HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: bb099@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Adam Trent Phillips)
Newsgroups: alt.atheism
Subject: Re: The "Answers": and "Why" .....
Date: 17 Dec 1992 01:50:54 GMT
Organization: Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio (USA)
NNTP-Posting-Host: slc10.ins.cwru.edu


epowers@spock.NMSU.Edu (POWERS) on Tue Dec 15 22:10 1992 posted:
 
|
|In article <1gimn3INNssq@usenet.INS.CWRU.Edu> bb099@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Adam  
|Trent Phillips) writes:
|> 
|>       I have seem a few times recently in posts and have heard it
|> a number of times before. Theists say things like "the Bible has the
|> ANSWERS" or "Haven't you ever wondered WHY ?" or stuff like that.
|> 
|>       The question of "Why are we where/ What are we here for".
|> implies that there is a specific reason why we are here. For me
|>  as an atheist, I feel that there is no "reason" or "mission" that
|> we are "here" (as opposed to "there" ?) for.
|> 
|>       What about when they say "the Bible has the answers". I
|> find that really odd. Most of time a lot of us just feel tempted
|> (or at least I used to) to just say the "answers are wrong", but
|> I look at it as they DON'T EVEN KNOW WHAT MY QUESTIONS ARE !!!
|> 
|>       I really resent it when some (not all perhaps) chri$tians
|> say that "they have the answers to my questions". Well, my questions
|>  don't seem to match their answers.....because they don't really
|> know them.....
|> 
|> 
|> -- 
|> A. TRENT PHILLIPS 
|
|        Don't be offended, it's just a typical, human, unthinking response.  If  
|I got offended every time a theist or an atheist has read my stuff and  
|misunderstood because they didn't read carefully, I'd would have to evolve into  
|an organism with much thicker skin.  There are arrogant idiots in all  
|philosophies.                   Erik
 
	This is true. Again, one's philosophies does not guarentee one's
arrogance( or the lack thereof).
 
	Pardon any mispellings, I'm a dyslexic without a good spelling checker 
and only have a DOS editor (Norton Commander) to edit with.
	
	What's your exscuse    :-)

-- 
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-------
From: bobbe@vice.ICO.TEK.COM (Robert Beauchaine)
Newsgroups: alt.atheism
Subject: Re: is it necessary to hate?
Date: 19 Dec 92 18:12:53 GMT
Organization: Tektronix, Inc., Beaverton,  OR.

In article <1992Dec19.023459.14782@bnr.ca> bcash@crchh410.BNR.CA (Brian Cash) writes:
>In article <10991@vice.ICO.TEK.COM>, bobbe@vice.ICO.TEK.COM (Robert
>Beauchaine) writes:
>|>In article <1992Dec18.031052.26967@bnr.ca> bcash@crchh410.BNR.CA
>(Brian Cash) writes:
>|>>
>|>>It's one thing the strike back at someone who has attacked you
>|>>or your beliefs in a "impolite" manner, but I don't see what
>|>>Heather has done so far to deserve this kind of attack.
>|>>I have disagreed with some of the things she has said, but
>|>>dropping below your opponent's level of reasoning just
>|>>makes your arguement seem weaker.
>|>>
>|>
>|>   Does not!
>|>
>
>Does too times infinity.  <*Ptpthhhh!!!*>
>

  Ma!  Brian spit on me again.  And he said a dirty word.  

  (Ah, isn't intellectualism fun!).

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

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
From: sieferme@stein.u.washington.edu (Eric Sieferman)
Subject: Backsliding Atheists
Organization: University of Washington, Seattle
Date: Wed, 16 Dec 1992 01:31:03 GMT

For those of you who can get soc.religion.christian:
there are some articles there from former atheists
who describe the reasons that they have converted
to christianity.  It is interesting to read them,
although none of the stories were shocking or
novel; certainly no one converted after a long
reasoned analysis of the available evidence.

It's a good reminder that atheism is not an absorbing state.


-- 
| Eric |         --- Keep "Saturn" in "Saturnalia" ---
Newsgroups: alt.atheism
Subject: Re: "Keep Christ in Christmas"
From: kmagnacca@eagle.wesleyan.edu
Date: 11 Dec 92 21:21:53 EST
Organization: Wesleyan University

In article <1992Dec11.013105.27440@adobe.com>, mmwang@adobe.com (Michael Wang) writes:
> 
> Unfortunately, thanks to constant efforts by Creationists over the
> years, people are buying into their message. A survey done in the late
> 80's of undergraduates in three states (not sure which states) showed
> that more than half believed in creationism. A survey of school board
> presidents in Ohio during the 80's showed that more than half felt
> that creationism should be favorably taught in schools and more than
> half of those thought it should be taught in science classes (as
> opposed to history or religion classes).

   Actually, I saw a survey a few years ago in a magazine in which
80% of the people thought that evolution was true but 45% thought 
that the Earth is less than 10,000 years old.

Karl
------
"Find a great ideal, a great purpose, marry it, and raise a family."
					 --Negativland, "U2"
Newsgroups: alt.atheism,talk.religion.misc
From: sdoe@nmsu.edu (Stephen Doe)
Subject: Re: THE MIND OF THE BIBLE BELIEVER
Keywords: Bible--psychology--fundamentalism
Organization: New Mexico State University
Distribution: world,public
Date: Mon, 14 Dec 1992 02:39:21 GMT

In article <1992Dec12.053417.15150@midway.uchicago.edu> dsoconne@midway.uchicago.edu writes:
>In article <1992Dec6.113418.19447@nmsu.edu> sdoe@nmsu.edu (Stephen Doe) writes:
>
>A deconstruction:
>
>>	               An Historical Perspective
>>
>>	A generation ago the proposition that conservative Christian
>>churches were about to enter a phase of very rapid growth would have
>>struck sociologists studying religion as absurd; one might as well
>>have expected astronomers to flock to the geocentric model in droves.
>
>Sociologists are often the last to know; remember they spend
>more time trying to explain, than predict. Your "geocentric model"
>quote is particularly suspect as we shall see below:
>
>>Statistics on church membership indicated a continuing decline.  The
>>prevailing opinion was that religion served to explain the origins of
>>the universe, and one's relation to the universe.  As the more
>>competent natural sciences increased man's knowledge of the universe,
>>conventional religion became more and more irrelevant.  Unless
>
>Once I see such (IMO) absurd generalizations as above, I tend
>not to follow the rest of the article, figuring there will be
>similar lapses in logic.
>
>I would argue that anyone who opines that people join religious
>movements in order to "explain the origins of the universe"
>simply does not understand why people DO join religious
>movements.
>
>In that case, it is no wonder such people are taken by surprise.

Well, Dano, if you had bothered to read on, you'd see that Cohen
is arguing for an *alternative* to this glib explanation on the part
of sociologists.  The whole point of the first article was to set up
some historical perspective on the question, "Why does NT Christianity
have such a tenacious hold on people?"  Cohen thinks that the
conventional sociological opinion does *not* suffice, and in later
articles I present his model for what is happening.

I have no problem if you want to *ignore* these articles, but if
you're going to try to shoot them down, let's see something a little
better than what you post above. . . 

SD

>Dano



Newsgroups: alt.atheism
From: ags@seaman.cc.purdue.edu (Dave Seaman)
Subject: Re: Did Muslims Ever Forcibly Convert Others to Their Religion?
Organization: Purdue University
Distribution: usa
Date: Fri, 11 Dec 1992 18:46:10 GMT

In article <1992Dec11.000436.4772@samba.oit.unc.edu>  
David.Choweller@launchpad.unc.edu (David Choweller) writes:
> 
> I recently had a discussion with a Muslim friend of mine and he claimed
> that throughout history, Muslims have never forcibly converted others to
> their religion, for example, when they conquered other countries.  

Ask your friend about Bahai's. They are relentlessly persecuted by  
Muslims.

It is true that Muslims are tolerant of other religions that are based on 
"revealed scripture." That includes Christianity, Judaism, and  
Zoroastrianism. However, anyone who was once a Muslim must always remain a  
Muslim. This explains the Muslim view of Bahai's, who are considered to be  
apostate Muslims. The Bahai's of course, do not consider themselves  
Muslims at all.

--
Dave Seaman
ags@seaman.cc.purdue.edu
From: iad@cogsci.ed.ac.uk (Ivan A Derzhanski)
Newsgroups: alt.atheism
Subject: Re: Colleen
Date: 19 Dec 92 09:04:38 GMT
Organization: Centre for Cognitive Science, Edinburgh, UK

In article <1992Dec16.181445.5422@linus.mitre.org> m23364@mwunix (James Meritt) writes:
>In article 11993@hogg.ed.ac.uk, iad@cogsci.ed.ac.uk (Ivan A Derzhanski) writes:
>} I also bare witness, speaking, `There is no God other than James Meritt'.
>
>Hmmmm.  It seems logical to say what is, but I fail to see the logic in a
>universal is-not unless it is sufficiently quantified.  I, for instance,
>would not say "there is no other god", but I would say that I am one.

Okay, exegesis follows:

$\neg\exists x [G(x) \land x \neq j]$

`there is no such _x_ such that [_x_ is God and _x_ is not James Meritt]'

The Truth is still the Truth, even if you choose to ignore it.
It is also still the Truth if you choose to substitute $c$ `Colleen'
for $j$ `James Meritt' in the above formula.

Yours in James Meritt,
Fourth Disciple and Prophet of Colleen and First Colleenian Pope,

-- 
 `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
Newsgroups: alt.atheism
From: jwest@wisc (Jeff West)
Subject: Re: Stupid Family Values
X-Newsreader: Tin 1.1 PL3
Distribution: alt.atheism, alt.atheism.moderated
Date: 18 Dec 92 12:31:29 CST

Having lived in Colorado Springs until recently and still having many
friends there I can attest to the influx of fundi groups to the Springs.
Why they have choosen there is anyones guess.  Maybe the beautiful
countryside and great skiing!  If so that's all we have in common.

There is Much concern by the average citizen in Colorado Springs about
all these groups now making it their home.  There is a grassroots
movement of people starting up to take on these people and not let
them control their city.  It should be a very interesting battle.

As an aside, if you look at the voting by county you will see that it
was Colorado Springs that won the battle for voting in Ammendment 2.
The majority of Denver, Boulder and Apsen voters voted against it.

Want to place any bets on why it passed so overwhelmingly in the Springs!?

It served as a real wakeup call to many of my friends living there.
They don't like or want the title of "Fundamental Springs".

 - Jeff West
From: rlk@underprize.think.com (Robert Krawitz)
Newsgroups: alt.atheism
Subject: Re: Atheists should mind their own damn business
Date: 12 Dec 92 18:50:49 GMT
Organization: Thinking Machines Corporation, Cambridge Mass., USA
NNTP-Posting-Host: underprize.think.com
In-reply-to: harry@timesink.chi.il.us's message of Sat, 12 Dec 1992 07:11:37 GMT

In article <1992Dec12.071137.16343@timesink.chi.il.us> harry@timesink.chi.il.us (Harold Platypus) writes:

   I don't have anything against atheists really... just leave me and
   my world alone. If you don't like "In God We Trust" on US Currency,
   don't look for it - ya know it's there. If a religious symbol in a
   municipal seal is offensive to you, don't seek it out... After all
   it's not a blinking neon sign in your face, you have to look for it.

I might ask the same of theists, to just leave us alone, but
unfortunately it isn't quite that simple.  To put it simply, they don't.

The problem with all of these things is that they DO add up to a
blinking neon sign in our faces.  Furthermore, they seem to lead to a
greater entanglement of government in religion, which does almost no one
any good.  When theists start saying that "In God We Trust" means that
the US is a Christian country, and when these theists start having a
major say in public policy and basing their action upon that belief,
there is a problem.

   If a book or movie or anything in my environment offends my
   sensibilities, I try to ignore it. Why do y'all have to stir up shit... 
   Most of us kinda like "In God We Trust" on the currency. It's kinda
   folksy and quaint, whether you believe it or not. Just look at it
   as if it were saying "When things are going down the toilet, and we
   can't stand to blame ourselves, we trust in God... 'cuz if there
   ain't one, we're all fucked!". That should put a new face on it...

I hadn't even thought of that.  Just as well, because that's even worse.
It's even MORE important, then, to work to eliminate things like that,
because there ain't nobody who's going to save our butt in that case.

Actually, that does sound remarkably like certain Reagan-Bush era
people, e. g. James Watt...
--
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 lpf@uunet.uu.net
From: eng10524@nusunix1.nus.sg (RAMASWAMI VISHWANATH)
Subject: Re: Did Muslims Ever Forcibly Convert Others to Their Religion?
Organization: National University of Singapore
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.1 PL6]
Date: Tue, 15 Dec 1992 18:37:37 GMT

 


    yeah sure give me that cock -and-bull story and I will be a sucker
all night... You may like to know that these early venerable Muslims
were so kind indeed . So much so that they only killed a few thousannds
and desecrated a few thousands of places of worship of other religions
If you dont know the real facts and wanna go by your tutor's crap  go
ahead  but not on the net. It is a historical fact that the Afghans and
other hordes who came to India ,for example, destroyd a good couple of
1000's of tmeples, looteed and plundered and forced the 'infidels' or
kafirs to either die or convert (tough choice! ). Profound indeed the logic .And
accepted the holy men never probably killed anyone but they were
standing next to thier kings and them bastards seeing all this ... Yeah
really they do not mail to a.a trying kto  convert us but then you can
not wield your knife - change that to Uzis or AK's - over the net can
you ;and get away with it too...?
	The only way this bloody conversion thingie could 'not_hapen' is
if the word 'proselytising' had no meaning - but it f'ing well does and
happens , that's the whole bloody problem . To God(!!!!!!) wish they
would all just go awy to their hell and leave us to whatwever we think i
IS of IS_NOT .
Newsgroups: alt.atheism
From: sheikh@boa.cis.ohio-state.edu (rizwan a sheikh)
Subject: Re: Non-Religious Definition to Atheism
Organization: The Ohio State University Dept. of Computer and Info. Science
Date: Sun, 13 Dec 1992 00:37:34 GMT

In article <Bz5zCI.D5A@news.cso.uiuc.edu> pjnelson@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (nelson peter j) writes:
>>Also, atheism defines something negatively. Whenever you
>>define something negatively, it has negative connotations.
>>Atheism is somewhat connotative of amorality or a lack of
>>values in popular context. I would suggest a more positive
>>term. Here are my suggestions:
>
>>MATERIALIST
>>SENSORISTS
>>MATERIALISTIC UTILITARIANS.
>
>I personally use "OBJECTIVIST", but that's an Ayn Rand definition.
>Perhaps you could use "RATIONALIST" OR "REALIST".

How about free-thinker.

Jim Copeland
temporarily on a friend's account


Newsgroups: alt.atheism,talk.religion.misc
From: sdoe@nmsu.edu (Stephen Doe)
Subject: Re: THE MIND OF THE BIBLE BELIEVER
Keywords: Bible--psychology--fundamentalism
Organization: New Mexico State University
Distribution: world,public
Date: Mon, 14 Dec 1992 02:48:36 GMT

In article <1992Dec12.061710.16747@midway.uchicago.edu> dsoconne@midway.uchicago.edu writes:
>In article <1992Dec9.005337.14823@nmsu.edu> sdoe@nmsu.edu (Stephen Doe) writes:
>
>>	I ended Part 1 by asserting that the Bible is primarily a
>>psychological document, and that the long and bitter debate over its
>>didactic content had missed the point.  To continue in this review, we
>
>And in this, I assert, you are wrong. The hebrew testament is
>primarily a document concerning "God's" covenant with a 
>particular tribe of hebrews. 
>
>Dano

Yes, but (leaving aside the question of whether or not the God of the
Hebrews actually exists) we are talking about NT Christianity here.  I
am not suggesting that the OT was written for mind-control purposes in
the 1st century AD, but that it was *appropriated* by those who went
on to write the NT, in which we will see some interesting
psychological devices.

Do you read these all the way through, or do you just pick off the
first couple of sentences?

SD
From: David.Rice@ofa123.fidonet.org
Newsgroups: alt.atheism
Subject: In Ghod We Trust
X-Sender: newtout 0.02 Nov 17 1992
Date: 18 Dec 92  16:53:20

Who: harry@timesink.chi.il.us (Harold Platypus)
ID: <1992Dec14.081125.25913@timesink.chi.il.us>
 
[CUT occured here]
 
HP> "To clear up any misconception. . . I know 'In God We Trust'
HP> has no place on currency, but it's part of US history like it
HP> or not.
 
It is part of US's *COMMUNIST BLACKLIST ERA* history, which every
American should be damned ashamed of.
 
HP> Some people (not me necessarily) need and derive strength from
HP> these things. Removing it would (IMHO) be like defacing a
HP> national monument simply because it has a religious symbol
HP> on it."
 
Putting occult superstitions such as "In god we trust" was an
act of defacement.

--- Maximus 2.00
From: mikel@Apple.COM (Mikel Evins)
Newsgroups: alt.atheism
Subject: Re: Just how much smarter are atheists?
Date: 18 Dec 92 19:12:53 GMT
Organization: Apple Computer Inc, Cupertino, CA

In article <BzG6qF.3tG@news.cso.uiuc.edu> pjnelson@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (nelson peter j) writes:
>
> I remember reading somewhere that Koko did NOT communicate complex
> thoughts, but rather mimicked and copied her human trainer(s).
> Her language was very, very crude, and did not show abstract thought. 
> As I remember it, the whole "experiment" was blown way out of proportion
> by animal-rights type people. Anybody have a reference?

References to work concerning Koko are quite easy to come
by because the National Geographic society has published
a number of articles about her over the years. You can easily
go to a library that has a National Geographic archive and
look Koko up in the indexes; the referenced articles will lead 
you to more formal papers.

The objections you remember have been made by some critics,
but they are nothing more than speculations by people who
haven't worked with Koko directly. In fact, Koko has shown
understanding of past and future (certainly abstract
concepts), and has been shown to lie to her trainers to
gain things she wanted, which implies an ability to construct
descriptions of situations that don't actually exist, which
in turn implies imagination and a conception of personal
advantage.

She has also coined novel descriptive words for objects whose
name she didn't know, and has named pets using metaphorical
descriptions. She even scores reasonably well on IQ tests;
I seem to remember the number 85, but I don't remember which
From: bobbe@vice.ICO.TEK.COM (Robert Beauchaine)
Newsgroups: alt.atheism
Subject: Re: Women. . . SHUT UP!
Date: 15 Dec 92 20:57:54 GMT
Organization: Tektronix, Inc., Beaverton,  OR.

In article <1992Dec14.224233.9404@iscsvax.uni.edu> mccall3080@iscsvax.uni.edu writes:
>        I used to consider myself a feminist until I realized that my scope was
>larger than that.  Yes, I think that our society is dominated by men, but it is
>changing.  My beliefs are that ALL people should be treated with respect and
>treated equally.  I suppose that makes me a humanist.  

  The shift in power (at least in the US) has become much more
  pronounced over the last few years.  Does everyone remember the
  dumb blonde jokes of a couple of years ago?  They've all been
  replaced with the dumb male jokes.  It's fast becoming a case of
  men being the sole PC joke butt.  Not that it bothers me, mind
  you.  My gender deserves every bit of abuse feminists are willing
  to dish out, and then some.

  My local newspaper did a short article on this very phenomenon,
  and quoted some psychologist as saying that men should be
  genuinely concerned about this trend.  His position was that the
  acceptability of anti-male jokes is signifying a broader change in
  the power base of our traditionally male dominated society.  In
  other words, the status quo is on shakier ground than ever before.

  All of this while the religious right is pissing and moaning about
  women's role in the military.  Now which side is for equality and
  which is for submission, hmm?  

  It's too bad that christianity takes so much of its substance from
  that misogynist Paul.


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

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