HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: Bernt Budde <bug@arachne.udac.uu.se>
Newsgroups: alt.atheism.moderated
Subject: Religious Experience (was Re: Atheism vs. Christianity)
Date: Thu, 13 Aug 1992 12:33:20 GMT
Distribution: world
Organization: UDAC, Uppsala, Sweden

wayne@tse.uucp (Wayne Hines) writes:
>In article <1992Jul29.213315.21289@samba.oit.unc.edu> lambada.oit.unc.edu!Josh.Adams@mcnc.org (Josh Adams) writes:
>However, I NOW know that there is a God, and I know that He has revealed
>Himself to some who *were* probably as skeptical as yourself. If you are 
>searching, and if you are open then He *may* be revealed to you as well.

(I'm writing too much in this meeting!)
It's no problem getting a religious experience; just get a religious up-
bringing and get low blood sugars... Why do you think they fasted in the
bad old days? Strange chemicals also helps; the way I understand it, if
you don't keep good hygiene and get infected wounds you get a lot of
strange things in the blood. (Ever wondered about flaggelants?)

In a related note, I saw an article a few years back that the Catholic
Church(!!) had officially declared that all the visions they got in the
Phillipines (?) was because they had to little food and that they
shouldn't report in every angel or saint they saw as miracles...

Now, do we really have to discuss personal experiences low value as
proof that you talk to some higher/lower/etc beings/gods/devils/etc?
That should be obvious. Don't let me start it, just read some papers
on scientific method or something.

>(followup by Email only please). 

With such a juicy and easily-stomped content? .)

Bernt Budde                            |Religion, n: A daughter of
bug@arachne.udac.uu.se                 |Hope and Fear, explaining to
UDAC (Uppsala Univ. Computing Centre)  |Ignorance the Nature of the
                                       |Unknowable.
Don't for a moment believe UDAC,       |
while being a nice place, have         |-Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's
opinions like me!!                     |                 Dictionary
From: rlk@underprize.think.com (Robert Krawitz)
Newsgroups: alt.atheism.moderated
Subject: Re: Sunday Liquor Sales
Date: 20 Aug 92 11:39:50
Distribution: world
Organization: Thinking Machines Corporation, Cambridge Mass., USA

In article <sbuckley.714169120@sfu.ca> Stephen Buckley <sbuckley@sfu.ca> writes:

   >Stephen Buckley writes:

   >>nor do i expect
   >>to have the totalitarian privelage of being able to revoke your privelege
   >>to do something i don't agree with ...
   >>  i'd like to prohibit sunday work, which mainly falls into the category
   >>of shopping.  ...

   let me be more specific then.  i do not agree with work on sunday and would
   like to have the right to try to influence other people that this is right
   just like everyone else has the right to influence other people.  i do
   not want the right to be able to revoke other people's privilege because
   i disagree with them.  i want the right to try to get other people to agree
   with me that what i believe is right.  basically i don't want to revoke
   people's privileges but i do want people to decide that we shouldn't be
   working on sunday and i want the freedom to try to influence them.  

You already have the right to try to influence people not to work on
Sunday, so what's the problem?  Prohibiting work on Sunday is something
quite different.  An example of the first is saying "Robert, it is wrong
to work on Sunday".  An example of the second is saying "Robert, if you
work on Sunday you will be subject to fines and/or imprisonment".  The
first is simply stating your opinion; the second is backing it up with
the force of the state.  Which of these alternatives are you advocating
(or is there something else here I'm missing)?  You seem to be
contradicting yourself.
--
ames >>>>>>>>>  |	Robert Krawitz <rlk@think.com>	245 First St.
bloom-beacon >  |think!rlk				Cambridge, MA  02142
harvard >>>>>>  .	Thinking Machines Corp.		(617)234-2116

Member of the League for Programming Freedom -- write league@prep.ai.mit.edu
From: "John A. Johnson" <J5J@psuvm.psu.edu>
Newsgroups: alt.atheism.moderated
Subject: 4 religions for atheists (Was: Re: Two Religions ...)
Date: Thu, 20 Aug 1992 11:42:07 EDT
Distribution: world
Organization: Penn State University

In article <1992Aug18.195110.4375@eagle.lerc.nasa.gov>, Tawit Chitsomboon
<fstawit@icomp01.lerc.nasa.gov> says:
>
>As far as I know, there are only two established religions that
>an atheist can subscribe to: Buddhism and Jainism; both deny the
>existence of personal God. I don't know much about Jainism other
>than the fact that the founder's name is Mahavira who was a
>contemporary of the Buddha, the founder of Buddhism.

As an atheist who would also describe himself as a pagan and a
Taoist, I would add these two "religions" to the list of atheist-
compatible religions.  My brand of paganism regards "gods" and
"goddesses" as metaphors for the experience of nature; no personal
God here.  Perhaps the ineffable Tao is a god-like concept, but one
can only allude to it metaphorically, as in the Tao Teh Ching.
In both cases, I would say that these "religions" suggest ways of
relating to the natural world rather than to a spiritual being.
-----------------------------------
John A. Johnson (J5J@psuvm.psu.edu)
Atheist, Pagan, and Taoist
Penn State is not responsible for my behavior.
"Cynicism is the first religion.  It is the means by which to discover
 all else, since cynicism implies skepticism.  Skepticism results in
 examination, and examination leads to understanding."  from
 _The Spirit of Shaolin_ by David Carradine
From: sbuckley@sfu.ca (Stephen Buckley)
Newsgroups: alt.atheism.moderated
Subject: Re: evidence for christianity
Date: 17 Aug 92 18:16:40 GMT
Organization: Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, B.C., Canada

kato@leland.Stanford.EDU (Daniel William Roth) writes:

>In article <1992Aug12.203402.18269@Princeton.EDU> John Daly <daly@strawber.princeton.edu> writes:
>>The text of the Bible is generally given historical credibility because so
>>much of its content can be verified archaeologically.  The successions of
>>rulers, the locations of cities and battles, descriptions of the lifestyles
>>and customs of the people are confirmed by the archaeological record.

>This says nothing of the validity of the claims of the Bible.  Many stories
>and myths are set in historically accurate settings.  This does not mean, 
>however, that the storyline itself is true.  Many American Indian myths are
>about spirits and gods who visited actual places on the earth, like Mount
>Shasta.  Because the descriptions of Mount Shasta in these stories are
>geographically accurate does not mean that the spirits and gods in the myths
>actually existed or visited Mount Shasta.

  and beyond the empirical truth or falsity of these stories, everyone
uses some sort of criteria to decide whether to believe in american
indian mount shasta visiting gods and spirits or in jesus.  worship a
god or a spirit is a decision that demands more than an appeal to empirical
truth.

---                          
     Stephen Buckley        /    the meaning of life is the answer
     sbuckley@sfu.ca       /      to God's question in the Bible:
   TrueNorthStrong&Free   /        
      1-800-REALITY      /    "What are you going to do with my Son?"
From: Stephen Buckley <sbuckley@sfu.ca>
Newsgroups: alt.atheism.moderated
Subject: Re: Why theism is widespread
Date: Tue, 18 Aug 1992 20:26:06 GMT
Distribution: world
Organization: Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, B.C., Canada

Dan Yergeau writes:

>Stephen Buckley writes:
>|> sociological studies that have 
>|> concluded that while the largest self-professed religious group in the 
>|> united states is christian, the majority of those who claim to be
>|> christian do not know of or understand the basic teachings of jesus, and
>|> even by dictionary definitions cannot be classified as christian.

>Gee, wouldn't that be an interesting "poll" to be reported on the
>evening news.

>An NBC poll today revealed, among those identifying themselves as 
>Christian, that
>  -- only 68% could provide the birth year of Christ within 10 years,
>  -- only 40% knew who the mother of Christ was,
>  -- only 18% knew that Christ was a Jew,
>  -- only 3% could name four of the books of the Bible documenting
>     the life of Christ,
>  -- and 58% attributed the Ten Commandments to Christ.

  these are just the kind of numbers i'm talking about.  my claim is that
people think this is a christian culture [it's secular] and say the majority
of people are christian, but the numbers indicate that most of those who
claim to be christian don't even fit the biblical definition of christian.
so the facts indicate that tho people say it's a christian culture, it's not.

>Big :^)

>BTW, do you have a reference for these studies?

  i am tracking down my references for the united nations charter of religions
that lists the united states as pagan, and for the study that came up
with the numbers that you quoted above.  but actually i think i'm going
to drop the second search since you've already provided a source that
speaks to the same thing.
From: Maureen O'Halloran <maoh@phyast.nhn.uoknor.edu>
Newsgroups: alt.atheism.moderated
Subject: Re: Non-New Testament Documentation
Date: Thu, 20 Aug 1992 14:54:32 GMT
Distribution: world
Organization: Engineering Computer Network, University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK, USA

Jeffrey D Koperski <jkopersk@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu> writes:

>Here is an abridged list of non-Christian, non-New 
>Testament primary sources that provide independent 
>historical backing for the New Testament record. 

You still have to go to the sources to find out exactly how much of the
"New Testament record" they actually back up.  To confirm that a
person named Jesus existed and that his followers believed certain
things about him is not the same as "backing up" the entire new
testament.  Soc.religion.christian has a FAQ with a relatively
unbiased evaluation of these sources.

Here is the evaluation by the moderator of soc.religion.christian
---Begin Quote----

What is known about Christ from non-Christian sources?

The answer is, "not much".  However I think there are enough
references to be sure that he really existed, was a Jewish teacher,
was crucified, and had disciples following him.  There's nominally
some evidence for the miraculous darkness at his crucifixion reported
in the Gospels, but since the report comes through a Christian, it is
not qualified as independent.

--- end Quote ---
I don't know the moderators name, but presumably he or she is a
Christian.  

It seems to me the historical record neither "proves" that Jesus was
"the Christ" nor can be dismissed entirely as "obvious" latter-day
insertions leaving in doubt whether a person named Jesus ever existed
at all.  Sure seems like God (if S/He exists) is bound and determined
to make us accept everything on faith.  When I was growing up I always
heard that Roman records "verified" the gospels and thought naively
that there was extensive documentation of Herod's massacre, the census
mentioned, maybe even trial transcripts!  There is actually
surprisingly (or not surprisingly depending  on your point of view)
little documentation.


--

 Maureen O'Halloran
 This is not a .signature file
From: Wayne Aiken <NETOPRWA@ncsuvm.cc.ncsu.edu>
Newsgroups: alt.atheism.moderated
Subject: Re: Bush interview as quoted in Alt.Atheism FAQ
Date: Wed, 19 Aug 1992 05:25:59 GMT
Distribution: world
Organization: North Carolina State University

Here's an interesting additional piece of information:
 
On Sunday, August 16, American Atheists picketed St. Martin's Episcopal
church in Houston, Texas.  This is the church where George Bush usually
goes when he's in Houston, and he was there last Sunday.  This was
reported on CNN.
 
When asked to comment on the atheist's demands, the head of the church,
Dr. Claude Payne, responded: "Well, I tell you, we *are* one nation under
God."
 
There is now no doubt as to where George Bush got the idea that Atheists
have no rights.  Is this an official part of Episcopalean dogma?
 
Wayne Aiken                                            "You can BE what
PO Box 30904            slack@ncsu.edu                  you WON'T!!"
Raleigh, NC  27622                                       --"Bob"
(919) 782-8171          StarFleet BBS: (919) 782-3095
From: daly@chocolat.princeton.edu (John Daly)
Newsgroups: alt.atheism.moderated
Subject: Caiaphas
Date: 17 Aug 92 18:11:04 GMT
Organization: Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering (CFD)

Did people catch the article in the NY Times on the discovery of
the Caiaphas family tomb?  Caiaphas was the Jewish high priest
at the time of the crucifixion of Jesus.  According to Biblical
accounts (John 11:45-53 and 18:13) Caiaphas was responsible for
the order that Christ should be killed.

Anyway, the results should be VERY interesting and edifying.  I
believe that it is the most direct archaeological link to date
for the actual personae of the New Testament.  Does anyone have
further information?
From: rlk@underprize.think.com (Robert Krawitz)
Newsgroups: alt.atheism.moderated
Subject: Re: A non-Muslim scholar on Islam & Rushdie
Date: 14 Aug 92 08:56:41 GMT
Organization: Thinking Machines Corporation, Cambridge Mass., USA

I realize I'm not responding to the author of this piece, but I want to
respond to it nonetheless...

In article <9208131726.AA26751@rutgers.edu> RBNXHS@rohvm1.bitnet writes:

   In a modern context, how would Jews feel if in the name of creative
   imagination the memory of the Holocaust and its victims, like
   Ann Frank, were distorted or denegerated?

Considerably less than thrilled, to be sure (note that this is not
hypothetical, as there has been lots of literature, intended both as
fiction and non-fiction, that does attempt to deny the Holocaust), but
writing such a book would be grounds for social sanction, not legal
sanction.
--
ames >>>>>>>>>  |	Robert Krawitz <rlk@think.com>	245 First St.
bloom-beacon >  |think!rlk				Cambridge, MA  02142
harvard >>>>>>  .	Thinking Machines Corp.		(617)234-2116

Member of the League for Programming Freedom -- write league@prep.ai.mit.edu
From: johndunk@wpi.wpi.edu (John Dunkelberg)
Newsgroups: alt.atheism.moderated
Subject: Re: Documentary evidence for Jesus' existence
Date: 14 Aug 92 14:23:06 GMT
Organization: Worcester Polytechnic Institute

In article <1992Aug13.174853.28634@linus.mitre.org> James Meritt <m23364@mwunix> writes:
>In article <Bsvu1t.DyG@wpi.WPI.EDU> John Dunkelberg <johndunk@wpi.wpi.edu> writes:
>}In article <1992Aug10.144816.5174@linus.mitre.org> James Meritt <m23364@mwunix> writes:
>}>In article <sbuckley.713158477@sfu.ca> Stephen Buckley <sbuckley@sfu.ca> writes:
>}>}  jesus said one thing in the bible that is more profound than anything
>}>}anyone has ever said before, contemporary to him or not.  he said he is
>}>}the son of god
>}>
>}>Since you claim it exists, please provide this.
>}>Note:  A specific, direct quote.  Not an acknowledgement of what someone else
>}>said, nor a claim or a claim.
>}
>}Okay, just for the record:   From the online King James:
>
>Tsk tsk.  You think JESUS wrote the King James?  Fascinating.
>For someone who was claimed to be so important AND literate (or so the claims
>for these are made in the NT), there seems to be a real shortage of anything
>He wrote.  Now, you have a translation of a synthesis of a copy ... of a claim.
>NOTE that I specifically requested that it not be a claim of a claim.

Pish!

Man, i expect you want Copernicus to come forward and specifically tell
you his theories... otherwise they might be forgerys of his work!

Okay, I'll give ya that nobody had a video recorder running on the
hypothetical Jesus of Nazareth.  Sorry, no 8-tracks for you.

I still don't see what difference it makes.  Claiming to be the son of
God means nada/nothing/nihil.

-- 
| John S. Dunkelberg Jr. |"The devil went down to georgia, 
| johndunk@wpi.wpi.edu   | an' he was lookin' for a soul to steal.
|------------------------| He was in a bind, he was way behind,
|The Charlie Daniels Band: and he was lookin' to make a deal..."
From: tilo@bernina.ethz.ch (Tilo Levante)
Newsgroups: alt.atheism.moderated
Subject: Re: The "civilized" west
Date: Wed, 19 Aug 1992 07:32:12 GMT
Distribution: world
Organization: Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH), Zurich, CH

Ken Arromdee <arromdee@jyusenkyou.cs.jhu.edu> writes:

>I'm not going to post a long article on this.  I am going to reply, however:
>The Communist party legally exists in the US.  You will not be taken away and
>shot merely for being a Communist and saying that you want to overthrow the
>US government.

I do not know much about the situation in the US, but in Germany are many
cases where being a member of the Communist (called KPD) can result in
seroius trouble. Two examples:

  This year, a postman was fired because he is a member in the KPD.

  Some years ago a operator of the computer department of the
  University Karlsruhe was fired because he was a candidate for the KPD
  in an election for the parlement.

  Many teachers were not employed due to the "Extremistenerlass". It
  was neccessary for each new teacher to show that he has the right political
  opinion.

>In fact, the freedom of speech that says that people should be permitted to
>speak out as Communists in the USA is the _same_ freedom of speech which
>Westerners appeal to in saying that Rushdie should not be executed for his
>writing.

  Between freedom to do something and execution is a wide area of possibilities.

>The argument against executing Rushdie is not an argument against executions
>in general (though there may be other arguments for that) and it is a mistake
>to turn it into one.  People disapprove of killing Rushdie because his "crime"
>does not deserve the punishment.  If Iran merely wanted to lock him away for
>40 years, the argument by Westerners would be the same, and I _hope_ nobody
>would be saying "well, the USA can put in jail enemies of the state, so why
>can't Iran do this to Rushdie"?

  I'm not sure, about what the discussion is:
  
    1. Should Rushdie be punished for his opinion?
       
           No!

    2. Can we understand why some people want to punish/kill him?
       How would other groups react in similar cases?



Tilo Levante
From: yergeau@leland.Stanford.EDU (Dan Yergeau)
Newsgroups: alt.atheism.moderated
Subject: Re: Why theism is widespread
Date: Mon, 17 Aug 92 17:23:29 GMT
Distribution: world
Organization: DSG, Stanford University, CA 94305, USA

In article <sbuckley.713820045@sfu.ca>, Stephen Buckley <sbuckley@sfu.ca> writes:
|> sociological studies that have 
|> concluded that while the largest self-professed religious group in the 
|> united states is christian, the majority of those who claim to be
|> christian do not know of or understand the basic teachings of jesus, and
|> even by dictionary definitions cannot be classified as christian.

Gee, wouldn't that be an interesting "poll" to be reported on the
evening news.

An NBC poll today revealed, among those identifying themselves as 
Christian, that
  -- only 68% could provide the birth year of Christ within 10 years,
  -- only 40% knew who the mother of Christ was,
  -- only 18% knew that Christ was a Jew,
  -- only 3% could name four of the books of the Bible documenting
     the life of Christ,
  -- and 58% attributed the Ten Commandments to Christ.

Big :^)

BTW, do you have a reference for these studies?

-- 
Dan Yergeau                         He's dead Jim.  Take his phaser
yergeau@gloworm.Stanford.EDU        and I'll get his wallet.
From: tilo@bernina.ethz.ch (Tilo Levante)
Newsgroups: alt.atheism.moderated
Subject: Re: Why theism is widespread
Date: Fri, 14 Aug 1992 07:19:06 GMT
Distribution: world
Organization: Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH), Zurich, CH

yergeau@leland.Stanford.EDU (Dan Yergeau) writes:

>You stated that you know of no successful society that was
>atheist.  Well, I may be reaching here, but what about the
>United States.  Granted, the US is largely Christian, but there
>is no establishment of religion by the government.  People are
>(relatively) free to believe as they wish, and, hence, do not
>have the common theistic goal that you speak of as being
>beneficial (necessary?) for the survival of a society.

I think the US has a Christian government:

  You don't work on Sunday.
  You have Christmas.
  
Just as two examples, which are easy to prove.

BTW.: have a look at Utah.

Tilo
From: John Daly <daly@strawber.princeton.edu>
Newsgroups: alt.atheism.moderated
Subject: Re: evidence for christianity
Date: Wed, 12 Aug 1992 20:34:02 GMT
Distribution: world
Organization: Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering (CFD)

In article <1992Aug10.175006.27920@news.unomaha.edu>, trajan@cwis.unomaha.edu (Stephen McIntyre) writes:
|> 
|> The existence of the texts doesn't imply crap.  That's akin to saying
|>      "because a text of Beowulf exists, it is implied that a man named
|>      Beowulf lived during the time the text was written."  Or that a
|>      number of other mythical personalities (Theseus, Hercules, Thor,
|>      Ra, to name a few) must also have existed because they were written
|>      about and texts (or other written documents) exist.

All of our knowledge of the Gallic wars is based on a single text written
by none other than Julius Caesar himself, hardly an unbiased source.  It
seems to me that texts are actually very valuable historical references.

The text of the Bible is generally given historical credibility because so
much of its content can be verified archaeologically.  The successions of
rulers, the locations of cities and battles, descriptions of the lifestyles
and customs of the people are confirmed by the archaeological record.

Enough of the Biblical record can be confirmed by archaeological evidence
that before we can discard the Bible we will have to discard a lot of other
commonly accepted historical facts, like the Gallic Wars, first.

|> Why wouldn't an outside source care about the divinity of Christ?  
|>      If christ was so important, as his followers claim him to be,
|>      then I would think some historian would take the time to
|>      document his life and legend.  

Recall that the primary method of relating information of the day in that
region of the world was the oral tradition.  The gospels are thought to be
compiled from a collection of these oral traditions and existing the written
accounts available to the authors.  Apparently the story of Jesus was fairly
significant to the people of the time as it was compiled if four separate
accounts!
From: Ken Arromdee <arromdee@jyusenkyou.cs.jhu.edu>
Newsgroups: alt.atheism.moderated
Subject: Re: Sunday Liquor Sales
Date: Mon, 17 Aug 1992 16:39:09 GMT
Distribution: world
Organization: Johns Hopkins University CS Dept.

In article <sbuckley.713821150@sfu.ca> Stephen Buckley <sbuckley@sfu.ca> writes:
>nor do i expect
>to have the totalitarian privelage of being able to revoke your privelege
>to do something i don't agree with ...
>  i'd like to prohibit sunday work, which mainly falls into the category
>of shopping.  ...

These appear to contradict.  You don't expect to be able to revoke my privilege
to do something you disagree with.  Yet, you disagree with Sunday work, and
would like to revoke my privilege to do it.

(Technically, of course, one can want to do something without expecting it, but
it doesn't sound like what you mean is "I want to ban Sunday work but don't
expect you to let me do so.")
--
I am of course experienced in teaching and have read the writings of Socrates.
    -- Ed Nilges

Ken Arromdee (UUCP: ....!jhunix!arromdee; BITNET: arromdee@jhuvm;
     INTERNET: arromdee@jyusenkyou.cs.jhu.edu)