From: arromdee@jyusenkyou.cs.jhu.edu (Ken Arromdee)
Newsgroups: talk.religion.misc,alt.atheism
Subject: Re: Why I am an atheist  (long!)
Date: 26 Aug 92 19:01:00 GMT
Organization: Johns Hopkins University CS Dept.

In article <!xbn=yb.bskendig@netcom.com> bskendig@netcom.com (Brian Kendig) writes:
>The point I'm trying to get across (a reminder; it's gotten muddled
>through my last few posts) is that Christianity's not just something
>you can sit back and snicker at in disbelief that anybody would be so
>mindless as to actually believe all this ancient mumbo-jumbo.  No,
>there are plenty of Christians who feel every bit as strongly about
>their religion as you feel strongly _against_ it, and you stand as
>little chance of talking somebody into rejecting the religion by
>pointing out all the little things wrong with it, as a Christian has
>of converting you.  ;) I'm trying to show that if you look at
>Christianity in the right way, it makes sense. 

I don't know about this.

The human mind works in odd ways.  If Christianity made any sense, there
wouldn't be a whole lot of different versions of it.  I think that it _doesn't_
make sense, and people believe it anyway because they either don't think about
the problems or they rationalize them away.

And nonsense doesn't become sense just because you add the phrase "God says
that so-and-so is because..." to the front of it.  Perhaps if God were to give
orders without explaining them, one could say that starting from the assumption
that there is a God, it makes sense to follow his orders.  But if God gives
explanations or states facts, they'd better really be factual.

>And if you understand Christianity, then you'll understand that a
>person who preaches Christianity at you isn't necessarily doing it
>because he likes to hear himself talk; chances are he's doing it
>because he honestly wants to save you from what he believes to be a
>horrible fate.  If you don't want to be preached at, then do your best
>to get away from him, but don't call him names ("Fundie!"
>"Intolerant!").

It certainly logically follows from the premises of some religions that the
believer must be rude and intolerant.  But though that may explain his
rudeness and intolerance, it doesn't excuse it.  If someone is rude to me, I
reserve the right to be rude back; whether or not his rudeness follows from
his premises, I really don't care.

>Here's another example: the thread on this newsgroup that says "there
>is no God but Colleen."  ;) While I'm sure Colleen is a very nice
>person, she's offered no philosophy or evidence why she's a god.
>
>"So what evidence has Christianity offered?" you ask?  The Bible and
>related stories of miracles that took place two millenia ago, a lot of
>which seem just a little too coincidental for me to summarily dismiss.
>And also the fact that an awful a lot of people (including good
>friends of mine whom I know to be practical-minded people) claim to
>have felt a divine presence working in their lives.  Sure, it's not
>enough for me to base faith on, but it's also too much to just ignore.

I don't ignore it either.  I assume it's a real phenomenon.  Only it's a
phenomenon of human nature, not one of any actual divine presences.

>I once knew several examples of things that the Bible describes as
>having happened, but that modern scholars can't disprove.  It's been
>too long since I read up on that, though, so I can't remember what
>these examples were any more.  Can anyone help refresh my memory?

Well, the burning bush.  Science has no way to say "well, there was no bush
there, or if there was, it didn't burn without being consumed".  Science has no
way to disprove that person X said words Y.  Science can't disprove that Jesus
was resurrected.  Science can't disprove Elvis sightings or Last Wednesdayism,
for that matter.  I don't think science's inability to disprove things that
don't leave checkable traces is really significant.
--
"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 (UUCP: ....!jhunix!arromdee; BITNET: arromdee@jhuvm;
     INTERNET: arromdee@jyusenkyou.cs.jhu.edu)