HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: cmtan@iss.nus.sg (Tan Chade Meng - with Dan)
Newsgroups: alt.atheism
Subject: Re: Buddhism - A religion of atheists?
Date: 27 Jan 93 03:26:29 GMT
Organization: Institute Of Systems Science, NUS
X-Newsreader: Tin 1.1 PL4

yohan@endeavor.ksu.ksu.edu (Jonathan W Newton) writes:
: 
: 
: Sounds interesting, but what do you mean by religion as it applies to Buddhism.
: I also wouldn't say that Buddhism is free of violence in its history.  Zen
: buddhism in Japan, for starters, has been involved in past bloodshed.
: 
: Jon Newton

While it is true that Buddhists do sometimes fight wars, the difference
is that no war has ever been fought in the name of Buddha or Buddhism and
Buddhism has never given religious justification for any war in its
2,500 years.

Gee, I can't answer your 1st question.  My understanding is that
Buddhism started purely as a philosophy, I don't know how it became a
"religion".  I'll check it up & reply to u tomorrow.

Regards.

CHADE MENG

--------------------
Which came first:  Rationality or Atheism?
Newsgroups: alt.atheism,talk.abortion
From: cobb@alexia.lis.uiuc.edu (Mike Cobb)
Subject: Re: Christian Pro-Choicers
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana
Date: Fri, 22 Jan 1993 14:54:14 GMT

Huh?  Could that be reexplained again so that I understand why contraception is
worse than abortion?

Thanks

MAC
Newsgroups: alt.atheism
From: livesey@solntze.wpd.sgi.com (Jon Livesey)
Newsgroups: alt.atheism
Subject: Re: RELIGION & PRESIDENTS
Date: 22 Jan 93 23:30:34 GMT
Organization: sgi
NNTP-Posting-Host: solntze.wpd.sgi.com

In article <1johhhINNlt@gap.caltech.edu>, keith@cco.caltech.edu (Keith Allan Schneider) writes:
|> David James Alexander Hanley <U16244@uicvm.uic.edu> writes:
|> 
|> >  Yeah, me and most of my atheist friends were pretty disgusted about the
|> >whole inaguration.  I seem to remember that one war general who was
|> >considering running for president made some pretty anti-religious
|> >comments and he dropped out of the race soon afterward.  Too bad he
|> >couln't have kept his mouth shut:)
|> 
|> >  As a side note, i heard the prime minister of england is an atheist.
|> >Is this true??  Wow, this could never happen here.  Are there any more
|> >freely-elected atheist high-powered officals? ( in the world ? )
|> 
|> The English Prime Minister is not really freely elected.  I think that
|> he is chosen from among the majority party in the House of Commons.

You don't mean "freely elected" you mean "directly elected".   He does
not run in a special election in the way that the US president does.
Instead, he is elected leader of his party first, and then after a General
Election the leader of the party that can control the legislature becomes 
Prime Minister.    The electorate know who they are going to get for Prime
Minister if they vote for X party.   This is how most Pariamentary systems
work.   It's not special to the UK.   [Note, not England, which has no
Prime Minister of its own, but UK]

Oh, and by the way, the original poster was probably thinking of Neil
Kinnock, not John Major.

jon.
Newsgroups: alt.atheism
From: nedwie@jec305.its.rpi.edu (Erik Jason Nedwidek)
Subject: Re: Removing "god" from morality. (was: Moral liberty)
Reply-To: nedwie@rpi.edu
Organization: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY.
Date: Fri, 22 Jan 1993 06:46:48 GMT

	There seems to be alot of talk here of morality as an absolute.
Morality is actually a set of rules governing what is good and bad and can
vary between cultures and even individuals.  What is right and what is wrong
is a creation of man (or if you so choose to believe your deity(s)(not meant
to be derogatory)).  Trying to compare two sets of morals as to their level
of morality means you are taking moral system A comparing it to B, using C.
Where C may be a satanists morals and A and B are Christian and Jewish 
morals.  To the satanist both A and B would be pretty immoral.  Also 
religions are more of a way to enforce a moral system (sort of like your
mother saying 'Just you wait until your father gets home').  I myself am an
atheist.  I show common courtesy to other people, obey the law, and stay
away from violence.  But I do have the occassional drink and I am not a 
virgin, in some peoples eyes this would make me as sinful as Charles Manson.
I think that I am basically a good person, nothing that I do infringes on 
another person's rights or happiness.  In my moral system evil is forcing 
others to do what they feel is wrong because you feel it is right.

-- Erik
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| I really would like to Email all my friends, but for  | Erik Nedwidek    |
| some reason someone named Mailer Daemon keeps sending | nedwie@rpi.edu   |
| it all back to me.                                    |                  |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------+
Newsgroups: alt.atheism
From: jimb@rcx1.csd.harris.com (Jim Burmeister)
Subject: Re: Atheism in pop culture
Organization: Harris CSD, Ft. Lauderdale, FL
Date: Thu, 28 Jan 1993 19:29:48 GMT

I didn't see this one mentioned:

_Roll the Bones_ by Rush:

[first verse not really relevant]

Faith is as cold as ice--
Why are little ones born only to suffer
For the want of immunity
Or a bowl of rice?
Well, who would hold a price
On the heads of the innocent children
If there's some immortal power to control the dice?

We go out in the world and take our chances
Fate is just the weight of circumstances
That's the way that lady luck dances
Roll the bones

Why are we here?
Because we're here.
Roll the bones
Why does it happen?
Because it happens.
Roll the bones...
From: livesey@solntze.wpd.sgi.com (Jon Livesey)
Newsgroups: alt.atheism
Subject: Re: Who is Billy Graham?
Date: 21 Jan 93 06:50:43 GMT
Distribution: usa
Organization: sgi
NNTP-Posting-Host: solntze.wpd.sgi.com

In article <1993Jan21.062135.10466@cs.ucla.edu>, pierce@lanai.cs.ucla.edu (Brad Pierce) writes:
|> At USA President Clinton's inauguration Billy Graham was given
|> a prominent role. I seem to recall that Graham hung around
|> with former USA President Bush on the night that Bush decided to
|> initiate Operation Desert Storm.
|> 
|> How did this theist gain so much access to the powerful in *both*
|> major USA political parties?

My theory is that it's because the other evangelists make him 
look so respectable.

By the way, he goes back a looong way.  Pat and Dick Nixon used 
to go to his revival meetings when Tricky was V.P.

jon.
Organization: University of Illinois at Chicago
Date: Mon, 25 Jan 1993 01:28:07 CST
From: David James Alexander Hanley <U16244@uicvm.uic.edu>
Newsgroups: alt.atheism
Subject: Re: RELIGION AND PRESIDENTS

In article <Ze4VXB4w165w@seanews.akita.com>, paulette@seanews.akita.com
(paulette brown) says:
>
>Freedom of [from] religion ought to extend
>to Presidents, too...
>
>Am I the only one in the US who thought it
>was inappropriate -- if not downright
>distateful -- to have Billy Graham and his
>church prayers at the Inaugural?

  Assuredly not.  I'd like to find out exactly where the money for all the
religious cudgeling came from.  I think a lot of people, not just atheists,
would be upset to see their tax dollars ending up in church coffers.

>
>paulette@seanews.akita.com
>

dave
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty.
He is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for
protection to his own" - Thomas Jefferson, 1814

SEND E-MAIL TO : hanley1@earth.eecs.uic.edu
Newsgroups: alt.atheism,talk.religion.misc,alt.pagan
From: mam@jcnpc.cmhnet.org (Mike A. McAngus)
Subject: Re: Religious Taxation (was: Madeleine Murray O'Hare)
Organization: Homebrew Virtual Reality Labs
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.1 PL6]
Date: Fri, 22 Jan 1993 01:26:17 GMT

Lance A. Brown (lance@Circle.Raleigh.NC.US) wrote:
: emd@oneb.almanac.bc.ca writes:
: > According to WHOM are these churches non-profit? As far as I can see,
: > most of them are religious BUSINESSES, run FOR profit. If they were really
: > non-profit, they'd open up their books and show us. Furthermore, they'd
: > include their real estate assets on their books at market values. And
: > lastly, why on earth should we exempt religious sects from taxation?
: > If the church has a fire, the fire department will come to put it out. Why
: > should my taxes pay for that? If you've got a building that receives
: > services, you should pay for those services.
:
: This point has been covered before.  Succinctly, the power to tax an
: organization is a power to destroy it.  I agree that churches should pay
: any fees levied to provide services such as fire and police protection that
: cover the whole community and are charged to the _whole_ community.  Any
: other kind of taxation provides too much power to destroy a religion by
: taxing it into oblivion.

Wouldn't the Equal Protection clause of the 14th Ammendment effectively stop 
such taxation?  After all, if the tax were specific to a particular sect (or
even to all religions) but not generally applicable to the business community 
then a combination of the First and the Fourteenth Ammendments should 
invalidate such a tax.
-- 
Mike McAngus                     | Parenthood is too important a responsibility
mam@jcnpc.cmhnet.org             | to force on anyone.
The Truth is still the Truth     |
Even if you choose to ignore it. |   Sarah Weddington (the above is from memory)
From: cobb@alexia.lis.uiuc.edu (Mike Cobb)
Subject: Re: A Challenge
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1993 00:35:48 GMT

So it wouldn't be worth the effort to get opposing groups together to try to 
set up a forum for debate?  

MAC
From: bb099@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Adam Trent Phillips)
Newsgroups: alt.atheism
Subject: Re: Exitence of allah
Date: 21 Jan 1993 19:22:57 GMT
Organization: Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH (USA)
Reply-To: bb099@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (White Rook)
NNTP-Posting-Host: slc4.ins.cwru.edu


In a previous article, rolls@cis.umassd.edu (Frank Pinto) says:

>Hello all
>any comments on this post (soc.culture.brazil)
[edited out]
>There is a PART-1 of an article about the EVIDENCES OF EXISTENCE OF ALLAH
|(THE GOD)
>
>WHERE?
>
>In    alt.religion.all-worlds 
>      talk.religion.misc
>
>I wandered if they were skeptical about a.a.!
>
>
>regards
>
>Frank Pinto
>

	Should I just post it here ?

-- 
A. TRENT PHILLIPS |" A mirror is a negative space with a frame and a place for
  also known as   | your face, it reveals what the rest of us see. It conceals
   WHITE  ROOK    | what you'd like you to be."--Blue Oyster Cult
--------------------------bb099@cleveland.freenet.edu--------------------------
Newsgroups: alt.atheism
From: jcopelan@nyx.cs.du.edu (The One and Only)
Subject: Re: RELIGION & PRESIDENTS
X-Disclaimer: Nyx is a public access Unix system run by the University
	of Denver for the Denver community.  The University has neither
	control over nor responsibility for the opinions of users.
Organization: Nyx, Public Access Unix at U. of Denver Math/CS dept.
Date: Thu, 21 Jan 93 17:08:39 GMT

In article <1993Jan21.102041.7378@sun0.urz.uni-heidelberg.de> y41@aixterm1.urz.uni-heidelberg.de (Jeffrey Hazelwood) writes:
>Ok, I just watched Clinton's swearing in ceremony and I couldn't believe how
>religious is was.  Since I'm in Germany, we saw it live but with German
>news anchors.  They couldn't believe how religious the whole thing was
>and found it amusing that the government could carry on in such a way. I 
>found the innaguration disgusting. In America, if you don't preach about
>God or carry on about religion you have no chance in hell(grin) of becoming
>president! Just once I would like to see the president say, "Look folks
>there is no God. Stop praying, get off your asses and do something about
>our problems." or after winning a war "Don't thank the Lord for winning,
>thank the fucking Tomahawk cruise missiles and the stealth fighters!" 

That will be the day!

>KINISON MODE=ON
>
>WHY THE HELL WAS BILLY GRAHAM THERE?!?!

(Kinison mode still on, should be in alt.tasteless): 
WHO PUT THAT FUCKING TREE(?) IN THE MIDDLE OF THE ROAD! AHHH! AHHHHHH! crash!

>KINISON MODE=OFF

JC
--
Have you washed your brain today?
From: I3150101@DBSTU1.RZ.TU-BS.DE (Benedikt Rosenau)
Newsgroups: alt.atheism
Subject: Re: Christian Pro-Choicers
Date: 26 Jan 93 12:27:01 GMT
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X-To: alt.atheism.usenet, talk.religion.misc.usenet

In article <C1BwCB.G67@athena.cs.uga.edu>
hudson@athena.cs.uga.edu (Paul Hudson Jr) writes:

>
>In article <16B5E1208D.I3150101@dbstu1.rz.tu-bs.de> I3150101@dbstu1.rz.tu-bs.de
>>So what, Paul is a prototype Fascist if there ever was one.
>
>What does Paul have to say about specific government types?
>

Societies, social organisations can be 'Fascist' as well.


>>Anyway, the case with agape has not been settled.
>>Ie, the question is open if it refers to sexual practices of
>>Jesus and his disciples. Note that they were all male at the
>>end.
>
>Agape is also described as the kind of love we have for God, a Spirit.
>Maybe you insinuated the above because the English word "love" can have
>sexual connotations.
>

Nope, I have used the Greek word, and I have meant the Greek word.
The point is to say that agape has only a spiritual meaning is an
assumption. It does not necessarily follow. Those who want to have
an asexual god think differently, of course.



>>And I can show you passages in the bible which say that it is better not to be
>>born, and being aborted counts as being better off, too. (Kohelet)
>>   Benedikt
>
>And many of these speak of miscarriages in the same way they speak of the
>death of a grown man.
>

It speaks of people who have not been born at all in a similar way.
What may I conclude now?


>If you take a verse of Ecclesiastes out of context, you can get the wrong
>idea.  Qoheleth argues many sides of the same issues, and it all leads up
>to the last few sentences of the book.
>

Ho hum, I have not taken it out of context, it says it there literally.
Neither do I see where it is taken back.

And that Qohelet has been edited in order to reduce its heretic notion
which manifests by that the sentences you probably mean do not fit in,
ie are inconsistent with the rest, is accepted even among Christian
scholarship. By the way, those sentences are not the last sentences.

The usual explanation is everybody who could not know about eternal life
and whose view was restricted to the world is very likely to become
pessimistic.

Speaks for itself.
   Benedikt
From: mathew <mathew@mantis.co.uk>
Newsgroups: alt.atheism
Subject: Re: "Inaccurate scientific knowledge from a bunch of silly atheists"
Date: Fri, 22 Jan 93 12:03:50 GMT
Organization: Mantis Consultants, Cambridge. UK.
X-Newsreader: rusnews v0.98

ethridge@bnr.ca (Allen Ethridge) writes:
> If you really want to find out about human behavior then you should
> try asking psychologists, psychiatrists, neurologists and other scientists
> who study human behavior.  All you're going to hear here in a.a. is the
> limited and sometimes inaccurate scientific knowledge of a bunch of silly
> atheists.

I think that's a somewhat dismissive attitude to take, given some of the
people who post here.  John A. Johnson and Marvin Minsky spring to mind; we
also have highly trained biologists, geologists, physicists and
mathematicians posting.


mathew
Newsgroups: alt.atheism
From: bil@okcforum.osrhe.uoknor.edu (Bill Conner)
Subject: A point well missed ...
Organization: Okcforum Unix Users Group
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.1 PL6]
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1993 06:38:21 GMT

The question, "How much should I read of a religions corpus of sacred
writings", seems to miss the point. Being atheists it's incumbent on
you to demonstrate the reasons for your disbelief. Merely attacking
the beliefs of others does nothing to validate your own. Tell me then,
why are you an atheist ...


Bill
Newsgroups: alt.atheism
From: cscope@camelot.bradley.edu (William Twentyman)
Subject: >>>>Was Jesus the Anti-Christ?
Organization: Bradley University
Date: 28 Jan 93 02:04:15 GMT



In <1993Jan27.093139.22347@abo.fi> MANDTBACKA@FINABO.ABO.FI (Mats Andtbacka) writes:
>In <cscope.728067684@camelot> cscope@camelot.bradley.edu writes:
>> In <1993Jan26.082913.19319@abo.fi> MANDTBACKA@FINABO.ABO.FI
>> (Mats Andtbacka) writes:
>>>In <cscope.727987530@camelot> cscope@camelot.bradley.edu writes:

>(Staggering deletions)

>> I don't gain anything.  But it is disturbing that I was able to see the problem
>> with that quote almost immediately, yet I never hear anything about why Jesus
>> couldn't have been the Anti-christ, sent to steer Jews away from God. (I still
>> haven't come to any conclusion about his/its existence.)

>      *Never*? Odd - I would've thought at least somebody had said
>something down most any line you could think of on this subject in the
>past two millennia or so... If one just bothered to dig through those
>mountains of texts to try and find it, that is.

Considering that I'm relatively new at this (didn't start doubting
seriously until about a year ago and didn't start exploring Christianity
to determine whether or not I feel I can ever believe in it until this
summer), I haven't had much time to dig through all those texts.

>      The "problem" (if we have one here) is, if you're going to doubt
>any theory that can be doubted - and with a proper conspiracy theory
>*anything* can be doubted - you're gonna end up doubting a *lot*. So you
>need to decide the criterions of doubt: What's it gonna take to get you
>to stop / start believing in things?

I believe in a lot of things, it's just that I'm trying to find out 
whether I'm missing something blantantly obvious that does prove (at
least within the Christian belief system) that Jesus could not have 
been the anti-christ.

As for a way to keep me from doubting something, sound theories or
empirical evidence will always work.

>      If more-or-less arbitrary conspiracy theories don't cut it, then
>this idea of yours can easily be dismissed offhand. But in that case, so
>can likely all of Xianity, and most other religions as well... Which is
>one of the reasons I'm an atheist, myself. As for why other people use
>other, apparently sometimes self-contradictory, criteria - I wish I
>knew.

The main reason I am concerned is that I was brought up as a Christian
and am struggling with that first.  If I decide to reject Christianity 
completely, then I will worry about what, if any, religion to adopt.

--
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
       The following statement is false.  The previous statement is true.
--------------------------- cscope@camelot.bradley.edu -------------------------
From: atdhb@acad2.alaska.edu
Newsgroups: alt.atheism
Subject: Re: All Atheists hear this!!!
Date: 28 Jan 93 03:24:40 GMT
Organization: University of Alaska

In article <1k7b9qINN5vt@matt.ksu.ksu.edu>, tombiv@matt.ksu.ksu.edu (Andrew Spencer Tomb) writes:
> In Job 38:2-11 The God of the Universe writes:

> "Who marked out it's dimensions?
> On what were it's footings set, or who laid it's foundations?
> when I fixed limits for it and set it's doors and bars in place,
> 


Well, folks, there's absolute proof the God of the Universe is
not omni-anything.  He can't fucking spell; ergo, Christianity is
hereby proven to be a crock.

Don
From: bobbe@vice.ICO.TEK.COM (Robert Beauchaine)
Newsgroups: alt.atheism
Subject: Re: Let's try these proofs
Date: 22 Jan 93 20:03:02 GMT
Organization: Tektronix, Inc., Beaverton,  OR.

In article <1993Jan21.222614.119787@marshall.wvnet.edu> yea027@marshall.wvnet.edu writes:
>	Now, could any sensible person believe that this vast 
>integrated system sprang into existence and runs without a 
>master or governor? 

  In a word, yes.  Now what?

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\ 

Bob Beauchaine bobbe@vice.ICO.TEK.COM 

"Look, I tried the cat experiment.  On the third trial, the cat was
dead.  On each of the subsequent 413 trials, it remained dead.  Am I
doing something wrong?"
			James Nicoll

Q.  How many Heisenbergs does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A.  If you know the number, you don't know where the light bulb is!

Newsgroups: alt.atheism,sci.skeptic
From: sschaff@roc.SLAC.Stanford.EDU (Stephen F. Schaffner)
Subject: Re: Will the -REAL- Christians please stand up? Was: What did Judas be
Organization: Stanford Linear Accelerator Center
Date: Fri, 22 Jan 1993 19:27:31 GMT

In article <1993Jan22.160421.5216@texhrc.uucp>, pyeatt@Texaco.com (Larry D. Pyeatt) writes:

|> [...] There are thousands of such references in
|> the Bible.  Everything from killing babies to raping women to killing one's
|> own children.  All at the commandment of this wonderful God. The Bible is 
|> definitely not the word of MY God.  Mine has much higher morals.

	I usually try to stay out of this thread, but I do like to check on 
facts every now and then.  Killing babies is certainly commanded (in 
connection with the Conquest), but where in the Bible do people rape and 
kill their own children at the command of God?  

	By the way, what makes you think the command about not eating  
animals that die of natural causes has anything to do with health?   After all, 
it does occur in the context of regulations about ritual purity.  I'm not 
saying it couldn't have been intended as part of a health code, but do you 
have any reason for thinking that's what it was?

-- 
Steve Schaffner        sschaff@unixhub.slac.stanford.edu
	The opinions expressed may be mine, and may not be those of SLAC, 
Stanford University, or the DOE.
Newsgroups: alt.atheism,talk.abortion