HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: bb099@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Adam Trent Phillips)
Newsgroups: alt.atheism,talk.religion.misc
Subject: Re: Child abuse ordered by god.
Date: 6 Jan 93 23:32:05 GMT
Reply-To: bb099@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Adam Trent Phillips)
Organization: Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH (USA)
NNTP-Posting-Host: slc4.ins.cwru.edu


In a previous article, hudson@athena.cs.uga.edu (Paul Hudson Jr) says:

>In article <1993Jan6.183438.24890@cronkite.ocis.temple.edu> christen@astro.ocis.temple.edu (Carl Christensen) writes:
>>:                          Deuteronomy 21:18-21
>>:    If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son who does not obey his father
>>: and mother and will not listen to them when they discipline him, his father
>>: and mother shall take hold of him and bring him to the elders at the gate 
>>: of his town. They shall say to the elders, "This son of ours is stubborn
>>: and rebellious. He will not obey us. He is a profligate and a drunkard." 
>>: Then all the men of his town shall stone him to death. You must purge the
>>: evil from among you. All Israel will hear of it and be afraid.
>>
>>This is my favorite!  If you're rebellious in any way you are condemned as
>>a drunk and a wastrel!  Can't you be rebellious without being a drunk?
>>I was a rebellious kid (and still am :) ) but I didn't get loaded in
>>1st grade.
>>
>>But it's in the bible so it must be true.
>
>I think you are looking at the passage in the wrong way.  The Torah was
>written in Hebrew so it is not written in the same style we Americans write
>in.  This seems to describe what kind of son would be rebellious and worthy
>of death.
>
>Link Hudson.
>
>
	Why should ANY kid, even one that is drunken and "wastrel" !

	The DEATH sentence for KIDS ! For ANY reason ? Without a TRIAL !

	THAT is barbaric !

-- 
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-----aa1439@freenet.lorain.oberlin.edu-------
Newsgroups: alt.atheism
From: ingles@engin.umich.edu (Ray Ingles)
Subject: Re: Evolution implied by the Bible
Date: Mon, 11 Jan 93 23:40:52 EST
Organization: University of Michigan Engineering, Ann Arbor

In article <1993Jan11.204721.7081@nmsu.edu> epowers@mccoy (POWERS,  ERIK  LEE ) writes:
>				I have no disagreements with many of the findings of evolutionary theory  
>(and I have plenty of exposure, having worked in an evolutionary biology lab  
>for three years).  My disagreement is the basic assumptions in current  
>evolutionary theory, such as the assumption that everything observed has a  
>natural cause.  I can obtain an evolutionary perspective by assuming the  
>Christian world view (if you're interested, I can post my thought progression  
>on this subject) or from a naturalistic world view, but I find the naturalistic  
>view to be self contradictory.
            ^^^^ ^^^^^^^^^^^^^

 Really? In what way?


Sincerely,

Ray Ingles                  || The above opinions are probably
                            || not those of the University of
ingles@engin.umich.edu      || Michigan. Yet.
Newsgroups: alt.atheism,talk.religion.misc
From: adams@spss.com (Steve Adams)
Newsgroups: alt.atheism,talk.religion.misc,alt.pagan
Subject: Re: did I like miss your point?
Date: 7 Jan 93 16:20:57 GMT
Organization: SPSS Inc.

joann@unixhub.SLAC.Stanford.EDU (Jo Ann Malina) writes:
>In article <root.726333127@spssig> adams@spss.com (Steve Adams) writes:
>>joann@ariadne.SLAC.Stanford.EDU (Jo Ann Malina) writes:
>>
>>>In article <root.726160682@spssig> adams@spss.com (Steve Adams) writes:
>>
>>There are good reasons for scheduling every moment of a space mission,
>>especially in those days.  In order to do this, it needed to be in the
>>schedule.  If the astronauts themselevs asked for this to be scheduled, and
>>none of them objected to it, then there is no reason why it can't be done.
>>
>>Just because something appears on a schedule for NASA does not in any way
>>imply government 'support' for religion.  Unless of course you are a
>>fanatic who is grasping at straws...
>
>Right, I suppose if we go back to the moon we can expect some
>heart-felt readings from the Bhagavad-Gita, or maybe passages from
>The Urantia Book on the long trip to Mars.  Get real.  Someone in
>the goverment ordered the astronauts to read from the Christian
>Bible on the way to the Moon during a scheduled (of course)
>interview with television reporters. Moreover, it was the part that
>is most used to opposed science with dim-witted "creationism,"
>on a government sponsored scientific mission. I thought it was crappy
>then and I still do.

Ordered?  You have proof of this, of course?  I thought not.  It couldn't
have been that those astronauts WANTED to read from the Bible, could it?

 -Steve
--
  The opinions expressed above are those of the author and not SPSS, Inc.
                         -------------------
   adams@spss.com                                  Phone: (312) 329-3522
   Steve Adams        "Space-age cybernomad"       Fax:   (312) 329-3558
Newsgroups: alt.atheism
From: b645zaw@utarlg.uta.edu (Stephen Tice)
Subject: Re: A nation chosen by GOD -- New-Israel
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41    
Organization: The University of Texas at Arlington
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1993 00:42:00 GMT

In article <1iqg75INNqnd@fido.asd.sgi.com>, 
livesey@solntze.wpd.sgi.com (Jon Livesey) writes...

>In article <10JAN199316392323@utarlg.uta.edu>, 
>b645zaw@utarlg.uta.edu (Stephen Tice) writes:
>>
>> Schooling should include a healthy dose of skepticism of anything
>> humanly contrived. Do I sound like a religionist or an atheist?
> 
>Neither.   You just sound out of touch.   

So who can be in touch with more than a couple of hundred schools?
(Or perhaps you meant something else?) In other words, who knows,
generally speaking? 

>School Science books that
>I've seen explain fairly well how Science makes progress by trying
>models out and then discarding them.    They don't present Scientific
>progress as an inevitable determinisitc progression.    

What progress? Should I look at medicine, or energy production, or 
pollution levels. Best I can tell, most everything is on the slide. 
Especially school test scores. 

I blaim television -- mind drug.

>Your straw man doesn't reflect reality.

Your opinion of course, JL. Little to substantiate it.

Shall we try round two. I'll let you win now if you want. 

>jon.

   |
-- J --
   |
   |  Stephen
Xref: sparky alt.atheism:24874 talk.religion.misc:25069
Newsgroups: alt.atheism,talk.religion.misc
Subject: Re: _Jesus: A Life_ by A.N. Wilson
From: adams@spss.com (Steve Adams)
Date: Mon, 4 Jan 1993 15:05:55 GMT
Organization: SPSS Inc.


[alt.conspiracy removed, as I can't see how that group has anything to do ]
[with the current conversation...                                         ]

jenk@microsoft.com (Jen Kilmer) writes:
>In article <adams.726020083@spssig> adams@spss.com (Steve Adams) writes:
>>muttiah@thistle.ecn.purdue.edu (Ranjan S Muttiah) writes:
>>
>>>In article <adams.725991192@spssig> adams@spss.com (Steve Adams) writes:
>>>>The big question is who wrote them.  If you assign the traditional
>>>>authorship, late dates are tough, because of the advanced age of the
>>>>authors.  If you are willing to reject traditional authorship, then 
>>>>the dates open up quite a bit.
>>>
>>>I guess the big question could be answered by considering whether there was
>>>a sequence in which the books appeared or whether they were written in 
>>>different geo. locations by different authors.  Far more probable that Mark 
>>>came first and then interpolations and additions followed.
>>
>>There are a couple of main theories, and they place Mark first, with
>>Matthew and Luke using Mark, and some common sayings source, or Mark first,
>>with Matthew & Luke constructed without Mark, but some other common source
>>that Mark too may have used.
>
>Note also that textual analysis confirms that Luke and Acts were written
>by the same author, and the author indicates at the beginning of Acts
>that Luke was written first.

Right....

>A note on non-traditional authors: as I understand it, it wasn't uncommon 
>for a student to record the "master's" teachings. IE Plato's writings
>speak of Socrates (whose existence is questioned by some scholars) and
>Aristotle's speak of Plato.  "Gospel of Matthew" might have been the
>"Gospel as was taught by Matthew"...ie "Gospel of Matthew".

Generally, from what I understand, it is only for the Gospel of John that
such speculation is taken seriously by scholars...that particular Gospel, if
given a later date, would almost have to be written by one of John's
students..

 -Steve

--
  The opinions expressed above are those of the author and not SPSS, Inc.
                         -------------------
   adams@spss.com                                  Phone: (312) 329-3522
   Steve Adams        "Space-age cybernomad"       Fax:   (312) 329-3558
Xref: sparky alt.atheism:25298 talk.religion.misc:25474
From: bobbe@vice.ICO.TEK.COM (Robert Beauchaine)
Newsgroups: alt.atheism,talk.religion.misc
Subject: Re: Why must you act this way?
Date: 7 Jan 93 21:44:31 GMT
Followup-To: alt.atheism
Organization: Tektronix, Inc., Beaverton,  OR.

In article <1993Jan7.181314.9181@ra.royalroads.ca> mlee@post.RoyalRoads.ca (Malcolm Lee) writes:
>I was trying to illustrate the fact that one should be in a humble frame of mind when addressing God.  It's not like talking to one of your surf buddies.  The words don't matter so much as the attitude.  God knows what you are feeling and that is what matters.
>

  Christ on a stick!  Trim your header.  Alt.atheism is not
  alt.proseltyze.

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

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!

Xref: sparky alt.atheism:25307 talk.religion.misc:25487
From: iad@cogsci.ed.ac.uk (Ivan A Derzhanski)
Newsgroups: alt.atheism,talk.religion.misc
Subject: Re: THE MIND OF THE BIBLE BELIEVER
Date: 7 Jan 93 13:42:23 GMT
Distribution: world,public
Organization: Centre for Cognitive Science, Edinburgh, UK

In article <1993Jan7.000554.5134@ra.royalroads.ca> mlee@post.RoyalRoads.ca (Malcolm Lee) writes:
>IMHO, I think God created us because He was lonely

I like that.

>and needed loving companions. 

Then he ought to behave as a loving companion himself.  If you
consider it justified to kill someone just because he has refused to
satisfy some silly whim of yours, then you are treating him as a slave,
not as a companion, and if you expect him to love you, then you're out
of your mind.

>He did not want robots or pets to provide Him with company.

No, worse.  He wanted slaves.

>He wanted loving companions who would choose to be with Him.

Yet he created our nature in such a way that we would choose not to.
Seems he did a very bad job.  Was he drunk or something?

>Think about it.  Would you tolerate someone who was an enemy in your house?

No.  That's part of the reason I'm an atheist.

-- 
 `D'ye mind tellin me whit the two o ye are gaun oan aboot?' (The Glasgow
Ivan A Derzhanski  (iad@cogsci.ed.ac.uk; iad@chaos.cs.brandeis.edu)    Gospel)
* Centre for Cognitive Science,  2 Buccleuch Place,  Edinburgh EH8 9LW,  UK
* Cowan House, Pollock Halls, 18 Holyrood Park Road, Edinburgh EH16 5BD, UK
From: zlsiida@fs1.mcc.ac.uk (dave budd)
Newsgroups: alt.atheism
Subject: Ray Ingles
Date: 12 Jan 93 10:17:12 GMT
Organization: Manchester Computing Centre

I sent you some email but it bounced.
So this is to let you know it wasn't sarcasm, it was propagation delays in 
the net delaying posts relative to email.  I ought to read the whole thread 
before commenting on parts of it, I guess.  Especially if I'm going to 
change my mind part way through...

        Never believe an experiment until it is confirmed by theory 
    Dave Budd, MCC, Oxford Rd, Manchester, England    (44|0)61-275-6033  
Newsgroups: alt.atheism,talk.religion.misc,alt.slack
From: pharvey@quack.sac.ca.us (Paul Harvey)
Subject: Re: THE MIND OF THE BIBLE BELIEVER
Organization: The Duck Pond public unix: +1 408 249 9630, log in as 'guest'.
	<1993Jan5.223146.29327@ra.royalroads.ca> 
	<1if3bdINNpjp@shelley.u.washington.edu>
Date: 6 Jan 1993 21:47:43 UTC

In article <1if3bdINNpjp@shelley.u.washington.edu> 
sieferme@stein.u.washington.edu (Eric Sieferman) writes:
>In article <1993Jan5.223146.29327@ra.royalroads.ca> 
mlee@post.RoyalRoads.ca (Malcolm Lee) writes:
>>But we can have eternal life and the knowledge of good and evil.
>I already have knowledge of good and evil, but I have never had
>a clear explanation what xtians mean by "eternal life", other
>than a circular description of "being with god".  If you are
>looking for a career in religious salesmanship, try to
>offer items of value to prospective customers.

Is it time to start talking about the Great Free Gift Grift again? You
know, that great free gift with no obligations whatsoever, all you
have to do is accept! Plus, incredible discounts on aluminum siding! And
fresh fish! I don't know about you, but I can never get enough fish! Ah,
just imagine the average intelligence level, but strangely half the
people are dumber than that.
Newsgroups: alt.atheism
Newsgroups: alt.atheism,talk.religion.misc
Subject: Re: Christian racism
From: drake+@cs.cmu.edu (Drake)
Date: Mon, 4 Jan 1993 10:56:03 GMT
Organization: School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon
Keywords: Christian racism depiction of christ

martin@cs.curtin.edu.au (Martin Dougiamas) writes:

>I know) and yet are illustrated with anglo-saxon people.  I *do* 
>know for a fact that specific art featuring non-white Jesuses (Jesii?)
>has been banned by western churches in the past.
>At any rate, the bible is not a reliable source of historical facts.

Indeed...I was a guest preacher at a local Presbyterian church some
years back, and I brought up this point.  They happened to have one of
these 'gentle Jesus' pictures, with long light-brown hair, blue eyes
and a fair complexion.  My point was that Jesus was a Jewish manual
laborer in a time before modern sanitary facilities, who walked along
dirt roads that horses and donkeys often used and who probably didn't
have cleanliness habits as good as that of your average Appalachian!
(Eg, toothbrush?  what's that?)

-- 
Love and Laughter,             | NOTE: Private mail must go explicitly
Xeper and Remanifest,          | to drake@seismo.soar.cs.cmu.edu
                       DRAKE   | or it'll bounce back to you...
Newsgroups: alt.atheism,talk.religion.misc
From: ednclark@kraken.itc.gu.edu.au (Jeffrey Clark)
Subject: Re: Why? (was Re: THE MIND OF THE BIBLE BELIEVER)
Organization: ITC, Griffith University, Brisbane, Australia
Distribution: world,public
Date: 11 Jan 93 01:04:07 GMT

snodgras@lclark.edu (Bil Snodgrass) writes:

>In article <ano.726497533@reading> ano@csug.cs.reading.ac.uk (Adrian Ogden) writes:
>>mlee@post.RoyalRoads.ca (Malcolm Lee) writes:
>>
>>>Without free will, we are just robots.  God already has the angels to do
>>>His every whim.

>If God didn't want to be with me "I couldn't be with God if God didn't want
>to be with me."  God would chose not to be with me.... I have no say or
>choice.  

>Hell is living without God......It is a hard concept for most fundamentalist
>to grasp so they have to create a burning hell........

I must admit Hell is a bloody wonderful place then, if that is truly what it
is like!

> If He wanted to know who
>>was truly sincere about wanting to be with Him then why not offer a more
>>palatable alternative for those who don't actually love Him above all
>>other things but would prefer His company to being subjected to horrible
>>pain for all eternity?


>God point.....

Why do we really need free will anyway. Why can't we think we have free
will? (This is what we have anyway) I was talking to my parents about
alternative family arrangements present in other societies. They felt that
the other methods were bound for disaster. When I explained that these other
family arrangements (such as one woman marries all the brothers in a family,
whilst the woman does the domesticate duties and acts as wife she is free to
quell her sexual urges out of wedlock as are the brothers) have existed
successfully for thousands of years they express a lack of understanding and
disgust at the ideas. In other words they did not have free will in choosing
their family make up (nuclear family wife, husband, two kids - son and
daughter), but they felt like they had free will. 

If God were to make it such that everyone beleived in Him and accepted him
then we would all still feel as though we had free will (ie we would not
know the difference). Just like if we fall off a cliff we will fall and
hurt ourselves badly and possibly die, but we accept that this is something
we do not have free will to change, it does not make us robots. God did not
have to create a species of which the vast majority would choose eternal
damnation to gaurantee free will.  If He had manufactured us in such a way
that all accepted him, through what we thought was free choice that is all
that would matter. We would all be saved, all have apparent free will (as we
do now), and we would all live happily ever after.

But God did not do this! Therefore either God is the greatest villain in
cosmological history (looking from the perspective of the human race) or He
does not exist!

Jeff.

Newsgroups: alt.atheism,talk.religion.misc
From: "James F. Tims" <p00168@psilink.com>
Subject: Religious Taxation (was: Madeleine Murray O'Hare)
Organization: Semper Excelsior
Date: Fri, 8 Jan 1993 19:44:53 GMT
X-Mailer: PSILink (3.2)

>FROM:   Steve Adams <adams@spss.com>
[Madame Atheist thread...snip]
>
>'establishment' of religion.  And by the way, if 'subsidizing' religion
>were unconstitutional, then churches wouldn't be tax exempt, now would
>they?
[...]
>
>   Steve Adams        "Space-age cybernomad"       Fax:   (312) 329-3558

Religious groups are not so much tax-exempt as untaxable.  There is a
distinction.  The courts have ruled (there is nothing about this in the 
Constitution, to my knowledge) something to the effect that if the government
could tax religious groups it could selectively tax specific religions out of 
existence, leaving the State favorite standing alone, or even financially
demolishing them all with the goal of creating an atheistic state.  
Therefore, in order to prevent the establishment (or disestablishment) 
of a State religion by the use of taxation, religious organizations are 
immune, not exempt, from taxation.

The corollary to this position is that the government cannot use 
taxpayer dollars to subsidize religious groups, because the government 
could be selective in its disbursements, thereby favoring, with the 
power of money flowing to the congregation of its choice, the 
establishment of a State religion.  Not even supporting them all equally is 
Constitutional, because to do so favors the establish of theism over 
non-theism.  Are you with me so far?

My position on the matter is that religious groups should pay ordinary 
taxes that prevail in the community, taxes that provide roads, water, sewage, 
fire and police protection and the numerous public facilities from which they 
benefit.  To argue that the congregations' memberships have already 
provided these monies begs the question because they were already allowed to 
deduct their contributions to the congregation from their gross incomes. 
Movie theaters still have to pay taxes, even though the membership has 
already payed taxes, the difference being that there can be an extra
theater tax.  I disagree with tax-exemption for religious groups because
it does amount to a subsidy.  We should not create taxes that 
burden only religions, because that would allow us to remove religions 
with unconstitutional legal surgery.  But that is only my opinion, not the 
current legal position at all.  

  ,...,.,,
 /666;    ',    jim tims
////;    _~ -   p00168@psilink.com
(/@/----0-~-0
 ;'  . `` ~ \'
  , `    ' , >
;;|\..((   -C----> Why do you have so much trouble understanding this, Steve?
;;| >-  `.__),;;   There is nothing mysterious here. I'm not making this up.

Newsgroups: alt.atheism,talk.religion.misc
From: I3150101@dbstu1.rz.tu-bs.de (Benedikt Rosenau)
Subject: Re: THE MIND OF THE BIBLE BELIEVER
Organization: Technical University Braunschweig, Germany
Date: Fri, 8 Jan 1993 13:36:59 GMT

In article <1993Jan6.171337.3261@ra.royalroads.ca>
mlee@post.RoyalRoads.ca (Malcolm Lee) writes:
 
>
>I thank you for your response.
>Understand that I do not speak from ignorance but rather, from experience.  I
>was a very avid, non-believer for 25 years of my life.  I had everything I had
>hoped to achieve in life (education and steady employment) and yet, there was
>still something missing.  I cannot begin to tell you how empty my life felt.  I
>had believed in all the things that we were taught would make us happy in this
>world . . . money, money and more money.  But I was NOT happy.  That was somthing
>wrong.
>
>I'm not a Psych major and I can't fully explain it.  It was not until I came to
>know my Lord and Saviour that I gained a sense of purpose and fulfillment in my
>life.  I had friends around me but it was not the same as having the family of
>Christ around me.
>
>This is my testimony, not just my opinion.  I don't worship a religion.  I worship
>the one and only God.  If my church should burn down or my pastor move away, I
>still have my faith in Christ Jesus.  I am still Christian.  He gives me the
>strength to continue on when my strength is gone.  I need Him and I love Him.
>
>I don't see how you can find fault with this.
 
One of the major faults is that it is preaching crossposted to alt.atheism.
 
>
>God loves, Man kills.
 
=> God loves Man killing
   Benedikt
Newsgroups: alt.atheism,talk.religion.misc,alt.pagan