HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: skinner@sp1.csrd.uiuc.edu (Gregg Skinner)
Newsgroups: talk.religion.misc
Subject: Re: Idaho
Date: 12 Oct 92 21:42:18 GMT
Reply-To: g-skinner@uiuc.edu
Organization: UIUC Center for Supercomputing Research and Development

(This is a reply to two articles combined.)

arromdee@jyusenkyou.cs.jhu.edu (Ken Arromdee) writes:

>In article <1992Oct12.180113.3311@csrd.uiuc.edu> g-skinner@uiuc.edu writes:
>>In the spirit of the parody, I have question the ability of a
>>disbeliever to travel to "Idaho" and independently verify that it
>>exists.  How will he know that he has entered "Idaho" without relying
>>on the testimony of believers?

>Because "Idaho" is defined differently from "God".

(Aside: I assume "God" was just a slip and you intended to write
"Jesus.")

>  Idaho is defined as "so-
>and-so land in so-and-so place with so-and-so government".  You'll know that
>you're in Idaho because land and place and government are things you can check
>for yourselves.  There's no question of only believers being able to see the
>land.

I suspect that one will not be able to check for oneself on things
like government, location, etc. without relying at some point on
evidence gleaned from believers.  But that may be beside the point,
because the last sentence brings up an important issue.  It implies
that with Jesus there is some question as to the ability of
nonbelievers to even see the evidence.  This brings us to the
question:

>>  In what way do you have to be
>>a believer to examine what the Bible says about Jesus?

>If "what the Bible says about Jesus" means that he rose from the dead, etc.,
>you need to be a believer to believe that that actually means he rose from the
>dead.  Otherwise it's a line in a book.

I see.  If one is not a believer then one cannot examine the testimony
in the Bible.  It's just lines in a book.  Or, if I may apply this to
another historical figure, to one who has not learned that "Columbus
sailed the ocean blue...", any writing about his "voyage" is just
lines in a book.

(Even better: apply this idea to the Holocaust, and the result is an
excellent statement of Holocaust Revisionism, the original target of
the Idaho parody.)
--
Gregg Skinner       I do not speak for any organization.
From: slhw4@cc.usu.edu (Jason Hunsaker)
Newsgroups: talk.religion.misc
Subject: Re: Would like to talk with LDS members...
Date: 11 Oct 92 09:41:49 MDT
Organization: Utah State University


In article <92284.121206IK20050@MAINE.MAINE.EDU>,
 <IK20050@MAINE.MAINE.EDU> writes:
> Hi!  I'd like to talk with fellow LDS members, because I have
> alot of questions to ask!  Could you please e-mail me?

If you have a lot of questions, go ask your bishop. If you don't
know who that is, or what ward/branch you are in, then look in
the phone book in the white pages under Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter-day Saints, The.  Call any bishop or stake president
listed there, ask them to help you determine which ward/branch
you belong to, and who the bishop/branch president for your
geographical area is.

If you want an electronic LDS forum, there are two on internet.
These are email forums, which means that you will receive email
on various topics from various persons.

To subscibe to the first, send email to:
     lds-request@wsl.dec.com
with "subscribe" in the subject header.
In the message body, it is wise to repete the request and provide
your email address just to be safe.  Something like:
     Please subscibe ik20050@maine.maine.edu to your mailing list.
Submission to this list are sent to lds@wsl.dec.com.

To subscibe to the second, send email to:
     listserv@vm.byu.edu
Leave the subject header blank.
The first line of text contains the subscribe command:
     subscribe mormon-l John Doe
Replacing, of course, your name for that of John Doe's.
Submissions to MORMON-L are emailed to mormon-l@vm.byu.edu.

MORMON-L is a moderated mailing list which means that the
moderator must approve your posting before it gets distributed to
the rest of the mailing list.

The other mailing list is not moderated, but if there are
excessive flames or inappropriate messages, the list owner may
remove your subscription and distribution privileges.

MORMON-L distributes an around 20-50 messages per day.
LDS is not as voluminous as MORMON-L, so you might want to start
there first.

Willard Smith also maintains a FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions)
list that is posted to soc.religion.christian every four months or
so.  I think that this list is archived at some site and is
therefore available by anonymous FTP.

I don't know exactly where the site is, so you might want to
contact the moderator of soc.religion.christian through email to
find the site.  Or you might want to ask Willard Smith directly
for where this FAQ can be found.  His email address is:
wcsa@cbnews.cb.att.com.

You may also email me if you like.  My email address is in the
headers and also below in the signature.

-----------------------------------------------------------------
Jason Hunsaker  -|-  Logan, Utah  -|-  Internet: slhw4@cc.usu.edu
Newsgroups: talk.religion.misc
From: bunner@vms.macc.wisc.edu (Dana A. Bunner)
Subject: Re: Mormons are not Christians
Organization:  University of Wisconsin Academic Computing Center
Date: 14 OCT 92 12:25:05    

In article <1992Oct14.103514.59693@cc.usu.edu>, slhw4@cc.usu.edu (Jason Hunsaker) writes...

>Barry, Tony, Mark,
> 
>If you ever succeed if persuading me to leave the LDS Church, I
>would become an atheist before affiliating myself with
>"Christians" like you.
> 
>You might win the battle and still lose the war.

Jason,

You would be following a well-worn path if you do so.  A few unscientific
studies have indicated that the most common path followed by LDS who
left the faith is to atheism.  I believe Walter Martin lamented this fact
shortly before he died.

Dana
Newsgroups: talk.religion.misc
From: ksand@apple.com (Kent Sandvik)
Subject: Re: I'm God.
Date: Thu, 8 Oct 1992 02:00:20 GMT
Organization: Apple
Followup-To: talk.religion.misc

In article <70322@hydra.gatech.EDU>, rpitts@emperor.gatech.edu (Richard
Pitts) wrote:
> You, by the statement of your zeal here, give credence for what the people
> did write.  They did witness it (there were over five hundred that
> saw Jesus alive).  I think there were many gospels, as Luke points out,
> but only the one's that were really close or first hand (the apostles
> and thier companions) were canonized.

Interesting, a simple question, why didn't the Christians publish
all five hundred Gospels? What was wrong with them, contradictions
maybe?

> You are right - the resurrection from the dead was not taken for granted.
> The people did write about it - just like you say you would write about
> it, but you seem to say that they could not have experienced such things.
> They had the zeal that you would have had you been there, but isn't it
> their zeal that you use against them?  Should they have been timid?

I would have certainly written down the story if I would have seen
the resurrection. If there were actually five hundred witness Gospels
I would actually believe in the story. However, four final versions,
canonized by a standardization committee doesn't exactly provide me
with a lot of confidence, especially when we don't even know who wrote
the four Gospels. And when the Gospels have three different versions
of Jesus' final words, for instance, does that really provide me
with confidence in the witness reports? Would a jury believe three
different endings?

Cheers,
Kent
	Faith is often the boast of the man who is too lazy to	investigate. -F.M.
Knowles
-------------------
Kent Sandvik (UUCP: ....!apple!ksand; INTERNET: ksand@apple.com)
DISCLAIMER: Private activities on the Net.
From: ingles@engin.umich.edu (Ray Ingles)
Subject: Re: was Jesus man or God?
Date: Fri, 16 Oct 92 14:53:43 EDT
Organization: University of Michigan Engineering, Ann Arbor

In article <Bw6q1n.4Kv@inews.Intel.COM> pharvey@mipos3.intel.com (Paul Harvey) writes:

 [ruthless deletions]

>Clearly humans
>die to the physical self and this is required so that new life can be made
>from the stuff of death. And while there may be some who claim to know all
>their past lives, most of us have little if any memory of any past spirits
>of those who have physically died, thus indications are that the bulk of the
>spirit dies also. And this also is required in order for new life to exist,
>surely we would be haunted and unable to function as new life if we carried
>the spirits of past humans. Death must be understood as a required aspect of
>life, life without death is dead. The only constant is change. This is big
>stuff though, most people don't want to think about it or reason it through.
>Given that the physical and spiritual bodies must die, what is left?

 I wouldn't mind seeing your 'reasoning through' here. Assume for the moment
that a way is invented to indefinitely prolong life. Would you be against
such a thing?
 Certainly, if we remain on Earth, there is quite limited room for humans
to squeeze into; in that limited sense, death may be necessary. But we need
not be limited to Earth... after all, there's plenty of room and resources
off-planet.
 
 I, for one, really enjoy living and plan on doing it for as long as
possible. Ideally, I would like to live forever. (Theists, I don't wanna
hear it again... I don't think religion is the way to prolong my life.
You're free to disagree, of course.) Some contend that everyone would get
bored with living eventually. I doubt it, but it could be so. *If* so, I'd
like the chance to reach that state of ennui, and I see no reason not to
try.

 [huge, context-destroying deletion]

>We come into this world kicking and screaming and we often leave the
>same way.

 I certainly plan to. :->

 Sincerely,

 Ray Ingles
 ingles@engin.umich.edu

 "The meek can *have* the Earth. The rest of us are going to the
stars!" - Robert A. Heinlein
Xref: sparky talk.religion.misc:18291 alt.atheism:19027
From: zlsiida@fs1.mcc.ac.uk (dave budd)
Newsgroups: talk.religion.misc,talk.philosophy,alt.atheism
Subject: Re: Jesus's bloodline mystery and two different Jesus's was (I'm God.)
Date: 14 Oct 92 11:29:40 GMT
Organization: Manchester Computing Centre


[various people saying various things about Jesus's bloodline]

>>If we want to further speculate we are dealing with identical twins, and one

I recently read Armageddon, the Musical.
***spoiler alert***



















It ends up with Jesus's twin SISTER  (Christeen haha) sorting out the 
various drek and starting the THIRD TESTAMENT
It's a comedy book, not as good as Terry Pratchett or Douglas Adams IMHO tho 
they both contribute glowing testimonials to the blurbs.
Enjoyable tho



              Have another day    [Armageddon, the musical] 
  Dave Budd, MCC, Oxford Rd, Manchester, England   (44|0)61-275-6033
From: robarr@sdcc3.ucsd.edu (Robert O'Barr)
Newsgroups: talk.religion.misc
Subject: Re: Mormons are not Christians
Date: 14 Oct 92 20:38:58 GMT
Organization: University of California, San Diego

>
>>Well I guess I have my answer.  If I may ask, Is the Pope Christian?
>
>As I stated long ago and many times, whether an individual is a Christian
>or not depends on that individual an God.  God can see the heart and man
>cannot.  The best man can do is look at the theology of an individual.

Well, nice way to dodge the question Tony.  When the same point was
made for the Mormons (that whether they were christians was a matter
between them and God and neither you Tony nor Nuzzout nor anyone else had
the right to answer that, you then changed your tune and put your
emphasis on the "doctrine" being taught by (and believed) by the Mormons
as being un-christian.)

Perhaps you can answer this question then,

Is the doctrine taught by the Pope according to your definition
"christian"?


Robert
From: davidh@cascade.ens.tek.com (David Hatcher)
Newsgroups: talk.religion.misc
Subject: Re: OCA Initiative (was: Family values defined)
Date: 16 Oct 92 23:04:05 GMT
Organization: Tektronix, Inc., Beaverton,  OR.

In article <1992Oct14.212940.1083@blaze.cs.jhu.edu> arromdee@jyusenkyou.cs.jhu.edu (Ken Arromdee) writes:
>                                      If God is really like a gardener, then
>he does demand that churches be attacked for what they support--this is what
>it _means_ to be like a gardener. 


  I sometimes see parents doing this very thing you are suggesting to 
children. They attack them. And as a result, the childrens growth 
potential is greatly effected. Often in very distructive ways.

  But anyway, You sure have a different meaning of what a gardener is than 
I do. To me, a gardener plants and cultivates flowers. A gardener does not 
attack his garden. You'll never get anything to grow if you are attacking 
the very thing you want to grow. The picture I see from what you have 
drawn is that of a gardener planting his flowers, and than beating them
to shreads with his shovel.

  Instead, one works with the soil and builds it up. For many, the garden
season really begins in the fall because that is when the process begins
to build up the soil. With out a good rich tilth, come spring time
nothing will grow. This building up of the soil takes care and love for
the garden. The same for a church. With out a good base that is feeding 
upon upon love and a caring attitude, a church will not grow either.




        The saints are what they are, not because their sancity makes
        them admirable to others, but because of the gift of sainthood
        makes it possible for them to admire everybody else.
                                        Thomas Merton


	David Hatcher

Newsgroups: talk.religion.misc
From: tensmekl@infonode.ingr.com (Kermit Tensmeyer)
Subject: Re: Are Mormons Christians?
Organization: Intergraph Corporation, Huntsville, AL.
Date: Thu, 15 Oct 1992 13:19:45 GMT


  Jason, Jason


  From now on, you must use smilies in 14 pt typeface, else how will
  these ..... ever get your point.

  You should realize that they have no sense of humor, and that they
  take themseleves seriously.

  They expect that _you_ are taking them serious as well....


-- 
         Kermit Tensmeyer                         | Intergraph Corporation
Life is sometimes a bowl of Cherries; Watch out for the pits;
   klt@kt8127.b23a.ingr.com                       |
From: CXAD@MUSICA.MCGILL.CA (CXAD000)
Newsgroups: talk.religion.misc
Subject: Re: Sure Made ME stop and wonder...
Date: 11 Oct 92 18:30:21 GMT
Organization: McGill University

>> Thank god Christianity is Not a Religion,
>> or it too would complicate matters.....
>>
Let me start with my assumption that the above was offered
as a sarcastic reply, pointing out that our leaders being
Christian was apparantly NOT considered contrary to the
First Ammendment.  Let me propose that one possible usefull
distinction is that Bush and Quayle et al are not appointed
LEADERS of Christian churches.  But I'll leave this alone ...
>
>Christianity, as it is defined by many people, should be called a "religion"
>(in the organized sense of the word) in that it has doctrine that must be
>accepted in order to have salvation ie. either you accept Jesus Christ as
>your savior or you will spend the rest of eternity roasting marshmallows on
>the flames of Hell.      [ ...  stuff deleted ... ]                    . that
                                           Only a philosophy which has no
>ultimatum about whether you accept so and so as your saviour or not can
>be said to be _not_ a religion (such as the philosophy of Vedanta).
>
>.
So are you saying that a religion is a religion insofar as it has
a savior that you accept or reject?  Or are you defining religion
as a philosophy with an ultimatum?  I would argue that both of
these proposed definitions are inadequate.  The first is extremely
Christo-centric, for Judaism and Islam, not to mention Eastern
religions, do not have A savior that must the accepted.  Judaism
has a book of Law, revealed by God, that must be followed.  Islam
has the inlibration of God in the Koran (forgive my overly-reductionist
statements here).  The second definition would allow Marxism and
just about any philosophy to be considered a "religion".

Personally, I have been quite convinced by Durkheim's definition
for religion:  any system of symbols for separating the sacred
from the profane.  There are those who disagree, but I think
that its the most all-inclusive we can get to defining an
impossible to define word...
From: slhw4@cc.usu.edu (Jason Hunsaker)
Newsgroups: talk.religion.misc
Subject: Re: Mormons are not Christians
Date: 15 Oct 92 13:25:25 MDT
Organization: Utah State University

In article <1992Oct15.020856.16534@cbnewsd.cb.att.com>,
 press2@cbnewsd.cb.att.com (barry.o.olson) writes:
> slhw4@cc.usu.edu (Jason Hunsaker) writes:

[...]
Barry> Do the magical undergarments really protect one from the devil?

Jason> Why don't you ask him yourself?

Barry> Jason, this was a slap meant to imply I follow the 
Barry> devil (or do you have some other explanation), but 
Barry> I didn't cry about it.
 
Barry> He said No. He just asks you to wear them 'cause they look funny.

Jason> Go ahead an mock me then.  I don't care, because I know the Lord
Jason> looks upon the heart and not the outward appearance.

Barry> Jason, my response was designed against your slap?

I'm sorry Barry, but I'm finding it particularly difficult to
turn the other cheek or to come up with a charitable response to
your apparent flipancy in degrading my sacred beliefs.

[...]
Barry> I'm asking if they protect you from the devil. Why keep
Barry> ducking into the bushes. Just answer please.

Answer hypothetically then.  Suppose I say "yes".  What will your
response be?

Suppose I say "no".  What will your response be?

I keep avoiding the question because I feel like I'm being set
up and I don't sense any real sincerity behind your query.  That
is, I feel that *any* response I give will be used against me.

[...]
Barry> Well, are they mentioned in scripture?

Jason> *I* believe they are.  But it's *my* interpretation of the
Jason> Biblical passages.  Your interpretaion differs, no doubt. 
Jason> So posting the passages or references is moot.
 
Barry> Ok, what passages did Joseph Smith give? 

Why did you ask for *my* opinion if you really wanted Joseph
Smith's?

-----------------------------------------------------------------
Jason Hunsaker  -|-  Logan, Utah  -|-  Internet: slhw4@cc.usu.edu
From: rpitts@emperor.gatech.edu (Richard Pitts)
Newsgroups: talk.religion.misc
Subject: Re: I'm God.
Date: 7 Oct 92 17:08:15 GMT
Organization: CERL-EE, Georgia Institue of Technology

In article <ksand-061092184741@wintermute.apple.com> ksand@apple.com (Kent Sandvik) writes:
|In article <WIGGINS.92Oct6144209@lilac.cs.odu.edu>,
|wiggins@lilac.cs.odu.edu (Samuel E Wiggins) wrote:
|> I assert that the "extraordinary evidence" was given to them, but not you.
|> And, you have the free choice of believing or not.  I think that we both
|> agree, though, that reality is a thing apart from either one of our
|> perceptions. However, the fact remains that some choose to believe and others
|> not to believe what these writers are trying to persuade us to accept.
|
|The interesting observation is that those who wrote the Gospels didn't 
|even witness this themselves. The documents are written many, many years
|after Jesus lifetime. So we don't even have guarantees that the Gospel
|writers witnessed the events. Are you 100% sure about who wrote the
|Gospels?

Peter wrote to and said that he was not bring to them clever tales, but
he himself had been an eyewitness of Jesus' majesty - he saw him on the
holy mountain - this is the same event that Matthew and Luke report
about Jesus being on the mountain with Peter, James, and John, where
Moses and Elijah came and talked with Jesus.

|Many known scholars arent. This is the point. The Gospels are written
|based on tales and people's stories, not on real witnessing of happenings.

Luke states he carefully researched his work.  John was the beloved disciple.
Peter was the outspoken companion of Jesus.  Paul was called by the Lord
and a separate event confirmed Paul's calling through Ananias (Acts 9.)
Peter recognized Paul's writings as Scripture.

|> I also assert that one's assumptions are usually biased.  It would be better
|> to start out "devil's advocate" and negate the argument with later-found
|> truths as the argument progresses.
|
|The 'devil's advocate' statement is that the Gospel writers didn't 
|witness the events. Neither did Paul, the man behind modern Christianity.

See above.  It is no secret that the actual men were often not the writers
of the actual letters, but they had scribes.  Paul even signed his own
name one time so that the receipents would know it came from him.

For Christ and His Kingdom,
Richard Pitts
-- 
rpitts@cerl.gatech.edu       |    
Atlanta, GA                --|-- 
                        -|-  |  -|-
                         |   |   |
Newsgroups: talk.religion.misc
From: ksand@apple.com (Kent Sandvik)
Subject: Re: PLEASE HELP ME!  I need your advice!  Help me keep this love alive!
Date: Sat, 10 Oct 1992 23:40:08 GMT
Distribution: na
Organization: Apple
Followup-To: talk.religion.misc

In article <1992Oct9.022705.19090@Princeton.EDU>,
cmaguire@time.Princeton.EDU (Cary Maguire) wrote:
> Perhaps you could consider a Baha'i approach.  Baha'is frequently run
> into similar dilemas, as the Baha'i teachings specifically encourage
> the fostering of world unity through interracial marriage.  

I would recommend common sense and private thinking. They are
free, and don't mess up with your life. Best of all, they don't 
cost anything!

Cheers,
Kent
	Faith is often the boast of the man who is too lazy to	investigate. -F.M.
Knowles
-------------------
Kent Sandvik (UUCP: ....!apple!ksand; INTERNET: ksand@apple.com)
DISCLAIMER: Private activities on the Net.
From: arromdee@jyusenkyou.cs.jhu.edu (Ken Arromdee)
Newsgroups: talk.religion.misc
Subject: Re: OCA Initiative (was: Family values defined)
Date: 12 Oct 92 20:49:09 GMT
Organization: Johns Hopkins University CS Dept.

In article <1bcjqmINNhch@cascade.ens.tek.com> davidh@cascade.ens.tek.com (David Hatcher) writes:
>  From my perspective, God can be compared to a Master Gardner. And
>all Master Gardners know that the best way to prevent weeds is to
>plant more flowers. In my opinion, Christ can be likened to a Master
>Gardner. Christ did not go around pulling weeds. He operated by means
>of a planter of flowers. He went amoung the sinners and planted flowers
>by helped them.

If Jesus is a master gardener of this kind, he's an incompetent one.  To
properly run a garden, of _course_ you have to pull weeds.

I believe that given the context, this means I have just demonstrated that,
_from your own premises_, churches must be attacked.

That is a problem with excessive proof-by-analogy: if your analogy is wrong,
you suddenly end up with an airtight proof of the wrong thing....
--
"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)
Newsgroups: talk.religion.misc
From: tensmekl@infonode.ingr.com (Kermit Tensmeyer)
Subject: Sufficency of Christ sacrifice
Organization: Intergraph Corporation, Huntsville, AL.
Date: Fri, 16 Oct 1992 14:26:17 GMT

In article <48gE02Wb26Vu01@JUTS.ccc.amdahl.com> agr00@JUTS.ccc.amdahl.com (Anthony "SpinMeister" Rose) writes:
>
>
>Is what your Jesus did on the cross suffecient for ALL sins?  Or are some
>sins (murder, adultry) too large for his blood to cover?
>
>My Jesus' blood can cover ALL sin!


 What sins would be insufficent for Christ sacrificee to cover.


 I would think that not accepting Christ and  his sacrifice would
 proably be one sin/transgression for which the blood is insufficent.

 My limited understanding is that acceptance of the sacrifice is a
 requirment for the sacrifice to be any effect.


-- 
         Kermit Tensmeyer                         | Intergraph Corporation
Life is sometimes a bowl of Cherries; Watch out for the pits;
   klt@kt8127.b23a.ingr.com                       |