufo contactees new age saps creationists flat earthers white supremacist churches plus yawn csicop sceptical enquirer and stuff like that not just a list of addresses though as each kook group is ruthlessly mocked and ridiculed with sarcastic glee if you like alt atheism s flame wars this is the book for you made me laugh until my stomach ached revised edition due some time in the next year or two sample entry entertaining demons unawares southwest radio church po box oklahoma city ok your watchman on the wall another flagellating genuflecting fundamentalist outfit their booklet entertaining demons unawares exposes the star wars e t dungeons dragons saturday morning cartoon satanic connection in horrifying detail left out smurfs though i especially liked the bit about wonder woman s antichrist origins keep in mind that once you send for anything from these people you ll be on their mailing list for life reviewette the abolition of work bob black isbn loompanics a selection of bob black s painfully witty and intelligent anarchist tracts collected into book form if i were this good i d be insufferable probably the only thought provoking political book that s fun to read quote babble about the wages of sin serves to cover up the sin of wages we want rights not rites sex not sects only eros and eris belong in our pantheon surely the nazarene necrophile has had his revenge by now remember pain is just god s way of hurting you reviewette principia discordia malaclypse the younger isbn loompanics the infamous discordian bible reprinted in its entirety and then some yes you could ftp the online copy but this one has all the pictures explains absolutely everything including the law of fives how to start a discordian cabal and instructions for preaching discordianism to christians quote a discordian is required during his early illumination to go off alone partake joyously of a hot dog on a friday this devotive caremony to remonstrate against the popular paganisms of the day of catholic christendom no meat on friday of judaism no meat of pork of hindic peoples no meat of beef of buddhists no meat of animal and of discordians no hot dog buns reviewette natural law or don t put a rubber on your willy robert anton wilson isbn x loompanics the author of the illuminatus trilogy rails against natural law natural morality objective reality and other pervasive myths witty and thought provoking work from someone who actually seems to know an argument from a hole in the ground quote since theological propositions are scientifically meaningless those of us of pragmatic disposition simply won t buy such dubious merchandise maybe remotely there might be something in such promotions as there might be something in the talking dogs and the stocks in arabian tapioca mines that w c fields once sold in his comedies but we suspect that we recognize a con game in operation at least we want to hear the dog talk or see the tapioca ore before we buy into such deals all of the books mentioned above should be available from counter productions in the uk or directly from the subgenius foundation or loompanics unlimited mathew what do you mean i am anyway dreamed i laid a toaster daddy caught me in the act can you take it devo
alt.atheism	re free moral agency in article r voinnr q lynx unm edu cfaehl vesta unm edu chris faehl writes the myth to which i refer is the convoluted counterfeit athiests have created to make religion appear absurd counterfeit atheists hmmmm so we re just cheap knock offs of the true atheists they must be theists in disguise in any event we don t need to create religious parodies just look at some actual religions which are absurd mand now mdeep thoughts m mby jack handey m mif you go parachuting and your parachute doesn t open and your friends are all watching you fall i think a funny gag would be to pretend you were swimming m
alt.atheism	atheism survey i am doing research on atheism part of which involves field research here on the net the following is a survey directed towards all readers of this group intended to get data about the basis of atheistic belief i would seriously appreciate it if each and every one of you would fill it out and mail it back to me at mtabbott unix amherst edu first of all i ve tried to structure questions that can be answered in a variety of ways with varying amounts of detail it s possible to give succinct answers to most everything but there s enough here to keep most of you typing for hours i m sure as much detail as you want to give me i mean it is great but it s also important for me to have as broad a base of individuals as possible so even minimal responses are far better than nothing it s a short survey if you just answer the questions without elaboration secondly i hope some of the questions don t come off as obnoxious i know that phrases like what would convince you of the existence of god imply that i am a seminary student intent on proving you all to be ignorant godless heathens in fact i m not too sure about the existence of a higher power myself so my use of god is a question of locution rather than ideology it s easier than just repeating a deity or higher power every time also i tend to use a lot of anthropological buzzwords like belief system although i know some of you might contend that you don t have any beliefs but are skeptical towards everything i understand but you know what i mean think of such buzzwords as abbreviations for the rather unweildy phrases required to get the precise idea across lastly thanks please fill out as much as you can in as much detail as you can and send them to me my research and i thank you where would you place your beliefs on the spectrum theism agnosticism weak atheism strong atheism feel free to elaborate on your specific beliefs in what if any religious tradition were you raised did you ever believe in the existence of a god several of the following questions presume that the answer to this is yes if you ve always been an atheist or at least never a theist you may have to modify the question answer somewhat how serious was your your family s involvement how and when did you start to doubt the tenets you were raised to believe how and when did your final break with your beliefs if any occur i realize that this is often more of an ongoing process than an event per se whatever the case just describe it in whatever detail you wish what contact with other atheists have you had before and after and during your conversion to atheism certainly your involvement with alt atheism counts how have net discussions affected your beliefs to what extent do you think other atheists have influenced you in your beliefs did you come by your beliefs through discussion through independent means or by some combination of the two or other means are you convinced that your beliefs were acquired through wholly rational means proofs of the non existence of god etc or was it perhaps at least in part through other means alienation from mainstream religion etc to what extent do you feel you understand the universe through your beliefs what phenomena of the universe and of human existence anything from physical phenomena to the problem of the existence of evil in human affairs do you feel are adequately dealt with by your beliefs and where are they lacking as an explanatory method what would it take for you to question or change your beliefs what would convince you of the existence of god what would convince you of the plausibility of god s existence and so forth how dynamic are your beliefs are they constantly changing have they stayed more or less the same for some time are you involved in a career or education in science to what extent do you think science has influenced your beliefs issac asimov claimed that science was the new secular religion and that scientists are in a very real sense the new priesthood do you see the pursuit of science as having a quasi religious base or even a religious element this survey is intended to get data from a broad range of individuals but also to help me narrow down the field to a small group of people whose ideas and histories could be very useful to me would you be willing to have me on the basis of this survey write you to find out more about you and your beliefs if not fine your filling out the survey alone is great thanks again feel free to contact me if you have any questions about what i m doing with this data or if you have anything to say in addition to what i ve asked about above mark abbott mtabbott unix amherst ed
alt.atheism	re americans and evolution now with free ockham s razor inside sorry about the delay in responding due to conference paper deadline panic in article qsnqqinn nr senator bedfellow mit edu bobs thnext mit edu robert singleton writes in article apr dcs warwick ac uk simon dcs warwick ac uk simon clippingdale writes alarming amounts of agreement deleted i made my statement about ockums razor from my experiences in physics thanks for info in baysian statistics very interesting and i didn t know it before i follow your proof but i have one questions we have two hypotheses h and hg the latter is more complicated which by definition means p h p hg that complicated isn t in fact where p h p hg comes from it s more the other way around it s from p h p hg p hg where g is the complement of g and by axiom p anything so p hg so p h p hg in a sense hg is necessarily more complicated than h for any h and g so i may be splitting hairs but what i m trying to say is that irrespective of subjective impressions of how complicated something is p h p hg holds with equality if and only if p hg as you point out it s a very simple matter to show p x h p x hg p h x p hg x and thus h is to be preferd to hg now to say that h is as consistent with the data as hg is to say p x h p x hg can you elaborate some on this well p x a p x b means that x is as likely to be observed if a is operative as it is if b is operative this implies that observing x does not provide any useful information which might allow us to discriminate between the respective possibilities that a and b are operative the difference reduces to the difference between the unknown and unhelpful prior probabilities p a and p b p x a p x b p a x k p a and p b x k p b where k p x a p x p x b p x so a and b are equally consistent with the data in that observing x doesn t give any pointers as to which of a or b is operative in the particular case where a h and b hg however we know that their prior probabilities are ordered by p h p hg although we don t know the actual values and it s this which allows us to deploy the razor to throw out any such hg also in the real world it isn t as clear cut and dry it seems to me we can t always determine whether the equality p x h p x hg is true that s certainly true but the particular point here was whether or not a divine component actually underlies the prevalence of religion in addition to the memetic transmission component which even the religious implicitly acknowledge to be operative when they talk of spreading the word now it seems to me as i ve said that the observed variance in religious belief is well accounted for by the memetic transmission model but rather less well if one proposes a divine component in addition since i would expect the latter to conspire against wide variance and even mutual exclusion among beliefs thus my personal feeling is that p x hg isn t even equal to p x h in this case but is smaller h is memetic transmission g is divine component x is the variance among beliefs but i happily acknowledge that this is a subjective impression btw my beef with your baysian argument was not a mathematical one i checked most of your work and didn t find an error and you seem very careful so there probably isn t a math mistake i think the mistake is philosophical but just to make sure i understand you can please rephrase it in non technical terms i think this is a reasonable request i always try to look for ways of explaining physics to non physicist i m not a baysian statistician nor any type of statistician so this would be very helpful not that i m a statistician as such either but the idea is that both theism and atheism are compatible with all of the read my observations to date however theism of the type with which i am concerned also suggests that for instance prayer may be answered people may be miraculously healed both are in principle amenable to statistical verification and that god s may generally intervene in measurable ways this means that these regions of the space of possible observations which i loosely termed appearances of god s have some nonzero probability under the theistic hypothesis and zero under the atheistic since there is only so much probability available for each hypothesis to scatter around over the observation space the probability which theism expends on making appearances of god s possible must come from somewhere else i e other possible observations all else being equal this means that an observation which isn t an appearance of god s must have a slightly higher probability under atheism than under theism the bayesian stuff implies that such observations must cause my running estimate for the probability of the atheistic hypothesis to increase with a corresponding decrease in my running estimate for the probability of the theistic hypothesis sorry if that s still a bit jargonesque but it s rather difficult to put it any other way since it does depend intimately on the properties of conditional probability densities and particularly that the total area under them is always unity an analogy may or may not be helpful say that hypothesis a is the coin is fair and that b is the coin is unfair two headed i ve used a and b to avoid confusion with h heads and t tails then p h a total p t a p h b total p t b the observations are a string of heads with no tails this is compatible with both a fair coin a and a two headed coin b however the probability expended by a on making possible the appearance of tails even though they don t actually appear must come from somewhere else since the total must be unity and it comes in this case from the probability of the appearance of heads say our running estimates at time n are e n a and e n b the observation x n at time n is another head x n h the estimates are modified according to p h a e n a e n a e n a m p h and p h b e n b e n b e n b m p h now we don t know p h the actual prior probability of a head but the multiplier for e a is half that for e b this is true every time the coin is tossed and a head is observed thus whatever the initial values of the estimates after n heads we have n e n a m e a and n e n b m e b and since e k a e k b at any time k you can show that m and thus m hence the estimate for the fair coin hypothesis a must decrease at each trial and that for the two headed coin hypothesis b must increase even though both hypotheses are compatible with a string of heads the loose analogy is between unfair coin and atheism and between fair coin and theism with observations consistent with both a tail which would falsify unfair coin is analogous to an appearance of god s which would falsify atheism i am not claiming that the analogy extends to the numerical values of the various probabilities just that the principle is the same constant observation of no evidence for gods if evidence for them is at all possible under the respective theisms constantly increases the notional estimated probability that they don t exist it s important to draw a distinction between theism that could be supported or not supported by evidence and theism that can t given a theism for which evidence is in principle not possible it doesn t make sense to say lack of evidence supports the contrary view quite so but this type of theism is what i might call the g in the hg in terms of our ockham s razor discussion and i d bin it on those grounds so it depends upon your conception of this god if it s a conception like zeus who happened to come down to earth to play quite frequently then i agree with you lack of evidence for this conception of god is evidence that it does not exist but if your conception of god is one that does not make falsifiable predictions see below on falsifiable predictions then i disagree lack of evidence does not support a disbelief the hypotheses don t have to be falsifiable and indeed in my model the theism isn t falsifiable i used the phrase should obverse given any specific x theism does not make the prediction p x ht that s why i used the word should theism makes no predictions about any specific event i can only say i believe that god did such and such after such and such happens or i believe god will do such and such but for any given x i can never a priori say p x ht i can not even say this for the set of all x or some x this is what don t like about your use of probability we also have no way of assigning these probabilities i hold science to positivistic criteria if someone cannot tell me how to measure even in principle p x h then probability is not applicable to hypothesis h such is the case when h ht theistic and ha atheistic for example p x ha p x ha p ha what is p ha how do i measure it you don t have to we don t need in the above analogy to know any prior probabilities to deduce that the updating multiplier for the fair coin hypothesis is less than unity and that the corresponding multiplier for the two headed coin hypothesis is greater than unity you don t need to know the initial values of the running estimates either it s clear that after a large number of observations p fair coin approaches zero and p two headed coin approaches unity all you need to know is whether p x ha is larger than p x ht for observed x and this follows from the assumptions that there are certain events rendered possible not necessary under ht which are not possible under ha and all else is equal baysian statistics relies upon a series of observations but what if the hypothesis isn t amenable to observation and even for statements that are amenable to observation some observations are not relevant a sequence of observations must be chosen with care i m curious to know what types of observations x x you have in mind concerning theism and atheism any observations you like it really doesn t matter nor affect the reasoning provided that there are some possible observations which would count as appearances of god s examples of this might be a demonstration of the efficacy of prayer or of the veracity of revelation but any statement about p x h for general x still counts as a prediction of h if the theism in question ht says that prayer may be answered or that miracles may happen see my interpretation quoted again above of what god exists means then this is a prediction p x ht for such x it s what distinguishes it from the atheist hypothesis ha which predicts that this stuff does not happen p x ha for such x theism does not make the claim that p x ht for such x or i should say that my theism doesn t maybe i was too quick to say we had a common language you said that by the existence of god you mean the notion that the deity described by the bible and by christians does interact with the universe as claimed by those agents i agreed with this however i must be careful here i believe this i m not making any claims maybe i should have changed does to can there is an important shift of emphasis but any way since i only have a belief i cannot conclude p x ht for such x ok we ll downgrade does interact to may interact which would actually be better since does interact implies a falsifiability which we both agree is misplaced i don t think my theism makes predictions maybe i m not understanding what you mean by prediction could you explain what you mean by this word i ll explain but bear in mind that this isn t central all i require of a theism is that it not make the prediction appearances of god s will never happen as does atheism before somebody points out that quantum mechanics doesn t make this prediction either the difference is that qm and atheism do not form a partition predictions include such statements as prayer is efficacious implying if you do the stats you will find that prayer is efficacious or prayer is not efficacious or verily i say unto you this generation shall not pass till all these things be fulfilled i don t think we have any problems of misunderstanding here persistent observation of this stuff not happening consistent with ht though it may be is more consistent with ha as explained in the bayesian stats post even if ht god exists is unfalsifiable that s no problem for my argument other than that you have to let the number of observations go to infinity to falsify it asymptotically btw i do not consider an argument that requires an infinite number of observations as valid or rather that part of the argument is not valid we as existing humans can never make an infinite number of measurments and any conclusion that reilies on this i don t accept as valid that s fine i don t claim that theism is false merely that the finite number of observations available to me so far suggest that it is and that as i continue to observe the suggestion looks better and better renormalization stuff deleted in the bayesian stats post i assumed that theism was indeed unfalsifiable in a finite number of observations here s the relevant quote the important assumption is that there are some observations which are compatible with the theist hypothesis and not with the atheist hypothesis and thus would falsify atheism these are what i called appearances of god s but this need not be taken too literally any observation which requires for its explanation that one or more gods exist will count all other observations are assumed to be compatible with both hypotheses this leaves theism as unfalsifiable and atheism as falsifiable in a single observation only by such appearances of god s here is my problem with this for something to be falsifiable it must make the prediction that x should not be seen if x is seen then the hypothesis has been falsified now atheism is a word in oposition to something theism a theism aserts a belief and an atheism aserts a disbelief so there are certain atheisms that are certainly falsifiable just as there are certain theisms that are falsifable e g if my theism asserts the world is only years old and that god does not decieve then this has been falsified however the atheism that is in oposition to an unfalsifiable theism is also unfalsifiable i could be wrong on this statment contd i think you are an appearance of god s is sufficient to falsify atheism whereas in general the corresponding theism is unfalsifiable i ll think more about it until then here is a general question suppse x were unfalsifiable is not x also unfalsifiable no by way of a counterexample let x the coin is fair or more accurately so that not x makes sense the two sides of the coin are different this is unfalsifiable by tossing the coin even a string of heads is consistent with a fair coin and you have to go to an infinite number of tosses to falsify x in the limit its converse is falsifiable and is falsified when at least one head and at least one tail have appeared this is partly what s wrong with you baysian argument which requires observations x x n to be made there are simply no such observations that have a truth value in relation to the statement god exists now by use of your symmetry argument i can understand why someone would say since the statement god does not exist makes no predictions i will choose not to believe it but none the less this would be founded on a type of faith or if you don t like the word faith insert belief for which there is no falsifiable evidence instead i ll assume you meant god exists up there at the highlight but by our agreed definition of exists the statement makes predictions as i said above although it isn t falsifiable in a finite number of observations actually i mean god does not exist makes no predictions oops sorry mea culpa the truth of this statment actually depends upon which god you are refering to but i can think of some conceptions of god for which it is true but once again i m open to the posibility that i could be wrong so give me some examples of predictions of the statment god does not exist here is one that i can think of if true then there would be no healing or miricles but this can in principle never be determined one way or the other there are cases in which people seem to recover and are healed without the help of a doctor and for no known reason these situations do in fact happen they are consistent with a theistic hypothesis but in no way support such a hypothesis we agree here they are not inconsistent with an atheistic hypothesis i can t think of one prediction from god does not exist that isn t of this type but i might be missing something the rapture will not happen on october said rapture would have falsified atheism to my satisfaction had it happened although its failure to happen does not of course falsify any theisms other than those which specifically predicted it no phenomenon which requires the existence of one or more gods for its explanation will ever be observed that about sums the whole thing up bob singleton bobs thnext mit edu cheers simon simon clippingdale simon dcs warwick ac uk department of computer science tel university of warwick fax coventry cv al u k
alt.atheism	re some thoughts healta saturn wwc edu tammy r healy writes tammy see maddi i trimmed it healy well you re going to have to practice but you re getting the hang of it soon we re going to have to give you a new nickname try these on for size tammy lucky seven healy tammy pass the falafel healy tammy r us healy tammy learning by doing healy maddi never a useful post hausmann maddi hausmann madhaus netcom com centigram communications corp san jose california kids please don t try this at home remember i post professionally
alt.atheism	re free moral agency in article kmr po cwru edu kmr po cwru edu keith m ryan writes mand now mdeep thoughts m mby jack handey m mif you go parachuting and your parachute doesn t open and your friends are all watching you fall i think a funny gag would be to pretend you were swimming m you fall if it opens too gravity it s not just a good idea it s the law dean kaflowitz
alt.atheism	re religion as cause was islamic authority over women scott d sauyet ssauyet eagle wesleyan edu wrote the same works for the horrors of history to claim that christianity had little to do with the crusades or the inquisition is to deny the awesome power that comes from faith in an absolute what it seems you are doing twisting the reasonable statement that religion was never the solitary cause of any evil into the unreasonable statement that religion has had no evil impacts on history that is absurd scott until this paragraph i would willingly amend my earlier statements since your point s are well made and generally accurate this last part though slips into hyperbole since i ve discussed my objections to such generalizations before i really don t feel i need to do it again if you haven t seen those posts ask maddi she saves everything i write bill
alt.atheism	re yet more rushdie re islamic law in article bu edu jaeger buphy bu edu gregg jaeger writes in article r idi e fido asd sgi com livesey solntze wpd sgi com jon livesey writes so now you are saying that an islamic bank is something other than bcci would you care to explain why it was that when i said i hope an islamic bank is something other than bcci you called me a childish propagandist yes sure because the only obvious reason anyone would make the jump from bcci to islamic bank is by associating islamic banking with muslim ownership but in this case i said i hoped that bcci was not an islamic bank and the only reason one would generalize from a given islamic bank to all islamic banks is through a stereotype one x is bad therefore all x s are bad but in this case i said i hoped that bcci was not an islamic bank next think you know there is a bosnia on tap but in this case i said i hoped that bcci was not an islamic bank jon
alt.atheism	re free moral agency in article bb dba i dbstu rz tu bs de i dbstu rz tu bs de benedikt rosenau writes in article r j ak fido asd sgi com livesey solntze wpd sgi com jon livesey writes deletion so mr conner is bobby mozumder a myth a performing artist a real moslem a crackpot a provocateur you know everything and read all minds why don t you tell us as a side note isn t it telling that one cannot say for sure if bobby mozunder is a firm believer or a provocateur what does that say about religious beliefs i think that s an insightful comment especially when at the same time we have people like bill projector conner complaining that we are posting parodies jon
alt.atheism	re societally acceptable behavior in article c ws s ns news cso uiuc edu cobb alexia lis uiuc edu mike cobb writes in r ioh t fido asd sgi com livesey solntze wpd sgi com jon livesey writes in article c qgm dl news cso uiuc edu cobb alexia lis uiuc edu mike cobb writes this doesn t seem right if i want to kill you i can because that is what i decide sounds as though you are confused between what i want and what i think is morally right jon what do you mean would your idea still apply if i said i think it is ok to kill you because that is what i decided what i mean is what i said what i want does not automatically translate into what i think is right that is it does not translate that way for me if you reply that i think it is ok to kill you because that is what i decided then what that means is that for you what i want does translate into what i think is right it just doesn t translate that way for me jon
alt.atheism	re societal basis for morality in article apr cnsvax uwec edu nyeda cnsvax uwec edu david nye writes you asked me to look over here but i was on my way back anyway reply to cobb alexia lis uiuc edu mike cobb if morals come from what is societally accepted why follow that what right do we have to expect others to follow our notion of societally mandated morality pardon the extremism but couldn t i murder your brother and say that i was exercising my rights as i saw them was doing what felt good didn t want anyone forcing their morality on me or i don t follow your morality i believe that morality is subjective each person is entitled to his own moral attitudes mine are not a priori more correct than someone elses this does not mean however that i must judge another on the basis of his rather than my moral standards while he is entitled to believe what his own moral sense tells him the rest of society is entitled to pass laws spelling out punishments for behavior that is offensive to the majority why your last statement why by which authority most criminals do not see their behavior as moral the may realize that it is immoral and not care they are thus not following their own moral system but being immoral for someone to lay claim to an alternative moral system he must be sincere in his belief in it and it must be internally consistent why your last statement why are these things necessary and believe me a belief in terrorism can be both sincere and frighteningly consistent some sociopaths lack an innate moral sense and thus may be incapable of behaving morally while someone like hitler may have believed that his actions were moral we may judge him immoral by our standards holding that morality is subjective does not mean that we must excuse the murderer trouble is this would sound just fine coming from someone like hitler too i do not mean any comparison or offence david try substituting the social minority of your choice for sociopath hitler and murderer no logical difference someone like you vs someone like hitler zero sum frank o dwyer i m not hatching that odwyer sse ie from hens by evelyn conlon
alt.atheism	re faith and dogma reply to tgk cs toronto edu todd kelley in light of what happened in waco i need to get something of my chest faith and dogma are dangerous agreed a philosopher cannot be a christian because a philosopher can change his mind whereas a christian cannot due to the nature of faith and dogma present in any religion it is hard for me to understand but quite a few professional scientists and philosophers are theists sure religion has many good qualities it encourages benevolence and philanthropy but also intolerance and superstition i m not sure that in the balance it is not detrimental wouldn t it be nice if everyone were a secular humanist sure would david nye nyeda cnsvax uwec edu midelfort clinic eau claire wi this is patently absurd but whoever wishes to become a philosopher must learn not to be frightened by absurdities bertrand russell
alt.atheism	re yet more rushdie re islamic law in article bu edu jaeger buphy bu edu gregg jaeger writes i m not in a position to say since i know nothing about the situation that does not in my estimation qualify me as having my head up my ass bob i never accused you of having your head up your ass it takes me quite some time in dealing with someone before accusing them of having their head up their ass i was accusing the original poster benedikt i believe of being so impaired after insult gregg resorts to lies in article bu edu jaeger buphy bu edu gregg jaeger writes could you maybe flesh it out just a bit or did i miss the full grandeur of it s content by virtue of my blinding atheism you may be having difficulty seeing the light because you have your head up your ass i suggest making sure this is not the case before posting again that s was the original answer while it does not say that he has the head necessarily up its ass it would be meaningless and pointless if it was not insinuated benedikt
alt.atheism	re after years can we say that christian morality is in article r fpv p horus ap mchp sni de frank d s uucp frank o dwyer writes deletion point morals are in essence personal opinions usually ideally well founded motivated such but nonetheless personal the fact that a real large lot of people agree on some moral question sometimes even for the same reason does not make morals objective it makes humans somewhat alike in their opinions on that moral question which can be good for the evolution of a social species and if a real large lot nice phrase of people agree that there is a football on a desk i m supposed to see a logical difference between the two perhaps you can explain the difference to me since you seem to see it so clearly rest deleted that s a fallacy and it is not the first time it is pointed out for one you have never given a set of morals people agree upon unlike a football further you conveniently ignore here that there are many who would not agree on tghe morality of something the analogy does not hold one can expect sufficiently many people to agree on its being a football while you have to give the evidence that only vanishing number disagrees with a set of morals you have to give further the above is evidence not proof proof would evolve out of testing your theory of absolute morals against competing theories the above is one of the arguments you reiterate while you never answer the objections evidence that you are a preacher benedikt
alt.atheism	re amusing atheists and agnostics in article r jcinnt g lynx unm edu cfaehl vesta unm edu chris faehl writes correction hard atheism is a faith yes can be a faith like weak atheism we had that before benedikt
alt.atheism	re theism and fanatism was islamic genocide in article r sn r horus ap mchp sni de frank d s uucp frank o dwyer writes theism is strongly correlated with irrational belief in absolutes irrational belief in absolutes is strongly correlated with fanatism deletion theism is correlated with fanaticism i have neither said that all fanatism is caused by theism nor that all theism leads to fanatism the point is theism increases the chance of becoming a fanatic one could of course argue that would be fanatics tend towards theism for example but i just have to loook at the times in history when theism was the dominant ideology to invalidate that conclusion that that is the basic mechanism behind it imo the influence of stalin or for that matter ayn rand invalidates your assumption that theism is the factor to be considered bogus i just said that theism is not the only factor for fanatism the point is that theism is a factor gullibility blind obedience to authority lack of scepticism and so on are all more reliable indicators and the really dangerous people the sources of fanaticism are often none of these things they are cynical manipulators of the gullible who know precisely what they are doing that s a claim you have to support please note that especially in the field of theism the leaders believe what they say now some brands of theism and more precisely some theists do tend to fanaticism i grant you to tar all theists with this brush is bigotry not a reasoned argument and it reads to me like a warm up for censorship and restriction of religious freedom ever read animal farm that s a straw man and as usually in discussions with you one has to repeat it read what i have written above not every theism leads to fanatism and not all fanatism is caused by theism the point is there is a correlation and it comes from innate features of theism gullibility by the way is one of them and to say that i am going to forbid religion is another of your straw men interesting that you have nothing better to offer define irrational belief e g is it rational to believe that reason is always useful irrational belief is belief that is not based upon reason the latter has been discussed for a long time with charley wingate one point is that the beliefs violate reason often and another that a process that does not lend itself to rational analysis does not contain reliable information well there is a glaring paradox here an argument that reason is useful based on reason would be circular and argument not based on reason would be irrational which is it that s bogus self reference is not circular and since the evaluation of usefulness is possible within rational systems it is allowed your argument is as silly as proving mathematical statements needs mathematics and mathematics are therfore circular the first part of the second statement contains no information because you don t say what the beliefs are if the beliefs are strong theism and or strong atheism then your statement is not in general true the second part of your sentence is patently false counterexample an axiomatic datum does not lend itself to rational analysis but is assumed to contain reliable information regardless of what process is used to obtain it i ve been speaking of religious systems with contradictory definitions of god here an axiomatic datum lends itself to rational analysis what you say here is a an often refuted fallacy have a look at the discussion of the axiom of choice and further one can evaluate axioms in larger systems out of which they are usually derived i exist is derived if you want it that way further one can test the consistency and so on of a set of axioms what is it you are trying to say compared the evidence theists have for their claims to the strength of their demands makes the whole thing not only irrational but antirational i can t agree with this until you are specific which theism to say that all theism is necessarily antirational requires a proof which i suspect you do not have using the traditonal definition of gods personal supernatural entities with objective effects on this world usually connected to morals and or the way the world works the affinity to fanatism is easily seen it has to be true because i believe it is nothing more than a work hypothesis however the beliefs say they are more than a work hypothesis i don t understand this can you formalise your argument person a believes system b becuase it sounds so nice that does not make b true it is at best a work hypothesis however the content of b is that it is true and that it is more than a work hypothesis testing or evaluating evidence for or against it therefore dismissed because b already believed says it is wrong a waste of time not possible depending on the further contents of b amalekites idolaters protestants are to be killed this can have interesting effects answer the question what the absolute set of morals is people agree on like they would agree on a football being a football benedikt
alt.atheism	re islamic authority over women in article c racm q darkside osrhe uoknor edu bil okcforum osrhe edu bill conner writes i can t recall anyone claiming that god makes anyone act a particlar way i think that you re attempting to manufacture a contradiction a world creator god does the moment it creates the world and to sayi that you can t recall anyone is even below your usual standard of a arguing my argument is based on quite usual theistic assumptions namely god is perfect god is all knowing god sets the rules the rules don t work for whatever reason because of its omniscience the god has known it in advance deletion to say that something defined contadictorily cannot exist is really asking too much you would have existence depend on grammar all you can really say is that something is poorly defined but that in itself is insufficient to decide anything other than confusion of course it is not a question of grammar it is a question of modelling has been discussed in the wonderful time when you were not posting to this group when a is contradictorily defined a does not point to an instance in reality unless there is more information in the definition of a that allows me to find it somehow however when the contradictory attribute is said to be essential ie has not got that attribute not the a i am looking for i can conclude that a does not exist your point that there are better reasons for the phenomenon of belief than the object of belief may lead to a rat s nest of unnecessary complexity i think i know what you re implying but i d like to see your version of this better alternative just the same that s quite like i predict coins falling predicted happened heads tails tails tails heads tails heads tails i take and dismiss the rest because of the unnecessary complexity the other evidence causes for an easy to understand explanation of why humans believe in gods read manwatching by desmond morris benedikt
alt.atheism	re death penalty gulf war long jbrown batman bmd trw com writes i don t regret the fact that sometimes military decisions have to be made which affect the lives of innocent people but i do regret the circumstances which make those decisions necessary and i regret the suffering caused by those decisions i m afraid i m going to have to kill you don t worry though as a loving christian i guarantee that i will regret the fact that i have to kill you although i won t regret the actual killing if we hadn t intervened allowing hussein to keep kuwait then it would have been appeasement right but did you ever hear anyone advocate such a course of action or are you just setting up a strawman i m not setting up a strawman at all if you want to argue against the war then the only logical alternative was to allow hussein to keep kuwait false dichotomy diplomatic alternatives including sanctions were ineffective that s because they weren t even attempted but what about those who didn t support hitler s dreams of conquest it s not as if they democratically voted for all his policies the nsdap got in the elections of and that was the last chance the german people got to vote on the matter they suffered along with the rest why does this bother you so much you want to know why it bothers me that thousands of innocent people were maimed or killed by bombing at the end of ww when it was far from clear that such bombing was necessary the world is full of evil and circumstances are not perfect many innocents suffer due to the wrongful actions of others it it regretable but that s the way it is and why is it that way who set things up to be that way this was happening before the gulf war why didn t we send in the bombers to east timor why aren t we sending in the bombers now probably because we re not the saviors of the world we can t police each and every country that decides to self destruct or invade another no just the ones that have oil or the ones that look like they might make a success of communism nor are we in a strategic position to get relief to tibet east timor or some other places i don t see that getting un forces to east timor is any harder than getting them to iraq tibetan people are rounded up tortured and executed amnesty international recently reported that torture is still widespread in china why aren t we stopping them in fact why are we actively sucking up to them by trading freely with them tell me how we could stop them and i ll support it i for one do not agree with the present us policy of sucking up to them as you put it i agree that it is deplorable fine write to your congressman and to president clinton china s status as most favoured nation comes up for renewal in june point out that the us shouldn t be offering favourable trading terms to such a despicable regime i doubt anything will happen clinton s keener on trade sanctions against europe unbelievable comments about the rodney king case deleted the media is not totally monolithic even though there is a prevailing liberal bias programs such as the macneil lehrer news hour try to give a balanced and fair reporting of the news there are even conservative sources out there if you know where to look hurrah for rush any idea how many kill files you just ended up in i an atheist am arguing against killing innocent people you a supposed christian are arguing that it s ok to kill innocent people so long as you get some guilty ones as well hardly i didn t say that it s a good thing tm to kill innocent people if the end is just unfortunately we don t live in a perfect world and there are no perfect solutions if one is going to resist tyranny then innocent people on both sides are going to suffer and die i didn t say it is ok it is unfortunate but sometimes necessary the ends justify the means eh you having criticised moral relativism in the past are now arguing that i am in no position to judge the morality of allied actions at the end of the war you certainly are not in such a position if you are a moral relativist the same tired old misunderstanding moral relativism means that there is no objective standard of morality it doesn t mean you can t judge other people s morals christ on a bike how many times have we tried to hammer that into your head where s your christian love where s your absolute morality oh how quick you are to discard them when it suits you as ivan stang would say jesus would puke one day i will stand before jesus and give account of every word and action even this discourse in this forum i understand the full ramifications of that and i am prepared to do so i don t believe that you can make the same claim obviously not as i am an atheist i don t think you d get on with jesus though he was a long haired lunatic peace nik was he not and btw the reason i brought up the blanket bombing in germany was because you were bemoaning the iraqi civilian casualties as being so deplorable yet blanket bombing was instituted because bombing wasn t accurate enough to hit industrial military targets in a decisive way by any other method at that time but in the gulf war precision bombing was the norm so the point was why make a big stink about the relatively few civilian casualties that resulted in spite of precision bombing when so many more civilians proportionately and quantitatively died under the blanket bombing in ww right unfortunately for you it turned out that my opinions on the matter were entirely consistent in that i condemned the bombing of dresden too i think you re being a bit glib with your explanation of the blanket bombing policy too you make it sound as though we were aiming for military targets and could only get them by destroying civilian buildings next door as i understand it that is not the case we aimed deliberately at civilian targets in order to cause massive damage and inspire terror amongst the german people civilians suffer but less civilians suffered in this war than any other iany other in history oh come on with wars like the falklands fresh in people s minds that sort of propaganda isn t going to fool anyone the stories of hundreds of thousands of iraqi civilian dead is just plain bunk yes bunk the us lost servicemen in ww over four years and the majority of them were directly involved in fighting yes and what about the millions of casualties the russians suffered it s hardly surprising the us didn t lose many men in ww given that you turned up late mathew
alt.atheism	re gulf war selling arms jbrown batman bmd trw com writes mathew i agree this it seems is the crux of your whole position isn t it that the us shouldn t have supported hussein and sold him arms to fight iran i agree and i agree in ruthlessly hunting down those who did or do but we did sell arms to hussein and it s a done deal now he invades kuwait so do we just sit back and say well we sold him all those arms i suppose he just wants to use them now too bad for kuwait no unfortunately sitting back and letting things be is not the way to correct a former mistake destroying hussein s military potential as we did was the right move but i agree with your statement reagan and bush made a grave error in judgment to sell arms to hussein but it s still happening that s the entire point only last month john major hailed it as a great victory that he had personally secured a sale of arms to saudi arabia the same month we sold jet fighters to the same indonesian government that s busy killing the east timorese it s all very well to say oops we made a boo boo better clean up the mistake but the us and uk keep making the same mistake they do it so often that i can t believe it s not deliberate this suspicion is reinforced by the fact that the mistake is an extremely profitable one for a decrepit economy reliant on arms sales so it s really not the gulf war you abhor so much it was the u s s and the west s shortsightedness in selling arms to hussein which ultimately made the war inevitable right no i thought both were terrible mathew
alt.atheism	re gulf war was re death penalty was re political atheists mccullou snake cs wisc edu mark mccullough writes i looked back at this and asked some questions of various people and got the following information which i had claimed and you pooh poohed the us has not sold iraq any arms what about the land mines which have already been mentioned other countries like kuwait information is hard to prove you are claiming that the us sold information prove it information is hard to prove almost certainly if the us did sell information then that fact is classified and you can t prove it oh very neat dismiss everything i say unless i can prove beyond a shadow of a doubt something which you yourself admit i can never prove to your satisfaction thanks i ll stick to squaring circles mathew
alt.atheism	re gulf war and peace niks jbrown batman bmd trw com writes the problem with most peace niks it they consider those of us who are not like them to be bad and unconscionable i would not have any argument or problem with a peace nik if they held to their ideals and stayed out of all conflicts or issues especially those dealing with the national defense but no they are not willing to allow us to legitimately hold a different point of view they militate and many times resort to violence all in the name of peace yawn another right wing wasp imagining he s an oppressed minority perhaps camille paglia is right after all i would not have any argument or problem with a peace nik if they stayed out of all conflicts or issues i bet you wouldn t you d love it but what makes you think that sitting back saying nothing about defense issues and letting people like you make all the decisions is anything to do with their ideals mathew
alt.atheism	re strong weak atheism acooper mac cc macalstr edu turin turambar me department of utter misery writes did that faq ever got modified to re define strong atheists as not those who assert the nonexistence of god but as those who assert that they believe in the nonexistence of god in a word yes mathew
alt.atheism	re who has read rushdie s the satanic verses perry dsinc com jim perry writes anyway since i seem to be the only one following this particular line of discussion i wonder how many of the rest of the readership have read this book what are your thoughts on it i bought a copy of the satanic verses when there was talk of the british government banning it there s nothing interests me in a book more than making it illegal however it s still sitting on my shelf unread perhaps i ll get round to it soon i ve still got a pile of lem bulgakov and zamyatin to go through i don t find nearly enough time to read in fact there are far more interesting things to do than i can ever find time for how anyone ever manages to be bored is beyond me if i didn t have to sleep maybe i could manage it mathew atheism anti virus software for the mind
alt.atheism	re yet more rushdie re islamic law in article apr bnr ca rashid writes in article bu edu jaeger buphy bu edu gregg jaeger wrote i have already made the clear claim that khomeini advocates views which are in contradition with the qur an and have given my arguments for this this is something that can be checked by anyone sufficiently interested khomeini being dead really can t respond but another poster who supports khomeini has responded with what is clearly obfuscationist sophistry this should be quite clear to atheists as they are less susceptible to religionist modes of obfuscationism don t mind my saying this but the best example of obfuscation is to condemn without having even your most basic facts straight if you want some examples go back and look at your previous posts where you manage to get your facts wrong about the fatwa and khomeini s supposed infallibility why shouldn t i mind it sounds as if you are proceeding with just the sort of obfuscation you have accused me of i always preceeded my statements with it is my understanding that now i have made my claim clear with regard to the issue of both the twelve imams and with khomeini s supposed claim of infalibility after hearing your seemingly more knowledgable claim that khomeini made no such claim regarding himself i have withdrawn that portion of my statement regarding that claim however i have received no such response regarding the infallibility of the twelve imams there is nothing obfuscationist about my claims which are always made clearly i have received no such clear response regarding the twelve imams but rather abstruse references to unusual metaphysical natures and other such opaque concepts often used by people to camoflage the baselessness of their positions particularly in matters of theology these are just the sorts of concepts used by christian churches the perverting of their religion as salaam a laikum alaikum wassalam gregg
alt.atheism	re yet more rushdie re islamic law in article apr bnr ca rashid writes in article bu edu jaeger buphy bu edu gregg jaeger wrote i think many reading this group would also benefit by knowing how deviant the view as i ve articulated it above which may not be the true view of khomeini is from the basic principles of islam so that the non muslim readers of this group will see how far from the simple basics of islam such views are on the face of them and if they are not in contradiction with the basics of islam how subtle such issues are and how it seems sects exist in islam while they are explicitly proscribed by the qur an discussing it here is fine by me shall we start a new thread called say infallibility in islam and move the discussion there i think this should be illuminating to all let me make a first suggestion when arabic words especially technical ones become of use let us define them for those especially atheists to whom they may not be terribly familiar please also note that though i did initially refer to khomeini as a heretic for what i understood to be a claim rejected by you since of personal infallibility i withdraw this as a basis for such a statement i conditionally retain this reference in regard to khomeini s advocacy of the thesis of the infallibility of the so called twelve imams which is in clear conflict with the qur an in that it places the twelve imams in a category of behavior and example higher than that of the muhammad in that the qur an shows that the prophet was clearly fallible as well as it appears given your abstruse theological statment regarding the natures of the twelve imams placing them in a different metaphysical category than the remainder of humanity with the possible exception of muhammad something which verges on the sin of association as salam a laikum alaikum wassalam gregg
alt.atheism	re after years can we say that christian morality is in article bb b i dbstu rz tu bs de i dbstu rz tu bs de benedikt rosenau writes in article r fpv p horus ap mchp sni de frank d s uucp frank o dwyer writes deletion point morals are in essence personal opinions usually ideally well founded motivated such but nonetheless personal the fact that a real large lot of people agree on some moral question sometimes even for the same reason does not make morals objective it makes humans somewhat alike in their opinions on that moral question which can be good for the evolution of a social species and if a real large lot nice phrase of people agree that there is a football on a desk i m supposed to see a logical difference between the two perhaps you can explain the difference to me since you seem to see it so clearly rest deleted that s a fallacy and it is not the first time it is pointed out it s not a fallacy note the if if a supermajority of disinterested people agree on a fundamantal value we re not doing ethics yet benedikt then what is the difference between that and those people agreeing on a trivial observation for one you have never given a set of morals people agree upon unlike a football further you conveniently ignore here that there are many who would not agree on tghe morality of something the analogy does not hold i have however given an example of a value people agree on and explained why people will agree that their freedom is valuable i have also stated that such a value is a necessary condition for doing objective ethics the if assertion above and that is what i m talking about there isn t a point in talking about ethics if this can t be agreed one can expect sufficiently many people to agree on its being a football while you have to give the evidence that only vanishing number disagrees with a set of morals you have to give i m not doing morals ethics if we can t get past values as i say the only cogent objection to my freedom example is that maybe people aren t talking about the same thing when they answer that it is valuable maybe not and i want to think about this some especially the implications of its being true further the above is evidence not proof proof would evolve out of testing your theory of absolute morals against competing theories garbage that s not proof either the above is one of the arguments you reiterate while you never answer the objections evidence that you are a preacher name that fallacy frank o dwyer i m not hatching that odwyer sse ie from hens by evelyn conlon
alt.atheism	re studies on book of mormon on tue apr gmt cfairman leland stanford edu carolyn jean fairman said cjf agrino enkidu mic cl andres grino brandt asks about mormons cjf although i don t personally know about independent sudies i do know cjf a few things cjf he writes there are some mention about events places or historical persons later discovered by archeologist cjf one of the more amusing things in the bom is a claim that a cjf civilization existed in north america aroun where the mystical plates cjf were found not only did it use steel and other metals but it had cjf lots of wars very ot no one has ever found any metal swords or cjf and traces of a civilization other than the native americans i was talking to the head of the archeology dept once in college and the topic of mormon archeology came up it seems that the mormon church is or was big on giving grants to archeologists to prove that the native americans are really the lost tribe of israel and other such bunk the archeologists would shake their head knowingly while listening to them take the grant and go off to do real archeology anyway ed mccreary o edm twisto compaq com if it were not for laughter there would be no tao
alt.atheism	science and theories as per various threads on science and creationism i ve started dabbling into a book called christianity and the nature of science by jp moreland a question that i had come from one of his comments he stated that god is not necessarily a religious term but could be used as other scientific terms that give explanation for events or theories without being a proven scientific fact i think i got his point i can quote the section if i m being vague the examples he gave were quarks and continental plates are there explanations of science or parts of theories that are not measurable in and of themselves or can everything be quantified measured tested etc mac michael a cobb and i won t raise taxes on the middle university of illinois class to pay for my programs champaign urbana bill clinton rd debate cobb alexia lis uiuc edu nobody can explain everything to anybody g k chesterton
alt.atheism	re age of reason was who has read rushdie s on wed apr gmt sandvik newton apple com kent sandvik said ks this is the story of kent the archetype finn that lives in the ks bay area and tried to purchase thomas paine s age of reason this ks man was driving around to staceys to books inc to well cleanlighted ks place to daltons to various other places ks when he asked for this book the well educated american book store ks assistants in most placed asked him to check out the thriller section ks or then they said that his book has not been published yet but they ks should receive the book soon in some places the assistants bluntly ks said that they don t know of such an author or that he is not ks a well known living author so they don t keep copies of his books ks such is the life and times of america years after the revolution sigh now i don t feel so bad searching for a copy in bookstores has been a habit of mine for at least two years now i spend a lot of time browsing through bookstores new and and used and i ve not once seen a copy now i know all i do is pick up a phone and order the darned thing but come on this is america and he s one of the founding fathers and no one carries his books sure you can find common sense but i think that s because it s required reading for most colleges i did find one hole in the wall bookstore where the owner said that they usually carry one or two copies but that they were currently out i haven t been back since so i don t know if he was telling the truth or not sigh ed mccreary o edm twisto compaq com if it were not for laughter there would be no tao
alt.atheism	re science and theories in article c u bq j news cso uiuc edu cobb alexia lis uiuc edu mike cobb writes the examples he gave were quarks and continental plates are there sounds like more of the same gods were used to describe almost everything in the past as we come to understand the underpinnings of more and more the less we credit to a god now the not so well understood elements at least by the author includes quarks and tectonic drift i guess that s better than describing the perceived patterns of stars in the sky as heroes being immortalized by the gods kinda sounds like old earth creation it seems that life did indeed evolve from a common ancestor what caused that initial common ancestor are we going to hear another debate on causeless events explanations of science or parts of theories that are not measurable in and of themselves or can everything be quantified measured tested etc mac michael a cobb frank doss the above stated words are my opinions and do not reflect the opinions attitudes or policies of my employer or any affilliated organizations
alt.atheism	re theism and fanatism was islamic genocide in article bb d c i dbstu rz tu bs de i dbstu rz tu bs de benedikt rosenau writes in article r tqo ook horus ap mchp sni de frank d s uucp frank o dwyer writes theism is strongly correlated with irrational belief in absolutes irrational belief in absolutes is strongly correlated with fanatism deletion theism is correlated with fanaticism i have neither said that all fanatism is caused by theism nor that all theism leads to fanatism the point is theism increases the chance of becoming a fanatic one could of course argue that would be fanatics tend towards theism for example but i just have to loook at the times in history when theism was the dominant ideology to invalidate that conclusion that that is the basic mechanism behind it imo the influence of stalin or for that matter ayn rand invalidates your assumption that theism is the factor to be considered bogus i just said that theism is not the only factor for fanatism the point is that theism is a factor that s your claim now back it up i consider your argument as useful as the following belief is strongly correlated with fanaticism therefore belief is a factor in fanaticism true and utterly useless note this is any belief not belief in gods tiring to say the least i have backed it up read the first statement i have read it conspicuous by its absence is any evidence or point the latter is the fallacy of the wrong analogy saying someone believes something is hardly an information about the person at all saying someone is a theist holds much more information further the correlation between theists and fanatism is higher than that between belief at all and fanatism because of the special features of theistic belief truth by blatant assertion evidence gullibility blind obedience to authority lack of scepticism and so on are all more reliable indicators and the really dangerous people the sources of fanaticism are often none of these things they are cynical manipulators of the gullible who know precisely what they are doing that s a claim you have to support please note that especially in the field of theism the leaders believe what they say if you believe that you re incredibly naive you frank o dwyer are living in a dream world i wonder if there is any base of discussion left after such a statement as a matter of fact i think you are ignorant of human nature even when one starts with something one does not believe one gets easily fooled into actually believing what one says to give you the benefit of the doubt prove your statement the onus of proof is on you sunshine what makes you think that theist leaders believe what they say especially when they say one thing and do another or say one thing closely followed by its opposite the practice is not restricted to theism but it s there for anyone to see it s almost an epidemic in this country just for instance if it is harder for a camel to pass thru the eye of a needle why is the catholic church such a wealthy land owner why are there churches to the square inch in my country now some brands of theism and more precisely some theists do tend to fanaticism i grant you to tar all theists with this brush is bigotry not a reasoned argument and it reads to me like a warm up for censorship and restriction of religious freedom ever read animal farm that s a straw man and as usually in discussions with you one has to repeat it read what i have written above not every theism leads to fanatism and not all fanatism is caused by theism the point is there is a correlation and it comes from innate features of theism no some of it comes from features which some theism has in common with some fanaticism your last statement simply isn t implied by what you say before because you re trying to sneak in innate features of all theism the word you re groping for is some bogus again not all theism as is is fanatic however the rest already gives backup for the statement about the correlation about fanatism and theism and further the specialty of other theistic beliefs allows them to switch to fanatism easily it takes just a nifty improvement in the theology truth by blatant assertion gullibility by the way is one of them no shit sherlock so why not talk about gullibility instead of theism since it seems a whole lot more relevant to the case you have as opposed to the case you are trying to make because there is more about theism that the attraction to gullible people causing the correlation and the whole discussion started that way by the statement that theism is meaningfully correlated to fanatism which you challenged indeed i did as i recall i asked for evidence what is the correlation of which you speak and to say that i am going to forbid religion is another of your straw men interesting that you have nothing better to offer i said it reads like a warm up to that that s because it s an irrational and bogus tirade and has no other use than creating a nice them us split in the minds of excitable people such as are to be found on either side of church walls blah blah blah i am quite well aware that giving everyone their rights protects me better from fanatics than the other way round of course other people are always fanatics never oneself your wish to slur all theists seems pretty fanatical to me it is quite nice to see that you are actually implying a connection between that argument and the rise of fanatism so far it is just another of your assertions so you can do it define irrational belief e g is it rational to believe that reason is always useful irrational belief is belief that is not based upon reason the latter has been discussed for a long time with charley wingate one point is that the beliefs violate reason often and another that a process that does not lend itself to rational analysis does not contain reliable information well there is a glaring paradox here an argument that reason is useful based on reason would be circular and argument not based on reason would be irrational which is it that s bogus self reference is not circular and since the evaluation of usefulness is possible within rational systems it is allowed o k it s oval it s still begging the question however and though that certainly is allowed it s not rational and you claiming to be rational and all another of your assertions no proof no evidence just claims hey i learned it from you did i do good at the risk of repeating myself and hearing we had that before we didn t hear a refutation before so we re back deal with it you can t use reason to demonstrate that reason is useful someone who thinks reason is crap won t buy it you see that is unusually weak even for you the latter implies that my proof depends on their opinion somehow who does not accept that there are triangles won t accept pythagoras wow that s an incredible insight i don t have to prove them wrong in their opinion it is possible to show that their systems leave out useful information respectively claims unreliable or even absurd statements to be information totally circular and totally useless their wish to believe makes them believe things are judges by their appeal and not by their information it makes you feel good when you believe that may be good for them but it contains zillions of possible pitfalls from belief despite contrary evidence to the bogus proofs they attempt truth by blatant assertion i ve seen as many bogus proofs of the non existence of gods as i have of their existence rational systems by the way does not mean that every data has to come from logical analysis the point is that the evaluation of the data does not contradict logic it easily follows that such a system does not allows to evaluate if its rational in itself yes it is possible to evaluate that it is rational in a system that is not rational by the fallacies of that system but since the validity of the axioms is agreed upon that has as little impact as the possibility of a demon ala descartes this just doesn t parse sorry so far it just a matter of consistency i use ratiional arguments to show that my system is consistent or that theirs isn t the evaluation of the nor this predictions does not need rationality it does not contradict however your argument is as silly as proving mathematical statements needs mathematics and mathematics are therfore circular anybody else think godel was silly stream of consciousness typing what is that supposed to mean the first part of the second statement contains no information because you don t say what the beliefs are if the beliefs are strong theism and or strong atheism then your statement is not in general true the second part of your sentence is patently false counterexample an axiomatic datum does not lend itself to rational analysis but is assumed to contain reliable information regardless of what process is used to obtain it i ve been speaking of religious systems with contradictory definitions of god here an axiomatic datum lends itself to rational analysis what you say here is a an often refuted fallacy have a look at the discussion of the axiom of choice and further one can evaluate axioms in larger systems out of which they are usually derived i exist is derived if you want it that way further one can test the consistency and so on of a set of axioms what is it you are trying to say that at some point people always wind up saying this datum is reliable for no particular reason at all example i am not dreaming nope there is evidence for it the trick is that the choice of an axiomatic basis of a system is difficult because the possibilities are interwoven one therefore chooses that with the least assumptions or with assumptions that are necessary to get information out of the system anyway i d like to see this alleged evidence one does not need to define axioms in order to define an evaluation method for usefulness the foundation is laid by how one feels at all that s not how one feels about it i see you have no irrational beliefs but then fanatics never do do they compared the evidence theists have for their claims to the strength of their demands makes the whole thing not only irrational but antirational i can t agree with this until you are specific which theism to say that all theism is necessarily antirational requires a proof which i suspect you do not have using the traditonal definition of gods personal supernatural entities with objective effects on this world usually connected to morals and or the way the world works imo any belief about such gods is necessarily irrational that does not mean that people who hold them are in principle opposed to the exercise of intelligence some atheists are also scientists for example they don t use theism when doing science or it wouldn t be science please note that subjective data lend themselves to a scientific treatment as well they just prohibit formulating them as objective statements ergo nothing is objective fair enough the affinity to fanatism is easily seen it has to be true because i believe it is nothing more than a work hypothesis however the beliefs say they are more than a work hypothesis i don t understand this can you formalise your argument person a believes system b becuase it sounds so nice that does not make b true it is at best a work hypothesis however the content of b is that it is true and that it is more than a work hypothesis testing or evaluating evidence for or against it therefore dismissed because b already believed says it is wrong a waste of time not possible depending on the further contents of b amalekites idolaters protestants are to be killed this can have interesting effects peculiar definition of interesting but sure now show that a belief in gods entails the further contents of which you speak why aren t my catholic neighbours out killing the protestants for example maybe they don t believe in it maybe it s the conjunction of b asserts b and jail kill dissenters that is important and the belief in gods is entirely irrelevant it certainly seems so to me but then i have no axe to grind here the example with your neighbours is a fallacy that your neighbours don t says little about others and there were times when exactly that happened nope it s not a fallacy it just doesn t go to the correlation you wish to see and tell me when it is not irrelevant why are such statements about amalekites and idolaters in the holy books please note that one could edit them out when they are not relevant anymore because gods don t err what does that say about that message excuse me the holy books and how come we had theists saying genocides ordered by god are ok a god is the easiest way to excuse anything and therefore highly attracting to fanatics not to mention the effect interpretation by these fanatics can have on the rest of the believers happens again and again and again a god is neither the easiest way to excuse anything nor the only way frank o dwyer i m not hatching that odwyer sse ie from hens by evelyn conlon
alt.atheism	re after years can we say that christian morality is in article apr cnsvax uwec edu nyeda cnsvax uwec edu david nye writes reply to frank d s uucp frank o dwyer the problem for the objectivist is to determine the status of moral truths and the method by which they can be established if we accept that such judgements are not reports of what is but only relate to what ought to be see naturalistic fallacy then they cannot be proved by any facts about the nature of the world this can be avoided in at least two ways by leaving the good undefined since anyone who claims that they do not know what it is is either lying or so out of touch with humanity as to be undeserving of a reply if the good is undefined undefinable but you require of everyone that they know innately what is right you are back to subjectivism no and begging the question see below by defining the good solely in terms of evaluative terms ditto here an evaluative statement implies a value judgement on the part of the person making it again incorrect and question begging see below at this point the objectivist may talk of self evident truths pretty perceptive that prof flew but can he deny the subjectivist s claim that self evidence is in the mind of the beholder of course by denying that subject object is true dichotomy please explain how this helps i don t see your argument i don t see yours it seems to rest on the assertion that everything is either a subject or an object there s nothing compelling about that dichotomy i might just as well divide the world into subject object event it even seems more sensible causation for example is an event not a subject or an object furthermore if subject object were true dichotomy i e everything is either a subject or an object then is that statement a self evident truth or not if so then it s all in the mind of the beholder according to the relativist and hardly compelling add to that the fact that the world can quickly be shoved in its entirety into the subjective category by an idealist or solipsist argument and that we have this perfectly good alternate set of categories subject object event which can be reduced to subject object quality without any logical difficulty and why yes i guess i am denying that self evident truths are all in the mind of the beholder if not what is left of the claim that some moral judgements are true all of it if nothing then no moral judgements are true this is a thing that is commonly referred to as nihilism it entails that science is of no value irrepective of the fact that some people find it useful how anyone arrives at relativism subjectivism from this argument beats me this makes no sense either flew is arguing that this is where the objectivist winds up not the subjectivist furthermore the nihilists believed in nothing except science materialism revolution and the people i m referring to ethical nihilism the subjectivist may well feel that all that remains is that there are some moral judgements with which he would wish to associate himself to hold a moral opinion is he suggests not to know something to be true but to have preferences regarding human activity and if those preferences should include terrorism that moral opinion is not true likewise if the preferences should include noterrorism that moral opinion is not true why should one choose a set of preferences which include terrorisim over one which includes noterrorism oh no reason this is patently absurd and also not the position of the subjectivist as has been pointed out to you already by others ditch the strawman already and see my reply to mike cobb s root message in the thread societal basis for morality i ve responded over there btw i don t intend this as a strawman but as something logically entailed by relativism really any ethical system where values are assumed to be unreal it s different to say relativists say than relativism implies frank o dwyer i m not hatching that odwyer sse ie from hens by evelyn conlon
alt.atheism	re free moral agency in article minster york ac uk cjhs minster york ac uk writes are you saying that their was a physical adam and eve and that all humans are direct decendents of only these two human beings then who were cain and able s wives couldn t be their sisters because a e didn t have daughters were they non humans genesis and the days of adam after he begat seth were eight hundred years and he begat sons and daughters felicitations chris ho stuart yeah but these were not the wives the wives came from nod apparently a land being developed by another set of gods brian
alt.atheism	re room for metaphor i can and do take religious writings as a metaphor for life i do this with all sorts of fiction from beowolf to deep space nine the idea is to not limit yourself to one book screen out the good stuff from what you read and to remember that it is all just a story you sound buddist to me brian
alt.atheism	re the universe and black holes was re years in article apr iastate edu kv iastate edu warren vonroeschlaub wrote in article r hj inn c gap caltech edu keith cco caltech edu keith allan schneider writes well suppose a probe emitting radiation at a constant frequency was sent towards a black hole as it got closer to the event horizon the red shift would keep increasing the period would get longer and longer but it would never stop an observer would not observe the probe actually reaching the event horizon the detected energy from the probe would keep decreasing but it wouldn t vanish exp t never quite reaches zero that s kind of what i meant to be more precise given any observer in any single position outside the event horizon would that observer ever in any way be able to detect the probe having crossed the event horizon yes unless the observer is at rest with respect to the singularity at infinite distance away but an observer on a close approach to the bh will see the particle go in in finite time peter don t forget to sing they say there s a heaven for those who will wait some say it s better but i say it ain t i d rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints the sinners are much more fun only the good die young
alt.atheism	re asimov stamp battin cyclops iucf indiana edu laurence gene battin writes apart from the suggestion that appeared in the letters column of skeptical inquirer recently has there been any further mention about a possible asimov commemorative stamp if this idea hasn t been followed up does anyone know what needs to be done to get this to happen i think that its a great idea should we start a petition or something i m sure all the religious types would get in a snit due to asimov s atheism do we have any atheists on stamps now mark schnitzius schnitzi eola cs ucf edu university of central florida
alt.atheism	re amusing atheists and agnostics in article timmbake mcl timmbake mcl ucsb edu bake timmons writes nah i will encourage people to learn about atheism to see how little atheists have up their sleeves whatever i might have suspected is actually quite riddle me this if a god s exist why on earth should we grovel why on earth should we give a damm at all what evidence do you have that if such a creature s exist it deserves anything beyond mild admiration or sheer hatred for what it they have done in the past whichever god s you care to pick that is assuming any records of their actions are correct religon offers a bliss bubble of self contained reality which is seperate from the physical world any belief system can leave you in such a state and so can drugs god s are not a requirement only if you remove such useless tappestry can you build a set of morals to build a society upon it is that or keep on exterminating those who don t believe or converting them eric new viruses right to life virus won t allow you to delete a file regardless of how old it is if you attempt to erase a file it requires you to first see a counselor about possible alternatives
alt.atheism	re some thoughts in article c rekj y darkside osrhe uoknor edu bil okcforum osrhe edu bill conner writes james felder spbach lerc nasa gov wrote logic alert argument from incredulity just because it is hard for you to believe this doesn t mean that it isn t true liars can be very pursuasive just look at koresh that you yourself cite this is whole basis of a great many here rejecting the christian account of things in the words of st madalyn murrey o hair face it folks it s just silly why is it okay to disbelieve because of your incredulity if you admit that it s a fallacy bill i suppose for the same reason that you do not believe in all the gods why should any be any different i use the same arguments to dismiss koresh as i do god tell me then why do you not believe that koresh is the son of god by logic it is equally possible that koresh is jesus reborn adda wainwright does dim atal y llanw o eczcaw mips nott ac uk o mae sig ma ar werth
alt.atheism	re death penalty was re political atheists in article c rlyz mt darkside osrhe uoknor edu bil okcforum osrhe edu bill conner writes this is fascinating atheists argue for abortion prove it i am an atheist it doesn t mean i am for or against abortion defend homosexuality as a means of population control an obvious effect of homosexuality is non procreation that unlike your statement is a fact please prove that a homosexuality is defended as means of population control b being atheist causes you to hold these beliefs i defend homosexuality because a what people do with their bodies is none of my business b i defend the equal rights of all humans do you insist that the only values are biological define values prove your statement something is contardictory it cannot exist which in this case means atheists i suppose prove your statement electrons are waves electrons are particles i believe in both i have physical proof of both i have no proof of god tm only an ancient book that is not indicative of the existence of a being with omnipotence or omnipresence and by your own argument christians don t exist i would like to understand how an atheist can object to war an excellent means of controlling population growth or to capital punishment i m sorry but the logic escapes me and why just capital punishment what is being questioned here the propriety of killing or of punishment what is the basis of the ecomplaint first of all your earlier statements have absolutely nothing to do with your question why did you post them to show that athiests besides not existing your view are more humane than christians other religions secondly i am very much for the control of population growth the logic that you cannot grasp indicates ignorance of contraception but of course this is outlawed sometimes literally by religion since if it can t create more followers it will die i bill adda wainwright does dim atal y llanw o eczcaw mips nott ac uk o mae sig ma ar werth
alt.atheism	re you will all go to hell jsn is jeremy scott noonan
alt.atheism	re you will all go to hell in article apr ncsu edu aiken news ncsu edu wayne nmi aiken writes jsn psuvm psu edu wrote you blashephemers you will all go to hell for not believing in god be prepared for your eternal damnation did someone leave their terminal unattended again holy temple of mass slack ncsu edu my used underwear consumption is legal tender in po box bbs countries raleigh nc warning i hoard pennies bob probably not the jesus freak s post is probably jsn psuvm penn state is just loaded to the hilt with bible bangers i use to go there vomit and it was the reason i left they even had a group try to stop playing rock music in the dining halls one year cuz they deemed it satanic kampus krusade for khrist people run the damn place for the most part except the liberal arts departments they are the safe havens wdb v rock music in the dining t
alt.atheism	re some thoughts in article aa therose pdx com alan olsen p f n z fidonet org alan olsen writes from alan olsen p f n z fidonet org alan olsen subject some thoughts date wed apr rh from house helios usq edu au ron house rh newsgroups alt atheism rh organization university of southern queensland rh bissda saturn wwc edu dan lawrence bissell writes first i want to start right out and say that i m a christian it rh i know i shouldn t get involved but rh bit deleted the book says that jesus was either a liar or he was crazy a modern day koresh or he was actually who he said he was rest of rant deleted this is a standard argument for fundies can you spot the falicy the statement is arguing from the assumption that jesus actually existed so far they have not been able to offer real proof of that existance i just thought it necessary to help defend the point that jesus existed guys jesus existed if he didnt then you have to say that socrates didnt exist cuz he like jesus has nothing from his hands that have survived only plato and others record his existance many others record jesus existance including the babylonian talmud sorry guys the argument that jesus may not have existed is a dead point now he did whether he was god or whether there is a god is a completely different story however most of them try it using the very flawed writings of josh mcdowell and others to prove it but those writers use very flawed sources if they are real sources at all some are not when will they ever learn to do real research instead of believing the drivel sold in the christian bookstores rh righto dan try this one with your cornflakes rh the book says that muhammad was either a liar or he was rh crazy a modern day mad mahdi or he was actually who he rh said he was some reasons why he wouldn t be a liar are as rh follows who would die for a lie wouldn t people be able rh to tell if he was a liar people gathered around him and rh kept doing it many gathered from hearing or seeing how his rh son in law made the sun stand still call me a fool but i rh believe he did make the sun stand still rh niether was he a lunatic would more than an entire nation rh be drawn to someone who was crazy very doubtful in fact rh rediculous for example anyone who is drawn to the mad rh mahdi is obviously a fool logical people see this right rh away rh therefore since he wasn t a liar or a lunatic he must have rh been the real thing nice rebutal alan
alt.atheism	re christian morality is in article eastman uucp dps nasa kodak com writes the fact is god could cause you to believe anything he wants you to but think about it for a minute would you rather have someone love you because you made them love you or because they wanted to love you there s a difference between believing in the existence of an entity and loving that entity god could show me directly that he exists and i d still have a free choice about whether to love him or not so why doesn t he kevin anthoney kax cs nott ac uk don t believe anything you read in sig files
alt.atheism	re genocide is caused by theism evidence to benedikt roseneau in article qv at fb horus ap mchp sni de frank d s uucp frank o dwyer writes the information of that is invariant under your child being a son or a daughter and singing about santa claus wasn t your argument that there has to be more more than what more than we assume which is what exactly a most of the people i debate disagree with my premises hardly debate otherwise your favorite point that we sense so it hs to be there has been challenged more than once when i did it you said good question and did not address it i ve addressed it your caricature is not my favourite point needless to say at length in a previous outing and am currently discussing it with eric rescorla b there s little point in responding the same points everywhere i do my best to give everyone the courtesy of a reply you still repeat that point i do curious since i believe that was the first time i ve ever made it not that repetition would imply much more than your seeming inability to understand you ask me the same question i ll give you the same answer especially when in this case i know the answer to be true i do my best to give everyone the courtesy of a reply but if everyone is making the same points and i m pushed for time then i try to respond what i believe are the strongest formulations of those points if that doesn t include your post tough this is usenet and life is tough all over c since there s a great deal of responses this isn t always feasible i do my best to honestly answer questions put to me you drop out of debates with some posters and continue with others you appear with the same issue every n months and start the dicussion at the beginning again i ve only debated this issue twice in a a and occasionally in t a the first was in response to simon clippingdale s positive assertion that disagreement about moral values inexorably acknowledges that morals are relative it doesn t now simon has dropped out of the debate for some time i take that to mean that he is either busy or bored with the topic i certainly do not accuse him of dishonesty do you d i can t always understand what you say neither can t i understand you all the time usually one asks what the other side means usually one does usually you re clear but sometimes you aren t and i ask you what you mean other times you seem to get extremely uptight and i feel that i m debating against line noise sometimes i get tired and sometimes i have other things i d rather do again this is usenet and life is tough all over you re going to have to deal with it e you re starting to get personally insulting i may not even put your name in the hat in future that s supposed to be a threat no that s a simple statement and an assertion that i am not answerable to those who offer me baseless insults for example those who accuse me of lying about my personal beliefs while also complaining that i don t answer their questions like that you what you sense is evidence for the sensed to be there if only everything would be so easy what almost everyone senses is evidence for the sensed to be there because to all intents and purposes it is there we had that argument for one your claim that everyone senses it is not founded and you have been asked to give evidence for it often and then the correct statement would be it is reason to assume that it is there unless evidence against it has been found i have no problem with the second statement i have provided an argument that almost everyone senses that freedom is valuable the only cogent objection to this came from jon livesey and was offered by some other people too essentially that people disagree about fuzzy concepts such as freedom it s a good point and i m thinking about it your trick is to say i feel a is not right and so do many i know therefore a is absolutely right it neglects the possibility that these people consider a to be right as an effect of the same process restricting the claim of its absoluteness to those who have been subject of that process in other words refutes it you make the ontological claim you have to prove it nonsense my trick is to say i feel that a is better than b and so does almost any disinterested person i ask best evidence is therefore that a really is better than b subject to the assumption that we can establish to our mutual satisfaction what we mean by a and b and that the resulting system of values is self consistent now get this really is better is an idealisation a fictional model in the same sense that real material existence is a fictional model it may or may not correspond to something true it is nonetheless a useful assumption far more useful than the equally assumed relativist trick to wit i feel that a is better than b and so does almost any disinterested person i ask however if even one person disagrees that a is better than b or if even one person dissents from mutually agreed definitions of a and b then it is the case that b is better than a for that person and nothing more can be said i say this is useless because it inexorably implies that a supermajority seeking to maximise a cannot morally take action against someone seeking to maximise b e g a terrorist to do that would be to claim that a supermajority s carefully considered morality would be better than the terrorist s which would of course be true but a no no for an ethical relativist to claim that ethical relativism implies anything else is simply weasel words and an example of compartmentalisation to rival anything in the world of religion for a similar argument i sense morality is subjective it does not hurt me to do things that are considered to be objectively wrong by others if you mean that you do things that some others consider objectively wrong and it turns out not to be the case for you of course this is possible it is neither evidence for subjectivism nor evidence against objectivism except sometimes in a pragmatic sense it serves as a counterexample for that everything that is subject to judgements is absolute and as long as you don t provide evidence for that there is something universally agreed upon there is no reason to believe your hypothesis i ve done this freedom with the proviso that i still have to answer jon s objection that fuzzy concepts like freedom have no objective meaning further in order to make morality absolute universal or objective you would have to show that it is independent of humans or the attributes above look quite misleading not really what evidence is there that anything exists independently of humans you ll be hard pressed to find any that isn t logically equivalent when applied to values an analogous set of premises would be premise some people believe that objectively speaking the shortest route from my house to a bar is through the main entrance of the estate and down the malahide road premise i checked it out and found that the shortest route from my which is much closer you would never deduce from these that there is no shortest route from my house to a bar yet that is seemingly how you derive your relativist claim using premises which are logically no different no morals are a matter of belief so far the people still believe that the shortest way is through the main entrance no agreement on belief here and in order to have an analogy you would have to show that there is a shortest way and that there is a method to convince everyone of that it is the shortest way indeed in other words your analogy works only when one assumes that your premises are right in the first place if not it is a fallacy and if this were an argument for objectivism you d be right it isn t though it s a demonstration that the argument you gave me is neither argument against objectivism nor argument for relativism your gimmick is to assume in the first place that values aren t real and to use this to prove that values aren t real in other words you beg the question against me frank o dwyer i m not hatching that odwyer sse ie from hens by evelyn conlon
alt.atheism	re gulf war and peace niks in article apr batman bmd trw com jbrown batman bmd trw com writes in article apr bmerh bnr ca dgraham bmers bnr ca douglas graham writes actually i rather like your idea perhaps the rest of the world should have bombed or maybe missiled washington when the us invaded nicaragua grenada panama vietnam mexico hawaii or any number of other places wait a minute doug i know you are better informed than that the us has never invaded nicaragua as far as i know we liberated grenada liberate is the way an invader describes an invasion including if i m not mistaken the iraqi liberation of kuwait never invaded nicaragua only with more word games can you say send in the marines so if you mean by the word invaded some sort of military action where we cross someone s border you are right out of but normally invaded carries a connotation of attacking an autonomous nation if some nation invades the u s virgin islands would they be invading the virgin islands or the u s so from this point of view your score falls to out of mexico panama oh good word games if you let the aggressor pick the words there s scarcely ever been a reprehensible military action what s a peace nik is that somebody who doesn t masturbate over guns n ammo or what is it supposed to be bad to be a peace nik no it s someone who believes in peace at all costs in other words a person who would have supported giving hitler not only austria and czechoslakia but poland too if it could have averted the war and one who would allow hitler to wipe all all jews slavs and political dissidents in areas he controlled as long as he left the rest of us alone that s a convenient technique much seen on alt atheism define those who disagree with you according to a straw man extreme that matches virtually nobody is it supposed to be bad to be a peace nik you ask well it depends on what your values are if you value life over liberty peace over freedom then i guess not but if liberty and freedom mean more to you than life itself if you d rather die fighting for liberty than live under a tyrant s heel then yes it s bad to be a peace nik very noble and patriotic i m sure the fine young americans who carpet bombed iraqi infantry positions from over the horizon destroyed iraq s sewer and water infrastructure from the safety of the sky or further or who bulldozed other iraqi infantry into their trenches or more importantly the commanders who ordered them to were just thrilled to be risking death if not risking it by much in the defense of the liberty of well wealthy kuwaitis can t have those oil fields under a tyrant s heel if that tyrant is antagonistic to us interests the problem with most peace niks it they consider those of us who are not like them to be bad and unconscionable i would not have any argument or problem with a peace nik if they held to their ideals and stayed out of all conflicts or issues especially those dealing with the national defense but no they are not willing to allow us to legitimately hold a different point of view having pigeon holed peace niks in this context people who disagree with me about the conduct of the gulf war into peace at all cost hitler supporting genocide abetting wimps you can now express righteous indignation when they refuse to fit this mold and question the conduct of the war on legitimate terms how dare they they militate and many times resort to violence all in the name of peace what rank hypocrisy yes hypocrisy indeed those violent peace niks care to list an example here all to stop we warmongers who are willing to stand up and defend our freedoms against tyrants and who realize that to do so requires a strong national defense wow instant s nostalgia of course peace nik itself is a s cold war derogatory term equating those who promote pacifism with godless pinko communists yes indeed i felt my freedoms mightily threatened by iraq jim perry perry dsinc com decision support inc matthews nc these are my opinions for a nominal fee they can be yours
alt.atheism	re after years can we say that christian morality is in r n hfj horus ap mchp sni de frank d s uucp writes deletia in case anybody hadn t noticed frank and i are debating objective morality and seemingly hitting semantics secondly how can i refute your definition i can only point up its logical implications and say that they seem to contradict the usage of the word objective in other areas indeed by your definition an objective x is an oxymoron for all x i have no quibble with that belief other than that it is useless and that objective is a perfectly good word it may be that being a non native english speaker i ve misunderstood your usage of objective and tried to debate something you don t assert my apologies i m at a loss to imagine what you really do mean though how many ages can the universe have and still be internally self consistent i d be amazed if it was more than one how many different moral systems can different members of society have indeed single individuals in some cases and humanity still stick together begging the question people can have many opinions about the age of the universe and humanity can still stick together you are saying that the universe has a real age independent of my beliefs about it why wrong point the age of the universe has no direct effect on humanity s sticking power in the way the moral system of a society can have i m saying the universe has a real age because i see evidence for it cosmology astronomy and so on i say this age is independent of people s opinions of it because i know different people have a lot of different opinions in the matter yet empirical tests consistently seem to give roughly the same results the age of the universe like most scientific facts can be emirically verified through means that ll give the same result no matter who performs the testing albeit there are error bars that may be on the largish side this assumes that the universe has a real age or any kind of reality which doesn t depend on what we think i can t see how it does that put a creationist to the task of performing the tests and calculations see to it s he makes no blatant errors in measuring or calculating and the result of the test will be the same why should an extreme biblical creationist give a rat s ass about the means of which you speak because logically consistent empirical tests contradict their opinion if those tests were just my opinion then their own tests which would then be their opinion would contradict mine even if we conducted said tests in identical manner no they don t which i take as showing these tests have some validity beyond our opinion of them i ve heard of no way to verify morality in a consistent way much less compute the errors of the measurement care to enlighten me the same is true of pain but painkillers exist and can be predicted to work with some accuracy better than a random guess map the activity of nerves and neural activity if you mean physical pain you have a sharp point i ll give you that but you still haven t given me a way to quantify morality i wrote elsewhere that morality should be hypotheses about observed value we agree hypotheses however can change i hold that there is no ultimate hypothesis of morality towards which these changes could gravitate but that they could be changed in any way imaginable producing different results suitable for different tasks or purposes if a moral system makes a prediction it will be better if that can be tested better and worse are almost always defined in the context of a moral system your prediction will always be correct within that moral system what you need now is an objective definition of good and bad i wish you luck people s ideas about the age of object x are not objective you can have any idea you like and i can t stop you universae and their ages is another ballgame they are what they are and if you dislike some detail of them that s a problem with your opinion of them sure assume an objective reality and you get statements like this isn t that what you re doing when assuming an objectively real morality besides what exactly is provably wrong with my statement i claim that morality is an opinion of ours and as such subjective and individual if i m wrong then some more or less objectively real thing exists which you label objective morality can you back up this positive claim of existence can you back up your positive claim above no that s because it s an assumption i make the same assumption about values on the basis that there is no logical difference between the two and the empirical basis of the two is precisely the same claiming there is no objective morality is suddenly a positive claim besides i think i can lend some credence to my claim ponder different individuals both fully functional as human beings and members of society but yet with wildly different moral codes if morality was objective at least one should be way off base but yet hir incorrect morality seems to function fine how come as for producing these individuals it might be easiest to pick them from different societies say an islamic one and some polynesian matrilineal system for example if such still exist deletia testing for footballs on desks now take a look at morality see anything if so please inform me which way to look and why to look that particular way as opposed to some other get my drift no just look are you claiming never to know what good means one thing is good under some circumstances because we wish to achieve some goal for some reason other times we wish to do something else and that thing is no longer so clearly good at all some things are hard to make good because we d seldom if ever wish to achieve the sort of goal mass murder would lead one into still the aztecs were doing fine until the spaniards wiped them out i almost always know what good means sometimes i even know why i never claim this good is thereby fixed in stone immutable that s a simple matter of proving the track record of the scientific method i think it s great and should be applied to values i may be completely wrong but that s what i conclude as a result of quite an amount of thought yes me too and i ve tried a thing or two down that line it doesn t look good for objective values to me at all disclaimer it s great to be young and insane
alt.atheism	re asimov stamp in article schnitzi eustis schnitzi eustis cs ucf edu mark schnitzius writes battin cyclops iucf indiana edu laurence gene battin writes apart from the suggestion that appeared in the letters column of skeptical inquirer recently has there been any further mention about a possible asimov commemorative stamp if this idea hasn t been followed up does anyone know what needs to be done to get this to happen i think that its a great idea should we start a petition or something i m sure all the religious types would get in a snit due to asimov s atheism do we have any atheists on stamps now more to the point how long are atheists going to be insulted by the disgraceful addition of religious blah blah to our money and out pledge what s big noisy and has an iq of operation rescue
alt.atheism	re mottos to replace in dog we trust andrew hilmer hilmera storm cs orst edu wrote at the risk of beginning a cascade i ll start with a possibly cheesy good ol uhmericun our shield is freedom or considering what our government has been doing for the past years perhaps this would be more appropriate debt holy temple of mass slack ncsu edu my used underwear consumption is legal tender in po box bbs countries raleigh nc warning i hoard pennies bob
alt.atheism	re islamic genocide in article r ek uo fido asd sgi com livesey solntze wpd sgi com jon livesey writes in article r ubl bd horus ap mchp sni de frank d s uucp frank o dwyer writes in article r o a qe fido asd sgi com livesey solntze wpd sgi com jon livesey writes noting that a particular society in this case the mainland uk has few religously motivated murders and few murders of any kind says very little about whether inter religion murders elsewhere are religiously motivated no but it allows one to conclude that there is nothing inherent in all religion or for that matter in catholicism and protestantism that motivates one to kill motivates or allows the christian bible says that one may kill under certain circumstances in fact it instructs one to kill under certain circumstances i d say the majority of people have a moral system that instructs them to kill under certain circumstances i do get your distinction between motivate and allow and i do agree that if a flavour of theism allows atoricities then that s an indictment of that theism but it rather depends on what the certain circumstances are when you talk about christianity or islam then at least your claims can be understood it s when people go to a general statement about theism that it falls apart one could believe in a god which instructs one to be utterly harmless for my part i conclude that something else is required i also happen to believe that that something else will work no less well without religion any easy them us will do and what does religion supply if not an easy them us not necessarily love thy neighbour does not supply a them us it demolishes it and my definition of religion is broader than my definition of theism as i have explained by insisting that even the murder of four labourers chosen because they were catholics and who had nothing to do with the ira by protestant extremists is not religously motivated i think what you are saying is that you simply will not accept any murder as being religiously motivated no what about that guy who cut off someone s head because he believed he was the devil incarnate that was religously motivated what about the protestant extremists who killed four catholic labourers that wasn t religiously motivated not in my opinion if they were doing it because of some obscure point of theology then yes but since all protestants don t do this nor do they elect extremists to do it for them it s just too broad too say religion did this i m saying that the causes are far more complex than that take away the religious element and you d still have the powerful motives of revenge and misguided patriotism you know when most catholics and protestants worldwide say stop the killing one might listen to that especially when you claim not to read minds also the murders ensuing from the fatwa on mr rushdie the inquisitions and the many religous wars what s so special about these exceptions isn t this all just a grab bag of ad hoc excuses for not considering some other murders to be religiously motivated what s the general principle behind all this the general principle is that it s fairly clear to me at least that religion is the primary motivator enabler whatever of these it s not nearly so obvious what s going on when one looks at ni apart from violence of course it s not an abstract argument northern irish protestants say we don t want to be absorbed into am officially catholic country now what are we supposed to do are we supposed to reply no that s only what you think you don t want mr o dwyer assures us that no matter what you say you want you really want something else you think the unionists wouldn t mind being absorbed into a non catholic country other than the uk of course it s a terrible thing to lose a mind maybe the word country is there for more than just kicks i certainly don t believe that the unionists are in it for god i think they wish to maintain their position of privilege i m still listening to what they say and you are still telling us your version of what they think you read minds and i don t you ve speculated on my motives often enough and you don t take my statements of my own beliefs at face value therefore your claim not to read minds has no credibility with me sorry i also note that you fail to answer my question it just looks to me very much like you have an axe to grind especially as you are indeed ignoring what most protestants say which is stop the killing the people you refer to are properly described as unionists not protestants as for their position of privilege what is that if not religion based it is based on politics bigotry and heartless extremism none of these things are synonymous with religion though there is certainly some overlap frank o dwyer i m not hatching that odwyer sse ie from hens by evelyn conlon
alt.atheism	re asimov stamp in article schnitzi eustis schnitzi eustis cs ucf edu mark schnitzius writes i m sure all the religious types would get in a snit due to asimov s atheism do we have any atheists on stamps now due to a discussion on this group some time ago the theists would more likely take an asimov quote out of context and paint him as the biggest bible thumpin god fearin atheist hatin christian you ever laid eyes on right up there with einstein bob beauchaine bobbe vice ico tek com they said that queens could stay they blew the bronx away and sank manhattan out at sea
alt.atheism	more best of a a rapture october what to do in case you miss the rapture i stay calm and do not panic your natural reaction once you realize what has just occurred is to panic but to do so is absolutely useless now if you had wanted to get right with god before the rapture you could have but you chose to wait now your only chance is to stay on this earth and to endure to the end of the tribulation but he that shall endure unto the end the same shall be saved matthew ii realize you are now living during the great tribulation the great tribulation is a seven year period starting from the time of the rapture until christ s second coming also know as the time of jacob s israel s trouble jere and daniel s seventieth week dan this period will be unparalleled in trouble and horror iii gather as many bibles as you can and hide them soon after the antichrist becomes the leader of the european community the revived roman empire bibles will be confiscated and owning a bible will be tantamount to treason the bible however will be your most valuable possession during the tribulation iv read the bible like you have never read it before in your life since all of your bibles may be confiscated even if you are careful it is imperative that you read the word until you memorize whole passages and can quote them it is especially important to read daniel luke matthew revelation and amos for these books describe the events you can expect to unfold before you v pray like you have never prayed before in your life pray until the power of god comes strongly upon you pray and pray and pray only by reading the word and praying will you gain the spiritual strength to be able to withstand the torture you may have to endure for the sake of christ vi do not take the mark at any cost even in fit means you and your loved ones die as martyrs after the antichrist becomes the leader of the european community he will institute a world economic system designed so that you cannot buy sell or eat unless you take his mark or the number of his name money will be useless and he causes all both small and great rich and poor free and slave to receive a mark on their right hand or on their foreheads and that no one may buy or sell except one who has the mark or the name of the beast or the number of his name here is wisdom let him who has understanding calculate the number of the beast for it is the number of a man his number is revelation the antichrist will implement the greatest slaughter in all of humanity think of the various ways people have been tortured and killed in the past such as the holocaust or maybe the crusades m you cannot even imagine the horror that will take place under the antichrist s rule it will be much worse than anything in history matt i saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of god and for the testimony which they held and a white robe was given to each of them and it was said to them that they should rest a little while longer until both the number of the fellow servants and their brethren who would be killed as they were was completed revelation his targets will be jews and christians who do not worship his image or take the mark on their forehead or right hadn and i saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for their witness to jesus and for the word of god who had not worshiped the beast or his image and had not received his mark on their foreheads or on the hands revelation he will use every form of torture and humiliation in order to force you to renounce christ nor will he hesitate to use your loved ones against you even your children torturing and killing them in front of you so that you will be tempted to take the mark if you take the mark or worship the antichrist or his image however you will be consigned to the second death which is the lake of fire sung about so eloquently by johnny cash m you cannot be redeemed it is better to endure torture for a short while and gain eternal life then sic to endure eternal torment in the ring h h h h lake of fire if anyone worships the beast and his image and receives his mark on his forehead or on his hand he himself shall also drink the wine of the wrath of god which is poured out full strength into the cup of his indignation an sic he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the lamb revelation and probably in the presence of season ticket holders special hats given to the first at the stadium m vii set a plan in motion for survival although you may not be able to hide from the antichrist s government until the end of the tribulation all of the time you gain in hiding is important for your spiritual growth and strengthening since only those who are extremely strong in christ can suffer and die for his sake the first thing to do is move out of the city and into a rural or mountainous area for the antichrist s control will come last to the least populated areas take a good radio or tv with you so that you can stay attuned to events and discern the time schedule of the tribulation as you can see on the weather map heavy currents of tribulation will sweep into our area by daybreak expect delays on i outbound and perhaps school closings m store water and food because you will not be able to purchase anything without the mark water in lakes and streams will be polluted by radioactive waste from nuclear warfare and will eventually turn into blood get a good water filter m bring different types of clothing for all seasons as well as flashlights batteries generators and first aid supplies in short learn how to survive and live off the land as the pioneers did viii trust no one there will be secret agents everywhere spying for the antichrist s government be on the lookout perot supporters take note m ix watch for the antichrist it is important to realize who the antichrist is and what he is up to for he will deceive many into thinking that he is a great world leader who will bring peace and prosperity to a world hungry for it we can infer from daniel certain characteristics of this man popular during the first three and a half years of the tribulation he will dominate the airwaves he will be physically appealing highly intelligent with christ like charisma and personality an international politician military tactician and economic expert his word will be peace he will make a treaty with the jews which he will break after three and a half years he will have such supernatural power that a mortal wound to his head will be healed even the very elect will be deceived if you do not pray and read the bible you too will be deceived dominate the airwaves perhaps howard stern or rush limbaugh m the antichrist will have a companion the false prohphet sic who will make an image in the likeness of the antichrist and cause it to speak all who refuse to worhsip sic the image will be killed the final three and a half years will be absolutely insane with demonized spirits everywhere x do not give up hope the seven years of tribulation will end with the triumphant return of christ the antichrist will be defeated be steadfast and endure and you will be rewarded greatly in heaven start reading the bible and praying fervently now the salvation of your sould depends upon it determine that come what may you will not take the mark or worship the antichrist you still have a chance to be saved or remain saved but this time you will have to be faithful unto death may god find you ready in the hour of his glorious return mike cluff christianity is stupid v qs ubvms or mike luick ubvms give up negativland ub language perception laboratory bob beauchaine bobbe vice ico tek com they said that queens could stay they blew the bronx away and sank manhattan out at sea
alt.atheism	re are atoms real in article c ue t g k news rich bnr ca bcash crchh nosubdomain nodomain brian cash writes petri and mathew your discusion on the reality of atoms is interesting but it would seem that you are verging on the question is anything real that is since observation is not reliable how can we say that anything is real i don t think this was the intention of the original question since you now define out the word real so that nothing can meet its criteria just a thought brian ps rainbows and shadows are real they are not objects they are phenomenon an interesting question would be if atoms are objects classical or phenomenon neo quantum or what i ve been following this train of talk and the question of dismissing atoms as being in some sense not real leaves me uneasy it seems to be implied that we obseve only the effects and therefore the underlying thing is not necessarily real the tree outside my window is in this category is observe the light which bounces off of it not the tree itself the observation is indirect but no more so than observations i have made of atoms also what about observations and experiments that have been routinely done with individual atoms i am thinking in particular of atom trapping experiments and tests of fundamental quantum mechanics such as the quantum zeno effect where an individual atom is studied for a long period of time some of the attempts at quantum mechanical arguments were not very satisfying either one has to be carefull about making such arguments without a solid technical background in the field what i read seemed a little confused a quite a red herring anyway if the purpose of a public debate is to make the audience think it worked after doing so i m willing to try to defend the following assertion if anyone cares atoms are as real as trees and are real in the ussual every day sense of the word real
alt.atheism	re free moral agency in article kmr po cwru edu kmr po cwru edu keith m ryan writes in article r voinnr q lynx unm edu cfaehl vesta unm edu chris faehl writes the myth to which i refer is the convoluted counterfeit athiests have created to make religion appear absurd you don t need any counterfeit athiest s myth to make religion appear absurd you need only read any of friendly christian bill conner s posts jim halat halat bear com bear stearns whatever doesn t kill you will only serve to annoy you nyc i speak only for myself
alt.atheism	re some thoughts in article apr mks com mike mks com mike brookbank writes in article apr mac cc macalstr edu acooper mac cc macalstr edu writes in article bissda saturn wwc edu bissda saturn wwc edu dan lawrence bissell writes die for a lie wouldn t people be able to tell if he was a liar i light of yesterday s events in waco texas i guess the answer to your questions are very obvious if you think waco is just one example think back to in jonestown where more than people died for a lie deletions correction i think it was also contrary to earlier belief it is now widely accepted that not all committed suicide but were actually killed in the end they did die for a lie but some not out of conviction alone thought i try to make this point clear disclaimer the opinions expressed in this posting are mine solely and do not represent my employer in any way f a karner aix technical support karner austin vnet ibm com
alt.atheism	islam and sufism was re move the islam discussions short reply to kent sandvik s post remarking how it is strange that somehow sufism is related to islam as to him they seem quite different if one really understands islam it is not strange that sufism is associated with it in fact sufism is in general seen as the inner dimension of islam one of the roots of the word islam is submission islam denotes submission to god sufism is the most complete submission to god imaginable in annihilating oneself in god i am not a sufi or on the sufi path but have read a lot and recently have been discussing a number of things with others who are on the sufi path fred rice darice yoyo cc monash edu au
alt.atheism	re genocide is caused by atheism in apr cs nott ac uk eczcaw mips nott ac uk a wainwright writes in article apr monu cc monash edu au darice yoyo cc monash edu au fred rice writes great respect or love for a particular person does not equal a form of theism fred rice darice yoyo cc monash edu au hmm what about jesus sure a person could have great respect for jesus and yet be an atheist having great respect for jesus does not necessarily mean that one has to follow the christian or muslim interpretation of his life fred rice darice yoyo cc monash edu au
alt.atheism	re atheism survey i replied to this query via e mail but i think there are some issues that are worth discussing in public mta mtabbott unix amherst edu wrote i am doing research on atheism part of which involves field research here on the net the following is a survey directed towards all readers of this group intended to get data about the basis of atheistic belief i would recommend you to take a look at your dictionary alt atheism faq files to notice that atheism is not a belief system and what is common to all atheists is not a belief but a lack of belief in deities i cannot imagine how anyone could do research on atheism without paying careful attention to this issue first of all i ve tried to structure questions that can be answered in a variety of ways with varying amounts of detail it s possible to give succinct answers to most everything but there s enough here to keep most of you typing for hours i m sure imho this is a poor method to do any real survey although i m sure the replies might keep you amused for hours also i tend to use a lot of anthropological buzzwords like belief system although i know some of you might contend that you don t have any beliefs but are skeptical towards everything i understand but you know what i mean think of such buzzwords as abbreviations for the rather unweildy phrases required to get the precise idea across no i do not know what you mean if you are surveying our individual philosophies fine but that s not strictly atheism atheism is not just another godless version of the theistic explanations for life the universe and everything it is not a belief system and it could hardly be called a philosophical system once more atheism is characterised by lack of belief in deities do not twist the meaning or assume that we have some kind of philosophy we all agree on some comments on your questions what contact with other atheists have you had before and after and during your conversion to atheism certainly your involvement with alt atheism counts how have net discussions affected your beliefs i would also like to hear more about this have we been able to convert anyone are you convinced that your beliefs were acquired through wholly rational means proofs of the non existence of god etc or was it perhaps at least in part through other means alienation from mainstream religion etc this question contains a contradiction in terms beliefs cannot be acquired rationally if they could they would not be beliefs you also seem to have rather strange ideas of how people become atheists those who are alienated from religion do not necessarily become atheists they just think very little about religion it seems it requires a considerable time of honest inquiry to find out that religions are actually intellectually dishonest virtual realities those who have never had beliefs will certainly find this question quite odd how can lack of belief be acquired when did i acquire lack of belief in the easter bunny i did believe in santa though to what extent do you feel you understand the universe through your beliefs what phenomena of the universe and of human existence anything from physical phenomena to the problem of the existence of evil in human affairs do you feel are adequately dealt with by your beliefs and where are they lacking as an explanatory method this question does not make any sense since atheism does not deal with these issues it is not a worldview or a philosophy or a belief system sigh why haven t i seen a good well thought survey in the usenet for three years and what is the point of doing surveys in the net anyway just to abstract some opinions petri petri pihko kem pmp mathematics is the truth pihatie c finou oulu fi physics is the rule of sf oulu kempmp the game finland phoenix oulu fi chemistry is the game
alt.atheism	re theism and fanatism was islamic genocide in article bb b i dbstu rz tu bs de i dbstu rz tu bs de benedikt rosenau writes in article r sn r horus ap mchp sni de frank d s uucp frank o dwyer writes theism is strongly correlated with irrational belief in absolutes irrational belief in absolutes is strongly correlated with fanatism deletion theism is correlated with fanaticism i have neither said that all fanatism is caused by theism nor that all theism leads to fanatism the point is theism increases the chance of becoming a fanatic one could of course argue that would be fanatics tend towards theism for example but i just have to loook at the times in history when theism was the dominant ideology to invalidate that conclusion that that is the basic mechanism behind it imo the influence of stalin or for that matter ayn rand invalidates your assumption that theism is the factor to be considered bogus i just said that theism is not the only factor for fanatism the point is that theism is a factor that s your claim now back it up i consider your argument as useful as the following belief is strongly correlated with fanaticism therefore belief is a factor in fanaticism true and utterly useless note this is any belief not belief in gods gullibility blind obedience to authority lack of scepticism and so on are all more reliable indicators and the really dangerous people the sources of fanaticism are often none of these things they are cynical manipulators of the gullible who know precisely what they are doing that s a claim you have to support please note that especially in the field of theism the leaders believe what they say if you believe that you re incredibly naive now some brands of theism and more precisely some theists do tend to fanaticism i grant you to tar all theists with this brush is bigotry not a reasoned argument and it reads to me like a warm up for censorship and restriction of religious freedom ever read animal farm that s a straw man and as usually in discussions with you one has to repeat it read what i have written above not every theism leads to fanatism and not all fanatism is caused by theism the point is there is a correlation and it comes from innate features of theism no some of it comes from features which some theism has in common with some fanaticism your last statement simply isn t implied by what you say before because you re trying to sneak in innate features of all theism the word you re groping for is some gullibility by the way is one of them no shit sherlock so why not talk about gullibility instead of theism since it seems a whole lot more relevant to the case you have as opposed to the case you are trying to make and to say that i am going to forbid religion is another of your straw men interesting that you have nothing better to offer i said it reads like a warm up to that that s because it s an irrational and bogus tirade and has no other use than creating a nice them us split in the minds of excitable people such as are to be found on either side of church walls define irrational belief e g is it rational to believe that reason is always useful irrational belief is belief that is not based upon reason the latter has been discussed for a long time with charley wingate one point is that the beliefs violate reason often and another that a process that does not lend itself to rational analysis does not contain reliable information well there is a glaring paradox here an argument that reason is useful based on reason would be circular and argument not based on reason would be irrational which is it that s bogus self reference is not circular and since the evaluation of usefulness is possible within rational systems it is allowed o k it s oval it s still begging the question however and though that certainly is allowed it s not rational and you claiming to be rational and all at the risk of repeating myself and hearing we had that before we didn t hear a refutation before so we re back deal with it you can t use reason to demonstrate that reason is useful someone who thinks reason is crap won t buy it you see your argument is as silly as proving mathematical statements needs mathematics and mathematics are therfore circular anybody else think godel was silly the first part of the second statement contains no information because you don t say what the beliefs are if the beliefs are strong theism and or strong atheism then your statement is not in general true the second part of your sentence is patently false counterexample an axiomatic datum does not lend itself to rational analysis but is assumed to contain reliable information regardless of what process is used to obtain it i ve been speaking of religious systems with contradictory definitions of god here an axiomatic datum lends itself to rational analysis what you say here is a an often refuted fallacy have a look at the discussion of the axiom of choice and further one can evaluate axioms in larger systems out of which they are usually derived i exist is derived if you want it that way further one can test the consistency and so on of a set of axioms what is it you are trying to say that at some point people always wind up saying this datum is reliable for no particular reason at all example i am not dreaming compared the evidence theists have for their claims to the strength of their demands makes the whole thing not only irrational but antirational i can t agree with this until you are specific which theism to say that all theism is necessarily antirational requires a proof which i suspect you do not have using the traditonal definition of gods personal supernatural entities with objective effects on this world usually connected to morals and or the way the world works imo any belief about such gods is necessarily irrational that does not mean that people who hold them are in principle opposed to the exercise of intelligence some atheists are also scientists for example the affinity to fanatism is easily seen it has to be true because i believe it is nothing more than a work hypothesis however the beliefs say they are more than a work hypothesis i don t understand this can you formalise your argument person a believes system b becuase it sounds so nice that does not make b true it is at best a work hypothesis however the content of b is that it is true and that it is more than a work hypothesis testing or evaluating evidence for or against it therefore dismissed because b already believed says it is wrong a waste of time not possible depending on the further contents of b amalekites idolaters protestants are to be killed this can have interesting effects peculiar definition of interesting but sure now show that a belief in gods entails the further contents of which you speak why aren t my catholic neighbours out killing the protestants for example maybe they don t believe in it maybe it s the conjunction of b asserts b and jail kill dissenters that is important and the belief in gods is entirely irrelevant it certainly seems so to me but then i have no axe to grind here frank o dwyer i m not hatching that odwyer sse ie from hens by evelyn conlon
alt.atheism	re christian morality is in article ousrvr oulu fi kempmp phoenix oulu fi petri pihko writes dan schaertel dps nasa kodak com wrote i love god just as much as she loves me if she wants to seduce me she ll know what to do but if he she did you would probably consider it rape simple logic arguments are folly if you read the bible you will see that jesus made fools of those who tried to trick him with logic our ability to reason is just a spec of creation yet some think it is the ultimate if you rely simply on your reason then you will never know more than you do now your argument is of the type you ll know once you try yet there are many atheists who have sincerely tried and believed for many years but were eventually honest enough to admit that they had lived in a virtual reality obviously there are many christians who have tried and do believe so to learn you must accept that which you don t know what does this mean to learn you must accept that you don t know something right o but to learn you must accept something i don t know why this is not the way i prefer to learn it is unwise to merely swallow everything you read suppose i write a book telling how the great invisible pink unicorn tm has helped me in my daily problems would you accept this since you can t know whether it is true or not no one asks you to swallow everything in fact jesus warns against it but let me ask you a question do you beleive what you learn in history class or for that matter anything in school i mean it s just what other people have told you and you don t want to swallow what others say right the life death and resurection of christ is documented historical fact as much as anything else you learn how do you choose what to believe and what not to i could argue that george washington is a myth he never lived because i don t have any proof except what i am told however all the major events of the life of jesus christ were fortold hundreds of years before him neat trick uh there is no way to get into a sceptical heart you can not say you have given a sincere effort with the attitude you seem to have you must trust not just go to church and participate in it s activities were you ever willing to die for what you believed
alt.atheism	re alt atheism faq constructing a logical argument here s a suggestion for the logical argument faq i don t think it s covered though the fallacy probably has a better name than the one i used how about it mathew inconsistency and counterexample this occurs when one party points out that some source of information takes stand a which is inconsistent with b there are two variations in which b is either a mutually agreed on premise or else a stand elsewhere from the same source the second party fallaciously responds by saying see the source really does say b it s right here this reply does not refute the allegation of inconsistency because it does not show that the source only says b example of the first type the koran says unbelievers should be treated in these ways we can both agree these are immoral the koran clearly says in this other passage that unbelievers are not to be treated that way example of the second type there are two biblical creation stories you re wrong since the bible clearly describes the creation as description on the first day after christmas my truelove served to me leftover turkey on the second day after christmas my truelove served to me turkey casserole that she made from leftover turkey days deleted flaming turkey wings pizza hut commercial and m tlu a gic bait ken arromdee arromdee jyusenkyou cs jhu edu
alt.atheism	religion as cause was islamic authority over women bill conner bil okcforum osrhe edu writes my stuff deleted i don t have to make outrageous claims about religion s affecting and effecting history for the purpsoe of a a all i have to do point out that many claims made here are wrong and do nothing to validate atheism bill you seem to have erroneously assumed that this board has as its sole purpose the validation of atheism it doesn t this board is used to discuss atheism as a philosophy to share posters experiences regarding atheism to debunk various theisms and theism as a whole to share resources relating to atheism and even to socialize with others with similar views and of course with the number of theists who come here to preach it is also used to argue the case for atheism at no time have i made any statement that religion was the sole cause of anything what i have done is point out that those who do make that kind of claim are mistaken usually deliberately if you want to accuse people of lying please do so directly the phrase deliberately mistaken is rather oxymoronic to credit religion with the awesome power to dominate history is to misunderstand human nature the function of religion and of course history i believe that those who distort history in this way know exaclty what they re doing and do it only for affect the two forms of theism most often discussed here these days are christianity and islam both of these claim to make their followers into good people and claim that much of benefit to humanity has been accomplished through their faiths imho they are right the american friends service committee quaker catholic relief services bread for the world salvation army soup kitchens and mother theresa spring to mind can someone with more knowledge of islam supply the names of some analagous islamic groups when mother theresa claims that her work is an outgrowth of her christianity i believe her her form of theism ascribes to her deity such a benevolence toward humanity that it would be wrong not to care for those in need the point is that such a philosophy does have the power to change the behavior of individuals if it is widespread enough it can change societies the same works for the horrors of history to claim that christianity had little to do with the crusades or the inquisition is to deny the awesome power that comes from faith in an absolute what it seems you are doing twisting the reasonable statement that religion was never the solitary cause of any evil into the unreasonable statement that religion has had no evil impacts on history that is absurd scott sauyet ssauyet eagle wesleyan edu
alt.atheism	books edm twisto compaq com ed mccreary writes while we re on the topic of books has anyone else noticed that paine s the age of reason is hard to find i ve been wanting to pick up a copy for a while but not bad enough to mail order it i ve noticed though that none of the bookstores i go to seem to carry it i thought this was supposed to be classic what s the deal actually i ve got an entire list of books written by various atheist authors and i went to the largest bookstore in my area pittsburgh and couldn t find any of them what section of the bookstore do you find these kinds of books in do you have to look in an alternative bookstore for most of them any help would be appreciated i can send you the list if you want thanks nanci if you know and are sure of the author of this quote please send me email nm w andrew cmu edu the fate of the country does not depend on what kind of paper you drop into the ballot box once a year but on what kind of man you drop from your chamber into the street every morning
alt.atheism	re college atheists nyeda cnsvax uwec edu david nye writes i read an article about a poll done of students at the ivy league schools in which it was reported that a third of the students indentified themselves as atheists this is a lot higher than among the general population i wonder what the reasons for this discrepancy are is it because they are more intelligent younger is this the wave of the future i would guess that it probably has something to do with the ease of which ideas and thoughts are communicated on a college campus in the real world tm it s easier for theists well people in general really to lock themselves into a little bubble where they only see and talk to those people who are of the same opinion as they are in college you are constantly surrounded by and have to interact with people who have different ideas about life the universe and everything it is much much harder to build a bubble around yourself to keep everyone else s ideas from reaching you so in a world where theists are forced to contend with and listen to atheists and theists of other religions some are bound to have a change in their beliefs over four years there is nowhere to run david nye nyeda cnsvax uwec edu midelfort clinic eau claire wi this is patently absurd but whoever wishes to become a philosopher must learn not to be frightened by absurdities bertrand russell nanci if you know and are sure of the author of this quote please send me email nm w andrew cmu edu the fate of the country does not depend on what kind of paper you drop into the ballot box once a year but on what kind of man you drop from your chamber into the street every morning
alt.atheism	re yet more rushdie re islamic law in article apr nic csu net davec silicon csci csusb edu dave choweller wrote in article apr bnr ca rashid writes stuff deleted the point of my post was that rushdie was not being condemned solely for the words in his book although this was certainly a contributing factor it was the whole series of actions of rushdie and his publishers following the publication of the book and the initial media spotlight placed on the book that in large part led to the fatwa the kind of fatwa levelled against rushdie is not lightly placed and there are any number of anti islamic writers both within and outside the islamic world who have not had fatwas made against them here someone who adds fuel to an explosive situation might be charged with incitement to riot if people die in the rioting the charges against him might become even more serious how can rushdie be blamed for the deaths of people who are demonstrating against him the deaths should be blamed on the people who dealt with the demonstrations or on the demonstrators themselves if they were violent to what lengths will you go to justify this barbaric behaviour against rushdie once the rushdie situation exploded into the media the muslim voice on the matter of the book was effectively restricted to short video bytes showing the dramatic highlights of muslim demonstrations for every twenty or so newspaper magazine articles interviews etc supporting rushdie there would appear one muslim voice this person was usually selected based on how dramatic and incoherent he was not on his knowledge of islam or the situation at the time this approx twenty to one ratio continued throughout the escalation of the crisis with rushdie in the central spotlight as the man of the moment the valiant defender of everyman s right to free speech decoupled from responsibility as an aside it s interesting that while the hue and cry about freedom of speech went up some books defaming certain ethnic and religious groups continued to be banned here it was felt that they injured the sensibilities of these groups and presented a false image which could promote feelings of hate towards these groups for muslims this kind of double standard was annoying rushdie saw this spotlight as a golden opportunity to lash out at organized islam and he did so with admirable verbal skill the only kind of islam which rushdie finds palatable is what he calls a secular islam an islam separated from it s qur an it s prophet god its legislation and most importantly from any intrusion into any political arena fine rushdie made his views known the muslim s made their anger at his book known the scale of the whole affair erupted into global proportions it was by this time already a political situation affecting governments as well as individuals the situation was a serious one with far reaching political implications at the centre of this turmoil was rushdie throwing fuel on the fire engaged in a personal crusade that made him oblivious to any sense of caution now you may feel that the person in the centre of a worldwide storm such as this has no responsibility has no reason to exercise restraint of any kind has no obligation to perhaps step back momentarily out of the spotlight till matters calm down perhaps you even feel that he is justified in boldly defying the anger of all those who dare to take umbrage at his literary work no matter what insult they find within it perhaps you see him as a kind of secular heroic knight mounted on the his media steed doing battle with the dragon of islamic fundamentalism well khomeini saw him as a disingeneous author who grew up in a muslim atmosphere knew well what muslim s hold dear who wrote a book which mischievously uses certain literary conventions to slander insult and attack islam and its most notable personalities who when faced with a situation that became a worldwide crisis continued with his mischief in the world stage of the media who even after people were injured and killed because of the magnitude and emotion of the situation continued his mischief instead of having the good sense to desist khomeini saw the crisis as mischief making on a grand scale mischief making that grew in scale as the scale of the crisis enlarged the deaths of muslims around the world and rushdie s continued media mischief even after this was the triggering factor that seemed to decide khomeini on putting a stop to the mischief the person at the centre of all these events was rushdie he was the source of the continuing mischief all media support government support was just that support the source was rushdie and his publishers who were nothing short of ecstatic at the publicity and were very happy to see rushdie constantly in the media the islamic rulings that deal with people who engage in this kind of grand scale mischief making was applied to rushdie you re attempts at justification are not doing the image of islam any good i have made no attempts at justification only at explanation image is the chief concern of muslim apologists for islam and for rushdie if muslims willingly relegated themselves to becoming a sub culture within a larger secular culture such that the secular principles and laws had precedence over the laws of islam then i have no doubt that islam would then be thought to have a good image principally because it would by and large reflect the secular image a good image usually means be more like me your attempts at totally exonerating rushdie reflect exactly the attitude that resulted in the polarization brought about by the crisis in iran the situation was monitored for many months when rushdie kept adding fuel to the flames through the free worldwide voice that the media gave him the situation was monitored more seriously when even after many deaths occured worldwide rushdie still did not desist the fatwa was pronounced when behaving like a total jerk endangers lives and the jerk sees this and still insists on his right to behave like a total jerk he has the rug jerked out from under him if the muslims didn t make such a big fuss over the book like issuing death threats and killing publishers no one would have heard of it the fatwa came later much later if rushdie didn t mouth off so much in the media the fuss would have died down no one would have been killed no fatwa would have been passed the whole episode would have fizzled away
alt.atheism	re who has read rushdie s the satanic verses in article bu edu jaeger buphy bu edu gregg jaeger writes yes the qur an discusses this point in several ways some of them quite directly for example it says that if god were to appear them there would be no need for faith and belief as the evidence would be definitive ah excellent so why doesn t she appear to me i m a little weak in the blind faith department besides she doesn t even really need to appear how about oh say a little tip something like put your all on in the at the dog races perhaps in a dream or vision how do we know that muhammed didn t just go out into the desert and smoke something would a person who was high write so well and with such consistency i m afraid i don t know arabic i have only read translations i wouldn t know it if it were well written consistent though is one thing the quran is not and have you read it in arabic besides some of my best writing has been done under the influence of shall we say consciousness altering substances and how do we know that the scribes he dictated the quran to didn t screw up or put in their own little verses they d have to be very good to do so without destroying the beauty and literary quality of text arabic text yes so how do we know they weren t very good again assuming that the quran is beautfully written and why can muhammed marry more than four women when no other muslim is allowed to muhammad did not exceed the number after the revelation regulating the number of wives a man could marry but before it ok i retract this point although i might still say that once he knew he should have done something about it although i think the biggest insult to islam is that the majority of its followers would want to suppress a book sight unseen on the say so of some holy guy not to mention murder the author i agree but is it really true that this is the case i haven t interviewed all muslims about this i would really like it if this were false but i can t take it on your say so what are your sources another case of judging principles on the basis of those who claim to follow them what other basis do we have to judge a system especially when we can t get a consistent picture of what islam really is do i believe khomeini do i go by the imam of the mosque in mecca or perhaps the guy in new jersey or perhaps you say i should go only by the quran ok whose translation and what about things like and wherever you find idolators kill them s shamim mohamed uunet noao cmcl arizona shamim shamim cs arizona edu take this cross and garlic here s a mezuzah if he s jewish a page of the koran if he s a muslim and if he s a zen buddhist you re on your own member of the league for programming freedom write to lpf uunet uu net
alt.atheism	re genocide is caused by theism evidence i saw a hour show on pbs the other day about the history of the jews appearently the cursades a religious war agianst the muslilams in the holy land sparked the widespread persecution of muslilams and jews in europe among the supporters of the persiecution were none other than martin luther and the vatican later hitler would use luthers writings to justify his own treatment of the jews genocide is caused by theism evidence sd
alt.atheism	re societal basis for morality in article c zu k fzd news cso uiuc edu cobb alexia lis uiuc edu mike cobb writes on what basis can we say that the actions of another society as per hitler comment are wrong ultimately it rests with personal opinion in my opinion why does majority make right the question doesn t make sense to me maybe it would be better to ask what makes a democracy better than for example a totalitarian regim dan
alt.atheism	re high times a comin verdant ucs umass edu sol lightman writes my theory though yet unproven is that this is due to simple envy no its not its due to the fact that there are two issues here religion and religion religion is personal belief system religion is a memetic virus people loudly proclaiming their beliefs are crossing the border from religion religion people that want to save others are firmly entrenched in religion memoids rule of not practicing religion is to shut the fuck up unless you discuss it politely this means that the motive behind the conversation is not only your self gratifying wish to spread the word religion is something that ultimately comes from within a person and reflects their value judgements religion is something that is contracted from others and does not reflect the persons value judgements other than perhaps i think i ll be brainwashed today religion is a drug i believe you can discuss religion however the post that started this off was not intented as discussion it was more a proclamation of someones religion if you think i m talking about censorship or that i m closeminded you haven t understood this i don t have any problem with the discussion of religion its just religion that i can t stand
alt.atheism	re high times a comin rubble leland stanford edu adam heath clark writes it seems a very large part of christianity is based on the notion that it is the right religion and that just about any other way of looking at the universe is flat out wrong in the old days we had the inquisition and the burning of heretics now we have pat buchanan trying to start some cultural war because he can t stand to live in the same country as all these other non god fearing people its a survival trait there are only a fixed number of resources people for religions to inhabit the doctrines of intolerance and not using birth control are devices whereby the meme of the capital r religion of christianity gains a larger share of the population than its memetic competitors
alt.atheism	re christian morality is in article apr dcs warwick ac uk simon dcs warwick ac uk simon clippingdale writes dan i m concerned that you are in grave spiritual danger because of your stubborn refusal to love and accept into your heart the mighty invisible pink unicorn nice parody deleted i shall pray for you in fact brother i cast out the demon which binds you in the name of the mighty invisible pink unicorn dan you must have faith then you better pray for me too because i believe that the mighty invisibile pink unicorn does not exist one being cannot be both pink and invisible the demon or should that be daemon that keeps me from believing and saving my soul is named logic bill mayne
alt.atheism	re who has read rushdie s the satanic verses in article optima cs arizona edu sham cs arizona edu shamim zvonko mohamed writes in article r cl innknk bozo dsinc com perry dsinc com jim perry writes anyway since i seem to be the only one following this particular line of discussion i wonder how many of the rest of the readership have read this book what are your thoughts on it i read it when it first came out and i liked it at the time i still sorta kinda thought of myself as a muslim and i couldn t see what the flap was all about thank you i now know at least that though i may be on drugs at least i m not the only one the writing style was a little hard to get used to but it was well worth the effort coming from a similar background rushdie grew up in bombay in a muslim family and moved to england i grew up in new delhi it made a strong impression on me and he used many of the strange constructions of indian english the yaar at the end of a sentence butbutbut the occasional hindi phrase etc yes this took some getting used to of course not having an indian connection no knowledge of hindi etc this was not trivial for me i did have thanks to the wonders of the net a glossary to satanic verses posted to rec arts books by vijay raghavan which explains a lot of the indian english constructions indian culture references even the islamic references jahilia submission the context of the satanic verses incident etc what i have only covers the first couple of hundred pages but it helped me get into the flow of the novel i can mail this to anyone interested if anyone has portions after part i if they exist i d like to get those jim perry perry dsinc com decision support inc matthews nc these are my opinions for a nominal fee they can be yours
alt.atheism	re burden of proof in r b hg aurora engr latech edu ray engr latech edu bill ray writes if i make a statement that god exists loves me etc but in no way insist that you believe it does that place a burden of proof upon me if you insist that god doesn t exist does that place a burden of proof upon you i give no proofs i only give testimony to my beliefs i will respond to proofs that you attempt to disprove my beliefs what is your reaction to people who claim they were abducted by space aliens some of these people say i was abducted experimented on etc if we insist that these aliens don t exist is the burden of proof placed on us these people can give no hard facts but can give a lot of testimony to back up their beliefs replace space aliens with elvis big foot blue unicorns and we have a larger percentage of the population than i like to think about sometimes i wonder if reality really is a different experience for everone
alt.atheism	re rawlins debunks creationism john e king king ctron com posts a whopping one liner the modern theory of evolution is so inadequate that it deserves to be treated as a matter of faith francis hitching i have a few points to make about the above posting science is not based on and does not consist of quotes from either real or alleged experts critical reasoning evidence and if possible experimentation are necessary creationists frequently display a massive confusion about this by merely quoting both non experts and experts alike some of the latter quotes are in fact false and steadfastly refusing to follow any kind of rigorous scientific procedure this strongly suggests that a their claims completely lack any scientific merit and b they are aware of this fatal deficiency of course you may not actually be a creationist and this may not be your real intent you have failed to identify hitching and the surrounding context of his statement why is that if hitching is a scientific illiterate then the quote would merely display his profound ignorance of evolutionary biology creationists are frequently known to quote real scientists out of context and to fabricate statements that they subsequently attribute to legitimate scientists of course you may not actually be a creationist and this may not be your real intent evidence supporting the alleged inadequacies of the modern theory of evolution would be a much more powerful argument than a contextless one line quote from an unidentified nobody it is also important to note that disproving biological evolution does not automatically prove some alternate claims any more that disproving that the earth is shaped like a hockey puck proves that it is a hyperbolic paraboloid creationists seem rather fond of diving head first into this logical fallacy of course you may not actually be a creationist and this may not be your real intent since evolution is central to virtually all of modern science an attack on evolution either the fact or the theory really represents an attack on science while the theory will unquestionably continue to evolve b the fact of evolution will not ever go away creationists lost the battle long ago more than years in fact but are simply too willfully ignorant and irrational to acknowledge the fact of course you may not actually be a creationist and you may not really be that ignorant warren kurt vonroeschlaub kv iastate edu asks neither i nor webster s has ever heard of francis hitchings who is he i like hitchings am not to be found in webster s b francis hitchings is a scientifically illiterate creationist or perhaps he is just playing the part of one who wrote a quite ignorant book attacking evolution the neck of the giraffe in that publication he quotes a creationist jean sloat morton using the standard invalid creationist probability argument that proteins could not have formed by chance thus not only confusing abiogenesis with evolution the two are quite independent but also concluding with a non sequitur i e the conclusion does not follow pp hitchings also misquotes richard lewontin in an effort to support creationism pp hitchings book was reviewed by national park service ecologist david graber in the los angeles times and repeated in the oregonian the article was titled giraffe sticks scientific neck out too far excerpts include francis hitchings is not a biologist he goes after darwin like mark antony after brutus he flips from scientific reasoning to mysticism and pseudo science with the sinuosity of a snake oil salesman he suggests a mystical organizing principle of life using the similarity of organs in different creatures as evidence sic note that the last statement above is actually evidence for evolution not against it if john e king is quoting from this reviewed book it wouldn t surprise me much it s also interesting that king had nothing to add i e he only posted a quote uucp uunet tektronix sail mikec or m cranford uunet tektronix sail labs tek com mikec principal troll arpa mikec sail labs tek com relay cs net resident skeptic csnet mikec sail labs tek com teklabs tektronix
alt.atheism	re genocide is caused by theism evidence in article c a s dvi mailer cc fsu edu dekorte dirac scri fsu edu stephen l dekorte writes i saw a hour show on pbs the other day about the history of the jews appearently the cursades a religious war agianst the muslilams in the holy land sparked the widespread persecution of muslilams and jews in europe among the supporters of the persiecution were none other than martin luther and the vatican later hitler would use luthers writings to justify his own treatment of the jews genocide is caused by theism evidence heck i remember reading a quote of luther as something like jews should be shot like deer and of course much catholic doctrine for centuries was extremely anti semitic are you so sure that your truth and your justice are worth more than the truths and justices of other centuries simone de beauvoir where is there a certainty that rises above all doubt and withstands all critique karl jaspers rice university will rice college
alt.atheism	re political atheists in article r e vinnkn gap caltech edu keith cco caltech edu keith allan schneider writes kcochran nyx cs du edu keith justified and ancient cochran writes wait are we talking about ethics or morals here is the distinction important yes well make it ethics deal with individuals morals deal with groups well our moral system seems to mimic the natural one in a number of ways please describe these number of ways in detail then explain the any contradictions that may arise just look at how human behavior mimics animal behavior i couldn t even begin to list all of the similarities many of the dissimilarities are due to our high intelligence please describe these number of ways in detail then explain any contradictions that may arise i don t know what is wrong is it possible for humans to survive for a long time in the wild yes it s possible but it is difficult humans are a social animal and that is a cause of our success define difficult i don t understand what you don t understand the sentence yes it s possible but it is difficult humans survived in the wild for hundreds of thousands of years no as noted earlier lack of mating such as abstinence or homosexuality isn t really destructive to the system it is a worst neutral so if every member of the species was homosexual this wouldn t be destructive to the survival of the species most animals that exhibit homosexuality are actually bisexual answer the question keith is homosexuality detrimental to the survival of the species kcochran nyx cs du edu b c d e f g k m r s t tsakc my thoughts my posts my ideas my responsibility my beer my pizza ok
alt.atheism	re bayesian statistics theism and atheism in article apr dcs warwick ac uk simon dcs warwick ac uk simon clippingdale writes in article quei mb horus ap mchp sni de frank d s uucp frank o dwyer writes in article apr dcs warwick ac uk simon dcs warwick ac uk simon clippingdale writes i write imagine that alterian dollars turn up in your bank account every month suppose further that this money is being paid to you by a your big hearted alterian benefactor or b a bug in an alterian atm let s suppose that this is a true dichotomy so p a p b trouble is alterius is in a different universe so that no observations of alterius are possible except for the banks you couldn t possibly afford it now let s examine the case for a there is no evidence whatsoever that there is any such thing as a big hearted alterian benefactor however p exists b h a b p not exists b h a b on the grounds that lack of evidence for is evidence against when we have a partition like that we dismiss hypothesis a turning therefore to b we also find no evidence to support that hypothesis on the same grounds as before we dismiss hypothesis b the problem with this is that we have dismissed all of the possible hypotheses and even though we know by construction that the money arrives every month we have proven that it can t because we have dismissed all of its potential causes that s an extremely poor argument and here s why premise this money is being paid to you by either a your big hearted alterian benefactor or b a bug in an alterian atm thus each monthly appearance of the bucks should it happen is an observation on alterius and by construction is evidence for the existence of either the benefactor or the bug in the atm premise no observations on alterius are possible except for the banks you couldn t possibly afford it you forgot to include this my premise is actually premise the cardinality of the set of possible observations on alterius is one this is clearly contradictory to the first not if you state it properly trouble is on the basis of premise you say that there can be no evidence of either the benefactor or the bug but the first premise leads to the conclusion that the appearance of the bucks should it happen is evidence for the existence of either the benefactor or the bug voila a screaming contradiction with my highlights sc but in a strawman argument there is only evidence for oneof benefactor bug no observation to distinguish benefactor from bug is possible that is not evidence for bug and neither is it evidence for benefactor nor is true to say that this hypothetical universe appears exactly as if there were no benefactor bug two statements both would be false this is still contradictory it reduces to alterian dosh arriving in my account is due to benefactor or bug this is not evidence for benefactor neither is it evidence for bug meaning that it doesn t lend more weight to one than to the other therefore no evidence can exist for benefactor and no evidence can exist for bug but relies on a shift in meaning from when you say paraphrased in that this is not evidence for benefactor for example what you mean is that it s no more evidence for benefactor than it is for bug yes that s what i mean in however you ve shifted the meaning of evidence for benefactor so that it now means absolute evidence for benefactor rather than relative evidence for benefactor w r t bug not really i meant evidence that would tend to one over the other i think this is just a communications problem what i am trying to say in my clumsy way is that while i buy your theory as far as it relates to theism making predictions prayer your rapture example i don t buy your use of occam s razor in all cases where a in my example one couldn t dismiss benefactor or bug on the grounds of simplicity one of these is necessary to explain the dosh i brought up the one by one dismissal process to show that it would be wrong to do so from what you re saying in this post it seems you agree and we re talking at cross purposes is still in contradiction to some sums may help with b benefactor b bug d dosh arrives in account implies p b b d assuming that p bb d so it s either the benefactor or a bug which is responsible if the bucks arrive but not both then p b b d p b d p b d so p b d p b d but implies that p b d and p b d no this isn t what i meant p b d and p b d with necessarily no new observation we ve already seen the dosh to change those estimates i was trying to say again in my clumsy way that it would be wrong to assign probability to either of these and that s precisely what use of the razor does in the case of gods gods are one class of hypothesis there are many others belonging to a set of hypotheses one of which is necessary to explain something which otherwise would not be satisfactorily explained it can be thrown out or retained on grounds of non rational preference not of science or statistics alternatively one could chuck out or retain the lot on the grounds that the answer can t be known or that the notional probability estimates are effectively useless being equal agnosticism weak atheism as they do when the set m is filled by the universe is caused by x where x is gods pink unicorns nothing etc and no observation tends to one conclusion over the other exactly the point i was making i think so we don t throw out any of these contrary to your assertion above that we do some people do simon and they think they are doing excellent science my sole point was that they aren t only observations which directly contradict the hypothesis h i i e x where p x h i can cause p h i to go to zero after a finite number of observations only in this case do we get to throw any of the hypotheses out exactly my point though i may have been unclear you said the diametric opposite which i guess is the source of my confusion i was merely trying to illustrate the incorrectness of doing so what i m trying to say is that while you are correct to say that absence of evidence can sometimes be evidence of absence this does not hold true for all or perhaps any versions of theism and it isn t true that those for which it does not hold can be discarded using the razor on the contrary those for which it does not hold are exactly those which can be discarded using the razor see my post on the other branch of this thread then you seem to be guilty of the contradiction you accuse me of if the razor holds for gods then it holds for all like hypotheses which means that you re assigning p x h i for all i though we ve already established that it s not correct to do so when sum p x h i over all i simply put anyone who claims to have a viable proof of the existence or non existence of gods whether inductive or no is at best mistaken and at worst barking mad luckily i make no such claim and have specifically said as much on numerous occasions you wouldn t be constructing a strawman here would you frank although that doesn t of course rule out my being barking mad in any case i could be barking mad in my spare time with apologies to cleese et al but i think you miss the point once again when i say that something is evidence against an hypothesis that doesn t imply that observation of the said something necessarily falsifies the hypothesis reducing the estimate of p h data to zero if it reduces this quantity it s still evidence against h no i got that i m talking about the case when a you re clearly correct when a and i m not constructing a strawman though it s certainly possible that i ve misunderstood what you re saying however by any standards a system that says when a gods are highly unlikely and when a gods can be dismissed using the razor is a system purporting to be an inductive proof that gods either don t exist or are unnecessary to explain any or all phenomena in my experience systems such as this including those which purport to prove that gods exist always contain a fallacy upon close examination if that s not what you re saying then please put me straight frank o dwyer i m not hatching that odwyer sse ie from hens by evelyn conlon
alt.atheism	re asimov stamp battin cyclops iucf indiana edu laurence gene battin writes apart from the suggestion that appeared in the letters column of skeptical inquirer recently has there been any further mention about a possible asimov commemorative stamp if this idea hasn t been followed up does anyone know what needs to be done to get this to happen i think that its a great idea should we start a petition or something i believe that there s a year period from time of death until a person can be on a commemorative stamp it was broken once for lyndon johnson i think but other than that it has held for awhile of course we can still start now the elvis stamp was petitioned for ages and things really moved once it got past the year anniversary of his death carl christensen dept of computer science christen astro ocis temple edu temple university curiouser and curiouser lc philadelphia pa usa
alt.atheism	re where are they now in article r ou u horus ap mchp sni de frank d s uucp frank o dwyer writes in article apr nuscc nus sg cmtan iss nus sg tan chade meng dan writes i ll be leaving in june that s because i m going back to my university alt atheism is banned there stupid theist intolerance sad isn t it anybody has any idea how i can circumvent this problem frank s solution deleted if you have access to telnet contact nyx cs du edu it s a public access unix system completly free and all you need to for access is a verifiable form of id i think he requires a notarized copy of a picture or a check or some such kcochran nyx cs du edu b c d e f g k m r s t tsakc my thoughts my posts my ideas my responsibility my beer my pizza ok
alt.atheism	re age of reason was who has read rushdie s sandvik newton apple com kent sandvik writes this is the story of kent the archetype finn that lives in the bay area and tried to purchase thomas paine s age of reason this man was driving around to staceys to books inc to well cleanlighted place to daltons to various other places when he asked for this book the well educated american book store assistants in most placed asked him to check out the thriller section or then they said that his book has not been published yet but they should receive the book soon in some places the assistants bluntly said that they don t know of such an author or that he is not a well known living author so they don t keep copies of his books such is the life and times of america years after the revolution on a similar note a good friend of mine worked as a clerk in a chain bookstore several of his peers were amazing one woman in particular a customer asked her if they had the autobiography of benjamin franklin who s it by was her first question then is he still alive then is it fiction or non fiction finally my friend intervened and showed the guy where it was it makes one wonder what the standards of employment are scott sauyet ssauyet eagle wesleyan edu
alt.atheism	re strong weak atheism in c rusnews w w mantis co uk mathew writes did that faq ever got modified to re define strong atheists as not those who assert the nonexistence of god but as those who assert that they believe in the nonexistence of god in a word yes mathew mathew could you let us know when this happened so i can see if my version is as up to date as possible i try to re save the faqs once in a while but otherwise i ignore their regular postings so i wouldn t generally notice such a change and i like to stay current thanks scott
alt.atheism	a problem with omnipotence i recall a discussion i had heard years ago it went something like this the problem with omnipotence at least as i perceive it as personified by the christian god ideal is that it is potentially contradictory if a manifestation such as god is truly infinite in power can god place limits upon itself some stuff i can t recall then some other questions i think i recall correctly can god unmake itself can god make itself assuming it doesn t yet exist has god has always existed or is it necessary for an observer to bind all of gods potential quantum states into reality was god nothing more than a primordial force of nature that existed during the earliest stages of universal inflationary creation is god a vacuum fluctuation given a great enough energy density could we re create god would that make us god and god something else some more stuff i don t recall concerning creating god followed by is god self aware is it necessary that god be self aware is god a living entity is it necessay that god be a living entity is god unchanging or does it evolve any comments post them so that others might benefit from the open inquiry and resulting discussion kyle
alt.atheism	atheism 
alt.atheism	re you will all go to hell in article pharaoh cyborg bt co uk martin pharaoh cyborg bt co uk martin gorman writes jsn psuvm psu edu writes you blashephemers you will all go to hell for not believing in god be prepared for your eternal damnation oh fuck off actually i just think he s confused i m going to hell because i m gay not becuase i don t believe in god i wonder if that means i can t come to tammy deans picnic kcochran nyx cs du edu b c d e f g k m r s t tsakc my thoughts my posts my ideas my responsibility my beer my pizza ok because i m the daddy that s why
alt.atheism	re requests in article c qllg bc mailer cc fsu edu mayne pipe cs fsu edu william mayne writes in article pww spac at rice edu pww spacsun rice edu peter walker writes didn t the church get lightning rods banned in several european countries in the eighteenth century because it was widely believed that they interfered with god s striking down of blasphemers i seem to remember that this was more common in eastern europe i don t know about eastern europe but according to bertrand russell writing in science and mysticism i think though it could have been another book said that preachers in colonial boston attributed an earthquake to god s wrath over people putting up lightning rods which they had been preaching against as interference with god s will being deprived of lightning bolts as a method to get at sinners he evidently resorted to sterner measures no smilies i am not making this up i m sure you are not after the san francisco earthquake a couple of years ago there was a flurry of traffic on talk religion misc about how this was the result of the notorious homo this that and t other in the city the fact that the earthquake was actually down the road in santa cruz watsonville didn t seem to phase them any jon
alt.atheism	re a little too satanic kent sandvik and jon livesey made essentially the same response so this time kent s article gets the reply i agree but this started at one particular point in time and we don t know when this starting point of accurately copied scriptures actually happened this begs the question of whether it ever started perhaps because accuracy was always an intention even worse if the events in nt were not written by eye witness accounts a high probability looking at possible dates when the first gospels were ready then we have to take into account all the problems with information forwarded with the telephone metaphor indeed it makes little difference if you have eyewitnesses or people one step away reporters if you will as i said earlier the telephone metaphor is innately bad because the purpose of a game of telephone is contrary to the aims of writing these sorts of texts also i would point out that by the standards generally asserted in this group the distinction between eyewitnesses and others is hollow since nobody can be shown to be an eyewitness or indeed even shown to be the author of the text there is no evidence that the original texts of either the ot or the nt are largely lost over time in a sea of errors corrections additions and deletions in the case of the nt the evidence is strongly in the other direction the textus r and the nestle aland text do not differ on more than a low level of significance it is reasonable to assume a similar situation for the ot based on the nt as a model c wingate the peace of god it is no peace but strife closed in the sod mangoe cs umd edu yet brothers pray for but one thing tove mangoe the marv lous peace of god
alt.atheism	re societally acceptable behavior in article c s tv h news cso uiuc edu cobb alexia lis uiuc edu mike cobb writes in qvh tinnsg citation ksu ksu edu yohan citation ksu ksu edu jonathan w newton writes in article c qgm dl news cso uiuc edu cobb alexia lis uiuc edu mike cobb writes merely a question for the basis of morality moral ethical behavior societally acceptable behavior i disagree with these what society thinks should be irrelevant what the individual decides is all that is important this doesn t seem right if i want to kill you i can because that is what i decide sounds as though you are confused between what i want and what i think is morally right jon
alt.atheism	re why rushdie s writings are unappreciated in article quc u qu cc tut fi a lehtori cc tut fi aario sami writes in bu edu jaeger buphy bu edu gregg jaeger writes in article c jqd mdb blaze cs jhu edu arromdee jyusenkyou cs jhu edu ken arromdee writes in article bu edu jaeger buphy bu edu gregg jaeger writes it has been asked why no counter fatwa has been issued against khomenei s condemnation of rushdies because of his satanic verses the reason is basically that the satanic verses from which rushdie took his title are a serious matter not to be played around with by anyone who cares about islam this shouldn t matter that s your opinion which i am sorry to say is irrelevant gregg this guy sounds more than a little borg ish vell this is perfectly normal behaviour vor a vogon you know jon
alt.atheism	re yet more rushdie re islamic law i just received some new information regarding the issue of bcci and whether it is an islamic bank etc i am now about to post it under the heading bcci look for it there fred rice darice yoyo cc monash edu au
alt.atheism	re why boyd acsu buffalo edu daniel f boyd writes if the bible is such incredible proof of christianity then why aren t the muslims or the hindus convinced if the qur an is such incredible proof of islam then why aren t the hindus or the christians convinced if god exists why aren t atheists convinced tan chade meng yes sir i have only one question singapore cmtan iss nus sg what is going on
alt.atheism	christianity logic was xtian morality is in article eastman uucp dps nasa kodak com writes simple logic arguments are folly if you read the bible you will see that jesus made fools of those who tried to trick him with logic if you rely simply on your reason then you will never know more than you do now i once heard an arguement from a xtian friend similar to this christianity is a higher logic athiest like u will not be able to understand it your atheist logic is very low only thru faith can we understand the higher logic in god so i asked him so what is this higher logic his answer i don t know this the posting above highlights one of the worst things about xtainity it is abundantly clear to both atheists xtains that their believe is both illogical irrational their tactics therefore to disregard logic rationality altogether silly excuses such as the ones above and those such as how can u trust science science was invented by man only goes to further show the weakness of their religion in my country where xtainity was and still is rapidly growing xtains never try to convert people by appealing to their brains or senses they know it would be a fruitless act given the irrational nature of their faith they would wait until a person is in distress then they would comfort him her and addict them to their emotional opium never in my life had i met a person who converted to xtainity coz it s reasonable rationality has no place in xtainity see xtian arguement against reason above the unenlightened one tan chade meng the wise man tells his wife that he understands her singapore cmtan iss nus sg the fool tries to prove it the unenlightened one tan chade meng the wise man tells his wife that he understands her singapore cmtan iss nus sg the fool tries to prove it
alt.atheism	re some thoughts in article madhausc yd kip netcom com madhaus netcom com maddi hausmann writes healta saturn wwc edu tammy r healy writes tammy see maddi i trimmed it healy well you re going to have to practice but you re getting the hang of it soon we re going to have to give you a new nickname try these on for size tammy lucky seven healy tammy pass the falafel healy tammy r us healy tammy learning by doing healy the r us thing is trademarked i don t know if charles lazarus is dead or alive but i d be careful because with a name like lazarus he might rise again just to start a lawsuit dean kaflowitz i knew an architect once who i swear was employed to design the signs for the toys r us and kids r us stores the signs the things they stick over the store or up on a big pole so they can be seen from the highway what a job all those hours in school studying to be an architect so you can tell them to move the pole ten feet closer to the highway
alt.atheism	re some thoughts in article c aec fb cbnewsj cb att com decay cbnewsj cb att com dean kaflowitz writes the r us thing is trademarked i don t know if charles lazarus is dead or alive but i d be careful because with a name like lazarus he might rise again just to start a lawsuit the r us is not trademarked but the backwards r us is i believe speaking of proofs of god the funniest one i have ever seen was in a term paper handed in by a freshman she wrote god must exist because he wouldn t be so mean as to make me believe he exists if he really doesn t is this argument really so much worse than the ontological proofs of the existence of god provided by anselm and descartes among others raymond smullyan from b c and other philosophical fantasies
alt.atheism	re fundamental beliefs of sda in article healta saturn wwc edu healta saturn wwc edu tammy r healy writes i was asked to post list of the sda church s basic beliefs the sda church has always been reluctant to formalize a creed in the usual sense of word however the powers that be in the church deemed it neccessary to publish a summary of basic sda beliefs may i ask why they are afraid to do so speaking of proofs of god the funniest one i have ever seen was in a term paper handed in by a freshman she wrote god must exist because he wouldn t be so mean as to make me believe he exists if he really doesn t is this argument really so much worse than the ontological proofs of the existence of god provided by anselm and descartes among others raymond smullyan from b c and other philosophical fantasies
alt.atheism	re cults vs religions jgreen trumpet calpoly edu james thomas green writes a religion is a cult which if those in power belong to it actually they re all bull shit graeme t g nattress uk ac ncl hitler is nibor from the planet vashir the galactic shape changing psychopath john the tomorrow people hitler s last secret
alt.atheism	re you will all go to hell in article healta saturn wwc edu healta saturn wwc edu tammy r healy writes in article apr mnemosyne cs du edu kcochran nyx cs du edu keith justified and ancient cochran writes from kcochran nyx cs du edu keith justified and ancient cochran subject re you will all go to hell date sun apr gmt in article pharaoh cyborg bt co uk martin pharaoh cyborg bt co uk martin gorman writes jsn psuvm psu edu writes you blashephemers you will all go to hell for not believing in god be prepared for your eternal damnation oh fuck off actually i just think he s confused i m going to hell because i m gay not becuase i don t believe in god i wonder if that means i can t come to tammy deans picnic of course you can come i said all a a posters are invited and i didn t put a no homosexual clause bring some munchies and join the party i can t imagine dean objecting either knowing keith i expect he ll bring the leather accessories better oil it well leather cracks when it dries dean kaflowitz
alt.atheism	re poisoning the well was islamic genocide in article rbpq ibg horus ap mchp sni de frank d s uucp frank o dwyer writes in article bbacbc i dbstu rz tu bs de i dbstu rz tu bs de benedikt rosenau writes by the way that s why i consider you a theist points consisting of rhetorical fallacy unsupported claims and demonstrable falsehoods deleted no wonder that we don t see any detail for this claim it is good to remember that you have answered the statement that you are a theist by another correspondent with that you are not a member of a denomination it is either stupidity or an attempt at a trick answer not unlike the rest of your arguments mr roseneau i have little patience with people who tell me what i believe and who call me a liar when i disagree i m in a position not only to know what it is that i believe but to say so i am an agnostic i am extremely wary of the way you use words like in this case there are broader definitions of gods used by persons who are considered by themselves and others theists i have pointed to that in my post you use one of them your use of definitions seems to rest on the assumption because my moral is objective absolute or the other buzz words you are so fond of everybody will know it and there is no need to define it more exactly and as a user has shown recently the easiest way to dispell you is to ask you for definitions you are of course free to speculate on my motives for objecting to seeming irrational bigotry if you wish but the flaws which i point out in your arguments stand on their own merits since you are the only one seeing them and many correspondents point to the flaws in your reasoning respectively discussing i can t say i am impressed benedikt
alt.atheism	re some thoughts in article c b lkz blaze cs jhu edu arromdee jyusenkyou cs jhu edu ken arromdee writes in article w briggs ccresources h cc utas edu au w briggs postoffice utas edu au william briggs writes wasn t jc a carpenter anyway that s beside the point i think the fact that is more compelling is jc fulfilling the prophecies when the prophecies include him getting killed in the most agonizing possible way this is nonsense i can think of a lot more agonizing ways to get killed fatal cancer for instance anyone else have some more maybe we can make a list actually i find the stuff about jc being a carpenter more interesting is there an independent source for this assertion or is it all from the christian bible is there any record at all of anything he built a table a house some stairs norm abrams says the real test of a carpenter s skill is building stairs with hand tools did he leave any plans behind for say kitchen counters and cabinets did he build his own cross if so did he use pressure treated lumber gotta use that pressure treated anywhere that wood meets concrete but it holds up better anyway for mose outdoor applications i keep seeing these bumper stickers that say my boss is a jewish carpenter but they re always on the back of ford escorts and a real carpenter s apprentice would probably drive a pickup so i m out for verification that he really was a carpenter dean kaflowitz sometimes i like to get away from the shack catfish ain t pretty but they don t talk back goin fishin again goin fishin again me and my no good friends sure goin fishin again
alt.atheism	re some thoughts in article apr daffy cs wisc edu mccullou snake cs wisc edu mark mccullough writes in article c b lkz blaze cs jhu edu arromdee jyusenkyou cs jhu edu ken arromdee writes i can think of a lot more agonizing ways to get killed fatal cancer for instance anyone else have some more maybe we can make a list how about dying of a blood clot in a very bad place kidney stones with complete blockage
alt.atheism	re some thoughts in article kmr po cwru edu kmr po cwru edu keith m ryan writes in article c aec fb cbnewsj cb att com decay cbnewsj cb att com dean kaflowitz writes the r us thing is trademarked i don t know if charles lazarus is dead or alive but i d be careful because with a name like lazarus he might rise again just to start a lawsuit the r us is not trademarked but the backwards r us is i believe yup i think you re right my mistake now how do i make an r backwards using a computer keyboard i ll bet the gods know how this is alt atheism after all tell you what if all my r s start coming out backwards when i type from now on i ll become a believer and that s not asking for miracles if i asked for a miracle i d ask for a real miracle like for pat buchanan to become an out of the closet drag queen well maybe that wouldn t be so miraculous but i think he d look fabulous in a feather boa and a sequined hat like mia farrow wore in gatsby dean kaflowitz
alt.atheism	re it s all mary s fault in article w briggs ccresources h cc utas edu au w briggs postoffice utas edu au william briggs writes deletion lucky for them that the baby didn t have any obvious deformities i could just see it now mary gets pregnant out of wedlock so to save face she and joseph say that it was god that got her pregnant and then the baby turns out to be deformed or even worse stillborn they d have a lot of explaining to do a few points guys oops guy and gal but i use the term guy asexually has the same sort of conspiracy ever occurred since i mean there must have been dozen of times in the past two thousand years when it would have been opportune time for a messiah to be born it has there is a guy running around in switzerland who claims to have been conceived similarly his mother says the same his father is said to be a bit surprised but anyway there have been a lot of messiahs and many have had a similar story about their birth or their death a list of messiahs could be quite interesting wouldn t you feel bad if you turned out to be wrong and the conception of christ was via god i can just imagine your faces as mary asks you if you ve ever had a child yourself i would wonder why an omnipotent god pulls such stunts instead of providing evidence for everyone to check and the whole question is absurd wouldn t you feel bad if you d find out that stones are sentient and that you have stepped on them all your life and wouldn t you feel bad when you d see the proof that jesus was just a plot of satan if they wanted to save image they could have done what joseph planned to do in the first place have a quite wedding and an equally quite divorce i think it was quite easy to do under jewish law in that regard they would have been pretty dumb to think up a conspiracy like the one you ve outlined in that they a bringing attention on themselves messiah appearances were like royal scandals in zero ad israel see the part in acts when the sandhedrin are discussing what to do about the growth of the new church i e one wise guy said leave it alone and if it is what it says it is nothing can stop it and if it isn t then it will just fizzle out anyway you ve forgotten the pride factor it didn t fizzle the church i mean the argument is a fallacy it is like thanks for reading this far on the end of a letter most religions claim that they won t fizzle because they contain some eternal truth so does christianity since there are old religions it is no wonder to find old religions that have it that they would last roll twelve dice calculate the chance for the result argue that there must be something special about the result because an event with a chance of could hardly happen by chance only feel elevated because you have participated in letting that special event take place benedikt
alt.atheism	re thoughts on christians bil okcforum osrhe edu bill conner writes robert beauchine wrote rb no that s praying on the young preying on the young comes rb later when the bright eyed little altar boy finds out what the rb priest really wears under that chasible does this statement further the atheist cause in some way surely it s not intended as wit surely it was intended as wit by the way which atheist cause were you referring to bill kevin marshall computer science department virginia tech marshall csugrad cs vt edu blacksburg virginia
alt.atheism	re room for metaphor in article bakerlj augustana edu bakerlj augustana edu lloyd baker writes what i want is a response giving me the pros and cons of metaphorical religious language could an atheist accept this view without giving up the foundamentals of what he believes in could an atheist accept a usage in which religious literature or tradition is viewed in a metaphorical way of course this is essentially what we do with homer or with other concepts such as fate luck free will however there remains the question of whether the religious literature of say christianity is a particularly good set of metaphors for the world today it s also entirely unclear and to me quite unlikely that one could take a contemporary religion like that and divorce the metaphoric potential from the literalism and absolutism it carries now in many cases jim perry perry dsinc com decision support inc matthews nc these are my opinions for a nominal fee they can be yours
alt.atheism	re moraltiy was re political atheists in article r cmninnb gap caltech edu keith cco caltech edu keith allan schneider writes livesey solntze wpd sgi com jon livesey writes pardon me i am trying to apply human terms to non humans that s right you are basically stating that morality can only deal with humans because only humans are sentient enough to be moral that is you say that morality can only deal with intentions i have never said that only humans are the only beings which are sufficiently sentient to have intentions in fact i have explicitly said that i am perfectly happy to consider that some animals are capable of forming intentions what i am objecting to is considering programmed or instinctive behaviour to have moral significance since it seems to me such behaviour does not involve intention i think that even if someone is not conscious of an alternative this does not prevent his behavior from being moral i m sure you do think this if you say so how about trying to convince me i think that a moral act is moral whether or not the implementor thinks it is that s not the point the point is whether the implementor thinks at all the issue is not whether thinking produces opinion a or opinion b but whether thinking takes place period i ve offered four times i think to accept your definition if you allow me to ascribe moral significence to the orbital motion of the planets hmm perhaps you can ascribe it i could say that many human actions are not natural and thus don t follow a natural morality since humans are part of nature are not all human actions natural or perhaps you re going to throw in a definition of natural that will allow us to describe some actions as natural and some as not natural if so what is the definition other than those death which surround mating rituals other animals just don t kill each other within a species that often do they sure they do as multiple posters have show you sharks for example eat wounded sharks i ve personally seen cats eat their newborn are you in some kind of denial people give you example after example and you go off the air for a week and then pop up claiming that it never happened it s very strange but why don t animals kill each other see what i mean here we go again what do we have to do write up a tailor made faq just for mr schneider jon
alt.atheism	re you will all go to hell this is hell hasn t anyone noticed consensual reality is a special case
alt.atheism	re islam and scientific predictions was re genocide is caused by atheism in article apr monu cc monash edu au darice yoyo cc monash edu au fred rice writes deletion god is the one who created the night the day the sun and the moon each is travelling in an orbit with its own motion qur an deletion well that is certainly different but it looks as if there is a translation found for everything by the way i am most surprised to hear that night and day move in an orbit i thought about this too some translations refer to only the latter two objects being in orbit but bucaille s translation seems to indicate the night and the day travelling in orbit too perhaps this can be understood when one looks at it from the earth s reference frame from this reference frame the day and the night would appear to orbit the earth travelling from east to west this is from the reference frame when the earth is still well yes but that belongs in the other group there is a interpretation found for everything however allowing any form of interpretation reduces the information of the text so interprteted to zero by the way i have checked the quote and i think the lines preceding those quoted above are more interesting where mountains are set on earth in order to immobilize the earth where the skies heavens are referred to as well supported the lines given above are after my edition maybe this is what is meant by the above it s just a possibility and that the sun travels in an orbit without saying that earth does too sounds geocentric to me i will see if i can find out more about this but it is still not geocentric that sun and moon move and the earth is immobile sounds geocentric to me benedikt
alt.atheism	re cruel was re political atheists in article r emjinnmk gap caltech edu keith cco caltech edu keith allan schneider writes kmr po cwru edu keith m ryan writes but this just shows then that painful execution is not considered cruel and unusual punishment this shows that cruel as used in the constitution does not refer to whether or not the punishment causes physical pain rather it must be a different meaning i don t think so although some forms of execution are painful the electric chair looks particularly so i think the pain is relatively short lived drawing and quartering on the other hand looks very painful and the victim wouldn t die right away he d bleed to death i d imagine so what do we have now an integral over pain x time i get to lash you with a wet noodle for ever but i only get to cut you up with a power saw if i m quick about it jon
alt.atheism	alt atheism faq atheist resources archive name atheism resources alt atheism archive name resources last modified april version atheist resources addresses of atheist organizations usa freedom from religion foundation darwin fish bumper stickers and assorted other atheist paraphernalia are available from the freedom from religion foundation in the us write to ffrf p o box madison wi telephone evolution designs evolution designs sell the darwin fish it s a fish symbol like the ones christians stick on their cars but with feet and the word darwin written inside the deluxe moulded d plastic fish is postpaid in the us write to evolution designs laurel canyon north hollywood ca people in the san francisco bay area can get darwin fish from lynn gold try mailing figmo netcom com for net people who go to lynn directly the price is per fish set free atheist stickers t shirts and books write to set free p o box garden grove ca american atheist press aap publish various atheist books critiques of the bible lists of biblical contradictions and so on one such book is the bible handbook by w p ball and g w foote american atheist press pp isbn nd edition bible contradictions absurdities atrocities immoralities contains ball foote the bible contradicts itself aap based on the king james version of the bible write to american atheist press p o box austin tx or cameron road austin tx telephone fax prometheus books sell books including haught s holy horrors see below write to east amherst street buffalo new york telephone an alternate address which may be newer or older is prometheus books glenn drive buffalo ny african americans for humanism an organization promoting black secular humanism and uncovering the history of black freethought they publish a quarterly newsletter aah examiner write to norm r allen jr african americans for humanism p o box buffalo ny united kingdom rationalist press association national secular society islington high street holloway road london n ew london n nl british humanist association south place ethical society lamb s conduit passage conway hall london wc r rh red lion square london wc r rl fax the national secular society publish the freethinker a monthly magazine founded in germany ibka e v internationaler bund der konfessionslosen und atheisten postfach d berlin germany ibka publish a journal miz materialien und informationen zur zeit politisches journal der konfessionslosesn und atheisten hrsg ibka e v miz vertrieb postfach d berlin germany for atheist books write to ibdk internationaler b ucherdienst der konfessionslosen postfach d hannover germany telephone books fiction thomas m disch the santa claus compromise short story the ultimate proof that santa exists all characters and events are fictitious any similarity to living or dead gods uh well walter m miller jr a canticle for leibowitz one gem in this post atomic doomsday novel is the monks who spent their lives copying blueprints from saint leibowitz filling the sheets of paper with ink and leaving white lines and letters edgar pangborn davy post atomic doomsday novel set in clerical states the church for example forbids that anyone produce describe or use any substance containing atoms philip k dick philip k dick dick wrote many philosophical and thought provoking short stories and novels his stories are bizarre at times but very approachable he wrote mainly sf but he wrote about people truth and religion rather than technology although he often believed that he had met some sort of god he remained sceptical amongst his novels the following are of some relevance galactic pot healer a fallible alien deity summons a group of earth craftsmen and women to a remote planet to raise a giant cathedral from beneath the oceans when the deity begins to demand faith from the earthers pot healer joe fernwright is unable to comply a polished ironic and amusing novel a maze of death noteworthy for its description of a technology based religion valis the schizophrenic hero searches for the hidden mysteries of gnostic christianity after reality is fired into his brain by a pink laser beam of unknown but possibly divine origin he is accompanied by his dogmatic and dismissively atheist friend and assorted other odd characters the divine invasion god invades earth by making a young woman pregnant as she returns from another star system unfortunately she is terminally ill and must be assisted by a dead man whose brain is wired to hour easy listening music margaret atwood the handmaid s tale a story based on the premise that the us congress is mysteriously assassinated and fundamentalists quickly take charge of the nation to set it right again the book is the diary of a woman s life as she tries to live under the new christian theocracy women s right to own property is revoked and their bank accounts are closed sinful luxuries are outlawed and the radio is only used for readings from the bible crimes are punished retroactively doctors who performed legal abortions in the old world are hunted down and hanged atwood s writing style is difficult to get used to at first but the tale grows more and more chilling as it goes on various authors the bible this somewhat dull and rambling work has often been criticized however it is probably worth reading if only so that you ll know what all the fuss is about it exists in many different versions so make sure you get the one true version books non fiction peter de rosa vicars of christ bantam press although de rosa seems to be christian or even catholic this is a very enlighting history of papal immoralities adulteries fallacies etc german translation gottes erste diener die dunkle seite des papsttums droemer knaur michael martin atheism a philosophical justification temple university press philadelphia usa a detailed and scholarly justification of atheism contains an outstanding appendix defining terminology and usage in this necessarily tendentious area argues both for negative atheism i e the non belief in the existence of god s and also for positive atheism the belief in the non existence of god s includes great refutations of the most challenging arguments for god particular attention is paid to refuting contempory theists such as platinga and swinburne pages isbn hardcover paperback also available the case against christianity temple university press a comprehensive critique of christianity in which he considers the best contemporary defences of christianity and ultimately demonstrates that they are unsupportable and or incoherent pages isbn james turner without god without creed the johns hopkins university press baltimore md usa subtitled the origins of unbelief in america examines the way in which unbelief whether agnostic or atheistic became a mainstream alternative world view focusses on the period and while considering france and britain the emphasis is on american and particularly new england developments neither a religious history of secularization or atheism without god without creed is rather the intellectual history of the fate of a single idea the belief that god exists pages isbn hardcover x paper george seldes editor the great thoughts ballantine books new york usa a dictionary of quotations of a different kind concentrating on statements and writings which explicitly or implicitly present the person s philosophy and world view includes obscure and often suppressed opinions from many people for some popular observations traces the way in which various people expressed and twisted the idea over the centuries quite a number of the quotations are derived from cardiff s what great men think of religion and noyes views of religion pages isbn paper x richard swinburne the existence of god revised edition clarendon paperbacks oxford this book is the second volume in a trilogy that began with the coherence of theism and was concluded with faith and reason in this work swinburne attempts to construct a series of inductive arguments for the existence of god his arguments which are somewhat tendentious and rely upon the imputation of late th century western christian values and aesthetics to a god which is supposedly as simple as can be conceived were decisively rejected in mackie s the miracle of theism in the revised edition of the existence of god swinburne includes an appendix in which he makes a somewhat incoherent attempt to rebut mackie j l mackie the miracle of theism oxford this posthumous volume contains a comprehensive review of the principal arguments for and against the existence of god it ranges from the classical philosophical positions of descartes anselm berkeley hume et al through the moral arguments of newman kant and sidgwick to the recent restatements of the classical theses by plantinga and swinburne it also addresses those positions which push the concept of god beyond the realm of the rational such as those of kierkegaard kung and philips as well as replacements for god such as lelie s axiarchism the book is a delight to read less formalistic and better written than martin s works and refreshingly direct when compared with the hand waving of swinburne james a haught holy horrors an illustrated history of religious murder and madness prometheus books looks at religious persecution from ancient times to the present day and not only by christians library of congress catalog card number norm r allen jr african american humanism an anthology see the listing for african americans for humanism above gordon stein an anthology of atheism and rationalism prometheus books an anthology covering a wide range of subjects including the devil evil and morality and the history of freethought comprehensive bibliography edmund d cohen the mind of the bible believer prometheus books a study of why people become christian fundamentalists and what effect it has on them george h smith atheism the case against god prometheus books describes the positions of atheism theism and agnosticism reviews many of the arguments used in favour of the existence of god concludes with an assessment of the impact of god on people s lives net resources there s a small mail based archive server at mantis co uk which carries archives of old alt atheism moderated articles and assorted other files for more information send mail to archive server mantis co uk saying help send atheism index and it will mail back a reply mathew
alt.atheism	alt atheism faq overview for new readers archive name atheism overview alt atheism archive name overview last modified april version overview welcome to alt atheism and alt atheism moderated this is the first in a series of regular postings aimed at new readers of the newsgroups many groups of a controversial nature have noticed that new readers often come up with the same questions mis statements or misconceptions and post them to the net in addition people often request information which has been posted time and time again in order to try and cut down on this the alt atheism groups have a series of five regular postings under the following titles alt atheism faq overview for new readers alt atheism faq introduction to atheism alt atheism faq frequently asked questions faq alt atheism faq constructing a logical argument alt atheism faq atheist resources this is article number please read numbers and before posting the others are entirely optional if you are new to usenet 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psuvm psu edu john a johnson dgraham bmers bnr ca douglas graham mayne open cs fsu edu william mayne ajr bigbird hri com andy rosen stoesser ira uka de achim stoesser bosullvn unix tcd ie bryan o sullivan lippard ccit arizona edu james j lippard s b rigel tamu edu s baum ydobyns phoenix princeton edu york h dobyns schroede sdsc edu wayne schroeder baldwin csservera usna navy mil j d baldwin d nibby unhh unh edu dana nibby dempsey kodak com richard c dempsey jmunch hertz elee calpoly edu john david munch pdc dcs ed ac uk paul crowley rz mips complang tuwien ac at richard zach tycchow math mit edu tim chow simon dcs warwick ac uk simon clippingdale phimanen cc helsinki fi pekka himanen and countless others i ve forgotten these articles are free truly free you may copy them and distribute them to anyone you wish however please send any changes or corrections to the author and please do not re post copies of the articles to alt atheism it does nobody any good to have multiple versions of the same document floating around the network finding stuff all of the faq files should be somewhere on your news system here are some suggestions on what to do if you can t find them check the newsgroup alt atheism look for subject lines starting with alt atheism faq check the newsgroup news answers for the same subject lines if you don t find anything in steps or your news system isn t set up correctly and you may wish to tell your system administrator about the problem if you have anonymous ftp access connect to rtfm mit edu go to the directory pub usenet alt atheism and you ll find the latest versions of the faq files there ftp is a a way of copying files between networked computers if you need help in using or getting started with ftp send e mail to mail server rtfm mit edu with send usenet news answers ftp list faq in the body there are other sites which also carry news answers postings the article introduction to the news answers newsgroup carries a list of these sites the article is posted regularly to news answers if you don t have ftp send mail to mail server rtfm mit edu consisting of the following lines send usenet news answers finding sources send usenet alt atheism faq send usenet alt atheism introduction send usenet alt atheism logic send usenet alt atheism resources penultimate resort send mail to mail server mantis co uk consisting of the following lines send atheism faq faq txt send atheism faq logic txt send atheism faq intro txt send atheism faq resource txt and our poor overworked modems will try and send you a copy of the files there s other stuff too interesting commands to try are help and send atheism index last resort mail mathew mantis co uk or post an article to the newsgroup asking how you can get the faq files you should only do this if you ve tried the above methods and they ve failed it s not nice to clutter the newsgroup or people s mailboxes with requests for files it s better than posting without reading the faq though for 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alt.atheism	re after years can we say that christian morality is in sandvik sandvik kent apple com sandvik newton apple com kent sandvik writes in article markp avignon markp avignon mark pundurs wrote you take lsd and it skews your perception of reality you come down and your perceptions unskew i ve never taken lsd but read about the strange lifes and times of the ashbury heights culture something that was usually profound was the way these lsd trippers mentioned that after their first trip they changed their view of the world in other words taking lsd would change their reference frames which would indicate that deep changes due to let us say rewiring of the brain temporarily will indeed change frames and this leads to the statement that there is no solid reference frame the lsd trippers modified their relative view much of the haight ashbury crowd probably had pre existing dissatisfactions with their lives dissatisfactions ameliorated by mumbo jumbo about new realities the only change i experienced after lsd was to gain the knowledge that i didn t enjoy how lsd twisted my perception mark pundurs any resemblance between my opinions and those of wolfram research inc is purely coincidental
alt.atheism	re genocide is caused by theism evidence on apr gmt bobbe vice robert beauchaine lp a yayg said execellent examples of luther s insane rantings deleted gee i m sooooo surprised that they don t teach this part of his ideology in high schools today ed mccreary o edm twisto compaq com if it were not for laughter there would be no tao
alt.atheism	re thoughts on christians on wed apr gmt sandvik newton apple com kent sandvik wrote in article c rgkb fs darkside osrhe uoknor edu bil okcforum osrhe edu re conner s questioning of the blissful afterlife as a reason why many joined the early xian church well as i remember jacoby s mythmaker talks about this to cite one source but i m not sure if all christians have read this book in addition my social experiences is from being raised and educated as a lutheran having a lot of christian friends and i even have played in two christian rock bands do you mean hyam maccoby s the mythmaker mike mcangus the truth is still the truth mam mouse cmhnet org even if you choose to ignore it some of the old sig viruses are still the best
alt.atheism	re death penalty was re political atheists on tue apr gmt bil okcforum osrhe edu bill conner wrote this is fascinating atheists argue for abortion defend homosexuality as a means of population control insist that the only values are biological and condemn war and capital punishment according to benedikt if something is contardictory it cannot exist which in this case means atheists i suppose what atheists are you talking about imnsho abortion is the womans choice homosexual sex is the choice of the people involved war is sometimes necessary this leaves capital punishment i oppose capital punishemnt because mistakes can happen yes this thread went around with no resolution recently as far as poplulation control i think contraception and education are the best courses of action i would like to understand how an atheist can object to war an excellent means of controlling population growth or to capital punishment i m sorry but the logic escapes me that s because you are again making the assumption that all atheists have some specific mindset and why just capital punishment what is being questioned here the propriety of killing or of punishment what is the basis of the ecomplaint mistakes can happen bill and i could be the victim of such a mistake mike mcangus the truth is still the truth mam mouse cmhnet org even if you choose to ignore it some of the old sig viruses are still the best
alt.atheism	re americans and evolution on tue apr gmt bil okcforum osrhe edu bill conner wrote robert singleton bobs thnext mit edu wrote sure it isn t mutually exclusive but it lends weight to i e increases notional running estimates of the posterior probability of the atheist s pitch in the partition and thus necessarily reduces the same quantity in the theist s pitch this is because the divine component falls prey to ockham s razor the phenomenon being satisfactorily explained without it and there being no independent evidence of any such component more detail in the next post occam s razor is not a law of nature it is way of analyzing an argument even so it interesting how often it s cited here and to what end it seems odd that religion is simultaneously condemned as being primitive simple minded and unscientific anti intellectual and childish and yet again condemned as being too complex occam s razor the scientific explanation of things being much more straightforeward and apparently simpler cute characterization bill however there is no inconsistency between the two statements even if one believes that religion is primitive simple minded and unscientific anti intellectual and childish one can still hold the view that religion also adds an unnecessary level of complexity to the explanation the ideas themselves don t have to be complex before being excised by occam s razor they only have to add unnecessarily to the overall complexity of the description which is it to be which is the non essential and how do you know i think the non essential part of an explanatory system is one that adds no predictive capability to the system considering that even scientists don t fully comprehend science due to its complexity and diversity maybe william of occam has performed a lobotomy kept the frontal lobe and thrown everything else away huh this is all very confusing i m sure one of you will straighten me out tough watch it your freudian slip is showing mike mcangus the truth is still the truth mam mouse cmhnet org even if you choose to ignore it some of the old sig viruses are still the best
alt.atheism	re christian morality is on apr gmt dps nasa kodak com dan schaertel wrote in article vice ico tek com bobbe vice ico tek com robert beauchaine writes yet i am still not a believer is god not concerned with my disposition why is it beneath him to provide me with the evidence i would require to believe the evidence that my personality given to me by this god would find compelling the fact is god could cause you to believe anything he wants you to but think about it for a minute would you rather have someone love you because you made them love you or because they wanted to love you the responsibility is on you to love god and take a step toward him he promises to be there for you but you have to look for yourself those who doubt this or dispute it have not givin it a sincere effort i and many others on a a have described how we have tried to find god are you saying our efforts have not been sincere for all the effort i have put in there has been no outward nor inward change that i can perceive what s a sincerely searching agnostic or atheist supposed to do when even the search turns up nothing simple logic arguments are folly if you read the bible you will see that jesus made fools of those who tried to trick him with logic our ability to reason is just a spec of creation yet some think it is the ultimate if you rely simply on your reason then you will never know more than you do now to learn you must accept that which you don t know how do you accept that which you don t know do you mean that i must believe in your god in order to believe in your god mike mcangus the truth is still the truth mam mouse cmhnet org even if you choose to ignore it some of the old sig viruses are still the best
alt.atheism	hard soft strong weak kiss on apr gmt timmbake mcl ucsb edu bake timmons wrote mccullou whipple cs wisc edu writes writing to someone else but you probably like me seem to be a soft atheist sorry for the flamage can we get back to using the terms strong atheist and weak atheist rather than this hard atheist and soft atheist i can imagine future discussions with newbies where there is confusion because of the multiplication of descriptions rest deleted mike mcangus the truth is still the truth mam mouse cmhnet org even if you choose to ignore it some of the old sig viruses are still the best
alt.atheism	re after years can we say that christian morality is arromdee jyusenkyou cs jhu edu ken arromdee writes simple take out some physics books and start looking for statements which say that there is no objective physics i doubt you will find any you might find statements that there is no objective length or no objective location but no objective physics perhaps you have a different understanding of what physics is if we can t measure anything objectively then the answers we get from physics aren t objective either that s what i mean when i say there s no objective physics sure we can all agree that say f gmm r but that s maths it s only physics when you relate it to the real world and if we can t do that objectively we re stuck of course this displays my blatant bias towards applied science but even theoretical physics gets applied to models of real world situations based on real world observations consider for instance that speed of light in vacuum is invariant this sounds an awful lot like an objective speed of light in vacuum it s an axiom that it s invariant but if the two of us measure it we ll get different answers yes we call that experimental error but it s not really error in the conventional sense in fact if you don t get any that s an error you could argue that the value of c is objective to within some value but i d call that a rather odd usage of the word objective and it opens the way for statements like murder is objectively wrong for all people to within of the total population mathew
alt.atheism	re burden of proof watson sce carleton ca stephen watson writes kmr po cwru edu keith m ryan writes in article healta saturn wwc edu healta saturn wwc edu tammy r healy writes fbi officials said cult leader david koresh may have forced followers to remain as flames closed in koresh s armed guard may have injected as many as children with poison to quiet them do the fbi have proof of this yet why ask me i am only quoting the fbi official why not ask the fbi myabe they re lying to cover up or maybe they re telling the truth the children were of course killed by a lone gunman in a second story window who fired eight bullets in the space of two seconds mathew
alt.atheism	re cults vs religions mangoe cs umd edu charley wingate writes to the media religion and cult have about the same relative connotations as government and terrorist group yes each is a form of the other charley an anarchist no just true words being spoken in jest mathew
alt.atheism	re gulf war and peace niks mccullou snake cs wisc edu mark mccullough writes we seem to be agreeing that the soldiers were just doing their job as best they could following orders proof positive that some people are beyond satire mathew
alt.atheism	re are atoms real was re after years blah blah blah kempmp phoenix oulu fi petri pihko writes mathew mathew mantis co uk wrote what is the difference between a chemist and someone who is taught chemistry at say cambridge university put like this i can t answer i was originally pointing out that your attitude seemed to be i don t know if it really was that chemists tend to ignore all kinds of effects when they re not important yes all scientists do otherwise science would never get anywhere your original posting stated that when doing chemistry it is common to ignore atomic interactions hang about not atomic interactions in general just specific ones which are deemed unimportant like gravitational interactions between ions which are so small they re drowned out by electrostatic effects and so on has there been some revolution in teaching methods in the last four years perhaps this revolution has yet to reach cambridge my now i ll get flamed for sure oh probably they still make people memorize equations and ir spectra maybe in a few decades they ll discover the revolutionary data book technique bitter and twisted mathew
alt.atheism	re history texts was ancient references to christianity i wrote the diaries of the followers of the maharishi formerly of oregon are historical evidence in article p psilink com robert knowles p psilink com writes are you confusing bhagwan rajneesh sp with the maharishi mahesh yogi here by any chance i believe that maharishi is titular someone please correct me if i am wrong thus maharishi rajneesh is a different person from maharishi mahesh but they are both maharishis russell
alt.atheism	re after years can we say that christian morality is in article r kh itp horus ap mchp sni de frank d s uucp frank o dwyer says specifically i d like to know what relativism concludes when two people grotesquely disagree is it a both are right b one of them is wrong and sometimes though perhaps rarely we have a pretty good idea who it is c one of them is wrong but we never have any information as to who so we make our best guess if we really must make a decision d the idea of a right moral judgement is meaningless implying that whether peace is better than war e g is a meaningless question and need not be discussed for it has no correct answer e something else a short positive assertion would be nice as i hope you can tell b and c are actually predicated on the assumption that values are real so statements like these can t consistently derive from the relativist assumption that values aren t part of objective reality i am a relativist who would like to answer your question but the way you phrase the question makes it unanswerable the concepts of right and wrong or correct incorrect or true false belong to the domain of epistemological rather than moral questions it makes no sense to ask if a moral position is right or wrong although it is legitimate to ask if it is good or better than another position let me illustrate this point by looking at the psychological derivatives of epistemology and ethics perception and motivation respectively one can certainly ask if a percept is right correct true veridical or wrong incorrect false illusory but it makes little sense to ask if a motive is true or false on the other hand it is strange to ask whether a percept is morally good or evil but one can certainly ask that question about motives therefore your suggested answers a c simply can t be considered they assume you can judge the correctness of a moral judgment now the problem with d is that it is double barrelled i agree with the first part that the rightness of a moral position is a meaningless question for the reasons stated above but that is irrelevant to the alleged implication not an implication at all that one cannot feel peace is better than war i certainly can make value judgments bad better best without asserting the correctness of the position sorry for the lengthy dismissal of a d my short e answer is that when two individuals grotesquely disagree on a moral issue neither is right correct or wrong incorrect they simply hold different moral values feelings john a johnson j j psuvm psu edu department of psychology penn state dubois campus penn state is not responsible for my behavior a ruthless doctrinaire avoidance of degeneracy is a degeneracy of another sort getting drunk and picking up bar ladies and writing metaphysics is a part of life from lila by r pirsig
alt.atheism	re after years can we say that christian morality is this is swf in another indirect post via dan in article apr asl dl nec com duffy aslss asl dl nec com joseph duffy writes in article apr microsoft com russpj microsoft com russ paul jones writes the same way that any theory is proven false you examine the predicitions that the theory makes and try to observe them if you don t or if you observe things that the theory predicts wouldn t happen then you have some evidence against the theory if the theory can t be modified to incorporate the new observations then you say that it is false but how does one handle the nonrepeatability of the experiment in many types of experiments the prediction is that the observed phenomena will happen again and be capable of being observed for example in chemistry someone may predict the outcome of a chemical reaction and then actually observe that reaction repeatedly there are several problems here first you are discussing only experimental procedures observational procedures are also useful the main criterion is attempting to verify an idea by using it to make prediction about as yet unmade observations the observations could be the result of an experiment or they could be obsevations of activity occuring spontaneossly in nature or they could even be observations of the lasting results of events long past all that matters is that the observations be new this is what prediction is about in science it is not about predicting the future except in this very restricted sense secondly repeatability can also take many forms it is really just the requirement that independent observers be able to verify the results the observation of a fossil is repeatable since any qualified observer may look at it this is why the specimens are reqtined in a museum also there is the implicit prediction that future fossil finds will correspond to the current one new fossils are found often enough that this is tested regularly many times a new fossil actually falsifies some conclusion made on the basis of previous fossils unfortunately for you the models that were falsified have alway been peripheral to the model of evolution we now have for instance the front legs of tyrannosaurus rex turned out to have tremendous muscles rather than being weakly endowed as previously believed so in fact histoircal science findings are repeatable in the necessary sense just becuase you cannot go out and repeat the original event does not make it impossible to make valid observations this is not to say that biologists would not go coo coo if extra terrestrial life were discovered that could make the determination of the process of abiogenesis relatively easy sarima teradata com formerly tdatirv sarima or stanley friesen elsegundoca ncr com sarima teradata com formerly tdatirv sarima or stanley friesen elsegundoca ncr com
alt.atheism	re yet more rushdie re islamic law in article apr monu cc monash edu au darice yoyo cc monash edu au fred rice writes the intent of my post as i remember it was to show that you cannot argue against any religion or ideology for that matter by the actions of those who claim to be its followers you have to look at the teachings of the religion or the principles of the ideology itself there is no getting around this so to argue against islam you have to go to the qur an bringing up khomeini or anyone else is relevant to discussing khomeini but not necessarily relevant to discussing islam as a religion sorry fred but for the purposes under discussion here i must disagree your point is true only in the sense that one cannot argue against communism by reference to the chinese or soviet empires since those did not represent true communism in judging the practical consequences of islam as a force to contend with in the world today it is precisely the khomeini s of the world the rushdie fatwa supporters and perhaps more importantly the reaction of the world muslim community to those extremists that we must look to perhaps unfortunately from your perspective most people are not concerned with whether islam is the right religion for them or whether the qur an could be used as a guidebook for a hypothetical utopia but how islam affects the world around them or what their lives might be like if islam gains in influence when i consider such possibilities it is with not inconsiderable fear jim perry perry dsinc com decision support inc matthews nc these are my opinions for a nominal fee they can be yours
alt.atheism	re hoban was re the inimitable rushdie in article bu edu jaeger buphy bu edu gregg jaeger writes interchange on hoban deleted this post of mine also illustrates that i am not simply a reactionary who hates any book which doesn t go out of its way to avoid upsetting religionists only those you haven t actually read sorry but the irony remains i reiterate for the nth time also that i don t agree with k s fatwa nor do i support censorship my point in the original thread has been to show why rushdie is not particularly due sympathy by those who hold their religion in high esteem and don t enjoy seeing things which slander it like the story of the satanic verses as opposed to the rushdie s tsv played with for amusement so although you don t agree with the fatwa and apparently don t think rushdie should be killed for his book yet you think he is not due sympathy for being being under this threat furthermore you base this reaction solely on the fact that he wrote about a particular well known story which if true might reflect poorly on the absolute truth of your religion yet this opinion is formed without recourse to actually looking to see how the story is used in context accepting at face value the widespread propaganda on just what this book contains and what the author s motivations are and then you come forward and recommend another book which touches on presumably plays with religious historical material because you find its overall presentation neutral jim perry perry dsinc com decision support inc matthews nc these are my opinions for a nominal fee they can be yours
alt.atheism	re death penalty was re political atheists bil okcforum osrhe edu bill conner writes this is fascinating atheists argue for abortion defend homosexuality as a means of population control insist that the only values are biological and condemn war and capital punishment according to benedikt if something is contardictory it cannot exist which in this case means atheists i suppose i would like to understand how an atheist can object to war an excellent means of controlling population growth or to capital punishment i m sorry but the logic escapes me first you seem to assume all atheists think alike an atheist does not believe in the existence of a god our opinions on issues such as capital punishment and abortion however vary greatly if you were attacking the views of a particular atheist benedikt i presume then please present your argument as such and do not lump us all together as for the issues let s start with abortion personally i do not support abortion as a means of population control or contraception after the fact however i support the right of any woman to have an abortion regardless of what my personal views may be because it would be arrogant of me to tell any individual what he she may or may not do to his her body and the domain of legislators should not extend into the uterus that s my opinion and i am sure many atheists and theists would disagree with me i do not defend homosexuality as a means of population control but i certainly defend it as an end to itself i think most homosexuals would be angered to hear of anyone characterizing their personal relationship as nothing more than a conscious effort to keep population levels down as for atheists believing all values are biological i have no idea what you re talking about finally there are the issues of war and capital punishment an atheist can object to either one just as easily as a theist might you seem to be hung up on some supposed conspiratorial link between atheism and population control could this be the atheist cause you were referring to a few posts back kevin marshall computer science department virginia tech marshall csugrad cs vt edu blacksburg virginia
alt.atheism	re faith and dogma tgk cs toronto edu todd kelley writes faith and dogma are irrational the faith and dogma part of any religion are responsible for the irrationality of the individuals i disagree in the end the individual is responsible for his her own irrationality the individual s belief in some dogmatic religion is a symptom of that irrationality have you noticed that philosophers tend to be atheists atheists and agnostics i would imagine but yes that was my point an atheist would theoretically be just as ill equipped to study the philosophy of religion as a christian and yet there is a persistence of atheists among the ranks of philosophers therefore the conflict between one s religious beliefs or lack thereof and the ability to be a philosopher must not be as great as you assert the fact that most philosophers may be non religious was a secondary point science as would be practiced by atheists in contrast has a built in defence against faith and dogma as opposed to science practiced by theists be careful here science does have a built in defence against faith and dogma skepticism unfortunately it is not foolproof there is that wonderful little creature known as the theory many of us believe in the theory of evolution we have no absolute proof that this theory is true so why do we believe it because it makes more sense than there is quite a bit of faith involved here a scientist holds sacred the idea that beliefs should change to suit whatever is the best information available at the time and and and a scientist understands that any current beliefs are deficient in some way well not all current beliefs are deficient but basically i agree can you see the difference science views beliefs as being flawed and new information can be obtained to improve them ideally this is true in reality though you have to acknowledge that scientists are human scientists have egos and biases some scientists assume a particular theory is true refuse to admit the flaws in that theory because of ego problems or whatever and proceed to spend their time and money trying to come up with absolute proof for the theory remember cold fusion by the way i wasn t aware mass suicide was a problem waco and jonestown were isolated incidents mass suicides are far from common clinton and the fbi would love for you to convince them of this it would save the us taxpayer a lot of money if you could not really i agree that we spent far too much money on the waco crisis i believe especially considering the outcome my point was that mass suicides in the u s are rare jonestown was in guyana incidentally although we footed the bill for the clean up and the u s has far more important issues to address compare the number of u s citizens who have died in mass suicides with say the number of u s soldiers who died during one week of the vietnam war and you will see my point kevin marshall computer science department virginia tech marshall csugrad cs vt edu blacksburg virginia
alt.atheism	re rawlins debunks creationism in article r dglinnkv ctron news ctron com king ctron com john e king writes kv iastate edu warren vonroeschlaub writes neither i nor webster s has ever heard of francis hitchings who is he please do not answer with a well known evolutionist or some other such informationless phrase he is a paleontologist and author of the neck of the giraffe the quote was taken from pg jack for your information i checked the library of congress catalog and they list the following books by francis hitching earth magic the neck of the giraffe or where darwin went wrong pendulum the psi connection the world atlas of mysteries tom scharle scharle irishmvs room g computing center scharle lukasiewicz cc nd edu university of notre dame notre dame in usa
alt.atheism	re rawlins debunks creationism in article ursa bear com halat pooh bears jim halat writes in article c sncl j o usenet ucs indiana edu adpeters sunflower bio indiana edu andy peters writes evolution as i have said before is theory and fact it is exactly the same amount of each as the existence of atoms and the existence of gravity if you accept the existence of atoms and gravity as fact then you should also accept the existence of evolution as fact andy i don t accept atoms or gravity as fact either they are extremely useful mathematical models to describe physical observations we can make other posters have aptly explained the atomic model gravity too is very much a theory no gravity waves have even been detected but we have a very useful model that describes much of the behavior on objects by this thing we call gravity gravity however is not a fact it is a theoretical model used to talk about how objects behave in our physical environment newton thought gravity was a simple vector force einstein a wave both are very useful models that have no religious overtones or requirements of faith unless of course you want to demand that it is a factual physical entity described exactly the way the theory now formulated talks about it that takes a great leap of faith which of course is what religion takes evolution is no different jim halat halat bear com bear stearns whatever doesn t kill you will only serve to annoy you nyc i speak only for myself what do you accept as a fact the roundness of the earth after all the ancient greeks thought it was a sphere and then newton said it was a spheroid and now people say it s a geoid yourself isn t your personal identity just a theoretical construct to make sense of memories feelings perceptions i m trying to think of anything that would be a fact for you give some examples and let s see how factual they are by your criteria btw what are your criteria gravity is not a fact is that a fact how about newton s and einstein s thoughts about gravity is it a fact that they had those thoughts i don t see how any of the things that you are asserting are any more factual than things like gravity atoms or evolution in short before i am willing to consider your concept of what a fact is i m going to have to have as a minimum some examples of what you think are facts tom scharle scharle irishmvs room g computing center scharle lukasiewicz cc nd edu university of notre dame notre dame in usa
alt.atheism	re mottos to replace in dog we trust pepke dirac scri fsu edu eric pepke writes in mammon we trust hey this is just a piece of paper spend me quickly this is your god from john carpenter s they live natch steve the lurking horror stelter sjs uxa cso uiuc edu
alt.atheism	re fake god holy lies in article apr zeus calpoly edu dmcaloon tuba calpoly edu david mcaloon writes remember einstien said imagination is greater than knowledge then einstein should have had lunch with me at the tien fu on castro street yesterday when they handed me a fortune cookie that said he who has imagination but not knowledge has wings but no feet jon
alt.atheism	re free moral agency see i told you there was an atheist mythology thanks for proving my point bill
alt.atheism	re free moral agency maddi hausmann madhaus netcom com wrote but how do we know that you re representing the real christians bill you re an asshole get lost maddi i see that you still can t grasp the obvious is it because your are devious by nature or can you only find fault with an argument by misrepresenting it i plainly said that i was stating the christian position as i understand it i did not say whether i agree with it since my point was that the only flaws in that position are those atheists invent i have never claimed to be an expert on anything and especially christianity but i have made it an object of pretty intense study over the years so i feel qualified to discuss what its general propositions are what offends you is that i have exposed the distortions and misrepresentations of christianity you contrive and then rail against which seems more like the classical strawman dodge than what i said this leaves you with nothing but to attack but me as usual you avoid the larger issues by picking away at the insignificant stuff why not find one particular thing in my post that we can discuss or can you even tell me what the issues are bill
alt.atheism	re free moral agency in article c uul n c darkside osrhe uoknor edu bil okcforum osrhe edu bill conner writes many of the atheists posting here argue against their own parody of religion they create some ridiculous caricature of a religion and then attack the believers within that religion and the religion itself as ridiculous by their own devices they establish a new religion a mythology you mean bobby mozumder is a myth we wondered about that the point of course is to erect an easy target and deflect the disputants away from the real issue atheism the fictional christian or moslem or jew who is supposed to believe the distorted representation of their beliefs presented here is therefore made to seem a fool and his her arguments can thereby be made to appear ludicrous the mythology is the misrepresentations of religion used here as fact you mean bobby mozumder didn t really post here we wondered about that too so mr conner is bobby mozumder a myth a performing artist a real moslem a crackpot a provocateur you know everything and read all minds why don t you tell us jon
alt.atheism	re free moral agency in article c uul n c darkside osrhe uoknor edu bil okcforum osrhe edu bill conner writes many of the atheists posting here argue against their own parody of religion they create some ridiculous caricature of a religion and then attack the believers within that religion and the religion itself as ridiculous by their own devices they establish a new religion a mythology that is not an atheism mythology in any sense of the word religious paradoy would be significantly more appropriate the nd part is rendered null and void by the simple fact that i do know several strong atheists i am sure that others do i myself am strong in the sense that i find the standard concept of god without any meaning any attempt to bring meaning either results in the destruction of the viability of language or in internal self contradiction the concept of strong atheism is not just a whimsical fantasy they and i exist your strawman is pointless and weak private note to jennifer fakult this post may contain one or more of the following sarcasm cycnicism irony or humor please be aware of this possibility and do not allow yourself to be confused and or thrown for a loop if in doubt assume all of the above the owners of this account do not take any responsiblity for your own confusion which may result from your inability to recognize any of the above read at your own risk jennifer
alt.atheism	re free moral agency in article c uxj pj darkside osrhe uoknor edu bil okcforum osrhe edu bill conner writes see i told you there was an atheist mythology thanks for proving my point bill considering what you quoted and refered to was blank i must say touche of course you are correct there is no atheistic mythology employed on this board or if there is it is null and void private note to jennifer fakult this post may contain one or more of the following sarcasm cycnicism irony or humor please be aware of this possibility and do not allow yourself to be confused and or thrown for a loop if in doubt assume all of the above the owners of this account do not take any responsiblity for your own confusion which may result from your inability to recognize any of the above read at your own risk jennifer
alt.atheism	re free moral agency in article c uzpe p darkside osrhe uoknor edu bil okcforum osrhe edu bill conner writes what offends you is that i have exposed the distortions and misrepresentations of christianity you contrive and then rail against which seems more like the classical strawman dodge than what i said this leaves you with nothing but to attack but me as usual you avoid the larger issues by picking away at the insignificant stuff why not find one particular thing in my post that we can discuss or can you even tell me what the issues are let me guess you re not a psycho analyst in real life but you play one on alt atheism right is esp something you have been given by god private note to jennifer fakult this post may contain one or more of the following sarcasm cycnicism irony or humor please be aware of this possibility and do not allow yourself to be confused and or thrown for a loop if in doubt assume all of the above the owners of this account do not take any responsiblity for your own confusion which may result from your inability to recognize any of the above read at your own risk jennifer
alt.atheism	re death penalty gulf war long in article apr daffy cs wisc edu mccullou snake cs wisc edu mark mccullough writes in article optima cs arizona edu sham cs arizona edu shamim zvonko mohamed writes bullshit in the gulf massacre of all ordnance used was smart the rest that s was just regular dumb ol iron bombs and stuff i have heard figures closer to and of the that was the smart stuff hit again try to follow me here that means of this smart arsenal missed most figures i have seen place the hit ratio close to which is still far higher than your i have a source that says that to date the civilian death count er excuse me i mean collateral damage is about i have never seen any source that was claiming such a figure please post the source so its reliability can be judged obviously we have different sources bill moyers who happens to be a theist to tie this to alt atheism in his pbs documentary after the war is my main source i think i still have it on videotape others include the nation and the progressive the rest of the article is mere rationalisation you may claim that sanitation plants are strategic legitimate targets but what happens to the civilians in a city with no sewer system what happens to the civilians when you destroy water purification plants and when hospitals can t handle the resultant epidemics because there is no more electricity and what exactly are your sources we have all i m sure seen postol s interviews in the media where he demostrates how the pentagon lied about the patriot s effectiveness what is your source for the effectiveness you claim in any case i don t know if this is relevant to alt atheism how about if we move it somewhere else s shamim mohamed uunet noao cmcl arizona shamim shamim cs arizona edu take this cross and garlic here s a mezuzah if he s jewish a page of the koran if he s a muslim and if he s a zen buddhist you re on your own member of the league for programming freedom write to lpf uunet uu net
alt.atheism	re the qur an and atheists was re jewish settlers demolish a mosque in gaza in article p psilink com robert knowles p psilink com writes date sun apr gmt from fred rice darice yoyo cc monash edu au the qur an talks about those who take their lusts and worldly desires for their god i think this probably encompasses most atheists fred rice darice yoyo cc monash edu au as well as all the muslim men screwing fourteen year old prostitutes in thailand got a better quote i wonder if the above quote forms the justification for athiesm and the equanimity with which their belief is arrived at
alt.atheism	re free moral agency andrew newell tan psuvm psu edu wrote i think you re letting atheist mythology confuse you on the issue of webster myth a traditional or legendary story a belief whose truth is accepted uncritically how does that qualify indeed it s almost oxymoronic a rather amusing instance i ve found that most atheists hold almost no atheist views as accepted uncritically especially the few that are legend many are trying to explain basic truths as myths do but they don t meet the other criterions andrew the myth to which i refer is the convoluted counterfeit athiests have created to make religion appear absurd rather than approach religion including christainity in a rational manner and debating its claims as the are stated atheists concoct outrageous parodies and then hold the religious accountable for beliefs they don t have what is more accurately oxymoric is the a term like reasonable atheist bill divine justice according to the most fundamental doctrines of christianity when the first man sinned he was at that time the you accuse him of referencing mythology then you procede to launch your own xtian mythology this time meeting all the requirements of myth here s a good example of of what i said above read the post again i said acoording to which means i am referring to christian doctrine as i understand it if i am speaking for myself you ll know it my purpose in posting was to present a basic overview of christain doctrines since it seemed germane bill with those who pretend not to know what is being said and what it means when atheists claim that they do not know if god exists and don t know what he wants they contradict the bible which clearly says that everyone knows the authority of the bible is its claim to be should i repeat what i wrote above for the sake of getting it across you may trust the bible but your trusting it doesn t make it any more credible to me if the bible says that everyone knows that s clearly reason to doubt the bible because not everyone knows your alleged god s alleged existance again i am paraphrasing christian doctrine which is very clear on this point your dispute is not with me bill refuted while the species wide condemnation is justified those that claim that there is no evidence for the existence of god or that his will is unknown must deliberately ignore the bible the ignorance itself is no excuse no they don t have to ignore the bible the bible is far from universally accepted the bible is not a proof of god it is only a proof that some people have thought that there was a god or does it prove even that they might have been writing it as series of fiction short stories as in the case of dionetics assuming the writers believed it the only thing it could possibly prove is that they believed it and that s ignoring the problem of whether or not all the interpretations and biblical philosophers were correct there are people who have truly never heard of the bible again read the faq here again you miss the point the bible itself is not the point it s what it contains it makes no difference who accpets the bible or even who s unaware of its existence christians hold that it applies universally because mankind shares the same nature and the same fate and the same innate knowledge of god see above if you read my post with same care as read the faq we wouldn t be having this conversation bill freedom you are free to ignore god in the same way you are free to ignore gravity and the consequences are inevitable and well known in both cases that an atheist can t accept the evidence means only bzzt wrong answer gravity is directly there it doesn t stop exerting a direct and rationally undeniable influence if you ignore it god on the other hand doesn t generally show up in the supermarket except on the tabloids god doesn t exert a rationally undeniable influence gravity is obvious gods aren t as i said the evidence is there you just don t accept it here at least we agree bill secondly human reason is very comforatble with the concept of god so much so that it is in itself intrinsic to our nature human reason always comes back to the question of god in every generation and in no human reason hasn t always come back to the existance of god it has usually come back to the existance of god in other words it doesn t generally come back to the xtian god it comes back to whether there is any god and in much of oriental philosophic history it generally doesn t pop up as the idea of a god so much as the question of what natural forces are and which ones are out there from a world wide view human nature just makes us wonder how the universe came to be and or what force s are currently in control a natural tendancy to believe in god only exists in religious wishful thinking yes human reason does always come back to the existence of god we re having this discussion are we not bill i said all this to make the point that christianity is eminently reasonable that divine justice is just and human nature is much different than what atheists think it is whether you agree or not you certainly are not correct on human nature you are at the least basing your views on a completely eurocentric approach try looking at the outside world as well when you attempt to sum up all of humanity well this is interesting truth is to be determined by it politically correct content granted it s extremely unhip to be a wasp male and anything european is contemptable but i thought this kind of dialogue the purpose of a a was to get at the truth of things but then i remember the oxymoron reasonalble atheist and i understand bill
alt.atheism	re free moral agency james felder spbach lerc nasa gov wrote are you saying that their was a physical adam and eve and that all humans are direct decendents of only these two human beings then who were cain and able s wives couldn t be their sisters because a e didn t have daughters were they non humans okay all humans are direct descendents of of a bunch of hopeful monsters the human race didn t evolve from one set parents but from thousands do you really base your atheist on this considering that something like out of humans on this planet don t know instinctively that the christian god exist the claim of instinctive knowledge doesn t look like it hold much water or are you saying that the billion non christians in the world must fight this instinctive urge to acknowledge god and jc did i say that people were christians by nature or did i say that christians hold that everyone knows of the god the christians worship i would have thought the distinction obvious sorry read my post again and see what i really said from what you ve written i think you are just being agumentative also your word wrap is screwed up or you need to shift to columns text bill
alt.atheism	re free moral agency kent sandvik sandvik newton apple com wrote i agree i had a hard feeling not believing my grand grand mother who told me of elves dancing outside barns in the early mornings i preferred not to accept it even if her statement provided the truth itself life is hard kent truly a brilliant rebuttal apparently you are of the opinion that ridicule is a suitable substitute for reason you ll find plenty of company a a bill
alt.atheism	re cruel kmr po cwru edu keith m ryan writes i don t think so although some forms of execution are painful the electric chair looks particularly so i think the pain is relatively short lived drawing and quartering on the other hand looks very painful and the victim wouldn t die right away he d bleed to death i d imagine ah so a cruel punishment is not just if it is painful as you origionally stated it is about long term pain eg non short lived why this sudden chance in your stance i don t think i ve changed my stance at all my original stance was that a painless execution was not