HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: bstadnik@miavx2.ham.muohio.edu
Newsgroups: alt.atheism,alt.satanism
Subject: Re: Backward Masking
Date: 6 Apr 92 03:53:50 GMT
Organization: Miami University, Hamilton campus

In article <1992Apr3.150442.1@ulkyvx.louisville.edu>, rtsumn01@ulkyvx.louisville.edu writes:
> In article <1992Mar31.235053.489@miavx2.ham.muohio.edu>, bstadnik@miavx2.ham.
> muohio.edu writes:
>> 
  [Question about backward masking deleted]

>>   I would post in the Satinist newsgroup, but figured their answer would be 
>> just as biased.
> 
> Gee, that's pretty discriminatory. When someone asks me an objective question,
> I try to give an objective answer with specific examples and references. Not
> that the opportunity arises too often; people are usually just interested in
> finding out what Satanists believe and why (morbid curiousity I suppose).
                   ^^^^^^^^
> 
> I'm disappointed to find such assumptions in a normally rational newsgroup.

     Which is the precise reason I posted in this newsgroup, to get the most
unbiased and factual opinions without bringing a supreme creator or some man in
a funny red suit(not Santa Claus) into the picture. 

By the way thanks for all you postings and mail.  It is a great help.  The
books are great and I got all the answers I needed. 

> 
> --Semhaza
> 
> P.S. I can spell 'athiesm' correctly, can you please try to do the same with
                    ???????
> 'Satanism'?

Did you actually graduate from high school or what?  Atheism- A,T,H,E,I,S,M.
The proper spelling for the word meaning, "the belief that there is no God."

Now to the second point.  Satanist is capitalized just as 'God' is capitalized
in the previous sentence.  I suppose it was originally something to do with
respect or proper names, but that is how it is in every dictionary I have read. 
What I wanted to say was in fact Satanist.  Either you are a total idiot, or
you need glasses. (See your spelling for Satanist(s)).  

  Brian- B,r,i,a,n.
From: martin@pharaoh.cyborg.bt.co.uk (Martin Gorman)
Newsgroups: alt.atheism
Subject: Re: Achilles heels for religion?
Date: 6 Apr 92 16:16:56 GMT
Organization: British Telecom

In article <1992Mar31.214418.29839@bmerh2.bnr.ca>, dgraham@bmers30.bnr.ca (Douglas Graham) writes:
> 
> I'll tell you what I think about the Christian interpretation.  I
> don't think that any interpretation is mentioned explicitly.  I think
> Christians just teach it to their kids because they think God wants
> them to.  They don't know why.  But the message gets through loud
> and clear to the kids nontheless.  The message is that wiping out
> other people is just fine, as long as you've been told that the big
> guy is on your side.  And I think that this has a great deal to do
> with why we are such a warlike people.  I doubt if things are much
> different in the Jewish "interpretatation".
>
Thankyou. I started and abandoned several posts trying to explain
why I think teaching morals from a book of rules, especially
religious, is not a very good idea. The above example explains
it very well. If the bible was written by somebody other than god,
or an immoral god, you're fucked. Any message of social control
of the most outrageous and brutal sort could be built in and
people will just keep passing it on because they've been told
its god's will. Some critique born of personal experience has
to be applied. And beware if the main beneficieries appear
to be the church hierarchy or the government of the country.
From: ksand@apple.com (Kent Sandvik)
Newsgroups: alt.atheism
Subject: Re: Achilles heels for religion?
Date: 10 Apr 92 23:15:44 GMT
Organization: MacDTS Mongols

> In article <72193@netnews.upenn.edu> weemba@libra.wistar.upenn.edu (Matthew P
Wiener) writes:
> >When I taught calculus to freshman, I was required to lie my head off.
> >Telling them the raw truth about derivatives and integrals would have
> >popped their still developing cerebral cortices.

What's so dangerous with truth? If you as a teacher deliberately hide
or disguise facts, then you will never get the respect of the
pupils.

Kent, speaking from personal experience as a teacher (long time ago).
From: yohan@sam.ksu.ksu.edu (Jonathan W Newton)
Newsgroups: alt.atheism
Subject: Re: Do Atheists Have Their Own "Faith"?
Date: 17 Apr 1992 15:04:39 -0500
Organization: Kansas State University
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: sam.ksu.ksu.edu


From: rlk@underprize.think.com (Robert Krawitz)

Perhaps a better way to put it (speaking for myself) is that I don't
have any good reasons FOR believing in a god.  Given that I see no
reason to make such an assumption, why should I make it?  So I have no
specific reasons for believing that a god doesn't exist (although there
are specific reasons for believing, say, that the god of the
Judeo-Christian-Islamic bible doesn't exist, given that said bible makes
specific claims about said god).

Me:

Right, I feel exactly the same why.  But that doesn't have anything to do with my
original question.  It was:  "how can someone believe there is NOT a god?"
I have no reasons to believe that there is a god, and insufficient reasons to
believe that there ISN'T one.  Therefore, due to a lack of logical arguements,
that support or refute the existence of God, I cannot draw a conclusion.  If I
did, that would be an assumption, which is essentially blind faith.  Again, I'm
interested in reasons to believe one way or another, which some people have done
a good job on.


Jon Newton
From: weemba@libra.wistar.upenn.edu (Matthew P Wiener)
Newsgroups: alt.atheism
Subject: Re: Matthew P Wiener -- why is he so paranoid?
Date: 6 Apr 92 14:32:02 GMT
Reply-To: weemba@libra.wistar.upenn.edu (Matthew P Wiener)
Organization: The Wistar Institute of Anatomy and Biology
In-reply-to: edw@caligula.cts.com (Ed Watkeys)

In article <01050133.05at1a@caligula.cts.com>, edw@caligula (Ed Watkeys) writes:
>I haven't been around alt.atheism very long (a month or so), but in this time,
>more than anything else, I have gotten the feeling that Matthew P Wiener has
>a persecution complex, is rude and generally a sour kind of person. I don't
>think these feelings are unfounded -- I have about twenty messages from him
>currently waiting to be expired, and he has never once been what I would call
>pleasant. Is there a reason for all of this?

Yes.  I'm responding to some very unpleasant people.  You don't notice,
since you've apparently decided that any unpleasant remarks that attack
the "right" group are not really unpleasant after all.  I don't think so.
-- 
-Matthew P Wiener (weemba@libra.wistar.upenn.edu)
From: simon@dcs.warwick.ac.uk (Simon Clippingdale)
Newsgroups: alt.atheism
Subject: Re: Do Atheists Have Their Own "Faith"?
Date: 15 Apr 92 15:46:06 GMT
Organization: Department of Computer Science, Warwick University, England

In article <1992Apr15.135646.25623@apollo.hp.com> perry@apollo.hp.com (Jim Perry) writes:
>
>"Strong atheism" in the sense "thinking that the weight of evidence
>indicates that in all probability that which is called God does not
>exist" is not the same as the theologically-based "believing as an act
>of faith that God, an inherently unknowable entity, absolutely does
>not or can not exist".
>
>-- 
>Jim Perry   perry@apollo.hp.com    HP/Apollo, Chelmsford MA


Sure enough. But both are "strong" in the sense of believe(not(god)) as
opposed to the "weak" not(believe(god)).

What I was attempting to suggest is that "strong" doesn't necessarily
imply the kind of

> theologically-based "believing as an act of faith that God, an
> inherently unknowable entity, absolutely does not or can not exist"

which you mention, and which is frequently (wrongly, I suggest) thought
to be synonymous with the "strong" view.

Ultimately it seems to boil down to how one defines "believe", or
"believe that...", and whether it carries the theological baggage of
faith.

For the reasons I stated, if I get asked whether I believe that there
is no god/s, the answer's a big juicy "yes", with absolutely no faith
anywhere in sight (yuck!! the very thought!).


Cheers

Simon
-- 
----------------------------------------------------------------------
"Every morning when you wake up and look in the mirror, check yourself
for signs of collective identity" - Consolidated on "This Is Fascism"
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: mathew@mantis.co.uk (From A to B)
Newsgroups: alt.atheism
Subject: FAQ file reminder
Date: 9 Apr 92 11:12:06 GMT
Followup-To: poster
Distribution: world,public
Organization: Mantis Consultants, Cambridge. UK.

[ I propose to post this reminder about the FAQ file approximately once a
  week or so.  I don't intend to re-post the file itself weekly, as that
  would be a gross waste of bandwidth.  Other information about how to get
  the FAQ file on various Usenet-connected networks would be welcomed.
  How about Australia, for instance?  Also, please report any problems
  to me.  I don't have FTP, so I can't test the instructions below. ]

This is a reminder about the alt.atheism Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
file.

The file exists to help new readers avoid embarrassing themselves by asking
questions which have been covered over and over again.  Please read it before
posting.

To find a copy:

1. Check the newsgroup alt.atheism.  There should be a copy of the latest
   version of the FAQ file.  Look for the subject line "Alt.Atheism
   Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)".

2. Check the newsgroup news.answers for the same subject line.

   If you don't find anything in steps 1 or 2, your news system isn't set up
   correctly, and you may wish to tell your system administrator about the
   problem.

3. If you have anonymous FTP access, connect to pit-manager.mit.edu
   [18.172.1.27].  Go to the directory /pub/usenet/alt.atheism, and you'll
   find the latest version of the FAQ file there.

4. If you don't have FTP, send mail to mail-server@pit-manager.mit.edu
   consisting of the following line:

      send usenet/alt.atheism/Alt.Atheism_Frequently_Asked_Questions_(FAQ)

   The FAQ file should be mailed back to you automatically.

5. If you're in the UK and don't have access to international mail, send
   mail to info-server@mantis.co.uk consisting of the following line:

      send atheism/atheism.txt

   and our poor overworked modems will try and send you a copy.


mathew

-- 
Hail Eris! / "Our whole economy's based on fear and death; how long can we get
away with this?" --- Jello Biafra / Message for Kodak: Bring back Dan Bredy! /
PGP RSA public key available on request / Desperately seeking Negativland's U2
CD / Just another would-be Mac owner put off by Apple's monopolistic practices
Newsgroups: alt.atheism
From: ingles@bluejay.engin.umich.edu (Ray Ingles)
Subject: Re: Do Atheists have Thier Own "Faith"?
Date: Mon, 13 Apr 92 23:13:53 EDT
Organization: University of Michigan Engineering, Ann Arbor


In article <45220@mentor.cc.purdue.edu>, gfritz@sage.cc.purdue.edu ("Happy Fun Ball") writes:

[deletions]

> >I state:
> >  There can be no all-powerful entity.  It just defies the properties of this
> >  universe.  
> >
> >Colman asks:
> >  Why not? Which ones?
> 
> Okay, let me make a statement:  There can be nothing in existence that has
> absolute power ("omnipotent").  Why?  Because being all-powerful would in 
> itself would put limits on that power.  I will post the same question as I did
> to someone who responded to my post via e-mail.  I read this in _The Emperor's
> New Mind_ by Roger Penrose:  "Can God create a stone too big for Him to lift?"
> Either answer limits His power.

 Sure, one part of omnipotence would be the ability to become
non-omnipotent. No problem. The correct answer is, "Sure, God
could, by why bother?

>It ranks right up there with the Immovable
> Object vs the Unstoppable Force.  What happens when these two collide?  The
> classic answer is an Inconceivable Event.

 But this is not an "Inconceivable" event, it's an *impossible*
one.
 If there exists an 'immovable force,' there cannot be an 'immovable
object.' And vice-versa.

[deletions]

> >Somewhat ambiguous on my part:
> >  A note on the concept of good, bad, & evil.  There is no such thing as evil.
> >  Bad is just entropy, and good is the lack of entropy.  
> >
> >Colman justifiably inquires:
> >  What? In what sense are you using "entropy"? I don't understand what those
> >  sentences mean. In fact I'm not sure they mean anything.
> 
> Entropy as in the physics/thermodynamic sense: disorder.  Most things that 
> might be classified as "bad" would have higher entropy.  A dead person has more
> entropy than a living one.  A shattered glass has more entropy than an intact 
> one.  The tendancy of "good" is to maintain or lower entropy within a system.  
> A "good" government would keeps things in order, whereas anarchy would lead to 
> a "bad" very unorganized society.  I don't feel that "evil" is its own property
> but just an extreme form of "bad".   
>   
> I admit that last statement really had nothing to do with the original post or
> my asnwer in response to it -- the "good/bad" statent.  I should have posted it
> separately.  I apologize for the tangent.  :-)

 But a live body will continue to eat and produce more entropy than
a dead one.
 And a dictatorship will produce even more order than a democracy,
even assuming the order involved is anything like thermodynamic order,
which it isn't.

[deletions]

> Geoff

Sincerely,

Ray Ingles                  || The above opinions are probably
                            || not those of the University of
ingles@caen.engin.umich.edu || Michigan. Yet.
Newsgroups: alt.atheism
From: rescorla@rtnmr.chem.yale.edu (Eric Rescorla)
Subject: Re: Matthew P Wiener -- why is he so paranoid?
Organization: Rescorla for himself.
Date: Thu, 9 Apr 1992 23:05:14 GMT

In article <73489@netnews.upenn.edu> weemba@libra.wistar.upenn.edu (Matthew P Wiener) writes:
>In article <1992Apr9.183804.16479@cs.yale.edu>, rescorla@rtnmr (Eric Rescorla) writes:
>>>Historians deal with the self-serving nature of primary documents all the
>>>time, and have ways to read past such literalisms.
>
>>Hmmm...Funny how you have such confidence in this sort of criticism
>>when you think it defends your point.
>
>This is backwards.  The historians I'm familiar with come to the con-
>clusion that the Pharisees were the majority party, so I have confidence
>that this includes seeing past potential self-serving distortions.
Like I said. You have confidence when it defends your point,
but not otherwise. 

>>conclusion that the Pharisees were not dominant. Do you have
>>a citation to support your claim that they had come to the conclusion
>>you say? Note that I am challenging a positive claim by you. You
>>have the burden of proof, not I.
>
>You can look in Paul Johnson's A HISTORY OF THE JEWS for starts.
Would you care to be a bit more specific? Page and line number
with a quote, for instance?

-Ekr


-- 
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Eric Rescorla, DoD#431, Honda CM400 rider          rescorla@rtnmr.chem.yale.edu
Yale University Department of Chemistry            We hack anything.
My mind is now for rent: C/Unix,Vacuum Tech,Machining,P-Chemist. Hire me, eh?
From: mikel@Apple.COM (Mikel Evins)
Newsgroups: alt.atheism
Subject: Re: The "God Does Not Exist" Proof
Date: 7 Apr 92 18:29:12 GMT
Distribution: world,local
Organization: Apple Computer Inc., Cupertino, CA

In article <1992Apr6.154504.1@ulkyvx.louisville.edu> pralmo01@ulkyvx.louisville.edu writes:
>First of all:
>I do not believe divine foreknowledge necessarily extends to all possible
>universes, but only to those which actually exist.

I don't understand this position. It appears at first glance that
you are arbitrarily limiting the definition of divine foreknowledge.
Furthermore, in discussing a hypothetical God's decisions about
what universe to create, it puzzles me to encounter the idea
of universes that 'actually exist'. I don't know what this might
mean.

>Secondly:
>To say that God 'imagines' human beings and then aborts them based on the
>trouble they would probably cause is certainly not a vision of a good God.
>I seems to me that such actions would be so unloving and unjust as to be 
>incompatible with a good God.  It would seem that it is impossible for a 
>perfectly  good
>God to abort persons on the basis of foreknowledge.  It follows that God
>does not do this. (An assumption I make is that life is itself a great good.)

What does 'abort' mean? Surely you don't claim that, by
declining to create a person, God has wronged that 'person'?
If so, then we know that God is not perfectly good because
He declined to create my sister.

>Thirdly:
>
>Without perfect foreknowledge of uncreated universes (something I do not accept
>as a necessary characteristic of God)  it is impossible to tell what 
>will happen in an
>autonomous environment due to non-linearities in certain features of 
>reality (not even considering free beings).  This is a clear result
>of modern dynamics.

The deduced characteristics of the universe we observe
do not bear upon the logical possibilities available
to a God who, it is assumed, has the power to determine
the characteristics of a universe. Here you are simply
describing the universe we see, not considering the
possible universes that God could have created.
From: jfreter@triton.unm.edu (The Myth)
Newsgroups: alt.atheism
Subject: Question about modern manners
Date: 11 Apr 92 15:56:50 GMT
Article-I.D.: lynx.a0tjf!#
Organization: University of New Mexico, Albuquerque


Since it is alergy season, people are often sneezing.  In fact, it seems that
I sneeze every five minutes.  which brings me to my question.  I am a "devout"
atheist, and I don't know what the polite thing to say is when someone blesses
me after I sneeze.  It is offensive that someone would think that I need saving
and need the blessings of a person or a non-existant god.

So what would be the polite response to tell someone?
From: mathew@mantis.co.uk
Newsgroups: alt.atheism
Subject: Re: FAQ file
Date: 16 Apr 92 12:27:30 GMT
Organization: Mantis Consultants, Cambridge. UK.

bobb@vice.ICO.TEK.COM (Bob Beauchaine) writes:
>   Well, the FAQ expires after about 3 days on my system too, and as
>   far as I know it doesn't appear anywhere but on this group.

If it expires after about 3 days on your system, your system is broken.  I
can quote RFCs chapter and verse if you don't believe me.

The FAQ file is cross-posted to news.answers, as the weekly reminder
mentions.

>   I don't see why you can't post it every couple of weeks for people
>   who are new or unfamiliar with the intricacies of news.

Because some people (like Mantis, for instance) pay for bandwidth.  Posting
the file once a week instead of once a month would be a completely
unnecessary waste of bandwidth.  Far better that we fix the broken software.


mathew
-- 
Civilization is just a temporary failure of entropy.
Newsgroups: alt.atheism
From: choy@skorpio.Usask.CA (I am a terminator.)
Subject: Re: Re: What is religion?
Reply-To: choy@skorpio.Usask.CA (I am a terminator.)
Organization: University of Saskatchewan
Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1992 17:43:01 GMT


David E. Hollingsworth (starpath@bard.mit.edu, NeXTMail: yummy) replies


>> > Is everything that we do adhering to some religion, namely our own
>> > heuristic?
> 	Atheists do not have a religion, because they do not have the  
> associated set of required heuristics.    Thus, nothing atheists do adhers  
> to some religion.


What is the "associated set of required heuristics"? Do you have a
specific set in mind?

I was saying that religion is a heuristic. Now if all heuristics are
religions, then everyone has some kind of religion. The word religion
may have been given a connotation that confuses us into believing
something good about mere heuristics.

Henry Choy
choy@skorpio.usask.ca
From: rescorla@rtnmr.chem.yale.edu (Eric Rescorla)
Newsgroups: alt.atheism
Subject: Re: Achilles heels for religion?
Date: 8 Apr 92 15:46:26 GMT
Article-I.D.: cs.1992Apr8.154626.24424
Organization: Rescorla for himself.

In article <73210@netnews.upenn.edu> weemba@libra.wistar.upenn.edu (Matthew P Wiener) writes:
>In article <1992Apr7.212517.14260@cs.yale.edu>, rescorla@rtnmr (Eric Rescorla) writes:
>>No, you said that you had to do so. That's not history, that's
>>a scientific claim.
>
>It's history.  That is what happened.  
Yes, but your claim that it was necessary to do so is interpretation,
and requires verification.

>>Back it up or retract it.
>
>I have backed it up.  You are the one invented preposterosities on
>the spot.  Just like you do with Judaism.
No, Matthew. I'm the one who's demanding evidence for a claim that you
made--one that had a non-historical component to it. You are the
one who is refusing to provide it.

-Ekr


-- 
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Eric Rescorla, DoD#431, Honda CM400 rider          rescorla@rtnmr.chem.yale.edu
Yale University Department of Chemistry            We hack anything.
My mind is now for rent: C/Unix,Vacuum Tech,Machining,P-Chemist. Hire me, eh?
From: martin@pharaoh.cyborg.bt.co.uk (Martin Gorman)
Newsgroups: alt.atheism
Subject: Re: Question on modern manners
Date: 15 Apr 92 12:35:03 GMT
Organization: British Telecom

In article <1992Apr14.201336.25374@dale.ksc.nasa.gov>
sdavis@laforge (Steve Davis) writes:
>
>  I don't really have any better suggestions, but I think "bless you"
>originated because it was once believed that when sneezing, one's soul leaves
>the body momentarily, and the devil might snap it up if not blessed.  So I
>usually avoid any of the standard comments when someone around me sneezes,
>unless I can think of something particularly witty.
>
I thought it was because sneezing was an early symptom of the plague 
(I can't spell "beubonic") and the "bless you" meant something along
the lines of "May god bless you by protecting you from the plague".
Newsgroups: alt.atheism
From: graham@maths.su.oz.au (Graham Matthews)
Subject: Re: Achilles heels for religion?
Organization: Sydney University Computing Service, Sydney, NSW, Australia
Date: Tue, 7 Apr 1992 00:47:18 GMT

Matthew P Wiener
>>> So you have your opinion about what's good, I have mine.  Who cares?

Rob Ingles:
>> Rob was the one who was asking *us.*

Matthew P Wiener
>Because someone was going on an anti-Bible rampage, saying it's of no
>use to anyone, etc.

I suggest you actually read some of the threads you reply to Matthew!
The thread began by Rob suggesting that the bible was more than just
a book, that it had provided a moral code for humanity etc for 2000
years, etc, and that in this respect it was much more than just a book.

I then replied that it was all a matter of viewpoint, that for me
the bible sucked because I did not like its moral code etc. I suggested
a case by case analysis of some examples from the bible.

Now listen up and learn a little. YOU ARE THE ONE WHO HAS TAKEN A
THREAD ABOUT THE MORALITY OF THE BIBLE AND PROMOTED IT INTO AN *ANTI-
BIBLE RAMPAGE* NO ONE ELSE, JUST YOU!. Rob's replies have been very
informative. Others (myself included) have been combatative and
questioning, but certainly nothing like an *anti-bible rampage*.
IT IS ALL IN YOUR MIND MATTHEW!

If you read back over the articles with an open mind I am sure there
is no other conclusion that can be reached, other than that you are
way over-reacting.

graham
--
Graham Matthews                 And it's true we are immune
Pure Math, Uni.Sydney, Oz       When fact is fiction and T.V. is reality
graham@maths.su.oz.au
Newsgroups: alt.atheism
From: ehamrick@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (Eric N Hamrick)
Subject: Re: Question on modern manners
Organization: The Ohio State University
Date: Mon, 13 Apr 1992 14:46:18 GMT



     The origins of "God bless you" shows just how much of our culture
   is based on superstition.  The phrase was started by the ancient belief
   that when you sneezed, your soul was blown out of your nose.  The
   only known way to replace or get it back in was to say "God bless
   you."  It is a polite response to someone sneezing, but now I can't
   bring myself to saying it without lauging.
Newsgroups: alt.atheism