From: simon@dcs.warwick.ac.uk (Simon Clippingdale)
Subject: Re: THE MIND OF THE BIBLE BELIEVER
Organization: Department of Computer Science, Warwick University, England
Distribution: world,public
Date: Thu, 7 Jan 1993 21:36:26 GMT

In article <1993Jan7.000554.5134@ra.royalroads.ca> mlee@post.RoyalRoads.ca (Malcolm Lee) writes:
>In article <1993Jan6.190706.20382@dcs.warwick.ac.uk>, simon@dcs.warwick.ac.uk (Simon Clippingdale) writes:
>|> 
>|> [I've deleted all but Malcolm's article in an attempt to reduce the
>|>  length.]

> Christianity is not a disease. Only those who willingly accept the Gospel are
> Christians. No one should be coerced or forced into it.  It is an act of free
> choice.

I contend that belief in matters of supposed fact shouldn't be a matter of
choice, and that the only tenable way of arriving at beliefs which as
accurately as possible reflect reality is to separate belief from desire
and hence from choice. More below.

> The gift of salvation cannot be taken away but it can be lost, unfortunately.
> I can't say why you lost your faith in God. If it was because of what someone
> did to you or didn't do, why are you punishing God for it? God would do
> nothing that wasn't for your own good even if it involves pain. There are
> times when we ask God to hit us with a 2x4 when we do something wrong, and
> sometimes, He does.

There are a number of logical flaws in here. Firstly, I cannot reasonably
be said to be "punishing God" for anything, since I do not believe that
any deities exist in the first place. Secondly, I fail utterly to see how
my rant about the utility of reason in dispelling religious delusions
(deleted to save bandwidth) can sensibly be interpreted as an attempt to
punish God, my unbelief notwithstanding. Thirdly, I emphatically do *not*
resent my loss of said delusions, and thus have no reason to punish anybody
for it. Fourthly, the assertion that "God would do nothing that wasn't for
your own good even if it involves pain" sits uneasily with the notion of
eternal torture, from which it appears that no benefit can come since by
that stage it's already too late.

> I've never been omnipotent. How would I know what God wants? IMHO, I think
> God created us because He was lonely and needed loving companions. He did not
> want robots or pets to provide Him with company. He wanted loving companions
> who would choose to be with Him. Think about it. Would you tolerate someone
> who was an enemy in your house?

You guys appear to know The Mind Of God pretty well when it comes to making
bold claims such as "God would do nothing that wasn't for your own good even
if it involves pain", as you did above, and issuing assurances that God loves
us, sinners included, and so forth. When the dogma is analysed and its
consequences traced and found to be nonsensical, all of a sudden it's Who
Can Know The Mind Of God time. The purpose of that paraphrased e-mail example
I included was to illustrate this process of finely-tuned and parrot-learned
illogic in action, propping up belief in an obviously untenable position. You
have, very predictably, utterly failed to get it.

> Reason and logic. We are not Vulcans. We have emotions and, yes, sometimes
> feelings are not reasonable and not logical. My faith is not based solely
> on feelings and flowery passages. Having been a sinner for 25 years and a
> believer for 6 years, my faith is based on personnal experience. I have
> felt God's presence and heard His voice. He is real! He is real! Jesus lives!

Easy does it, Malcolm. I do not deny that we have emotions. In fact, I *love*
emotion, if I may be circular for a moment, and intense emotional experiences
of a certain kind (i.e. pleasant ones) are something which I positively seek
out. The experience of great emotional highs and lows provides profound insight
into one's humanity, and I wouldn't miss it for the proverbial world.

But there is a great danger here, and a caveat which needs to be sounded:
emotion is *no* basis on which to ascertain the truth or otherwise of claims
relating to matters of objective fact. That *must* be the domain of logic
and reason alone, for the simple reason that objective fact does *not*
(by definition: objective = observer-independent) yield to our personal
desires for it.

So while the inspirational nature of Bartok's first string quartet, or of
heavy industrial grunge `a la Godflesh, or of a Buddhist temple halfway up
a mountain in swirling mist (my personal favourite) are in the eye of the
beholder (in these cases me), and are the undisputed realm of emotion and
subjectivity, claims for the objective existence of gods or moons made of
green cheese *cannot* be evaluated by subjective emotional reaction.

The claims of your religion and many others are in the objective domain
and *must* be evaluated by reason alone.

Cheers

Simon
-- 
Simon Clippingdale                simon@dcs.warwick.ac.uk
Department of Computer Science    Tel (+44) 203 523296
University of Warwick             FAX (+44) 203 525714
Coventry CV4 7AL, U.K.