From: S106495@UMRVMA.umr.edu
Subject: Re: Atheism and Intelligence
Date: Fri, 11 Dec 1992 21:22:39 GMT
Organization: Univ of MO - Rolla

Here are more of my views, for those of you who are not too busy to
read a more wordy dissertation and do care about personal opinions that
are not quite so easy to prove as other opinions.       I do not think
that the morality of the followers of many beliefs voids the belief.
For example, most sects of Christianity concede to the sinfulness of
humanity, so if the followers are not compassionate, it does not mean
the religion is bunk.  It is very hard to say whether the courage and
virtue of a group of people is a result of their religion (or lack
therof) or if it is just a bunch of really nice guys who decided to try
some strage beliefs.  Besides, what exactly is "virtue" anyway? What is
cruel to one person may be virtuous to another.  Just look at the
abortion battle-both sides calling the other side cruel
One thing that does concern me is how quickly we can dismiss
religions we don't believe in, especially those with no living
followers, while defending our own religions against similar arguments.
We dismiss the Greek Gods, since we know Zeus does not "throw" the
ligtning, but we defened Christianity even though many things Christ did
are impossible and the Creation story is contradicted by our science
(personall, I think both the Bible and science are vague on creation)
This leads to my thoughts on what i think is called metaphysics.  I
believe that to a large extent the physical world is unaffected by God.
(note that creation is an obvious exception)   There might be no way our
science could even perceive the effects or lack therof of God, similar
to the seven blind men trying to perceive an elephant.  Some might even
go as far as saying Zeus really does exist, and he hides himself in the
electrical fields that throw lightning.
I believe we humans are blind to most of the world.  We can only
see what our physical senses tell us, and we can only understant the
things that our mind's functions are capable of processing.  Think of
how ignorant a computer is of the world, and realize there might be
beings out there that see us like it-limited in experience and ability
to even process the information we have.  A computer can't really write
a poem, even if it was programmed with everything an average person ever
saw or heard.  We may be similar,  I believe we not only can't know if
there is a God, but we can't know what he/she/them/it? is thinking or
doing or is composed of.
The real question is ACTION: belief is in many ways an action.  The
action of believing might not be related to such things as knowing and
truth. For example, belief might be a gamble: someone once said "If we
believe in God and he does not exist, we have lost nothing.  If we
reject God and he does exist, we have lost everything"  Unfortunately,
many religions do call for sacrifices, but I think the Catholic church i
was brought up in (i am 21) was more tolerant, almost to the point of
just being compassionate and preaching very few dogmatic rules.  One especially
 interesting point of "action" is tolerance.  Is it right to compromise your
religion'
s  mandate to preach and believe in exchange for being open to other
religions?  That question could hold its own message base for a long
time.        -Hope this helps you think
-Mike Belrose, U of MO - Rolla
Newsgroups: rec.org.mensa