HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
Date: Saturday, 2 January 1993 19:17:56 MST
X-Mailer: TMail version 1.15R
From: "D. C. Sessions" <dcs@witsend.tnet.com>
Organization: Nobody but me -- really
Subject: Re: Removing "god" from morality. (was: Moral liberty)
Newsgroups: talk.religion.misc
Distribution: world

In <1993Jan02.012209.179786@zeus.calpoly.edu>, jmunch@hertz.elee.calpoly.edu (John Munch)  wrote:
# Well why not drop religion completely, and still do what you are calling
# for? We can educate the value of "just" behavior without bringing
# superstition into it. Society and "just" behaviors are a benefit to
# every individual within the society. The problem is that children do not
# always inherently see the benefit to themselves. What is needed is two
# way communication between children and adults. Children are born with
# self interest.

  Dream on!  The classic phrase is "*enlightened* self interest."
  As the parent of ADHD kids, I can assure you that knowing what
  is in your own interest and seeing your way to doing it are
  two quite different things.  (The example that springs to mind
  is of an occasion two weeks ago when I took two of the three
  to a party.  The third, despite knowing that I couldn't be
  late and repeated reminders, simply wouldn't get ready.)

#                I don't think any values should be taught that don't in
# some way benefit the individual child. So all that is needed is to show 
# the child how this behavior will benefit him or her. This may take a lot
# of explaining, visits to the library, or even consulting experts in some
# fields. I maintain that telling the truth is preferable to using religion
# as a basis for values.

  As I said above, this simply won't work reliably.  There are
  innumerable examples of behavior which we KNOW we should change,
  but don't.  What DOES work is directing behavior until the
  desired patterns are ingrained.  Ask any animal trainer, or
  teacher who works with LD kids (no, I'm NOT equating them!)

  You appear to have fallen into the romantic notion (central to
  Xtianity) of the dominance of thought over action.  Wrong-o.
  (See the "Torture and the mind: _Star Trek_ vs. _1984_" thread.)
  This is a particularly Xtian dogma; even other Abrahamic religions
  don't share the form which has shaped so much of Western culture.

--- D. C. Sessions                            Speaking for myself ---
--- Note new network address:                dcs@witsend.tnet.com ---
--- Author (and everything else!) of TMail  (DOS mail/news shell) ---
From: sieferme@stein.u.washington.edu (Eric Sieferman)
Newsgroups: talk.religion.misc
Subject: Re: The delusional nature of sincere belief.
Date: 29 Dec 1992 16:33:24 GMT
Organization: University of Washington, Seattle
NNTP-Posting-Host: stein.u.washington.edu

In article <adams.725585678@spssig> adams@spss.com (Steve Adams) writes:
>Except that this was in response to an specific person (Sean Hartigan), who
>claimed to have 'accepted Christ,' but didn't believe in the resurection or
>the incarnation.  Sean's point was that since he had "accepted" Christ, he
>was covered.  I pointed out that this was not the case.

Only for certain traditions under the broad umbrella of 
"christianity".  To this day, many christians still debate
the meaning of the idea that Jesus was man/god.
Relative few christians question the historical accuracy
of the resurrection, but I have known some who do.

>Secondly, we were discussing 'heart' confession, as oppsosed to mind
>confession.  Sean's claim was that the heart was uncontrollable, and
>therefore any claim 'by the heart' wasn't controllable and thus such a
>requirement was impossible.
>
>As to your specific comments, the issue is that when one accepts Jesus
>Christ as Lord, one does so with their whole mind and whole heart and whole
>soul.  If you don't do that, then you haven't accepted.

Then no one has ever been a "real" christian.  This standard is
not possible for any fallible human; it says so in the NT.

This reminds me of Nietzsche's quip that the last
christian died on the cross.  So true.

>There is no con game here.  It is your choice to make.  Your decision on
>whether or not you think Scripture is the word of God.  No force, no
>intimidation. 

No intimidation?  What happens to people who make the
wrong choice?



-- 
---------------------------------------------------------------
       A Lie is still a Lie, even if you believe it.
---------------------------------------------------------------

Newsgroups: talk.religion.misc,alt.pagan
From: billn@hpcvaac.cv.hp.com (bill nelson)
Subject: Re: The meaning of "pagan"
Organization: Hewlett-Packard Company, Corvallis, Oregon USA
Date: Fri, 1 Jan 1993 09:27:19 GMT

markbr%radian@natinst.com (markbr) writes:
: >
: That kind of live&let-live is all fine & good, if everyone agrees. 
: Unfortunately, it ain't that way. First, xians usually do try to force
: their definitions on us. Second, I suggest that it would be *real* *hard*
: to find a Xian, who most other xians would agree was xian, who did *NOT*
: follow the logic of J.C. purportedly saying "I am the only way", and 
: "therefore *everything* else is false, and I'm letting all these people
: go to Hell if I don't show them the Right Way(tm)" If one side says,
: all paths are equally valid, and another side says, "there's only *ONE*
: right way: MINE", then the first group, if they do not push their own
: definitions, and defend themselves, wind up like the Democrats in the
: 80's, who sat in the corner and acted like they were saying "please
: don't kick me (whimper, whimper)".

From what I have read in the Bible - Jesus did not say this. He is  
supposed to have said "I am the way". That does not deny others as
also being valid. He was only claiming that his way was valid.  I
would expect, if the people who collated the mythology called the
Bible had meant "only", that they would have written it that way.

Bill

Newsgroups: talk.religion.misc
From: nadja@jetsun.weitek.COM (Nadja Adolf)
Subject: Re: An Abortion Argument that has nothing to do with OT and NT
Organization: WEITEK Corporation, Sunnyvale CA
Date: Wed, 30 Dec 92 22:00:28 GMT

In article <C036D1.Cz1@usenet.ucs.indiana.edu> creps@silver.ucs.indiana.edu (Steve Creps) writes:
>In article <adams.725552866@spssig> adams@spss.com (Steve Adams) writes:
>>Ya know, for a guy with a PhD, you don't know very much, do you?  The word
>>'Catholic' means 'universal.'  All persons who are members of the one,
>>universal church are catholic.  Lutherans are catholic.  So are Orthodox
>>(both Greek & Russian), Episcopalians, etc.  You're being far to
>>provincial, Dr.  The Roman church has no valid claim on sole catholicity.

>   Except that all the abovementioned denominations broke off from the
>"Roman church."  If Christ really did give His authority to what is
>now called the Catholic Church, then it seems to me that anyone who
>rejects that authority has left the Church to some degree.  And if the
>Catholic Church does in fact have this authority, then the Church can
>also say who can be called Catholic.

Wrong. The Roman Church rejected the authority of Christ's teachings, and
instead substituted pagans such as Aristotle. And invented fantasies and
delusions and taught them as the teachings of God. Examples: bodily ascnscion
of Mary into heaven, immaculate conception of Mary, fasting from meat on
Fridays, calling a man on Earth as your Father in heaven, claiming a man
to be infallible. God built his church on Simon Peter, not the seven hilled
city.

>   How catholic, how universal is it, really, to break off into schism
>from the main body of the Church into a separate group?  That sounds
>the opposite of catholic to me.

And someday, I hope, Rome will repent its errors and delusions and rejoin
the Church, Catholic.

Everybody's going Lutheran - Lutherans USA....
From: alanf@tekig6.PEN.TEK.COM (Alan M Feuerbacher)
Newsgroups: talk.religion.misc
Subject: Re: Choosing a Bible translation
Date: 22 Dec 92 01:18:24 GMT
Organization: Tektronix, Inc., Beaverton,  OR.

In article <fWVg9JC@quack.sac.ca.us> pharvey@quack.sac.ca.us (Paul Harvey) writes:
> [....]
>>>What does the Christian Revelations 22:18-19 say again? Or does this
>>>not apply to translations of the original Bible languages?
> [....]
>Rev 22:18(KJV): For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of
>the prophecy of this book, if any man shall add unto these things, God
>shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book:
> [....]

It should be noted that Rev. 22:18 applies ONLY to the scroll of
Revelation.  Otherwise, the further books of the bible written by
John would be "things added to this scroll," since they were written
*after* Revelation.

Alan Feuerbacher
alanf@atlas.pen.tek.com

Newsgroups: talk.religion.misc
From: arromdee@jyusenkyou.cs.jhu.edu (Ken Arromdee)
Subject: Re: Criticism:  "There's no logic in Christianity"
Organization: Johns Hopkins University CS Dept.
Date: Thu, 24 Dec 1992 20:55:30 GMT

In article <1992Dec24.050037.8184@microsoft.com> bobsarv@microsoft.com (Bob Sarver) writes:
>Correctly constructed arguments can be both false and illogical.
>This is an example which parallels yours closely:
>  1.  Dragons exist and like to eat people
>  2.  Silver has been blessed by the gods; that is why it shines so bright
>  3.  Dragons hate the metal silver
>  4.  SO:  it is good to wear silver
>The argument is false because the science doesn't back it up (dragons
>don't exist).
>The argument is illogical because there is no demonstrated cause-and-effect
>between the steps.

I don't understand what you mean when you say that there's no demonstrated
cause-and-effect between the steps.  Do you mean that the conclusion doesn't
follow from the premises?  If so, then how can you call it correctly
constructed?
--
"the bogosity in a field equals the bogosity imported from related areas, plus
the bogosity generated internally, minus the bogosity expelled or otherwise
disposed of."  -- K. Eric Drexler

Ken Arromdee (arromdee@jyusenkyou.cs.jhu.edu, arromdee@jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu)
Newsgroups: talk.religion.misc,alt.pagan
From: drake+@cs.cmu.edu (Drake)
Subject: Re: PAGAN, was You should be a Christian because (30 words max):
Keywords: Satanism, pagan
Organization: School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon
Date: Sun, 27 Dec 1992 22:19:20 GMT

muttiah@thistle.ecn.purdue.edu (Ranjan S Muttiah) writes:

>>if they are trying to imply that Witches are Satanists I will get annoyed
>>even if they don't use the word Wicca.
>
>Hold it right there, you are using Satanist with a capital S and that
>grieves me no end.

If Christian capitalized?  Satanist should be the same.  Most Satanists are
willing to allow the Christians, Mulsims and Hindus their "proper noun"
claims; let's have some equal representation!  Maybe even Athiest...


-- 
Love and Laughter,             | NOTE: Private mail must go explicitly
Xeper and Remanifest,          | to drake@seismo.soar.cs.cmu.edu
                       DRAKE   | or it'll bounce back to you...
From: ksand@apple.com (Kent Sandvik )
Newsgroups: talk.religion.misc
Subject: Re: Criticism: "There's no logic in Christianity"
Date: 31 Dec 92 01:27:21 GMT
Followup-To: talk.religion.misc
Organization: (Evil Eye Creature from Mars, Inc.)

In article <1992Dec29.222741.26530@csrd.uiuc.edu>,
skinner@sp94.csrd.uiuc.edu (Gregg Skinner) wrote:
> 
> ksand@apple.com (Kent Sandvik ) writes:
> 
> >If we can't agree on
> >the premisses, how could we then agree on the logical conclusions?
> 
> The issue here is not agreement on the truth of the conclusions.  The
> issue is the existence of logic in the arguments.  One can start with
> any premise; it can be as "metaphysical" as one likes.  If we use the
> premise to form a conclusion following the rules of logic, we have all
> the ingredients for a valid argument.  We say that the logic of the
> argument is valid.  For instance, the following is an example of valid
> logic.

This is were we disagree. Let's give an example, now I establish
a premiss called SchlackerDunkGestalt -- and a couple more, and just
to honour the tradition to use weird foreign/german names, I do
the same:


SchlackerDunkGestalt is the ultimate PrippsMacht of DunkerLangerung.
If DunkerLangerung has a NichtVerlangen, then 
PrippsMacht will unterlangetize SchlackerkDunkGestalt!

As you see we had a fully logical construct, but then someone
might ask what is SchlackerDunkGestalt. By which I answer, that's
not relevant in order to show that we had a logical statement!

Mr. Skinner, was this logical or not?

Have a nice new year!

Kent

Kent
-------------------
Kent Sandvik (UUCP: ....!apple!ksand; INTERNET: ksand@apple.com)
DISCLAIMER: Private activities on the Net.		
"Don't just do something!  Stand there!"  -- Mystery Science Theater 3000
From: ksand@apple.com (Kent Sandvik )
Newsgroups: talk.religion.misc
Subject: Re: Choosing a Bible translation
Date: 23 Dec 92 02:16:38 GMT
Followup-To: talk.religion.misc
Organization: (Evil Eye Creature from Mars, Inc.)

In article <BzoKqo.I6s@umassd.edu>, sodonnell@UMASSD.EDU (Sandy O'Donnell)
wrote:
> In article <ksand-211292185632@wintermute.apple.com>, ksand@apple.com (Kent Sandvik ) writes:
> >My personal opinion is that an omnipotent God would certainly make
> >sure that the universal truth is clear and explainable in one single
> >way.

> Maybe......God let the bible become unclear and  contradictive so that
> when it came time for the age of enlightenment, intelligence would begin
> to question the authority of the "written word." Like.. why will all the
> people in China go to hell because they don't accept Christ as their
> savior. Do you actually think God approved of the Crusades? The bible
> needs to be questioned, other religions need to be studied, find your
> own path, not one dictated by angry celibate dogmatic men.( I'm talking
> about the translators). The bible contains beauty and wisdom but so
> do alot of other religions. Maybe one day the best of all religions
> can be combined into one. 

Hi, that's an interesting idea. However, I'm skeptical about this all.
Anyone who's ever written a computer manual or a technical article
would adhor the idea to deliberately explain things in a diffuse
matter so end users would start trying to test out things and learn
about the system. It does not sell software. Neither religions.
Bad PR. Bad karma.

Kent
-------------------
Kent Sandvik (UUCP: ....!apple!ksand; INTERNET: ksand@apple.com)
DISCLAIMER: Private activities on the Net.		
"Don't just do something!  Stand there!"  -- Mystery Science Theater 3000
From: ksand@apple.com (Kent Sandvik )
Newsgroups: talk.religion.misc
Subject: Ideas, information, knowledge
Date: 31 Dec 92 02:43:29 GMT
Followup-To: talk.religion.misc
Organization: (Evil Eye Creature from Mars, Inc.)

OK, silly me again. I really have to go home, but I got this 
nice idea as part of a Gedanken experiment I had when I tried to
finish a piece of work.

It's about how we could agree on premisses concerning abstract
notions, Euclid, Wittgenstein, Christianity et rest.

This is the scenario: in the computing world we have a myriad
of plain ideas, and logic is based upon either using these ideas,
modifying them or otherwise 'play around' with 'em.

Now, someone might state that this is a perfect case for showing
that premisses should be valid for logical constructions, how abstract
they still are.

Yes.

However, a simple test that shows for instance that I'm misusing
one of the abstract APIs would show me if something was logical
or not. So we have a direct mapping between assertion and verification.

In other words experience shows us that the premise could be used 
for a logical construct.

In the case of religious premises most us us non-believers have 
a hard time justifying the logic created by these religious premises,
because we can't tweak the parameters and see what is going on.

In other words there's a clear separation between ideas and verifiable
ideas. I hope this shares some light into this IMHO important observation
concering verification of logical statements. I guess someone has 
comments...

Kent
-------------------
Kent Sandvik (UUCP: ....!apple!ksand; INTERNET: ksand@apple.com)
DISCLAIMER: Private activities on the Net.		
"Don't just do something!  Stand there!"  -- Mystery Science Theater 3000
Newsgroups: talk.religion.misc
From: drake+@cs.cmu.edu (Drake)
Subject: Re: The delusional nature of sincere belief.
Organization: School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon
Date: Sun, 3 Jan 1993 08:04:17 GMT

In article <adams.725848950@spssig> adams@spss.com (Steve Adams) writes:

>>To what end is this "the best you can do?"  In concrete terms, what do you
>>hope to get out of this, that you choose to follow the way of another
>>rather than your own?
>
>To have a right relationship with God.

Why do you desire this?

>>Are you saying that you are willingly unrepentant of some of your
>>so-called sin?  I'm not sure I understand this.
>
>Well, uhm, yes.  Basically, I look at who I was 'then' and those things I
>did made perfect sense, and in the same position I would do the same thing.
>How can I repent that?

I perceive that it would be very difficult for me to adhere to a deity whose
moral standards were so alien to my own.  But I respect your feelings on
this point.

>>Your premise - "If you do ungodly things, you deserve hell" isn't quite
>>what I was looking for.  If a woman refuses to have sex with a man, would
>>you say that she "deserves" rape?  
>
>Of course not...but the analogy is false.

Why?  Perhaps it hits a few societal buttons, but I don't think that it
is a false analogy.  The pattern is the same in both - if you refuse to
acquiese to demands put upon you by another, you deserve to have bad
things happen to you.  The demands are "do godly things" and "have sex
with a man"; the bad things are "go to hell" and "get raped."

>>lies with me.  If what you believe is right, and God chooses to send me
>>to hell, then I will go gladly - not because I think I "deserve" it, but
>>because I would not wish to spend a single moment in a heaven ruled by
>>such a God as that.
>I see your point...but to me, God being the all-powerful creator, has the 
>right to set up the system any way he wishes...I don't always like it,
>either.  But in the end, He is God and His way is right(tm).

I differ with you on the "all-powerful creator" bit, but even assuming that
I accepted it, I would still choose to live out my own will instead of
humbling myself before him...the one thing I refuse to compromise is my
own integrity.  Doing that would be equivalent to annihilation, in my
eyes.  Perhaps I shall burn...but 'twill be ME that burns in hell, rather
than a shadow enjoying paradise.

-- 
Love and Laughter,             | NOTE: Private mail must go explicitly
Xeper and Remanifest,          | to drake@seismo.soar.cs.cmu.edu
                       DRAKE   | or it'll bounce back to you...
From: geb@cs.pitt.edu (Gordon Banks)
Newsgroups: talk.religion.misc
Subject: Re: Mormonism
Date: 22 Dec 92 22:28:24 GMT
Reply-To: geb@cs.pitt.edu (Gordon Banks)
Organization: Univ. of Pittsburgh Computer Science

In article <b8vv02MI2efK01@JUTS.ccc.amdahl.com> agr00@JUTS.ccc.amdahl.com (Anthony G Rose) writes:
>
>If it is a problem determining when the person is speaking as a prophet,
>then you have a much more serious problem.  How then are you going to
>know when he's speaking for God or of himself in telling you what is
>correct?  

That is why every person has the responsibility of receiving confirmation
directly from God about these things.  This not only applies to utterances
of the Mormon prophet, but the Bible.  Mormons do not hold *anything*
to be infallible, but everything is subject to error and misinterpretation.
Only direct revelation from God will suffice to confirm to the person
the truth.  It's a difficult and uncomfortable standard, that is for sure.  
I can see why fundamentalists would like to believe all the answers to
every question lie in the pages of the Bible.  And I can see why some
Mormons would like to have every question answered for them by the prophet.
It's not that simple.  

"Caminante, no hay camino,
se hace camino al andar"  

             -Machado




-- 
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Gordon Banks  N3JXP      | "I have given you an argument; I am not obliged
geb@cadre.dsl.pitt.edu   |  to supply you with an understanding." -S.Johnson
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: talk.religion.misc
From: muehlhau@en.ecn.purdue.edu (John Muehlhausen)
Subject: On similarities between creation accounts...
Organization: Purdue University Engineering Computer Network
Date: Wed, 23 Dec 92 01:51:34 GMT


It has been shown that there are many creation accounts that are
similar to the Genesis account.  I do not think this can be used to
critique its credibility, however.  If the Genesis account is the one
handed down to men by God, then the fact that it has influenced other 
accounts is not suprising.  If it is not, and none is, then all such
stories are so much drivel.  If it is not, and some other is, then
God has not been able to keep the correct one in the mainstream,
which makes one wonder why He told us in the first place...

John M.

Newsgroups: talk.religion.misc
From: sodonnell@UMASSD.EDU (Sandy O'Donnell)
Subject: Re: Choosing a Bible translation
Reply-To: sodonnell@UMASSD.EDU
Organization: UMASS DARTMOUTH, NO. DARTMOUTH, MA.
Date: Wed, 23 Dec 1992 19:29:06 GMT

In article <ksand-221292181435@wintermute.apple.com>, ksand@apple.com (Kent Sandvik ) writes:
>In article <BzoKqo.I6s@umassd.edu>, sodonnell@UMASSD.EDU (Sandy O'Donnell)
>wrote:
>> In article <ksand-211292185632@wintermute.apple.com>, ksand@apple.com (Kent Sandvik ) writes:
>> >My personal opinion is that an omnipotent God would certainly make
>> >sure that the universal truth is clear and explainable in one single
>> >way.
>
>> Maybe......God let the bible become unclear and  contradictive so that
>> when it came time for the age of enlightenment, intelligence would begin
>> to question the authority of the "written word." Like.. why will all the
>> people in China go to hell because they don't accept Christ as their
>> savior. Do you actually think God approved of the Crusades? The bible
>> needs to be questioned, other religions need to be studied, find your
>> own path, not one dictated by angry celibate dogmatic men.( I'm talking
>> about the translators). The bible contains beauty and wisdom but so
>> do alot of other religions. Maybe one day the best of all religions
>> can be combined into one. 
>
>Hi, that's an interesting idea. However, I'm skeptical about this all.
>Anyone who's ever written a computer manual or a technical article
>would adhor the idea to deliberately explain things in a diffuse
>matter so end users would start trying to test out things and learn
>about the system. It does not sell software. Neither religions.
>Bad PR. Bad karma.
>
Hi Kent,
Well the key word here was enlightenment which means: European philoso-
phical movement characterized by rationalism, an impetus toward learning
and a spirit of skepticism and empiricism in social and political
thought. Those who would adhor the idea to deliberatley explain things
in a diffuse manner, are from the age of enlightenment ( our age).
The religious dogmatics of the Dark and Middle Ages were only
interested in control of the masses and self aggrandizement. Not
in the Love of God and Christ. The Crusaders were not salesmen. But
no doubt they have bad karma...........Sandy
..................................All that is gold does not glitter
...................................Not all those who wander are lost.