From: johnsd2@jec322.its.rpi.edu.its1 (Daniel Norman Johnson)
Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian
Subject: Re: There is no god
Date: 22 Nov 92 23:28:42 GMT
Reply-To: johnsd2@jec322.its.rpi.edu.its1
Organization: Sun Microsystems, Inc.

In article 7741@athos.rutgers.edu, REXLEX@linac.fnal.gov () writes:
>In article <Nov.18.01.23.05.1992.6880@klinzhai.rutgers.edu>
>msh9848@hertz.njit.edu (-Unknown-) writes:
>>This is a challenge to Xtians out here. Convince me to believe in Xtianity 
>>without quoting the bible. If you prefer , do it by email. 
>>
>>I do not believe that "god" gave man the bible nor do I believe in
>>god, heaven or hell. Also I can not be convinced using hell fire and
>>brimstone fear tactics.
>>
>>Matt Harelick
>> 

I have the strangest feeling this thread is going to be cut off by
the moderator as it is very likely going to go nowhere fast.

But what the hell, nowhere is so nice this time of year! :)

>How about doing it another way.

Oh, and I hope you dont mind if I jump in. (but if you did, you'd
be doing this by email)

>  Lets say there is no God!  I mean it. 

Ok. Let us therefore say this. (its not quite the generic atheist
position, nor my position or the one the origional poster expounded
but I think its close enough for this argument, so let us proceed)

>Everything that He stands for, lets lay it aside, because if there is no God,
>then they are baseless to begin with and just opiates as has been suggested
>before.  

And yet they may be right- you must examine them in their own right, and
not merely accept them as the Word of God. They may be right or wrong.

>The 1st thing you have to do away with is the reality of order.

Do you? Why is that?

>  Man is a machine and he merely a cog in the mechanics of the universe.

I dont see it. Perhaps its a question of what a machine is. I think
a machine is a mechanism that is created to perform a task. Humans
(in my view) don't qualify; we have no task. (we may be said to be
created, or not, as you like)

>
>If I should cast off this tattered coat, 
>And go free into the mighty sky;
>If I should find nothing there
>But a vast blue,
>Echoless, ignorant--
>What then?   (Steven Crane "Black Riders & Other Lines")

Nice poem; and yet if this is so (and it does not seem to be to me)
then should we avert our eyes and cover the ugly truth with a falsehood
that is more pleasing to us?

Is a tattered shell better than the sky, vast but empty?

>Everything is gratuitous, contingent.

Hmmm? Everything _is_. What more do you require?

>  Nothing has meaning, no statement has validity. 

"The Spam is Plaid" has meaning, regardless of the question of God.
Hence SOMETHING has meaning. This statement has no validity (I should
hope!) but surely I could still make valid statements. At least
"I am" seems well justified.

>In truth, there is only despair, anxiety and ennui!

Why is that? You can make your own goals, and seek anything.
And if nothing is forever, what does it matter? Forever is a long
time.

> You should see
>Samuel Beckett's "Breath".  Just don't blink.

:)

>  It's only 35 second long.  It
>has no juman actors and the props are a pile of rubbish on stage, lit by a
>light which begins dim, brightens (never fully) and then receds to dimness. 
>There are no words, but there are two sounds.  At the begin there is heard a
>breif cry (like a worried inhalation); at the end the is another cry, this one
>is an exhaled breath.  I thought it was brillant.  

That's neat; Ill try to see it if the opportunity arrises.

>If you've studied philosophy, you'll recognize this to be a nihilistic view. 

I haven't tried to interpret it at all. I dont see how nihilism and
this thing connect. But then I haven't seen it.

>However, few people give much time to figure out just were this "philosophy" (I
>think its more emotion than thought) is borne from.

Its not very relevant though, if I remember what nihilism is rightly.
That when you think everything is pointless, nothing can be changed
or accomplished really, and nothing matters?

Or am I thinking of something else?

>  Mihilism is the natural
>child of naturalism, which in turn was the enlightened read-out of the assured
>results of science and open intellectual inquiry.

I dont see how this is so. Perhaps you would elaborate?

>  As a world view, however, it
>did not account for man, his uniqueness, his value adequately.

It is not asked to account for man, or any of the rest. By the way,
what do you consider man's value to be?

>  It did make man
>the lord of the universe, free to value what he would, and that most
>naturalists are satisfied enough to end inquiry at this point.  

I dont see how it makes man the lord of anything. Nor where you assertion
that "naturalists" are satisfied to end inquiry anywhere.

>However, there seems to be a growing number of people that feel that the
>results are not so assured, as the closed nature of the universe is perceived 
>to be confining, the notion of death as extinction, and no basis for hope other
>than alienation from the universe.  

You just lost me. The universe is very large, so large that we will
never, ever see all that is. This is confining? Yet the "naturalistic"
view of things (I think you mean here the materialistic view- that
the reality we see is hte only one, there are no spirits etc) says
not one thing about hope.

>If God is dead, then everything he stands for is dead. 

That is an unjustified assertion, certainly as long as believers keep
trying to promote that thing. Or ANYONE for that matter- whether they
believe or not.

BTW, just what does *your* God stand for?

> Men just do not know what "caused" them or their decisions.

I dont see what you mean by this (other that various obviously
false things which are irrelevant anyway, so I rather doubt you mean
them.)

> Man is a conscious machine without the
>ability to effect his own destiny or do anything significant.

Even assuming that man is a conscious machine (depends on your definition
of machine) why does the rest follow?

>  Therefore, man (as a valuable ) is dead.

Uh oh. And I wasn't notified? :)

>  Instead of have the breath of God, you have
>Beckett's breath.

Ah, I think I have an idea of how you are connecting "Breath"
and atheism. I wonder why you believe atheism is like that.

>If you choose not to believe in God (What do you want us to do, put Him in a
>bottle like some firefly?)

That would probably do it. :)

Actually, he probably wants you to convince him that your God
can be show to exist. The method he leaves to you.

>, then if you don't cop out, you have to disregard
>all the freedom that Form gives you.

What do you mean by "the freedom that Form gives you", and why
must atheists abondon it?

>  Wasn't it Nietzsche that said, that when
>God is dead, the only sanity was insanity.

Perhaps he said it, but I dont believe it. It is a logical
contradiction, by my reading. (so he probably meant something
deep that I dont get)

>  I say this much for him, he was
>true enough to himself that he lived, or rather died, the reality of his
>conclusions.  Are you?

I hope so, but I as yet do not understand what you consider to be
the consequences of atheism. Nor do I yet see why they must necessarily
follow from even the premis that God does not exist. Before I will
accept such depression as necessary for atheists, you will have
to show at least that.

>"God created Arrakis to train the righteous.
> One can not go against the hand of God." 
>Paul Muad'Dib (Frank Herbert's "DUNE")

Then why do those who come and post obnoxiously on s.r.c
not get zotted at once? :)

>
>"All we are is dust in the wind"  (Kansas)

Perhaps most of us are so (tho others are not), but if
you have enought dust you can get a sandstorm. That's how things
happen, often enough.

At least there is no Heavanly Policeman character than can
veto such things with Divine Force.

Now I have a question for you: Presuming (for the moment) that
life is as useless, hopeless and pointless as you say if God does
not exist.. why can it not be so?

Do you believe in God merely because you do not like what you
percieve as the consequences of God's non-existance?
---
			- Dan Johnson
And God said "Jeeze, this is dull"... and it *WAS* dull. Genesis 0:0

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