From: k080093@hobbes.kzoo.edu (Josh N. Vander Berg)
Subject: Re: IQ and religious belief
Organization: Kalamazoo College
Date: Wed, 8 Apr 1992 04:50:43 GMT

In article <92098.185042U13054@uicvm.uic.edu> Howard Wachtel <U13054@uicvm.uic.edu> writes:
>>Well, I choose not to believe in things that I have no evidence for.
>
>   You seem to have a strong belief in atheism, which you have no
>evidence for.

How does one believe in atheism?  And where did I say that I was an atheist?
All I have said is that I have a lack of belief in a god.  Thats it.

>   You should read my statement more carefully.  First of all, I am not
>asking you to believe in G-d.  I couldn't care less whether you believe
>in G-d or not.  The religion that I subscribe to does _not_ proselytize
>or actively encourage conversion to it.  You and other atheists posting here
>actively trying to encourage monotheists to abandon our beliefs in favor
>of atheism.  

Build your strawmen elsewhere, I have not asked you to abandon your beliefs in
favor of atheism, I have merely defended what I believe.

>I am reacting in the same way I would react to someone
>who comes knocking on my door asking me to join their church--forget
>it, you will have no success in converting me.

Thanks, I do not wish for any such success...  Believe what you will.  

>   Secondly, your "fairies" analogy is childish, and makes a mockery of
>organized religion.  Most religious people would not ask you to accept
>anything so ridiculous (although there are no doubt some notable
>exceptions to this, and it is these exceptions who turn people off
>to organized religion).

Well, you failed to understand the analogy.  Your religion to me is JUST as
ridiculous as the fairy example is to you.  Personally I find your use of
"G-d" to be quite amusing, and all of the explanations I have heard for it to
be quite ridiculous, but thats only me :)  

>>No, it takes a lot less faith to not believe in something you have no evidence
>>for.
>
>   That would possibly be an argument for agnositicism, but as an atheist
>you are believing the denial of existence of a deity, which you also have
>no evidence for.

Oh, again, did I say that I was an atheist?  You seem to know me better than I
myself do.  Quite amazing :)  And I never said I believed in NOT(god), rather
that I hold NOT(belief) in a god.

>>And there is not any more evidence for christianity than there is for
>>Buddhism, or native American religion, or Shintoism, etc....
>
>   No, there isn't.

Then how is one to choose what to believe?  I can have FAITH in anything, even
the fairies.

>>I merely take
>>the position that requires the least amount of faith on my part, that is,
>>disbelief in a god, until sufficient evidence to the contrary manifests
>>itself.
>
>   Your position requires a hell of a lot of faith.  You want me to accept
>that the universe and all that exist came into being purely by accident,
>which I find very hard to swallow.

No, again, I never said that.  That is merely another idea that has been
offered up as a possible answer.  I do not know it is the truth, nor do I
expect you or anyone to believe it.  I do not know where the universe came
from.  I have the same position on many of the cosmological theories as I have
on god, lacking supporting evidence, I will not believe.  Where is my
faith?

>   As I said before, this is not a matter of evidence or lack therefor--
>we are not talking about mathematics or science here, but something
>less exact and more nebulous.

Kinda like the fairies...   But you do not choose to believe in them because
they are less exact and more nebulous than science and mathematics... 

>________________________________________________________________
>Howard K. Wachtel              University of Illinois at Chicago
>U13054@UICVM.CC.UIC.EDU        Phone (312) 975-7970

--
"Physicists are an atom's way of knowing about atoms"
Newsgroups: rec.org.mensa