HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: rmg53668@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Ryan M. Grant)
Subject: Re: Crusades, once more into the breach!
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana
Date: Thu, 27 Aug 1992 22:27:32 GMT

jbrown@doc.bmd.trw.com writes:
>  Why is it so dangerous for many Christians to admit that perhaps they
>  are wrong?

>    Is it?  Let's see.  "Perhaps I am wrong."  Hmmm.  No lightning.
>    No hard drive failure.  Everything seems OK.


>  I am quite willing to admit that God may exist, and
>  will change my opinion accordingly if new evidence becomes
>  available.

>    So does that make you an agnostic?	Or a "weak" atheist?

I'm not interested in disproving the Bible, but the "weak athiest" 
reference shows a lack of appreiation for the scientific method.
The scientific method takes its strength from concentrating on correct theories.If any theory is proven incorrect, it is virtuously tossed aside in the quest
for truth, instead of hung on to as dogma.  I too would believe in God 
wholeheartedly if He were proven to exist, and being a strong athiest, I look
deeply into all peas to believe.  Since I honestly look but do not find
evidence for God, my athiesm is only made stronger.

				Having an open mind is not weak,
				- Ryan Grant
From: kachun@astro.as.arizona.edu (Ka Chun Yu)
Newsgroups: alt.atheism
Subject: Re: Proof: God wrote the Bible
Date: 1 Sep 92 00:58:34 GMT
Organization: University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ

In article <emc.715275858@keiko> emc@doe.carleton.ca (Eli Chiprout) writes:
>Anthony Faull (fllant01@uctvax.uct.ac.za) writes:
>
>>Extract from 'Seal of God' by F.C.Payne (1974):
>
>>BIBLE NUMERICS - FIRST ASPECT
>text).  What it more probably
>says is that someone was very clever in pulling them out of the text
>with the preconceived notion of seven being important, and ignoring
>all of the occurrences of 3,5,9, etc.  I remember a teacher once saying
>how amazing it was that 3 was a recurring number in nature and,
>with the help of the class proceeded, to pull out hundreds of examples
>where 3 could be found.  I was amazed! You can probably do it with
>2.
>
>You will find much more of the same garbage in the Scoffield Bible.

Someone should try it with the (Baby) Boomer Bible.

>
>--
>Eli Chiprout
>Dept. of Electronics, Carleton University
>Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
>emc@doe.carleton.ca


--
*Ka Chun Yu                 * "Deputy dog dog a ding dang depa depa deputy     *
*kachun@as.arizona.edu      *  dog dog a ding dang depa depa . . ."            *
*                           *                         --"Don't Let's Start"    *
From: geoff@tyger.Eng.Sun.COM (Geoff Arnold @ Sun BOS - R.H. coast near the top)
Newsgroups: alt.atheism
Subject: Re: Faith vs. Reason
Date: 25 Aug 1992 23:05:06 GMT
Organization: SunSelect
NNTP-Posting-Host: tyger.east.sun.com

Quoth lemoine@chemvx.tamu.edu (Brett G. Lemoine) (in <25AUG199217393089@chemvx.tamu.edu>):
#3) How can we determine whether a person is relying on 'faith' as opposed
#   to "wishful thinking"?

Hmmmm - I'm not sure that I can tell the difference, so maybe this
question is null.

Geoff

--
Geoff Arnold, PC-NFS architect, Sun Select. (geoff.arnold@East.Sun.COM)
-----------
News software that enforces a four-line .signature limit is responsible for
the fact that these postings just go on and on and on and seem to end in mid-
From: NETOPRWA@ncsuvm.cc.ncsu.edu (Wayne Aiken)
Newsgroups: alt.atheism
Subject: Re: Famous Atheists?
Date: 23 Aug 92 17:43:43 GMT
Organization: North Carolina State University

In article <1992Aug22.015120.9012@cco.caltech.edu>
keith@cco.caltech.edu (Keith Allan Schneider) writes:
>
>I think that Jefferson, for example, was a Deist.  Thomas Paine, however,
>was clearly an atheist.  His religion was "to do good."
 
Read the first part of "The Age of Reason".  I once thought that he was an
outright atheist too, but he clearly belongs in the Deist camp.
 
"I believe in one God, and no more; and I hope for happiness beyond
 this life.
 
 I believe in the equality of man; and I believe that religious duties
 consist in doing justice, loving mercy, and endeavoring to make our
 fellow-creatures happy."
 
For all practical purposes, it seems that his lifestyle was atheistic,
although he held the same "Nature's God" vestigal Deism like many of
the other founders.
 
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: oser@fermi.wustl.edu (Scott Oser)
Newsgroups: alt.atheism
Subject: Did the world end already?
Date: 29 Aug 1992 04:03:33 GMT
Organization: Washington University Astrophysics
NNTP-Posting-Host: fermi.wustl.edu

	Could some knowledgeable person tell how Christians explain the
various NT passages where Jesus claims that the end is IMMINENT, and that
some of his disciples would live to see it?  I can't provide a verse 
reference, but I believe the Gospels make this claim more than once.
	Seems kind of hard to reconcile this sort of statement to our
continued existence here.  Hey, maybe the world did end already, and
we've all apparently wound up in hell! :-)

-Scott Oser

Newsgroups: alt.atheism
From: pmy@vivaldi.acc.virginia.edu (Pete Yadlowsky)
Subject: Re: LIFE GOES ON UNTIL YOU DIE
Organization: University of Virginia
Date: Wed, 26 Aug 1992 20:15:10 GMT

Frank Doss writes

>>You do not possess life any more than you possess the air you
>>breathe. Life possesses *you*, and can as easily toss you away as
>>give you birth. So why cling so tightly to _it_? 

>What is this entity "life" that has the rationality to possess anything?

Who said anything about rationality? I do not mean "possess" in the
sense of a conscious, deliberate action or intent. Life has no mind
with which to possess something, in the sense you seem to be taking
the word. 

>You are anthropomorphisizing electro-chemical reactions.

oh, no, a Reductionist. Take dagger. Throw.

Your mistaken interpretation of "possess", above, has led you to this
inference. I'm not anthropomorphizing, but _you_ are reducing
something timeless and unfathomably complex to a few sketches on
already-yellowing graph paper. Would you call yourself a scientist,
or scientifically enlightened? Your characteristically-youthful
clinging to holy mantram like "electro-chemical reaction" would belie
any such claim. 

>>>When I die, I will be as real as a dinosaur.

>>The infant you once were now _is_ as real as a dinosaur...as is the
>>being you were 2 seconds ago. 

>I have memories regarding some of my infancy as well as regarding 2
>seconds ago.  The thoughts and memories are real and will continue to
>live as long as I do.

No, they only live while you're remembering them, i.e. right now. But
how does this refute (or affirm?) that the infant Frank Doss is now
as real as a dinosaur? 

>>>Fear can also grow from a fear of losing what one currently has. 

>>We're constantly losing what we have. You must be miserable.

>Fear: an unpleasant often strong emotion caused by anticipation of
>awareness of danger.
>A little fear is healthy.  A lot of fear is dangerous.

um, so what are you saying? That living your whole life in a
constant, albeit low level of fear is somehow healthy? I don't quite
see how your response addresses my previous remark.  

--
Peter M. Yadlowsky              |  Wake! The sky is light!
Academic Computing Center       | Let us to the Net again...
University of Virginia          |    Companion keyboard.
pmy@Virginia.EDU                |                      - after Basho
Newsgroups: alt.atheism
From: mehawk@agora.rain.com (Michael Sandy)
Subject: Re: Bush interview (to Jim Brown)
Organization: Open Communications Forum
Date: Tue, 25 Aug 1992 22:38:48 GMT

The American People Prayed that Bush would demonstrate conviction on
_something_....

Now they see they should've been more specific!

Down with "Anyone who votes for me is on the side of God"-Bush



-- 
Michael Sandy
mehawk@agora.rain.com
michaels@m2xenix.psg.com
"The above does not reflect the views of any organization."
Newsgroups: alt.atheism
From: achenbac@epcot.spdc.ti.com (Jeff Achenbach)
Subject: Re: A question
Organization: TI Semiconductor Process and Design Center
Date: Tue, 25 Aug 1992 21:15:18 GMT

>}Your "notice" of the "gay" community reminds me of Sherlock Holmes
>}noticing a flea on his dinner plate using his 5X looking glass.   :)
>} 
>}(If you don't "get it", your "statistics" are about 5 times too high.)
>}Regards,
>}Jim B.
>
>Out of curiosity, what relevance does the percentage of the population that
>is homosexual have on the government's discrimination?
>

What relevance does this have to alt.atheism? By the way, last time I looked
we were not governed by the Boy Scouts of America.

Jeff Achenbach
From: kachun@astro.as.arizona.edu (Ka Chun Yu)
Newsgroups: alt.atheism
Subject: Re: Is atheism experimentally refutable?
Date: 1 Sep 92 21:16:46 GMT
Organization: University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ

In article <71889@apple.Apple.COM> mikel@Apple.COM (Mikel Evins) writes:
>In article <1992Sep1.140456.22729@st-andrews.ac.uk> nrp@st-andrews.ac.uk (Norman R. Paterson) writes:
>>I think you are drawing a false distinction between a belief and a lack of a belief.  That is, 
>>I think you are distinguishing "I believe there is no god" from "I do not believe there is a 
>>god."  But I don't think there is a distinction.  Each seems to imply the other.  For example, 
>>what is the difference between "I believe there are no lampshades following me" implies "I do 
>>not believe there are any lampshades following me," and vice versa.  So they are equivalent.  
>
>I think not, and present here a thought experiment to illustrate why
>not. Let us assume for the sake of argument that you are sitting
>in a chair before something equivalent to a terminal (if you are
>not then we can imagine conducting this thought experiment at
>some time when you are). Now, without looking beneath your
>chair, consider the statement "there are exactly 4 visible pieces
>of lint under your chair". Do you believe this is definitely true? If not,
>do you believe that it is definitely not true? In any case, I
>think it is clear that you could very well believe neither that
>it is true nor that it is not true; in fact, in the
>moment before you digested the text in which I asked the question
>you very likely had no particular belief at all about the number
>of visible pieces of lint under your chair, and I would consider it
>superfluous to formulate any belief about it in the absence of
>evidence.

Yes, but I have had experience with pieces of lint under my chair before.
There may or may not currently be any pieces of lint under my chair, but I
know from past observations that it is possible for lint to be there.  Because
of this fore-knowledge, I cannot positively deny the existence of four pieces
of lint under my chair without checking.

God (or gods) on the other hand is a completely different situation.  I've yet
to encounter any observational evidence that a god exists, so there is no sug-
gestion whatsoever that I should currently think such a being can exist.
An example of this would be the possibility that four leprechauns are behind
my back as I type this.  Geez, I don't know if they're really there or not
without turning around and looking, but I can safely assume that they're not,
since my experience with leprechauns in my office has been quite limited.

>
>It would be true of me right now, for example, to say that I
>don't believe that there are exactly 4 visible pieces of lint
>under my chair. It would not be true, however, to say that
>I believe there are not 4 visible pieces of lint under my chair.
>


--
*Ka Chun Yu                 * "Deputy dog dog a ding dang depa depa deputy     *
*kachun@as.arizona.edu      *  dog dog a ding dang depa depa . . ."            *
*                           *                         --"Don't Let's Start"    *
Newsgroups: alt.atheism
From: sieferme@milton.u.washington.edu (Eric Sieferman)
Subject: Re: Crusades; Once more into the breach
Organization: University of Washington, Seattle
Date: Thu, 27 Aug 1992 16:04:45 GMT

In article <1992Aug18.172557.27380@bmerh85.bnr.ca> dgraham@bmers30.bnr.ca (Douglas Graham) writes:
(some stuff deleted)
>
>Alright, let me make sure that I've got this straight.  First, we have
>Jesus, the great moral teacher, the Son of God, whose teachings all
>Christians claim to follow.  Jesus teaches on a number of occasions that
>he has no intention of changing the Law.  Seems pretty straightforward to
>me.
>
>Then Paul comes along and cooks up some story about penalties being paid,
>and that the Law is irrelevant -- Grace is where the action is now.  Of
>this, Jesus never mentioned a peep.  I suppose I can accept that this is
>Christianity, but I think then that it may be stretching the truth quite
>a bit for Christians to claim that they follow the teachings of Jesus.
>
>Doug Graham         dgraham@bnr.ca         My opinions are my own.

Not to mention all the other revelations they claimed to have
received in the intervening years.

Y'know, this whole business about the Law has always confused me.
At the time of the gospels, there were several different 
directions in which judaism was going.  One was that the Law
was prescribed by god as a means for achieving after-death
rewards.  This was a fairly recent addition to judaism,
and the one which Paul was comparing to christianity to show
the latter's superiority.  

However, there were other interpretations of the Law extant
in judaism at the time.  One was that obediance to the Law
was the right thing to do just because god wanted it this way.
Another was that obediance to the Law (especially collective
obediance) made god really happy and much more disposed to
reward the law-abiding community in the here-and-now.
Another was that jews were under a special obligation to
obey the Law to show the superiority of their god
over competing gods.

I mention this because christians have always been fond of
totally distorting the content of all competing religions,
and this habit started with Paul, christianity's first
(and most successful) salesman.  The whole business of
Jesus fulfilling the Law was nonsense.  Many (if not most)
of jews at the time weren't really looking for a messiah,
and most of those who were were eagerly awaiting the sort
of warrior-king frequently seen in the OT.

Early christianity reminds me a lot of a sleazy software
company, the kind that says, "We can't give you what
you want, so we will help you redefine your wants so
our product meets your needs"

-- 
| Eric Sieferman            |    sieferme@u.washington.edu          |
| U. of W., M.C.I.S.        |    (206) 685-3104                     |
From: 9051467f@levels.unisa.edu.au
Newsgroups: alt.atheism
Subject: Re: Contents of the 'Death Sea Scrolls': claim by Australian scientist
Date: 28 Aug 92 05:18:08 GMT
Organization: University of South Australia

In article <92238.165251A410JACQ@HASARA11.BITNET>, A410JACQ@HASARA11.BITNET (Jacqueline Cote) writes:
> A few weeks ago there was an article in a local newspaper that an Australian
> scientist (I forgot her name), who had studied (part of) the Scrolls claims
> that they state that Jesus *did not* die after his crucifiction, was revived
> with mirre and some other substance, and continued to live for another
> 30 years, travelling around and telling people about his visions. He married
> Mary Magdelen and had three children with her, two sons and a daughter.
> After the birth of his second son, he apparently left her to marry a Greek
> female bishop (?????).
I put forward a theory about that I'd heard avout this a few days ago.
I've had two emails since then. One suggested reading 'The passover plot'. I
haven't read it yet, so if you find it, tell me who wrote it please.

-- 
John McVey, Whyalla campus, Uni S.Australia
Enic Eng Student & Terror Tekkie G1 (at 19!)
9051467f@levels.unisa.edu.au, or try
9051467f@wh.whyalla.unisa.edu.au

Those who believe in an afterlife will not be disappointed.
				--me.
'An idea isn't responsible for those who believe in it.'
   				--Don Marquis
From: rlk@underprize.think.com (Robert Krawitz)
Newsgroups: alt.atheism
Subject: Re: Contents of the 'Death Sea Scrolls': claim by Australian scientist
Date: 26 Aug 92 12:20:04
Organization: Thinking Machines Corporation, Cambridge Mass., USA
	<1992Aug26.083509.323@doc.bmd.trw.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: underprize.think.com
In-reply-to: jbrown@doc.bmd.trw.com's message of 26 Aug 92 08:35:09 MST

In article <1992Aug26.083509.323@doc.bmd.trw.com> jbrown@doc.bmd.trw.com writes:

   If you are gullible enough to believe that story, I have a question for you.
   Would you be interested in buying some beach-front property in Arizona?
   (There's lots of "beach" down there you know.)  Or how about the Brooklin
   Bridge?  Or closer to home perhaps, the Eiffel Tower?

Absent any evidence, it takes no more gullibility to believe that story
than to believe, say, Christianity.  But if there does turn out to be
good evidence for it, it'll be interesting to see what happens...
--
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
Newsgroups: alt.atheism
From: Tim.ONeill@english.utas.edu.au (Tim O'Neill)
Subject: Re: Contents of the 'Death Sea Scrolls': claim by Australian scientist
Organization: University of Tasmania (Australia)
Date: Mon, 31 Aug 1992 01:56:33 GMT

In article <graham.715150073@galois>, graham@maths.su.oz.au (Graham Matthews) writes:
> 
> (Tim O'Neill) writes:
> >That about sums it up pretty well Peter. Her entire thesis rests on 
> >the idea that the scrolls were written about two hundred years earlier
> >than they seem to have been. Thiering has some flawed arguments against
> >the accepted paleographical dating, some circular arguments against the
> >dating from historical references in the scrolls and she handles the
> >recent carbon dating of the scrolls (which confirms the consensus
> >position and trashes her ideas) by simply ignoring it. She is a lady
> >of little or no credibility.
> 
> While I have no comment about Dr Thiering's work, I suggest that Tim you
> know very little about carbon dating (or you are making up things). The
> carbon dating does not "confirm the consensus position" because the
> carbon dating does not give an exact date, it gives a range of dates.
> Both Dr Thiering's dates and the dates of the consensus position fall
> within this range.

Perhaps I have got the info on the carbon-dating wrong, but I was under the 
impression that it came up with a result of 'late 2nd century to early 1st 
century BC'which excludes Thiering's hypothesis. I am refering to the 
arguments overthe dates of those scrolls which mention the Teacher of 
Righteousness and the Wicked Priest. Other scrolls from Qumran are certainly 
from as late as the 1st century AD, but it is the scrolls pertaining to the 
origins of the Qumran sect which are at issue. I haven't been able to track 
down the published paper on the recent dating; if you have access to it and
my impression (gleaned from newspaper articles) is wrong then please let
me know. 
 
> The dangers of believing things you hear because they are palatable (or
> the alternatives unpalatable!) ...

That's a bit harsh, old son! I try to check things pretty damn thoroughly,
though in this case I'm hampered by a lack of resources (this comes from 
living at the arse-end of the world). If you have more
detailed info on the dating results I'm very happy to be corrrected.

Tim O'Neill
Tasmanian Devil
From: perry@apollo.hp.com (Jim Perry)
Newsgroups: alt.atheism
Subject: Re: Complete proof of Gregg Skinner's dishonesty
Date: 31 Aug 92 15:25:51 GMT
Organization: Hewlett-Packard Corporation, Chelmsford, MA

In article <7!fn-8_.madhaus@netcom.com> madhaus@netcom.com (Maddi Hausmann) writes:

Hmm... this is new; a meta-spelling flame?

I have to stand by Gregg Skinner here -- I don't think he's done
anything dishonest in this thread or elsewhere that I've noted, and I
don't think he's the type.

In this instance my correction of the infamous jive/jibe controversy
was relatively low-key, since (while I am perhaps excessively
compulsive about spelling/usage issues) I am aware of nature of net
writing, and the damping effect usage flames has on communication:

As you (Maddi) quoted:

>I think we're all looking for the word "jibe", here, for what it's
>worth.  I notice that...

This was really an aside and only after the word had been used several
times.  As expressed ("I think...") there is room for doubt that I am
being authoritative, since I don't cite any sources.  The word *is*
informal in any case, which is also the case for "jive".  In context,
Gregg's "controversial" defense of "another poster's" usage seemed to
me to be a gesture of fence-mending, more a case of going an extra
mile than of dishonesty.

Let's tone this one down, please...

>Side note: who is "he"?  Last time I checked, I was quite female.

Another good example of the need for gender-neutral writing...  This
also happened recently with Ridha Souissi, who was falsely presumed to
be female by several posters (so it cuts both ways).
-- 
Jim Perry   	    	    	    Distributed Object Computing Program
perry@apollo.hp.com	    	    Hewlett-Packard Co., Chelmsford MA
This is the way the breakfast ends, not with a wimp but a banger.
From: jbrown@doc.bmd.trw.com
Newsgroups: alt.atheism
Subject: Re: A question
Date: 25 Aug 92 17:48:55 MST

In article <25AUG199213405864@chemvx.tamu.edu>, lemoine@chemvx.tamu.edu (Brett G. Lemoine) writes:
> In article <1992Aug25.080154.308@doc.bmd.trw.com>, jbrown@doc.bmd.trw.com writes...
> }In article <1992Aug25.043742.14071@news.duc.auburn.edu>, singram@eng.auburn.edu (Scott Ingram) writes:
> }> Re: 10% of our population is homosexual.
> } 
> }I seriously doubt that it is more than 2%.
> } 
> [...deletia...]
> } 
> }> In the past several months, I have come to realize that the 
> }> gay community is out there, but we heteros choose not to notice it.
> }> 
> }> Orion.
> } 
> }Your "notice" of the "gay" community reminds me of Sherlock Holmes
> }noticing a flea on his dinner plate using his 5X looking glass.   :)
> } 
> }(If you don't "get it", your "statistics" are about 5 times too high.)
> }Regards,
> }Jim B.
> 
> Out of curiosity, what relevance does the percentage of the population that
> is homosexual have on the government's discrimination?
> 
> }-IvArch->--------------------------Brett G. Lemoine-------------------->
> }-Texas A&M University--------------Chemistry Department Programmer----->
> }-Internet: lemoine@chemvx.tamu.edu-Bitnet: lemoine@tamchem------------->
> }------"A person without a god is like a fish without a skateboard."---->

None.  Discrimination is never justified.  But tell me just how homosexuals
are discriminated against by *government*, other than by the military
which claims to have functional reasons for its policies.  I am well
aware of how *individuals* discriminate.  What rights do homosexuals lack
as *citizens* (and not as *homosexuals*) that other people have?  It is
my understanding that they already enjoy equal protection under the law
as citizens of this country.

Regards,

Jim B.

Newsgroups: alt.atheism,alt.religion.emacs