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alt.atheism

re koresh is god from mathew mathew mantis co uk the latest news seems to be that koresh will give himself up once he s finished writing a sequel to the bible in article p psilink com robert knowles p psilink com writes writing the seven seals or something along those lines he s already written the first of the seven which was around pages or so and has handed it over to an assistant for proofreading i would expect any decent messiah to have a built in spellchecker maybe koresh will come with one i heard he had asked the fbi to provide him with a word processor does anyone know if koresh has requested that it be wordperfect wp was written and is owned by mormons so the theological implications of requesting or refusing wp are profound darin wilkins scubed scubed com i will be president for food

alt.atheism

re you will all go to hell in article pts psuvm psu edu pts psuvm psu edu writes pitt vs penn state controversy deleted bringing this back to alt atheism relevance so the guy says we re going to hell that isn t sufficient cause to bitch to the system operator at worst it s bad etiquette unless you really believe that someone is using his account without his knowledge permission which is actually against the law patrick saxton pitt is a second rate school in a second rate city pts psuvm psu edu anon pts ecl psu edu ob atheism in batman we trust no it wouldn t be sufficient cause to bitch to the system operator if this was just some guy saying that atheists are going to hell the point was that recently many messages were posted from that address each of these messages was posted to a different newsgroup with the apparent intent of provoking the readers of that particular group this along with the fact that these posts were written in all caps makes these posts suspect whoever is using this account is using it irresponsibly if it is the intended user they should consider appropriate action if it is someone else which seems a possibility then this is also reason to report it we get many posts in the flavor of the one that started this thread it is only because i have seen posts on other groups by this user that i am considering action brendan

alt.atheism

re amusing atheists and agnostics thanks to whoever posted this wonderful parody of people who post without reading the faq i was laughing for a good minutes were there any parts of the faq that weren t mentioned i think there might have been one or two please don t tell me this wasn t a joke i m not ready to hear that yet brendan

alt.atheism

re is morality constant was re biblical rape bill conner bil okcforum osrhe edu wrote there are a couple of things about your post and others in this thread that are a little confusing an atheist is one for whom all things can be understood as processes of nature exclusively this definition does not include all atheists see the faq however i for one do think there is no need to invoke any divine or spiritual explanations it makes a big difference to claim that all things can be understood as natural processes and to claim that our observations do not require us to postulate any divine intervention or anything spiritual for that matter humans are not omnipotent and neither is science however science has one advantage theology doesn t it is self correcting with nature as its judge it is delightful to see how scientific inquiry is revealing a self consistent simple picture of our universe science is no longer a bunch of separate branches it is one from particle physics to psychology and no aspect of our life or our universe is safe from its stern and stony eye not even our consciousness there is no need for any recourse to divnity to describe or explain anything there is no purpose or direction for any event beyond those required by physics chemistry biology etc everything is random nothing is determnined actually determinism vs indeterminism is a philosophical question and science cannot say whether the whole thing is actually somehow superdeterministic or not i think the question does not have any meaning as far as individual human beings go if their apparent free will is an illusion it does not appear to be so from their perspective bill can you say for sure whether you have a free will or not this would also have to include human intelligence of course and all its products there is nothing requiring that life evolve or that it acquire intelligence it s just a happy accident maybe who are we to tell it seems intelligence is useful when during the history of earth has one species been able to control one third of the whole biosphere this can still be a result of numerous happy accidents our genetic machinery blindly replicates and preserves even that machinery can be result of the same principle only the systems that can start replicating will survive those which don t don t make it recommended reading t o for an atheist no event can be preferred to another or be said to have more or less value than another in any naturalistic sense and no thought about an event can have value from whose perspective i value events and things subjectively from my perspective nature does not have values because it does not have a perspective values arise from awareness if i have a subjective perspective it is easy to assume that other people also do and if i think about what it would it be like in their position i will eventually discover the golden rule morality is not necessarily a gift from heavens in fact it may be a product of evolution perhaps we are aware of ourselves because a sense of identity is helpful allows us to play the roles of others and make us respect others who seem to have identity too bill have you ever read aristotle try his ethica nikomakhea sp for starters how then can an atheist judge value what is the basis for criticizing the values ennumerated in the bible or the purposes imputed to god on what grounds can the the behavior of the reliogious be condemned it seems that in judging the values that motivate others to action you have to have some standard against which conduct is measured but what in nature can serve that purpose what law of nature can you invoke to establish your values c s lewis tells us that this argument was the main reason why he abandoned his atheism and became christian the argument is severely flawed some values such as the golden rule can have a rational basis some others like the basic idea of wanting to live has probably its roots in the way our brains are wired lewis ignored the very real possiblity that natural selection could also favour altruistic behaviour and morality as well indeed as humans evolved better and better in building and using tools they also became better at killing each other it is a logical necessity that evolution could only favour those who knew how to use tools but not against one s own people the bible reveals quite nicely that the morality of the early jews was not beyond this a simple set of rules to hold the people together under one god their god did not care much about people of other nations at the time of the nt things were quite different the jews were under rule of an empire and could no longer simply ignore the gentiles a new situation required a new morality and along with it a new religion was born a mutation in a meme pool since every event is entirely and exclusively a physical event what difference could it possibly make what anyone does religious or otherwise there can be no meaning or gradation of value the only way an atheist can object to any behaviour is to admit that the objection is entirely subjective and that he she just doesn t like it that s it any value judgement must be prefaced by the disclaimer that it is nothing more than a matter of personal opinion and carries no weight in any absolute sense it looks like you haven t bothered to read philosophy whenever there is an observer there is a subjective point of view which may value its existence and happiness even if that were just a result of some physical event and other s happiness too if the observer comes to think about it in an absolutely objective sense that is without any observers or subjects moral judgments lose their meaning it is not possible for a value to simply exist without a point of view this includes gods too their values are only their personal judgments not absolute truths since such truths do not exist the fact that most people do not deliberately want to hurt others is a manifestation of the way we have fought for our existence by becoming social beings who can think and value others existence morality is not property of humans alone chimps dolphins and many other species show great care for each other dolphins have sometimes saved humans from drowning a good deed indeed that you don t like what god told people to do says nothing about god or god s commands it says only that there was an electrical event in your nervous system that created an emotional state that your mind coupled with a pre existing thought set to form that reaction that your objections seem well founded is due to the way you ve been conditioned there is no truth content the whole of your intellectual landscape is an illusion a virtual reality the last statement does not logically follow in fact there is every reason to believe our thoughts can model reality very well and our senses can convey reliable information solipsism is still a logical possibility but not a very likely one you are continuously mixing two different views the subjective point of view which we all share and an objective point of view which does not exist any observer or thinker any personal being has its own point of view it does not matter whether this point of view is a result of some physical events or not it does not cease to be subjective from a non observers non point of view values do not exist neither does pain or pleasure or beauty or love such things are inherently subjective once again if god wants wives to submit to their husbands or even to make a leap of faith into the unknown or wants to punish us if we don t i disagree with his morals i do not think my morals come from any supreme being to remove my morals means the same than to make me a zombie a machine without a single thought if god gave us morality to judge but i disagree with him it is not my fault he is free to replace my morals i cannot see what is the point of giving someone a moral system which disagrees with one s own and then to get mad at this god must be schizophrenic all of this being so you have excluded yourself from any discussion of values right wrong goood evil etc and cannot participate your opinion about the bible can have no weight whatsoever neither can the opinion of any god for that matter i cannot understand why a subjective opinion of a thing made of matter is in any way less credible than an opinion of a thing made of something else bill take note absolute values must be independent of any being including gods if god has a subjective viewpoint it is his own point of view and his morals are his own petri petri pihko kem pmp mathematics is the truth pihatie c finou oulu fi physics is the rule of sf oulu kempmp the game finland phoenix oulu fi chemistry is the game

alt.atheism

re yet more rushdie re islamic law in article vice ico tek com bobbe vice ico tek com robert beauchaine writes in article bu edu jaeger buphy bu edu gregg jaeger writes in article vice ico tek com bobbe vice ico tek com robert beauchaine writes i am refuting nothing but simply telling you what i see which is childish propaganda and nothing to be refuted bcci was not an islamic bank so this post has nothing to do with islamic banks i am tiring of this infantile garbage so i simply evaluated it as such could you maybe flesh it out just a bit or did i miss the full grandeur of it s content by virtue of my blinding atheism you may be having difficulty seeing the light because you have your head up your ass i suggest making sure this is not the case before posting again it s time for your lesson in debate gregg yeah right begin included text from vice news tek com uunet psinntp wrldlnk usenet sun apr pdt i noticed a post on this topic in soc religion islam and since the topic of the bcci being not being an islamic bank has come up i have left in the one mention of the bcci bank called how bcci adapted the koran rules of banking from this bibliography bennett neil how bcci adapted the koran rules of banking the times august so let s see if some guy writes a piece with a title that implies something is the case then it must be so is that it this is how you support a position if you intend to have anyone respect it gregg any questions and i even managed to include the above reference with my head firmly engaged in my ass what s your excuse this supports nothing i have no reason to believe that this is piece is anything other than another anti islamic slander job i have no respect for titles only for real content i can look up this article if i want true but i can tell you bcci was not an islamic bank seeing as i m spending my time responding to propaganda in responding to this little sub thread i really don t feel a deep need to do more than make statements to the effect that the propaganda is false if someone wants to discuss the issue more seriously then i d be glad to have a real discussion providing references etc gregg

alt.atheism

re amusing atheists and agnostics timmbake mcl ucsb edu bake timmons writes rule don t mix apples with oranges how can you say that the extermination by the mongols was worse than stalin khan conquered people unsympathetic to his cause that was atrocious but stalin killed millions of his own people who loved and worshipped him and his atheist state how can anyone be worse than that you re right and david koresh claimed to be a christian

alt.atheism

re some thoughts bissda saturn wwc edu dan lawrence bissell writes niether was he a lunatic would more than an entire nation be drawn to someone who was crazy find an encyclopedia volume h now look up hitler adolf he had many more people than just germans enamoured with him p moorcockpratchettdenislearydelasoulu iainmbanksneworderheathersbatmanpjorourke clive p a u l m o l o n e y come let us retract the foreskin of misconception james trinity college dublin and apply the wire brush of enlightenment geoffm brownbladerunnersugarcubeselectronicblaylockpowersspikeleekatebushhamcornpizza

alt.atheism

re the pope is jewish west next cville wam umd edu stilgar writes the pope is jewish i guess they re right and i always thought that the thing on his head was just a fancy hat not a jewish headpiece i don t remember the name it s all so clear now clear as mud as to what that headpiece is by chort crl nmsu edu source ap newswire the vatican home of genetic misfits michael a gillow noted geneticist has revealed some unusual data after working undercover in the vatican for the past years the popehat tm is actually an advanced bone spur reveals gillow in his groundshaking report gillow who had secretly studied the innermost workings of the vatican since returning from vietnam in a wheel chair first approached the scientific community with his theory in the late s the whole hat thing that was just a cover up the vatican didn t want the catholic community tm to realize their leader was hefting nearly kilograms of extraneous bone tissue on the top of his skull notes gillow in his report there are whole laboratories in the vatican that experiment with tissue transplants and bone marrow experiments what started as a genetic fluke in the mid s is now scientifically engineered and bred for the whole bone transplant idea started in the mid sixties inspired by doctor timothy leary transplanting deer bone cells into small white rats gillow is quick to point out the assassination attempt on pope john paul ii and the disappearance of dr leary from the public eye when it becomes time to replace the pope says gillow the old pope and the replacement pope are locked in a padded chamber they butt heads much like male yaks fighting for dominance of the herd the victor emerges and has earned the privilege of inseminating the choir boys p moorcockpratchettdenislearydelasoulu iainmbanksneworderheathersbatmanpjorourke clive p a u l m o l o n e y come let us retract the foreskin of misconception james trinity college dublin and apply the wire brush of enlightenment geoffm brownbladerunnersugarcubeselectronicblaylockpowersspikeleekatebushhamcornpizza

alt.atheism

re free moral agency and jeff clark in article healta saturn wwc edu healta saturn wwc edu tammy r healy writes deletion you also said why did millions suffer for what adam and ee did seems a pretty sick way of going about creating a universe i m gonna respond by giving a small theology lesson forgive me i used to be a theology major first of all i believe that this planet is involved in a cosmic struggle the great controversy betweed christ and satan i borrowed a book title god has to consider the interests of the entire universe when making decisions deletion an universe it has created by the way can you tell me why it is less tyrannic to let one of one s own creatures do what it likes to others by your definitions your god has created satan with full knowledge what would happen including every choice of satan can you explain us what free will is and how it goes along with omniscience didn t your god know everything that would happen even before it created the world why is it concerned about being a tyrant when noone would care if everything was fine for them that the whole idea comes from the possibility to abuse power something your god introduced according to your description by the way are you sure that you have read the faq especially the part about preaching benedikt

alt.atheism

re the pope is jewish in article apr wam umd edu west next cville wam umd edu stilgar writes last night while watching the a m rebroadcast of jerry springer a talk show i heard this jewel of a thought from a year old racist the focus of this show was on these kids and their hatred for the jewish religion and why some stuff deleted interesting and scary no they went on to say how the jews had killed their god and how in the end of time that all the races would go to their homelands of course they would remain in america which is new jeruselem as it says in gen what another kid said but the rest of the races would go home and then the great battle or plague or whatever revel says would happen and the jews would be killed the most interesting thing about this was that my roomate is catholic and had the kjv of the bible on his desk he immediatly opened it up and began to search for the quoted passages gen rev and john to look for himself and couldn t find what they said they saw i don t know i saw this show a while back and when i heard these kids quote the bible to justify their racist claims i looked up that quote about jesus hating jews since jesus himself was a jew my curiousity had been piqued by such a claim the jist of the passage and i am sorry but i can t recall which passage it was exactly was that jesus was condemning the pharisees for being corrupt of course the pharisees were jewish too but it wasn t jews as a whole that jesus was condemning just the powers that be nancy o connor psychology undergrad the opinions i express simon fraser university are my own burnaby b c canada

alt.atheism

re a silly question on x tianity werdna cco caltech edu andrew tong writes mccullou snake cs wisc edu mark mccullough writes question this attitude god character seems awfully egotistical and proud but christianity tells people to be humble what s the deal well god pretty much has a right to be egotistical and proud i mean he created you doesn t he have the right to be proud of such a job of course people don t have much of a right to be proud what have they accomplished that can match god s accomplishments anyways how do their abilities compare with those of god s we re an imbecile worm of the earth to quote pascal grumblegrumble if you were god and you created a universe wouldn t you be just a little irked if some self organizing cell globules on a tiny planet started thinking they were as great and awesome as you unfortunately the logic falls apart quick all perfect insulted or threatened by the actions of a lesser creature actually by offspring how why shuold any all powerful all perfect feel either proud or offended anything capable of being aware of the relationship of every aspect of every particle in the universe during every moment of time simultaneously should be able to understand the cause of every action of every cell globule on each tniy planet well actually now that i think of it it seems kinda odd that god would care at all about the earth ok so it was a bad example but the amazing fact is that he does care apparently and that he was willing to make some grand sacrifices to ensure our happiness all powerful owner of everything in the universe makes great sacrifices makes a great headline but it doesn t make any sense what did he sacrifice where did it go that he couldn t get it back if he gave something up who d he give it up to chris you guys have fun i m agoin to key west

alt.atheism

re i don t beleive in you either in article apr antioc antioch edu smauldin antioc antioch edu writes i stopped believing in you as well long before the invention of technology god ahhh go back to alt autotheism where you belong brian

alt.atheism

re genocide is caused by theism evidence in article qid fct horus ap mchp sni de frank d s uucp frank o dwyer writes i don t see anything special about theism in general that makes it a particular hazard more so than say stupidity anarchy or patriotism of course it depends on the religion but i see nothing about believing in gods that in and of itself entails or even promotes xenophobia genocide etc if the emphasis is on the in general then of course you re correct since you haven t really said anything if we restrict our observations to practiced religions there are lots of examples of god mandated genocide just ask the canaanites the point is that if you believe in a god and if you believe he has ordered you to eliminate an entire race you will likely make the attempt after all if it was ok in the past it could surely be ok in the present bob beauchaine bobbe vice ico tek com they said that queens could stay they blew the bronx away and sank manhattan out at sea

alt.atheism

re free moral agency and jeff clark in article sandvik sandvik kent apple com sandvik newton apple com kent sandvik writes this is the reason i like the controversy of post modernism the issues of polarities evil and good are just artificial constructs and they fall apart during a closer inspection the more i look into the notion of a constant struggle between the evil and good forces the more it sounds like a metaphor that people just assume without closer inspection more info please i m not well exposed to these ideas bob beauchaine bobbe vice ico tek com they said that queens could stay they blew the bronx away and sank manhattan out at sea

alt.atheism

re political atheists in article apr news wesleyan edu ssauyet eagle wesleyan edu scott d sauyet writes in qabe innaff gap caltech edu keith cco caltech edu writes chimpanzees fight wars over land but chimps are almost human keith could it be this is the last message from mr schneider and it s more than three days old are these his final words and how many here would find that appropriate or is it just that finals got in the way no the christians were leary of having an atheist spokesman seems so clandestine and all that so they had him removed of course keith is busy explaining to his fellow captives how he isn t really being persecuted since after all they are feeding him and any resistance on his part would only be viewed as trouble making i understand he did make a bit of a fuss when they tatooed in god we trust on his forehead though bob beauchaine bobbe vice ico tek com they said that queens could stay they blew the bronx away and sank manhattan out at sea

alt.atheism

re new member in article c hiew s portal hq videocart com dfuller portal hq videocart com dave fuller writes hello i just started reading this group today and i think i am going to be a large participant in its daily postings i liked the section of the faq about constructing logical arguments well done i am an atheist but i do not try to turn other people into atheists i only try to figure why people believe the way they do i don t much care if they have a different view than i do when it comes down to it i could be wrong i am willing to admit the possibility something religious followers dont seem to have the capability to do welcome aboard i notice alot of posts from bobby why does anybody ever respond to his posts he always falls back on the same argument i think you just answered your own question there if the religion is followed it will cause no bad he is right just because an event was explained by a human to have been done in the name of religion does not mean that it actually followed the religion he will always point to the ideal and say that it wasn t followed so it can t be the reason for the event there really is no way to argue with him so why bother sure you may get upset because his answer is blind and not supported factually but he will win every time with his little argument i don t think there will be any postings from me in direct response to one of his most responses were against his postings that spouted the fact that all atheists are fools evil for not seeing how peachy islam is i would leave the pro con arguments of islam to fred rice who is more level headed and seems to know more on the subject anyway happy to be aboard how did you know i was going to welcome you abord dave fuller dfuller portal hq videocart com brian

alt.atheism

re free moral agency in article house helios house helios usq edu au ron house writes marshall csugrad cs vt edu kevin marshall writes healta saturn wwc edu tammy r healy writes you might think oh yeah then why didn t god destroy it in the bud before it got to the point it is now with millions through the ages suffering along in life the only answer i know is that satan made the claim that his way was better than god s god is allowing satan the chance to prove that his way is better than god s we all know what that has brought come on god is allowing the wishes of one individual to supercede the well being of billions i seriously doubt it having read the bible twice i never got the impression that god and satan were working in some sort of cooperative arrangement read the book of job oh that was just a bet brian

alt.atheism

re some thoughts i m sold where do i sign up brian the next book charles manson lord lunatic or liar

alt.atheism

re some thoughts bissda saturn wwc edu dan lawrence bissell writes some reasons why he wouldn t be a liar are as follows who would die for a lie wouldn t people be able to tell if he was a liar people gathered around him and kept doing it many gathered from hearing or seeing someone who was or had been healed call me a fool but i believe he did heal people anyone who dies for a cause runs the risk of dying for a lie as for people being able to tell if he was a liar well we ve had grifters and charlatans since the beginning of civilization if david copperfield had been the messiah i bet he could have found plenty of believers jesus was hardly the first to claim to be a faith healer and he wasn t the first to be witnessed what sets him apart niether was he a lunatic would more than an entire nation be drawn to someone who was crazy very doubtful in fact rediculous for example anyone who is drawn to david koresh is obviously a fool logical people see this right away rubbish nations have followed crazies liars psychopaths and megalomaniacs throughout history hitler tojo mussolini khomeini qadaffi stalin papa doc and nixon come to mind all from this century koresh is a non issue therefore since he wasn t a liar or a lunatic he must have been the real thing take a discrete mathematics or formal logic course there are flaws in your logic everywhere and as i m sure others will tell you read the faq some other things to note he fulfilled loads of prophecies in the psalms isaiah and elsewhere in hrs alone this in his betrayal and crucifixion i don t have my bible with me at this moment next time i write i will use it of course you have to believe the bible first just because something is written in the bible does not mean it is true and the age of that tome plus the lack of external supporting evidence makes it less credible so if you do quote from the bible in the future try to back up that quote with supporting evidence otherwise you will get flamed mercilessly i don t think most people understand what a christian is it is certainly not what i see a lot in churches rather i think it should be a way of life and a total sacrafice of everything for god s sake he loved us enough to die and save us so we should do the same hey we can t do it god himself inspires us to turn our lives over to him that s tuff and most people don t want to do it to be a real christian would be something for the strong to persevere at but just like weight lifting or guitar playing drums whatever it takes time we don t rush it in one day christianity is your whole life it is not going to church once a week or helping poor people once in a while we box everything into time units such as work at this time sports tv social life god is above these boxes and should be carried with us into all these boxes that we have created for ourselves just like weight lifting or guitar playing eh i don t know how you define the world total but i would imagine a total sacrafice sp of everything for god s sake would involve more than a time commitment you are correct about our tendency to box everything into time units would you explain how one should involove god in sports and hehehe television kevin marshall computer science department virginia tech marshall csugrad cs vt edu blacksburg virginia

alt.atheism

re genocide is caused by atheism in kmr po cwru edu kmr po cwru edu keith m ryan writes wait you just said that humans are rarely reasonable doesn t that contradict atheism where everything is explained through logic and reason this is the contradiction in atheism that proves it false bobby mozumder proving the existence of allah does anybody have bobby s post in which he said something like i don t know why there are more men than women in islamic countries maybe it s atheists killing the female children it s my personal favorite sami aario can you see or measure an atom yet you can explode a cc tut fi one sunlight is comprised of many atoms your stupid minds stupid stupid eros in plan from outer space disclaimer i don t agree with eros

alt.atheism

re some thoughts did you read the faqs if no read the faqs if yes you wouldn t have posted such drivel the lord liar or lunatic argument is a false trilemma even if you disprove liar and lunatic which you haven t you have not eliminated the other possibilities such as mistaken misdirected or misunderstood you have arbitrarily set up three and only three possibilities without considering others read a good book on rhetoric and critical thinking if you think the lord liar or lunatic discussion is an example of a good argument you are in need of learning read the faqs again especially constructing a logical argument ignore these instructions at your peril disobeying them leaves you open for righteous flaming maddi hausmann madhaus netcom com centigram communications corp san jose california kids please don t try this at home remember i post professionally

alt.atheism

re slavery was re why is sex only allowed in marriage oh this all sounds so nice everyone helping each other and always smiling and fluffy bunnies everywhere wake up people are just not like that it seems evident from history that no society has succeeded when it had to rely upon the goodwill and unselfishness of the people isn t it obvious from places like iran that even if there are only a few greedy people in society then they are going to be attracted to positions of power sounds like a recipe for disaster looking at historical evidence such perfect utopian islamic states didn t survive i agree people are people and even if you might start an islamic revolution and create this perfect state it takes some time and the internal corruption will destroy the ground rules again cheers kent sandvik newton apple com alink ksand private activities on the net

alt.atheism

re slavery was re why is sex only allowed in marriage in article apr monu cc monash edu au darice yoyo cc monash edu au fred rice wrote anyhow on the basis of the apparent success of islamic banks it seems to me that the statement that a zero interest economy cannot survive in today s world may be a bit premature i m sure zero intested economical systems survive on a small scale co ops is not an islamic invention and we have co operatives working all around the world however such systems don t stand the corruption of a large scale operation actually nothing could handle human greed imho not even allah cheers kent sandvik newton apple com alink ksand private activities on the net

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re new member in article c hiew s portal hq videocart com dfuller portal hq videocart com dave fuller wrote he is right just because an event was explained by a human to have been done in the name of religion does not mean that it actually followed the religion he will always point to the ideal and say that it wasn t followed so it can t be the reason for the event there really is no way to argue with him so why bother sure you may get upset because his answer is blind and not supported factually but he will win every time with his little argument i don t think there will be any postings from me in direct response to one of his hey glad to have some serious and constructive contributors in this newsgroup i agree on the statement above you might argue with bobby for eons and he still does not get it so the best thing is to spare your mental resources to discuss more interesting issues cheers kent sandvik newton apple com alink ksand private activities on the net

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re genocide is caused by atheism in article qjfnv ogt horus ap mchp sni de frank d s uucp frank o dwyer wrote does the term hero worship mean anything to you yes worshipping jesus as the super saver is indeed hero worshipping of the grand scale worshipping lenin that will make life pleasant for the working people is eh somehow similar or what i understand that gods are defined to be supernatural not merely superhuman the notion of lenin was on the borderline of supernatural insights into how to change the world he wasn t a communist god but he was the man who gave presents to kids during christmas actually i agree things are always relative and you can t have a direct mapping between a movement and a cause however the notion that communist russia was somewhat the typical atheist country is only something that robertson tilton et rest would believe in those atheists were not true unbelievers huh don t know what they were but they were fanatics indeed cheers kent sandvik newton apple com alink ksand private activities on the net

alt.atheism

re some thoughts in article bissda saturn wwc edu bissda saturn wwc edu dan lawrence bissell wrote first i want to start right out and say that i m a christian it makes sense to be one have any of you read tony campollo s book liar lunatic or the real thing i might be a little off on the title but he writes the book anyway he was part of an effort to destroy christianity in the process he became a christian himself seems he didn t understand anything about realities liar lunatic or the real thing is a very narrow view of the possibilities of jesus message sigh it seems religion makes your mind brain filter out anything that does not fit into your personal scheme so anyone that thinks the possibilities with jesus is bound to the classical lewis notion of liar lunatic or saint is indeed bound to become a christian cheers kent sandvik newton apple com alink ksand private activities on the net

alt.atheism

re genocide is caused by atheism in article qjf o t horus ap mchp sni de frank d s uucp frank o dwyer writes in article qimbe sp fido asd sgi com livesey solntze wpd sgi com jon livesey writes in article qif g fp horus ap mchp sni de frank d s uucp frank o dwyer writes in article qialf p m fido asd sgi com livesey solntze wpd sgi com jon livesey writes i forget the origin of the quote but i gotta use words when i talk to you an atheist is one who lacks belief in gods yes if so then it s entirely plausible that an atheist could dig lenin or lennon to such an extent that it might be considered worship and still be an atheist anything else seems to be newspeak ask yourself the following question would you regard an ardent nazi as a republican simply because germany no longer had a kaiser no because that s based on false dichotomy there are more options than you present me and that of course is the point you can t simply divide the world into atheists and non atheists on the basis of god belief if all you care about is belief in a supernatural deity and have nothing to say about behaviour then belief in a supernatural being is your criterion but once you start talking about behaviour then someone s suscept ibility to be led by bad people into doing bad things is what you are i assume worried about and in that area what you care about is whether someone is sceptical critical and autonomous on the one hand or gullible excitable and easily led on the other i would say that a tendency to worship tyrants and ideologies indicates that a person is easily led whether they have a worship or belief in a supernatural hero rather than an earthly one seems to me to be beside the point jon

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re some thoughts in article edm apr gocart twisto compaq com edm twisto compaq com ed mccreary writes on thu apr gmt bissda saturn wwc edu dan lawrence bissell said dlb first i want to start right out and say that i m a christian it dlb makes sense to be one have any of you read tony campollo s book liar dlb lunatic or the real thing i might be a little off on the title but he dlb writes the book anyway he was part of an effort to destroy christianity dlb in the process he became a christian himself here we go again just the friendly folks at christian central come to save you

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re islamic genocide in article qjipo pen horus ap mchp sni de frank d s uucp frank o dwyer writes in article qinmd sp fido asd sgi com livesey solntze wpd sgi com jon livesey writes at any rate even if your interpretation is correct this does not imply that the killings are religously motivated which was the original poster s seeming claim tricky tricky i m replying to your blanket claim that they are not religiously motivated they aren t irish catholics in the south do not kill irish protestants in the south yet have precisely the same history behind them those who think the killings are religously motivated ignore the rather obvious matter of british occupation partition and misguided patriotism on both sides false dichotomy you claimed the killing were not religiously motivated and i m saying that s wrong i m not saying that each and every killing is religiously motivate as i spelled out in detail the problems fault along the religious divide because at the historical roots of this thing we have a catholic country partitioned and populated by a protestant one the grotesque killing of soldiers and civilians is supposedly motivated by patriotism civil rights issues and revenge it s only difficult to understand insofaras insanity is hard to understand religion need not be invoked to explain it does anyone else see the contradiction in this paragraph but to claim that the killings in n i are not religously motivated is grotesque all that means is that the church and believers are doing what they always do with history they can t face they rewrite it you re attacking a different claim my claim is that when an ira terrorist plants a bomb in warrington s he does not have as a motive the greater glory of god sorry frank but what i put in quotes is your own words from your posting qi b ec horus ap mchp sni de don t tell us now that it s a different claim if you can no longer stand behind your original claim just say so jon

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re i don t beleive in you either in article apr antioc antioch edu smauldin antioc antioch edu writes i stopped believing in you as well long before the invention of technology god don t listen to this guy he s just a crank at first this business about being the one true god was tolerated by the rest of us but now it has gotten completely out of hand besides it really isn t so bad when people stop believing in you it s much more relaxing when mortals aren t always begging you for favors zeus

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re genocide is caused by atheism in apr ultb isc rit edu snm ultb isc rit edu s n mozumder writes in article kmr po cwru edu kmr po cwru edu keith m ryan writes if i state that i know that there is a green marble in a closed box which i have never seen nor have any evidence for its existance i would be guilty of deceit even if there is in fact a green marble inside the question of whether or not there is a green marble inside is irrelevent you go ahead and play with your marbles i love it i love it i love it wish i could fit all that into a sig file if someone is keeping a list of bobby quotes be sure to include this one stating an unproven opinion as a fact is deceit and knowingly being decietful is a falsehood and a lie so why do you think its an unproven opinion if i said something as fact but you think its opinion because you do not accept it then who s right the flat earthers state that the earth is flat is a fact i don t accept this i think it s an unproven opinion and i think the round earthers are right because they have better evidence than the flat earthers do although i can t prove that a god doesn t exist the arguments used to support a god s existence are weak and often self contradictory and i m not going to believe in a god unless someone comes over to me and gives me a reason to believe in a god that i absolutely can t ignore a while ago i read an interesting book by a fellow called von daenicken in which he proved some of the wildest things and on the last page he wrote something like can you prove it isn t so i certainly can t but i m not going to believe him because he based his proof on some really questionable stuff such as old myths he called it circumstancial evidence so far atheism hasn t made me kill anyone and i m regarded as quite an agreeable fellow really sami aario can you see or measure an atom yet you can explode a cc tut fi one sunlight is comprised of many atoms your stupid minds stupid stupid eros in plan from outer space disclaimer i don t agree with eros

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islamic authority sic over women who kmr po cwru edu keith m ryan what kmr po cwru edu with rush leland stanford edu what apr leland stanford edu other readers i just joined but is this guy for real i m simply amazed kr sadly yes don t loose any sleep over old zlumber just kr have some fun with him but he is basically harmless kr at least if you don t work in ny city i don t find it hard to believe that ole zlumber really believes the hate and ignorant prattle he writes the frightening thought is there are people even worse than he to say that feminism equals superiority over men is laughable as long as he doesn t then proceed to pick up a rifle and start to shoot women as a preemptive strike aka the canada slaughter that occured a few years ago but then men killing women is nothing new islamic fundamentalists just have a better excuse qu ran from the vancouver sun thursday october by john davidson canadian press montreal perhaps it s the letter to the five year old daughter that shocks the most i hope one day you will be old enough to understand what happened to your parents wrote patrick prevost i loved your mother with a passion that went as far as hatred police found the piece of paper near prevost s body in his apartment in northeast montreal they say the year old mechanic committed suicide after killing his wife jocelyne parent the couple had been separated for a month and the woman had gone to his apartment to talk about getting some more money for food a violent quarrel broke out and prevost attacked his wife with a kitchen knife cutting her throat police said she was only the latest of women slain by a husband or lover in quebec in the last five weeks five children have also been slain as a result of the same domestic battles last year in quebec alone women were slain by their husbands that was more than one third of such cases across canada according to statistics from the canadian centre for justice rest of article ommited then to say that women are somehow better or should be the one to stay home and raise a child is also laughable women have traditionally done hard labor to support a family often more than men in many cultures throughout history seems to me it takes at least two adults to raise a child and that both should stay home to do so maximus wb

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re feminism and islam again in article apr ultb isc rit edu snm ultb isc rit edu s n mozumder writes in article apr eagle wesleyan edu kmagnacca eagle wesleyan edu writes there s a way around that via the hadith which state that silence is taken to mean yes and that women may not speak before a judge who must conduct the marriage actaully that s a false hadith because it contradicts verses in the quran that says women may testify speak before a judge hadiths are declared false when they contradict the quran hadiths weren t written during the revelation or during the life of the prophet and so may contain errors so the only way you can tell a false hadith from a true one is if it contradicts the quran what if it relates to something that isn t explicitly spelled out in the quran also the quran wasn t written down during the life of muhammed either it wasn t long after but years or so is still long enough to shift a few verses around karl lastly i come to china in the hope all you touch and all you see of fulfilling a lifelong ambition is all your life will ever be dropping acid on the great wall duke pink floyd a lie is still a lie even if billion people believe it

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re after years can we say that christian morality is in article apr abo fi mandtbacka finabo abo fi mats andtbacka writes in qie fkt horus ap mchp sni de frank d s uucp writes in article ursa bear com halat pooh bears jim halat writes i m one of those people who does not know what the word objective means when put next to the word morality i assume its an idiom and cannot be defined by its separate terms give it a try objective morality is morality built from objective values and these objective values are please be specific and more importantly motivate i ll take a wild guess and say freedom is objectively valuable i base this on the assumption that if everyone in the world were deprived utterly of their freedom so that their every act was contrary to their volition almost all would want to complain therefore i take it that to assert or believe that freedom is not very valuable when almost everyone can see that it is is every bit as absurd as to assert it is not raining on a rainy day i take this to be a candidate for an objective value and it it is a necessary condition for objective morality that objective values such as this exist frank o dwyer i m not hatching that odwyer sse ie from hens by evelyn conlon

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re the inimitable rushdie re an anecdote about islam in article apr monu cc monash edu au darice yoyo cc monash edu au fred rice writes in article c c cn gb ra nrl navy mil khan itd itd nrl navy mil umar khan writes i just borrowed a book from the library on khomeini s fatwa etc i found this useful passage regarding the legitimacy of the fatwa it was also common knowledge as prescribed by islamic law that the sentence was only applicable where the jurisdiction of islamic law applies moreover the sentence has to be passed by an islamic court and executed by the state machinery through the due process of the law even in islamic countries let alone in non muslim lands individuals cannot take the law into their own hands the sentence when passed must be carried out by the state through the usual machinery and not by individuals indeed it becomes a criminal act to take the law into one s own hands and punish the offender unless it is in the process of self defence moreover the offender must be brought to the notice of the court and it is the court who shoud decide how to deal with him this law applies equally to muslim as well as non muslim territories i agree fully with the above statement and is precisely what i meant by my previous statements about islam not being anarchist and the law not being enforcible despite the law being applicable hence on such clarification from the ulama islamic scholars muslims in britain before and after imam khomeini s fatwa made it very clear that since islamic law is not applicable to britain the hadd compulsory punishment cannot be applied here i disagree with this conclusion about the applicability of the islamic law to all muslims wherever they may be the above conclusion does not strictly follow from the foregoing but only the conclusion that the fatwa cannot be enforced according to islamic law however i do agree that the punishment cannot be applied to rushdie even were it well founded wow from the above it looks like that from an islamic viewpoint khomeini s fatwa constitutes a criminal act perhaps i could even go out on a limb and call khomeini a criminal on this basis certainly putting a price on the head of rushdie in britain is a criminal act according to islamic law anyhow i think it is understood by knowledgeable muslims that khomeini s fatwa is islamically illegitimate at least on the basis expounded above others such as myself and others who have posted here particularly umar khan and gregg jaeger i think go further and say that even the punishment constituted in the fatwa is against islamic law according to our understanding yes gregg

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re yet more rushdie re islamic law in article apr monu cc monash edu au darice yoyo cc monash edu au fred rice wrote it is my understanding that it is generally agreed upon by the ulema islamic scholars that islamic law applies only in an islamic country of which the uk is not furthermore to take the law into one s own hands is a criminal act as these are matters for the state not for individuals nevertheless khomeini offered a cash prize for people to take the law into their own hands something which to my understanding is against islamic law yes this is also my understanding of the majority of islamic laws however i believe there are also certain legal rulings which in all five schools of law sunni and jaffari can be levelled against muslim or non muslims both within and outside dar al islam i do not know if apostasy when accompanied by active persistent and open hostility to islam falls into this category of the law i do know that historically apostasy has very rarely been punished at all let alone by the death penalty my understanding is that khomeini s ruling was not based on the law of apostasy alone it was well known that rushdie was an apostate long before he wrote the offending novel and certainly there is no precedent in the qur an hadith or in islamic history for indiscriminantly levelling death penalties for apostasy i believe the charge levelled against rushdie was that of fasad this ruling applies both within and outside the domain of an islamic state and it can be carried out by individuals the reward was not offered by khomeini but by individuals within iran stuff deleted also i think you are muddying the issue as you seem to assume that khomeini s fatwa was issued due to the distribution of the book my understanding is that khomeini s fatwa was issued in response to the writing and publishing of the book if my view is correct then your viewpoint that rushdie was sentenced for a crime in progress is incorrect i would concur that the thrust of the fatwa from what i remember was levelled at the author and all those who assisted in the publication of the book however the charge of fasad can encompass a number of lesser charges i remember that when diplomatic relations broke off between britain and iran over the fatwa iran stressed that the condemnation of the author and the removal of the book from circulation were two preliminary conditions for resolving the crisis but you are correct to point out that banning the book was not the main thrust behind the fatwa islamic charges such as fasad are levelled at people not books the rushdie situation was followed in iran for several months before the issuance of the fatwa rushdie went on a media blitz presenting himself as a lone knight guarding the sacred values of secular democracy and mocking the foolish concerns of people crazy enough to actually hold their religious beliefs as sacred fanning the flames and milking the controversy to boost his image and push the book he was everywhere in the media then muslim demonstrators in several countries were killed while protesting against the book rushdie appeared momentarily concerned then climbed back on his media horse to once again attack the muslims and defend his sacred rights it was at this point that the fatwa on fasad was issued the fatwa was levelled at the person of rushdie any actions of rushdie that feed the situation contribute to the legitimization of the ruling the book remains in circulation not by some independant will of its own but by the will of the author and the publishers the fatwa against the person of rushdie encompasses his actions as well the crime was certainly a crime in progress at many levels and was being played out and played up in the the full view of the media p s i m not sure about this but i think the charge of shatim also applies to rushdie and may be encompassed under the umbrella of the fasad ruling

alt.atheism

re yet more rushdie re islamic law what about the twelve imams who he considered incapable of error or sin khomeini supports this view of the twelve imans this is heresy for the very reasons i gave above i would be happy to discuss the issue of the imams with you although my preference would be to move the discussion to another newsgroup i feel a philosophy or religion group would be more appropriate the topic is deeply embedded in the world view of islam and the esoteric teachings of the prophet s a heresy does not enter into it at all except for those who see islam only as an exoteric religion that is only nominally if at all concerned with the metaphysical substance of man s being and nature a good introductory book in fact one of the best introductory books to islam in general is murtaza mutahhari s fundamental s of islamic thought god man and the universe mizan press translated by r campbell truly a beautiful book a follow up book if you can find a decent translation is wilaya the station of the master by the same author i think it also goes under the title of master and mastership it s a very small book really just a transcription of a lecture by the author the introduction to the beautiful psalms of islam translated by william c chittick available through muhammadi trust of great britain is also an excellent introduction to the subject we have these books in our university library i imagine any well stocked university library will have them from your posts you seem fairly well versed in sunni thought you should seek to know shi ite thought through knowledgeable shi ite authors as well at least that much respect is due before the charge of heresy is levelled as salaam a laikum

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re genocide is caused by atheism in article qif g fp horus ap mchp sni de frank d s uucp frank o dwyer writes in article qialf p m fido asd sgi com livesey solntze wpd sgi com jon livesey writes in article qi egl horus ap mchp sni de frank d s uucp frank o dwyer writes stuff deleted to the newsgroup at large how about this for a deal recognise that what happened in former communist russia has as much bearing on the validity of atheism as has the doings of sundry theists on the validity of their theism that s zip nada none the fallacy is known as ad hominem and it s an old one it should be in the holy faq in the book of constructing a logical argument apart from not making a lot of sense this is wrong there is no atheist creed that taught any communist what to do in the name of atheism there clearly are theistic creeds and instructions on how to act for theists they all madly conflict with one another but that s another issue lack of instructions on how to act might also be evil that s like saying that since mathematics includes no instructions on how to act it is evil atheism is not a moral system so why should it speak of instructions on how to act atheism is simply lack of belief in god plenty of theists think so so one could argue the case for atheism causes whatever i didn t like about the former ussr with as much validity as theism causes genocide that is to say no validity at all i think the argument that a particular theist system causes genocide can be made more convincingly than an argument that atheism causes genocide this is because theist systems contain instructions on how to act and one or more of these can be shown to cause genocide however since the atheist set of instructions is the null set how can you show that atheism causes genocide david choweller davec silicon csci csusb edu there are scores of thousands of human insects who are ready at a moment s notice to reveal the will of god on every possible subject george bernard shaw there are scores of thousands of human insects who are ready at a moment s notice to reveal the will of god on every possible subject george bernard shaw

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re the nonexistance of atheists in article bskendigc jcwx jzn netcom com bskendig netcom com brian kendig writes s c a quotes deleted it really looks like these people have no idea at all of what it means to be atheist there are more bobby mozumder clones in the world than i thought well that explains some things i posted on soc religion islam with an attached quote by bobby to the effect that all atheists are lying evil scum and asked if it was a commonly held idea among muslims i got no response asking about the unknown i guess karl lastly i come to china in the hope all you touch and all you see of fulfilling a lifelong ambition is all your life will ever be dropping acid on the great wall duke pink floyd a lie is still a lie even if billion people believe it

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re some thoughts in article bissda saturn wwc edu bissda saturn wwc edu dan lawrence bissell writes it appears that walla walla college will fill the same role in alt atheist that allegheny college fills in alt fan dan quayle first i want to start right out and say that i m a christian it makes sense to be one have any of you read tony campollo s book liar lunatic or the real thing i might be a little off on the title but he writes the book anyway he was part of an effort to destroy christianity in the process he became a christian himself converts to xtianity have this tendency to excessively darken their pre xtian past frequently falsely anyone who embarks on an effort to destroy xtianity is suffering from deep megalomania a defect which is not cured by religious conversion the arguements he uses i am summing up the book is about whether jesus was god or not i know many of you don t believe but listen to a different perspective for we all have something to gain by listening to what others have to say different perspective different perspective bwahahahahahahahah the book says that jesus was either a liar or he was crazy a modern day koresh or he was actually who he said he was sigh perhaps big j was just mistaken about some of his claims perhaps he was normally insightful but had a few off days perhaps many most of the statements attributed to jesus were not made by him but were put into his mouth by later authors other possibilities abound surely someone seriously examining this question could come up with a decent list of possible alternatives unless the task is not serious examination of the question much less destroying xtianity but rather religious salesmanship some reasons why he wouldn t be a liar are as follows who would die for a lie how many germans died for nazism how many russians died in the name of the proletarian dictatorship how many americans died to make the world safe for democracy what a silly question wouldn t people be able to tell if he was a liar people gathered around him and kept doing it many gathered from hearing or seeing someone who was or had been healed call me a fool but i believe he did heal people is everyone who performs a healing god niether was he a lunatic would more than an entire nation be drawn to someone who was crazy it s probably hard to draw an entire nation to you unless you are crazy very doubtful in fact rediculous for example anyone who is drawn to david koresh is obviously a fool logical people see this right away therefore since he wasn t a liar or a lunatic he must have been the real thing anyone who is convinced by this laughable logic deserves to be a xtian some other things to note he fulfilled loads of prophecies in the psalms isaiah and elsewhere in hrs alone this in his betrayal and crucifixion i don t have my bible with me at this moment next time i write i will use it don t bother many of the prophecies were fulfilled only in the eyes of xtian apologists who distort the meaning of isaiah and other ot books

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re genocide is caused by atheism deletions in apr ultb isc rit edu snm ultb isc rit edu s n mozumder writes i really don t think you can imagine what it is like to be infinite first of all infinity is a mathematical concept created by humans to explain certain things in a certain way we don t know if it actually applies to reality we don t know if anything in the world is infinite it wouldn t be able to comprehend what reality is like for the programmer because that would require an infinite memory or whatever because reality is continuous and based on infinietely small units no units you don t know if the universe is actually continuous continuum is another mathematical concept based on infinity used to explain things in a certain way because humans do not know what infinite is we call it something beyond numbers we call it endless but we do not know what it is i have a pretty good idea of what infinity is it s a man made concept and like many man made concepts it has evolved through time ancient greeks had a different understanding of it so we can call allah infinitely powerful knowledgeable etc yet we cannot imagine what allah actually is because we just cannot imagine what it is like to be infinite precicely we don t even know if infinity applies to reality sami aario can you see or measure an atom yet you can explode a cc tut fi one sunlight is comprised of many atoms your stupid minds stupid stupid eros in plan from outer space disclaimer i don t agree with eros

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re the inimitable rushdie in article bu edu jaeger buphy bu edu gregg jaeger writes in article qg g kl fido asd sgi com livesey solntze wpd sgi com jon livesey writes you are amazed that i find it difficult to grasp it when people justify death threats against rushdie with the claim he was born muslim this is empty rhetoric i am amazed at your inability to understand what i am saying not that you find it difficult to grasp it when people justify death threats i find it amazing that your ability to consider abstract questions in isolation you seem to believe in the falsity of principles by the consequence of their abuse you must hate physics you re closer than you might imagine i certainly despised living under the soviet regime when it purported to organize society according to what they fondly imagined to be the objective conclusions of marxist dialectic but i don t hate physics so long as some clown doesn t start trying to control my life on the assumption that we are all interchangeable atoms rather than individual human beings jon

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re a little too satanic in article mimsy umd edu mangoe cs umd edu charley wingate writes jeff west writes you claimed that people that took the time to translate the bible would also take the time to get it right but here in less than a couple generations you ve been given ample proof agreed to by yourself above that the new versions tends to be out of step with other modern translations what i said was that people took time to copy the text correctly translations present completely different issues so why do i read in the papers that the qumram texts had different versions of some ot texts did i misunderstand jon

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re note to bobby m in apr ultb isc rit edu snm ultb isc rit edu s n mozumder writes insults about the atheistic genocide was totally unintentional under atheism anything can happen good or bad including genocide and you know why this is because you ve conveniently defined a theist as someone who can do no wrong and you ve defined people who do wrong as atheists the above statement is circular not to mention bigoting and as such has no value sami aario can you see or measure an atom yet you can explode a cc tut fi one sunlight is comprised of many atoms your stupid minds stupid stupid eros in plan from outer space disclaimer i don t agree with eros

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re the inimitable rushdie re an anecdote about islam in article apr monu cc monash edu au darice yoyo cc monash edu au fred rice wrote in article c c cn gb ra nrl navy mil khan itd itd nrl navy mil umar khan writes stuff deleted what we should be demanding is for khomeini and his ilk to publicly come clean and to show their proof that islamic law punishes apostacy with death or that it tolerates any similar form of coversion of freedom of conscience all five schools of law to the best of my knowledge support the death sentence for apostasy when it is accompanied by open persistent and aggravated hostility to islam otherwise i agree there is no legal support for punishment of disbelief the qur an makes it clear that belief is a matter of conscience public or private disavowal of islam or conversion to another faith is not punishable there are some jurists who have gone against this trend and insisted that apostasy is punishable even by death but historically they are the exception cursing and insulting the prophets falls under the category of shatim i just borrowed a book from the library on khomeini s fatwa etc lots of stuff deleted and according to the above analysis it looks like khomeini s offering of a reward for rushdie s death in fact constitutes a criminal act according to islamic law please see my post under re yet more rushdie islamic law

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re slavery was re why is sex only allowed in marriage in article sandvik sandvik kent apple com sandvik newton apple com kent sandvik writes looking at historical evidence such perfect utopian islamic states didn t survive i agree people are people and even if you might start an islamic revolution and create this perfect state it takes some time and the internal corruption will destroy the ground rules again nothing is perfect nothing is perpetual i e even if it is perfect it isn t going to stay that way forever perpetual machines cannot exist i thought that there were some laws in mechanics or thermodynamics stating that not an atheist bn naren bala software evaluation engineer home work all standard disclaimers apply

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re political atheists in article apr news wesleyan edu ssauyet eagle wesleyan edu scott d sauyet says are these his final words and how many here would find that appropriate or is it just that finals got in the way keep your fingers crossed why should i keep my fingers crossed i doubt it would do anything martin schulte

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re after years can we say that christian morality is in article qkq t n horus ap mchp sni de frank d s uucp frank o dwyer writes i ll take a wild guess and say freedom is objectively valuable i base this on the assumption that if everyone in the world were deprived utterly of their freedom so that their every act was contrary to their volition almost all would want to complain therefore i take it that to assert or believe that freedom is not very valuable when almost everyone can see that it is is every bit as absurd as to assert it is not raining on a rainy day i take this to be a candidate for an objective value and it it is a necessary condition for objective morality that objective values such as this exist my own personal and highly subjective opinion is that freedom is a good thing however when i here people assert that the only true freedom is in following the words of this and that messiah i realise that people don t even agree on the meaning of the word what does it mean to say that word x represents an objective value when word x has no objective meaning jon

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re where are they now in article qi innf n senator bedfellow mit edu tcbruno athena mit edu tom bruno writes wow leave your terminal for a few months and everyone you remember goes away how depressing actually there are a few familiar faces out there counting bob and kent but i don t seem to recognize anyone else has anyone heard from graham matthews recently or has he gotten his degree and sailed for greener pastures tm which brings me to the point of my posting how many people out there have been around alt atheism since i ve done my damnedest to stay on top of the newsgroup but when you fall behind you really fall behind it s still not as bad as rec arts startrek used to be but i digress has anyone tried to keep up with the deluge inquiring minds want to know also does anyone keep track of where the more infamous posters to alt atheism end up once they leave the newsgroup just curious i guess cheers tom bruno i am one of those people who always willl have unlimited stores of unfounded respect for people who have been on newsgroups mailing lists longer than i have so you certainly have my sympathy tom i have only been semi regularly posting it is toughto keep up since this february but i have been reading and following the threads since last august my school s newsreader was down for months and our incompetent computing services never bothered to find a new feed site so it wasn t accepting outgoing postings i don t think anyone keeps track of where other posters go it s that old love em and leave em internet for you again best regards adam john cooper verily often have i laughed at the weaklings who thought themselves good simply because acooper macalstr edu they had no claws

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re some thoughts in article bissda saturn wwc edu bissda saturn wwc edu dan lawrence bissell writes first i want to start right out and say that i m a christian it that s okay it s what all the rest of them who come on here say makes sense to be one have any of you read tony campollo s book liar lunatic or the real thing i might be a little off on the title but he writes the book anyway he was part of an effort to destroy christianity in the process he became a christian himself this isn t the guy who was a lawyer was he could you give more info on this guy never mind i m sure there will be plenty of responses to this post and it will appear there the arguements he uses i am summing up the book is about whether jesus was god or not i know many of you don t believe but listen to a different perspective for we all have something to gain by listening to what others have to say this is true make sure it is true for all cases the book says that jesus was either a liar or he was crazy a why not both modern day koresh or he was actually who he said he was some reasons why he wouldn t be a liar are as follows who would die for a lie wouldn t people be able to tell if he was a liar why not die for a lie if you were poverty stricken and alunatic sounds perfecetly reasoable to me as to whether the societal dregs he had for followers would be able to tell if he was a liar or not not necessarily even if he died for what he believed in this still makes him completely selfish like us all so what s the difference people gathered around him and kept doing it many gathered from hearing or seeing someone who was or had been healed call me a fool but i believe he did heal people there is no historical proof of this see earlier threads besides he or at least his name have been the cause of enough deaths to make up for whatever healing he gave niether was he a lunatic would more than an entire nation be drawn to someone who was crazy sieg heil very doubtful in fact rediculous for example anyone who is drawn to david koresh is obviously a fool logical people see this right away who is david koresh i am curious therefore since he wasn t a liar or a lunatic he must have been the real thing how does this follow your definition of lunatic and disproof thereof seem rather uhhh shaky some other things to note he fulfilled loads of prophecies in the psalms isaiah and elsewhere in hrs alone this in his betrayal and crucifixion i don t have my bible with me at this moment next time i write i will use it good idea i don t think most people understand what a christian is it is certainly not what i see a lot in churches naturally those or not true christians right rather i think it should be a way of life and a total sacrafice of everything for god s sake he loved us enough to die and save us so we should do the same hey we can t do it god himself inspires us to turn our lives over to him that s tuff and most people don t want to do it to be a real christian would be something for the strong to persevere at but just like weight lifting or guitar playing drums whatever it takes time we don t rush it in one day christianity is your whole life it is not going to church once a week or helping poor people once in a while we box everything into time units such as work at this time sports tv social life god is above these boxes and should be carried with us into all these boxes that we have created for ourselves someone else handle this i don t know if it s worth it sigh adam john cooper verily often have i laughed at the weaklings who thought themselves good simply because acooper macalstr edu they had no claws

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re thoughts on christians in article apr nuscc nus sg cmtan iss nus sg tan chade meng dan writes sandvik newton apple com kent sandvik writes in article q l cva uxa ecn bgu edu gsu uxa ecn bgu edu eric molas wrote christianity is an infectious cult the reasons it flourishes are because it gives people without hope or driven purpose in life a safety blanked to hide behind oh wow all i have to do is follow this christian moral standard and i get eternal happiness i agree that in many cases primitive emotional feelings based on haha you won t laugh in hell mentalities makes certain religions very attractive for certain personalities i agree with both of u but i would like to make a small point xtianity other dogmatic religions not only attract people without hope etc but also attract average people as well i believe that xtainity thru its escapist doctrines absolutist attitudes provides great psychological shelter from day to day frustrations unhappiness fear of uncertainty unknown etc this is a good point but i think average people do not take up christianity so much out of fear or escapism but quite simply as a way to improve their social life or to get more involved with american culture if they are kids of immigrants for example since it is the overwhelming major religion in the western world in some form or other it is simply the choice people take if they are bored and want to do something new with their lives but not somethong too new or too out of the ordinary seems a little weak but as long as it doesn t hurt anybody the buddha had something to say about the attractiveness of religions when driven by fear man worships sacred mountains sacred stones and sacred trees however the buddha also said if somebody finds peace in any religion let him be these are good quotes and i agree with both of them but let s make sure to alter the scond one so that includes something like let him be as long as he is not preventing others from finding their peace or something like that of course i suppose if someone were really at peace there would be no need for inflicting evangelism personally i feel that since religion have such a poweful psychological effect we should let theists be but the problem is that religions cause enormous harm to non believers and to humanity as a whole holy wars inquisitions inter religious hatred impedence of science intellectual progress us them attitudes etc etc need i say more i really don t know what we can do about them any comments well it is a sure thing we will have to live with them all our lives their popularity seems to come and go i remember when i first entered high school i was an atheist always had been and so were about of my friends at this time of those have converted always to christianity they were all also immigrants from taiwan or sons of immigrants hence my earlier gross generalization christianity seems a lot more popular to people now than it ever has before since i ve been noticing maybe it is just my perceptions that are chagning who knows i for one am perfectly willing to live and let live with them so long as we have some set of abstract rights agreements on how we should treat each other i have no desire to be hurt by them or their notions for all the well put arguments on this usenet it never does any good argumentation does not really seem to apply to christians or even some atheists it must simply be a step the person takes naturally almost instinctively best regards adam john cooper verily often have i laughed at the weaklings who thought themselves good simply because acooper macalstr edu they had no claws the unenlightened one buddhism has the characteristics of what would be tan chade meng expected in a cosmic religion for the future it singapore transcends a personal god avoids dogmas and theology cmtan iss nus sg it covers both the natural spiritual and it is based on a religious sense aspiring from the experience of all things natural and spiritual as a meaningful unity einstein

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re where are they now your posting provoked me into checking my save file for memorable posts the first i captured was by ken arromdee on feb on the subject re atheist too that was article here your question was article which is an average of about articles a day for the last three years as others have noted the current posting rate is such that my kill file is depressing large among the posting i saved in the early days were articles from the following notables from loren sunlight llnl gov loren petrich from jchrist nazareth israel rel jesus christ of nazareth from mrc tomobiki cho cac washington edu mark crispin from perry apollo hp com jim perry from lippard uavax ccit arizona edu james j lippard from minsky media mit edu marvin minsky an interesting bunch i wonder where is geoff arnold pc nfs architect sun select geoff arnold east sun com what if they made the whole thing up the great lie by four guys two thousand years ago over wine the tear garden

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re political atheists kcochran nyx cs du edu keith justified and ancient cochran writes i think that you are confusing the words objective and inherent and objective system is simply one in which an outside observer who given the postulates of the system could perfectly judge any situation or action as consistent with the system right or not wrong you seem to be objecting because the goals of the system are not inherent that is you seem to want to define an objective system as one in which the postulates themselves could be determined by some outside observer i don t think that this is a good definition of an objective system then you need to learn english really gravity is an objective system anybody can learn what it is and perform experiments they will get the same results as every other person who has performed those experiments no gravity is an inherent system you don t need any excess information other than observations to determine anything it is possible to objectively determine someone s guilt or innocence within an non inherent system i agree that morality is not necessarily inherent unless you state that everything we do has an evolutionary basis but this does not mean that it cannot be objective in theory this natural morality is not an objective system as evidenced by your comments about lions and mine perhaps it can be objective but not inherent anyway as i noted before the practices related to mating rituals etc among the animals are likely the only ones to be considered immoral under the previous definitions of the natural law therefore some revisions are in order since the class of activities surrounding mating seem to pose some general problems and in fact the only way that the postulates could be determined by an outsider would be if there were some sort of higher truth like some sort of god or something but i do not think that a god is necessary for an objective system while it seems that you do what are you trying to say here it seens that you are objecting to the notion of an objective system because perhaps you think that it would imply inherence which would necessitate some sort of grand design no i have classified behavior of most animals as in line with a moral system it is certainly possible for animals to commit acts which are outside of their rules of ethics but they don t seem to do so very often perhaps they are not intelligent enough to be immoral and perhaps it s because you have yet to define a moral system i think i have it is a code of ethics which basically defines undesired behaviors etc an immoral behavior could be unwanted unproductive or destructive etc depending on the goal of the system that is immoral to what end keith

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re political atheists kcochran nyx cs du edu keith justified and ancient cochran writes natural morality may specifically be thought of as a code of ethics that a certain species has developed in order to survive wait are we talking about ethics or morals here is the distinction important we see this countless times in the animal kingdom and such a natural system is the basis for our own system as well huh well our moral system seems to mimic the natural one in a number of ways in order for humans to thrive we seem to need to live in groups here s your problem we seem to need what s wrong with the highlighted word i don t know what is wrong is it possible for humans to survive for a long time in the wild yes it s possible but it is difficult humans are a social animal and that is a cause of our success and in order for a group to function effectively it needs some sort of ethical code this statement is not correct isn t it why don t you think so and by pointing out that a species conduct serves to propogate itself i am not trying to give you your tautology but i am trying to show that such are examples of moral systems with a goal propogation of the species is a goal of a natural system of morality so anybody who lives in a monagamous relationship is not moral after all in order to ensure propogation of the species every man should impregnate as many women as possible no as noted earlier lack of mating such as abstinence or homosexuality isn t really destructive to the system it is a worst neutral for that matter in herds of horses only the dominate stallion mates when he dies is killed whatever the new dominate stallion is the only one who mates these seems to be a case of your natural system of morality trying to shoot itself in the figurative foot again the mating practices are something to be reexamined keith

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re political atheists kmr po cwru edu keith m ryan writes but chimps are almost human does this mean that chimps have a moral will well chimps must have some system they live in social groups as we do so they must have some laws dictating undesired behavior keith

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re political atheists sandvik newton apple com kent sandvik writes so how do you then explain sudden violent behavior of human beings your theory would state that the more the human is detached from primitive behavior the more violent and non moralistic the human becomes please correct me if my understanding was wrong so you have this bifurcation point where a madman is killing people from the roof of a campus could you explain how your theory explains such a situation madmen are mad do we try to explain the output from a broken computer i think not keith

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re political atheists bobbe vice ico tek com robert beauchaine writes to show that the examples i and others have provided are not counter examples of your supposed inherent moral hypothesis you have to successfully argue that domestication removes or alters this morality i think that domestication will change behavior to a large degree domesticated animals exhibit behaviors not found in the wild i don t think that they can be viewed as good representatives of the wild animal kingdom since they have been bred for thousands of years to produce certain behaviors etc keith

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re political atheists mmwang adobe com michael wang writes well i have typed in the oed definitions as you will note upon reading them a punishment being an inanimate object is incapable of showing mercy so you can not say that a merciless punishment is a cruel one sorry you must have missed the stuff in parens when you read the definition where transf transferred sense and fig figurative ly things can be cruel samples of text from the first definition include because i would not see thy cruell nailes plucke out his poore old eyes and the puniness of man in the centre of a cruel and frowning universe sure nails can be cruel i d imagine nails in your eyes would be very painful but this does not imply that a painless death is cruel which is what you are supposed to be trying to show keith

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re after years can we say that christian morality is in sfnntrc wbo lruk andrew cmu edu david r sacco dsav andrew cmu edu writes after tons of mail could we move this discussion to alt religion yes mac there are many here among us who feel that life is but a joke bob dylan if you were happy every day of your life you wouldn t be a human being you d be a game show host taken from the movie heathers lecture lek chur process by which the notes of the professor become the notes of the student without passing through the minds of either michael a cobb and i won t raise taxes on the middle university of illinois class to pay for my programs champaign urbana bill clinton rd debate cobb alexia lis uiuc edu with new taxes and spending cuts we ll still have billion dollar deficits

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re after years can we say that christian morality is in qjahh mrs horus ap mchp sni de frank d s uucp frank o dwyer writes in article pww spac at rice edu pww spacsun rice edu peter walker writes in article qie fkt horus ap mchp sni de frank d s uucp frank o dwyer wrote objective morality is morality built from objective values but where do those objective values come from how can we measure them what mediated thair interaction with the real world a moralon or a scalar valuino field science the real world has its basis in values not the other way round as you would wish it if there is no such thing as objective value then science can not objectively be said to be more useful than a kick in the head simple theories with accurate predictions could not objectively be said to be more useful than a set of tarot cards you like those conclusions i don t and how do we know they exist in the first place one assumes objective reality one doesn t know it frank o dwyer i m not hatching that odwyer sse ie from hens by evelyn conlon how do we measure truth beauty goodness love friendship trust honesty etc if things have no basis in objective fact then aren t we limited in what we know to be true can t we say that we can examples or instances of reason but cannot measure reason or is that semantics mac michael a cobb and i won t raise taxes on the middle university of illinois class to pay for my programs champaign urbana bill clinton rd debate cobb alexia lis uiuc edu with new taxes and spending cuts we ll still have billion dollar deficits

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re after years can we say that christian morality is in kmr po cwru edu kmr po cwru edu keith m ryan writes in article qj gq mg horus ap mchp sni de frank d s uucp frank o dwyer writes is good logic better than bad is good science better than bad by definition great good okay bad horrible better worse good is defined as being better than bad how do we come up with this setup is this subjective if enough people agreed we could switch the order isn t this defining one unknown thing by another that is good is that which is better than bad and bad is that which is worse than good circular mac only when the sun starts to orbit the earth will i accept the bible michael a cobb and i won t raise taxes on the middle university of illinois class to pay for my programs champaign urbana bill clinton rd debate cobb alexia lis uiuc edu with new taxes and spending cuts we ll still have billion dollar deficits

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re after years can we say that christian morality is in lsran inn a exodus eng sun com emarsh hernes sun eng sun com eric marsh writes in article c hqxj jdg ux cso uiuc edu lis bw ux cso uiuc edu lis student writes hmmmm define objective morality well depends upon who you talk to some say it means you can t have your hair over your ears and others say it means stryper is acceptable i would say that general principles of objective morality would be listed in one or two places ten commandments sayings of jesus the first depends on whether you trust the bible the second depends on both whether you think jesus is god and whether you think we have accurate copies of the nt gong take a moment and look at what you just wrote first you defined an objective morality and then you qualified this objective morality with subjective justifications do you see the error in this sorry you have just disqualified yourself but please play again mac eric huh please explain is there a problem because i based my morality on something that could be wrong gosh there s a heck of a lot of stuff that i believe that could be wrong and that comes from sources that could be wrong what do you base your belief on atheism on your knowledge and reasoning couldn t that be wrong mac michael a cobb and i won t raise taxes on the middle university of illinois class to pay for my programs champaign urbana bill clinton rd debate cobb alexia lis uiuc edu with new taxes and spending cuts we ll still have billion dollar deficits

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re islamic genocide o k so pick former yugoslavia instead and say their problems are caused by communism it doesn t really matter but i guess religious leaders are calling for an end to that too so it can t be religiously motivated this despite the fact that the christians carve crosses in dead muslims chests maybe they just want land maybe its something else they want maybe the cross carvings are just accidental i don t know just looks suspicious most likely the tragic situation in bosnia is a combination of ethnical and religious motives where religion is just one attribute that separates the groups from each other but i must agree that the sad saga in bosnia is a terrible example of a case where religion is not helping instead it is used as a weapon against other humans and my sympathies are mostly on the bosnian side it looks like the serbs are the oppressors willing to use even christianity as a weapon against their former friends cheers kent sandvik newton apple com alink ksand private activities on the net

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re death penalty was re political atheists the death penalty was conceived as a deterrent to crime but the legal shenanigans that have been added automatic appeals lengthy court battles etc have relegated that purpose to a very small part of what it should be hence the question is do we instate the death penalty as it was meant to be and see if that deters crime or do we get rid of it entirely i doubt the death penalty was supposed to be a deterrent to crime if so why doesn t every crime carry a death penalty that would be effictive wouldn t it the death penalty is a punishment much like a fine for speeding is a punishment anyway somebody with murder on the mind doesn t much care about the consequences i think another problem is that people dont think they will get caught if i wanted to kill another person i wouldn t care what the penalty was if i didn t think i would get caught if it was to be strictly a deterrent it should have been more along the lines of torture dave fuller dfuller portal hq videocart com

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re thoughts on christians cmtan iss nus sg tan chade meng dan writes personally i feel that since religion have such a poweful psychological effect we should let theists be but the problem is that religions cause enormous harm to non believers and to humanity as a whole holy wars inquisitions inter religious hatred impedence of science intellectual progress us them attitudes etc etc need i say more i really don t know what we can do about them any comments i have always held that there should be no attempt to change a persons attitude or lifestyle as long as it makes them happy and does not tax anybody else this seems to be ok for atheists you don t get an atheist knocking on your door stopping you in the airport or handing out literature at a social event theists seem to think that thier form of happy should work for others and try to make it so my sister is a born again and she was a real thorn in the side for my entire family for several years she finally got the clue that she couldn t help during that period she bought me i was atheist now i m xtian books for my birthday and xmas several times our birthday cards would contain verses it was a problem i told my mom that i was going to send my sister an atheist piece of reading material i got a don t you dare my mom wasn t religious why did she insist that i not send it because our society has driven into us that religion is ok to preach non religion should be self contained what a crock of shit i finally told my sister that i didn t find her way of life attractive i have seen exactly effort from her on trying to convert me since then i m sick of religious types being pampered looked out for and worst of all respected more than atheists there must be an end in sight dave fuller dfuller portal hq videocart com

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re bible quiz kmr po cwru edu keith m ryan writes would you mind e mailing me the questions with the pairs of answers i would love to have them for the next time a theist comes to my door i d like this too maybe you should post an answer key after a while nanci if you know and are sure of the author of this quote please send me email nm w andrew cmu edu it is better to be a coward for a minute than dead for the rest of your life

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why the bible one thing i think is interesting about alt athiesm is the fact that without bible thumpers and their ilk this would be a much duller newsgroup it almost needs the deluded masses to write silly things for athiests to tear apart oh well that little tidbit aside here is what i really wanted write about how can anyone believe in such a sorry document as the bible if you want to be religious aren t there more plausable books out there seriously the bible was written by multiple authors who repeatedly contradict each other one minute it tells you to kill your kid if he talks back and the next it says not to kill at all i think that if xtians really want to follow a deity they should pick one that can be consistent unlike the last one they invented for people who say jesus was the son of god didn t god say not to ever put anyone else before him looks like you did just that didn t god say not to make any symbols or idols what are crosses then don t you think that if you do in fact believe in the bible that you are rather far off track was jesus illiterate why didn t he write anything anyone know i honestly hope that people who believe in the bible understand that it is just one of the religious texts out there and that it is one of the poorer quality ones to boot the only reason xtianity escaped the middle east is because a certain roman who s wine was poisoned with lead made all of rome xtian after a bad dream if this posting keeps one person just one person from standing on a streetcorner and telling people they are going to hell i will be happy only hatred and snap judgements can guide your robots through life dr clayton forester mad scientist

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re political atheists kcochran nyx cs du edu keith justified and ancient cochran writes how many contridictions do you want to see good question if i claim something is a general trend then to disprove this i guess you d have to show that it was not a general trend no if you re going to claim something then it is up to you to prove it think cold fusion well i ve provided examples to show that the trend was general and you or others have provided some counterexamples mostly ones surrounding mating practices etc i don t think that these few cases are enough to disprove the general trend of natural morality and again the mating practices need to be reexamined try to find immoral non mating related activities so you re excluding mating related activities from your natural morality no but mating practices are a special case i ll have to think about it some more yes i think that the natural system can be objectively deduced with the goal of species propogation in mind but i am not equating the two as you so think that is an objective system isn t necessarily the natural one are you or are you not the man who wrote a natural moral system is the objective moral system that most animals follow indeed but while the natural system is objective all objective systems are not the natural one so the terms can not be equated the natural system is a subset of the objective ones now since homosexuality has been observed in most animals including birds and dolphins are you going to claim that most animals have the capacity of being immoral i don t claim that homosexuality is immoral it isn t harmful although it isn t helpful either to the mating process and when you say that homosexuality is observed in the animal kingdom don t you mean bisexuality because we can t determine to what end we should be moral are you claiming to be a group we usually implies more than one entity this is standard jargon read any textbook the we forms are used throughout well i m saying that these goals are not inherent that is why they must be postulates because there is not really a way to determine them otherwise although it could be argued that they arise from the natural goal but they are somewhat removed postulate to assume posit that s right the goals themselves aren t inherent i can create a theory with a postulate that the sun revolves around the earth that the moon is actually made of green cheese and the stars are the portions of angels that intrudes into three dimensional reality you could but such would contradict observations i can build a mathematical proof with a postulate that given the length of one side of a triangle the length of a second side of the triangle and the degree of angle connecting them i can determine the length of the third side but a postulate is something that is generally or always found to be true i don t think your postulate would be valid guess which one people are going to be more receptive to in order to assume something about your system you have to be able to show that your postulates work yes and i think the goals of survival and happiness do work you think they don t or are they not good goals keith

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re new member in article c hiew s portal hq videocart com dfuller portal hq videocart com dave fuller writes hello i just started reading this group today and i think i am going to be a large participant in its daily postings i liked the section of the faq about constructing logical arguments well done i am an atheist but i do not try to turn other people into atheists i only try to figure why people believe the way they do i don t much care if they have a different view than i do when it comes down to it i could be wrong i am willing to admit the possibility something religious followers dont seem to have the capability to do happy to be aboard dave fuller dfuller portal hq videocart com welcome i am the official keeper of the list of nicknames that people are known by on alt atheism didn t know we had such a list did you your have been awarded the nickname of buckminster so the next time you post an article sign with your nickname like so dave buckminster fuller thanks again jim humor means never having to say you re sorry copeland if god is dead and the actor plays his part sting his words of fear will find their way to a place in your heart history without the voice of reason every faith is its own curse will teach us without freedom from the past things can only get worse nothing

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re the inimitable rushdie in article c hkv epv blaze cs jhu edu arromdee jyusenkyou cs jhu edu ken arromdee writes in article bu edu jaeger buphy bu edu gregg jaeger writes judaism for one maddi has confirmed this for one and again i reiterate that one can easily leave the religion at any time simply by making a public declaration if one is too lazy to do that then the religion cannot be held responsible there are many islamic countries where publically renouncing islam can be quite dangerous these countries might not according to you necessarily be practicing true islam but the danger still remains one cannot blame failure to publically renounce islam on laziness as opposed to a desire to stay alive and well of course if you re planning to pull a rushdie then declaring one s leaving the religion is little to be concerned about compared to one s other plans in rushdie s case the one under discussion one can it is tragic that in some islamic countries this is so there are however islamic countries whose constitutions contains statements that islamic law is to be incorporated e g kuwait where one can freely make such statements without fear not to mention that it has already been pointed out that rushdie has said in his books that he s not a muslim and there have surely been enough readers of his books to provide the appropriate number of witnesses this story has become tiresome the conditions are clear if you care to make your point clear then make a chronology and show that he had made public statements about leaving islam prior to his writing of tsv if he did make such statements then he should have made that clear rather than trying to rejoin islam or go on talking about his personal feelings gregg

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re yet more rushdie re islamic law in article apr bradford ac uk l newnham bradford ac uk leonard newnham writes gregg jaeger jaeger buphy bu edu wrote khomenei was a jerk and so were plenty of british leaders so what the qur an is the basis of judgement khomenei was clearly a heretic by the standards of the qur an end of story could you be a little more specific as to exactly why khomanei was a heretic and a jerk as judged by the koran i have no liking for the guy but as far as i know he has done nothing contrary to the teachings of the koran or at least so i m told by several iranian research students that i share an office with it is easy and convenient for you to denounce him but i have the feeling that your views are not as clear cut and widely accepted as you suggest i have made this clear elsewhere but will do so again khomeini put a price on the head of someone in another country this makes him a jerk as well as an international outlaw khomeini advocates the view that there was a series of twelve islamic leaders the twelve imams who are free of error or sin this makes him a heretic in the qur an muhammad is chastised for error directly by god the qur an says that muhammad is the greatest example of proper islamic behavior thus no muslim is free from error as usual there seems to be almost as many islamic viewpoints as there are muslims perhaps it seems so to you but this is hardly the case there is widespread agreement about matters of islam there certainly are many viewpoints on issues which are not particularly islamic in and of themselves but this is so for any large group of people under the same name it all comes back to the koran being so imprecise in its wording the qur an is not particularly imprecise in wording though it is true that several interpretations are possible in the interpretations of many words however as an entire text the qur an makes its meanings precise enough for intelligent people free from power lust to come to agreement about them gregg

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re yet more rushdie re islamic law in article apr bradford ac uk l newnham bradford ac uk leonard newnham writes gregg jaeger jaeger buphy bu edu wrote well it seemed slightly incongruous to find the union jack flying at city hall in belfast may i ask why it s there not because the british want it there ni is just one big expensive problem it s there because that is what the majority of the population of ni want is there some problem with that the majority of those who can open their mouths in public perhaps there seems quite alot of incentive for the british to have control of ni like using the north channel and irish sea as a waste dump i was appalled at the dumping i saw in the harbor in belfast it is my understanding that quite alot of radioactivity enters the water it d be quite a problem if ni got its independence from britain and then stopped accepting the waste are you suggesting that british industry isn t making profit off the situation as well gregg

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re yet more rushdie re islamic law in article apr bradford ac uk l newnham bradford ac uk leonard newnham writes gregg jaeger jaeger buphy bu edu wrote could you please explain in what way the qur an in your eyes carries the excess baggage of another era the qur an in my opinion carries no such baggage how about trying to run a modern economy without charging interest on loans from what i hear even fundamentalist iran is having to compromise this ideal which sort of loans and what have you heard exactly gregg

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re yet more rushdie re islamic law in article qi l jkj fido asd sgi com livesey solntze wpd sgi com jon livesey writes i hope an islamic bank is something other than bcci which ripped off so many small depositors among the muslim community in the uk and elsewhere jon grow up childish propagandist gregg

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re the inimitable rushdie in article apr bradford ac uk l newnham bradford ac uk leonard newnham writes gregg jaeger jaeger buphy bu edu wrote and no in western countries it isn t a legal concept at all so it s not the slightest bit pertinent to the topic which is a british author living in the united kingdom under the protection of british law ah yes i keep forgetting governments are superior entities to religious organizations forgive me the gun is the higher law this is degenerating to zumder logic of course governments are superior entities they are elected by the people whereas religious leaders certainly are not perhaps not in christianity but in islam the choice of religious leaders is to be made by the people so much for your superiority argument those who the people trust to make the law obviously represents the higher law that is democracy democracy is a basic element of islam learn that one ever notice that the so called fundamentalists in algeria who are being repressed by the secular government won in free and democratic elections gregg

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re free moral agency in article vice ico tek com bobbe vice ico tek com robert beauchaine writes from bobbe vice ico tek com robert beauchaine subject re free moral agency date apr gmt in article healta saturn wwc edu healta saturn wwc edu tammy r healy writes in the old testement satan is rarely mentioned if at all huh doesn t the sda bible contain the book of job this is why there is suffering in the world we are caught inthe crossfire and sometimes innocents as well as teh guilty get hurt that s my opinion and i hope i cleared up a few things seems like your omnipotent and omniscient god has got some splainin to do then or did he just create satan for shits and giggles bob beauchaine bobbe vice ico tek com they said that queens could stay they blew the bronx away and sank manhattan out at sea i didn t say it never mentioned satan i said it rarely if at all please excuse me for my lack of perfect memory or omnipotence tammy p s i m soory if i sound cranky i apoplogize now before anyone s feelings get hurt

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re note to bobby m in article apr daffy cs wisc edu mccullou snake cs wisc edu mark mccullough writes from mccullou snake cs wisc edu mark mccullough subject re note to bobby m date wed apr gmt in article apr monu cc monash edu au darice yoyo cc monash edu au fred rice writes in madhausc ckip h netcom com madhaus netcom com maddi hausmann writes mark how much do you really know about vegetarian diets the problem is not some b vitamins it s balancing proteins there is also one vitamin that cannot be obtained from non animal products and this is only of concern to vegans who eat no meat dairy or eggs i believe it is b and it is the only problem supplements are available for vegans yes the b does come from animal by products if you are on an ovo lacto vegetarian diet eat dairy and eggs this is not an issue i didn t see the original posting but yes i do know about vegetarian diets considering that several of my close friends are devout vegetarians and have to take vitamin supplements b was one of the ones i was thinking of it has been a long time since i read the article i once saw talking about the special dietary needs of vegetarians so i didn t quote full numbers considering how nice this place is b can also come from whole grain rice i understand some brands here in australia and other places too i m sure get the b in the b tablets from whole grain rice are you sure those aren t an enriched type i know it is basically rice and soybeans to get almost everything you need but i hadn t heard of any rice having b just thought i d contribute on a different issue from the norm you should have contributed to the programming thread earlier fred rice darice yoyo cc monash edu au m if one is a vegan a vegetarian taht eats no animal products at at i e eggs milk cheese etc after about years of a vegan diet you need to start taking b supplements because b is found only in animals acutally our bodies make b i think but our bodies use up our own b after or years lacto oveo vegetarians like myself still get b through milk products and eggs so we don t need supplements and if anyone knows more please post it i m nearly contridicting myself with the mish mash of knowledge i ve gleaned tammy

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re morality was re political atheists kcochran nyx cs du edu keith justified and ancient cochran writes so you are saying that it isn t possible for an instinctive act to be moral one that is in order for an act to be an act of morality the person must consider the immoral action but then disregard it no i m saying that in order for an act to be moral or immoral somebody someone something must consider it to be so that implies intelligence not instinct who has to consider it the being that does the action i m still not sure i know what you are trying to say keith

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re morality was re political atheists livesey solntze wpd sgi com jon livesey writes so you are saying that it isn t possible for an instinctive act to be moral one i like to think that many things are possible explain to me how instinctive acts can be moral acts and i am happy to listen for example if it were instinctive not to murder that is in order for an act to be an act of morality the person must consider the immoral action but then disregard it weaker than that there must be the possibility that the organism it s not just people we are talking about can consider alternatives so only intelligent beings can be moral even if the bahavior of other beings mimics theirs and how much emphasis do you place on intelligence animals of the same species could kill each other arbitarily but they don t are you trying to say that this isn t an act of morality because most animals aren t intelligent enough to think like we do keith

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re morality was re political atheists livesey solntze wpd sgi com jon livesey writes i don t expect the lion to know or not know anything of the kind in fact i don t have any evidence that lions ever consider such issues and that of course is why i don t think you can assign moral significance to the instinctive behaviour of lions what i ve been saying is that moral behavior is likely the null behavior that is it doesn t take much work to be moral but it certainly does to be immoral in some cases also i ve said that morality is a remnant of evolution our moral system is based on concepts well practiced in the animal kingdom so you are basically saying that you think a moral is an undefinable term and that moral systems don t exist if we can t agree on a definition of these terms then how can we hope to discuss them no it s perfectly clear that i am saying that i know what a moral is in my system but that i can t speak for other people but this doesn t get us anywhere your particular beliefs are irrelevant unless you can share them or discuss them keith

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re was re cruel was re political atheists sdoe nmsu edu stephen doe writes of course if at some later time we think that the death penalty is cruel or unusual it will be outlawed but at the present most people don t seem to think this way this from the same fellow who speaks of an objective or natural morality i suppose that if the majority decides slavery is ok then it is no longer immoral i did not claim that our system was objective keith

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re the inimitable rushdie in article bcc b ics uci edu bvickers ics uci edu brett j vickers writes in article bu edu jaeger buphy bu edu gregg jaeger writes well seeing as you are not muslim the sort of fatwa issued by khomeini would not be relevant to you i can understand your fear of persecution and i share it even more than you being muslim however rushdie s behavior was not completely excusable why should a fatwa issued by khomeini be relevant to anyone who doesn t live in iran issued by khomeini it shouldn t be relevant to anyone but issued by an honest and learned scholar of islam it would be relevant to any muslim as it would be contrary to islamic law which all muslims are required to respect who is it that decides whether rushdie s behavior is excusable anyone sufficiently well versed in islamic law and capable of reasoning if you are talking about a weak sense of excuse it depends on what sense of excuse you have in mind and who cares if you think it is inexcusable only someone who thinks my opinion is important obviously obviously you don t care nor do i care that you don t care gregg

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re free moral agency and kent s in article sandvik sandvik kent apple com sandvik newton apple com kent sandvik writes from sandvik newton apple com kent sandvik subject re free moral agency and kent s date thu apr gmt in article healta saturn wwc edu healta saturn wwc edu tammy r healy wrote ezekiel says your hart was filled with pride because of all your beauty you corrupted your wisdom for the sake of your splendor therefore i have cast you down the the ground and exposed you helpless before the curious gaze of kings for those of you who are bible scholars you knowthat the st verses refer to the prince of tyre this is a prophesy about and addressed to the human prince verses refer to the king of tyre which is a term for satan tammy what s the rationale to connect the prince of tyre with satan could you give us more rational bible cites thanks i m afraid that if this is not the case your thinking model falls apart like a house of cards but let s see cheers kent sandvik newton apple com alink ksand private activities on the net at the time ezekiel was written israel was in apostacy again and if i m not mistaken tyre was about to make war on israel like i said the prince of tyre was the human ruler of tyre he was a wicked man by calling satan the king of tyre ezekiel was saying that satan is the real ruler over tyre don t think my interpretation is neccessarily the orthodox christian one although most christian bible commentaries interpret the king of tyre as being a reference to satan i haven t read ezekiel throughly in a long time tammy

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re free moral agency and jeff clark in article bb dfc i dbstu rz tu bs de i dbstu rz tu bs de benedikt rosenau writes from i dbstu rz tu bs de benedikt rosenau subject re free moral agency and jeff clark date thu apr gmt in article healta saturn wwc edu healta saturn wwc edu tammy r healy writes deletion you also said why did millions suffer for what adam and ee did seems a pretty sick way of going about creating a universe i m gonna respond by giving a small theology lesson forgive me i used to be a theology major first of all i believe that this planet is involved in a cosmic struggle the great controversy betweed christ and satan i borrowed a book title god has to consider the interests of the entire universe when making decisions deletion an universe it has created by the way can you tell me why it is less tyrannic to let one of one s own creatures do what it likes to others by your definitions your god has created satan with full knowledge what would happen including every choice of satan can you explain us what free will is and how it goes along with omniscience didn t your god know everything that would happen even before it created the world why is it concerned about being a tyrant when noone would care if everything was fine for them that the whole idea comes from the possibility to abuse power something your god introduced according to your description by the way are you sure that you have read the faq especially the part about preaching benedikt i don t feel that i m preaching i m just trying to answer people s questions and talking about my religion my beliefs when it comes to what i post i don t do it with the intent of converting anyone i don t expect for the atheists in this newsgroup to take what i say with a grain of salt if they so wish i just state what i beleve they ask me how i believeit and why and we all go on if that s preaching then i m soory and i ll get off the soapbox tammy

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re pompous ass arromdee jyusenkyou cs jhu edu ken arromdee writes look i m not the one that made those nazi comparisons other people compared what the religious people are doing now to nazi germany they have said that it started out with little things but no one really knew about any of these little things strangely enough and grew to bigger things they said that the motto is but one of the little things you just contradicted yourself the motto is one of those little things that nobody has bothered mentiopning to you huh the little things above were in reference to germany clearly people said that there were similar things in germany but no one could name any they said that these were things that everyone should know and that they weren t going to waste their time repeating them sounds to me like no one knew either i looked in some books but to no avail that is going to pave the way for other intrusions of course if the motto hasn t caused problems in its year history then i doubt it is going to it has caused problems you just ignore every instance when someone describes one to you it has caused problems again no one has shown that things were better before the motto or that they d likely be better after i don t think the motto initiates any sort of harassment harassment will occur whether or not the motto is present keith

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re pompous ass andrew newell tan psuvm psu edu writes i think you should support your first claim that people will simply harass me no matter what as i doubt this is true i think some of the theists will be at a loss and that is enough reason for me because in god we trust is a motto on the coins and the coins are a representation of the government christians are given ammunition here to slander atheists as unpatriotic so we should ban the ammunition why not get rid of the guns and yes i have heard this used in conversation with christians sure they may fall back on other things but this is one they should not have available to use it is worse than others the national anthem should it be changed too god bless america the list goes on imagine if the next year s set of coins were labeled with the motto god is dead certainly such a statement on u s coins would offend almost every christian and i d be tempted to rub that motto in the face of christians when debunking their standard motto slinging gets boring then you d be no better than the people you despise any statement printed on an item that represents the government is an endorsement by the government oh the coin motto is an endorsement of trusting in god an endorsement or an acknowledgement i think gods are things that people are proud of but i don t think the motto encourages belief i don t particularly feel like trusting in god so the government is putting me down with every coin it prints is it for the motto to be legitimate it would have to read in god gods or godlessness we trust would you approve of such a motto whether the motto was intended to be anti atheist or not it turns up as an open invitation to use as an anti atheist tool and removing the tool will solve the problem or will it increase the problem keith

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re objective morality was re political atheists livesey solntze wpd sgi com jon livesey writes i want to know how this omniscient being is going to perform the feat of definitely terming actions right or wrong if you were omniscient you d know who exactly did what and with what purpose in mind then with a particular goal in mind you sould be able to methodically judge whether or not this action was in accordance with the general goal i don t think you ve show the existence of any objective moral system they exist but in practice they are difficult to perfectly emulate i mean you understand the concept of an objective system right i thought you were explaining it to us i certainly don t understand what you are explaining in an objective system there are known goals then actions are judged as either being compatible with these goals or not simple the problem with most systems in current practice is that the goals differ that is the goals of each society are different note that an objective system is not necessarily an inherent one the concept of innocence is dependent on whether certain actions are right or wrong and this depends on the moral system but if we have an objective system then someone can be deemed innocent or not quite easily by an omniscient person anyway i think i cleared up the recursive definition of murder because no one is complaining about it i don t think it solves anything to speculate where we would be if we did have an objective moral system the question is still whether you can even say what one is i ve said it many many times and for what it s worth i don t think you cleared up anything concerning murder which part do you have a problem with what do you mean by harmed is it harm if you have to spend your existence metabolising food for another species oh most moral systems would be considered only within a species it is okay for us to enslave other animals right but not humans of course ideally perhaps we wouldn t even have to bother any other animals one the first point it s wrong to enslave humans according to my persoanl moral system on the second point i m a vegetarian but we can enslave the animals right but just not kill them or are you a vegetarian for health reasons so are you a vegetarian no i fail to see how my personal views are relevant anyway is it wrong to eat animals in your personal moral system of course not it seems perfectly valid to kill members of other species for food it might be nice though if the other animals were not made to suffer for instance a cow in a field lives out its life just about the same way it would in the wild they seem happy enough however the veal youngsters aren t treated very well how about an objective moral system i don t know what is the goal of this particular system there is no inherent system how about a natural moral system nope again it seems okay to kill other species for food keith

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re who are we to judge bobby in article kmr po cwru edu kmr po cwru edu keith m ryan writes from kmr po cwru edu keith m ryan subject re who are we to judge bobby date thu apr gmt s n mozumder writes tammy r healy writes i would like to take the liberty to quote from a christian writer named ellen g white i hope that what she said will help you to edit your remarks in this group in the future do not set yourself as a standard do not make your opinions your views of duty your interpretations of scripture a criterion for others and in your heart condemn them if they do not come up to your ideal thoughts fromthe mount of blessing p point point you have taken it upon yourself to judge others when only god is the true judge only when the sun starts to orbit the earth will i accept the bible i agree totally with you amen you stated it better and in less world than i did tammy

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re some thoughts in article vice ico tek com bobbe vice ico tek com robert beauchaine writes from bobbe vice ico tek com robert beauchaine subject re some thoughts keywords dan bissell date apr gmt in article bissda saturn wwc edu bissda saturn wwc edu dan lawrence bissell writes first i want to start right out and say that i m a christian it makes sense to be one have any of you read tony campollo s book liar lunatic or the real thing i might be a little off on the title but he writes the book anyway he was part of an effort to destroy christianity in the process he became a christian himself this should be good fun it s been a while since the group has had such a ripe opportunity to gut gill and fillet some poor bastard ah well off to get the popcorn bob beauchaine bobbe vice ico tek com they said that queens could stay they blew the bronx away and sank manhattan out at sea i hope you re not going to flame him please give him the same coutesy you ve given me tammy

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re who are we to judge bobby in article apr ultb isc rit edu snm ultb isc rit edu s n mozumder writes from snm ultb isc rit edu s n mozumder subject re who are we to judge bobby date wed apr gmt in article healta saturn wwc edu healta saturn wwc edu tammy r healy writes bobby i would like to take the liberty to quote from a christian writer named ellen g white i hope that what she said will help you to edit your remarks in this group in the future do not set yourself as a standard do not make your opinions your views of duty your interpretations of scripture a criterion for others and in your heart condemn them if they do not come up to your ideal thoughts fromthe mount of blessing p i hope quoting this doesn t make the atheists gag but i think ellen white put it better than i could tammy point peace bobby mozumder my point is that you set up your views as the only way to believe saying that all eveil in this world is caused by atheism is ridiculous and counterproductive to dialogue in this newsgroups i see in your posts a spirit of condemnation of the atheists in this newsgroup bacause they don t believe exactly as you do if you re here to try to convert the atheists here you re failing miserably who wants to be in position of constantly defending themselves agaist insulting attacks like you seem to like to do i m sorry you re so blind that you didn t get the messgae in the quote everyone else has seemed to tammy

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re death penalty was re political atheists in article vice ico tek com bobbe vice ico tek com robert beauchaine writes in article apr leland stanford edu rush leland stanford edu voelkerding writes if we worry about the one case in or more where an innocent man is convicted of something horrible enough to warrant the death penalty and hence put laws into place which make it virtually impossible to actually execute real criminals then the death penalty is not serving its original purpose it should either be changed or done away with i don t have numbers to back this up so take the following accordingly you use an off the cuff number of in innocent people sentenced to die as an acceptable loss for the benefit of capital punishment i d be very very surprised if the ratio were that low there have been approximately a dozen known cases of the execution of the innocent in the us since the turn of the century have we in that same period sentenced people to death accounting for those cases that we don t know the truth it seems reasonable to assume that twice that many innocent people have in fact been executed that would raise the number of death sentences metered out since to half a million for your acceptance ratio to hold i rather doubt that s the case the point of course is what is an acceptable loss in seems we re probably not doing even that well in in or should we perhaps find a better solution bob beauchaine bobbe vice ico tek com any suggestions as to what a better solution might be i realize the off hand nature of the numbers i used and i can t answer as to what an acceptable loss rate is however as i said in another post i despise the idea of supporting criminals for life it s the economics of the situation that concern me most the money spent feeding clothing housing and taking care of people who have demonstrated that they are unfit to live in society could go to a number of places all of which i and probably others would consider far more worthwhile and which would enrish the lives of all americans give people jobs give the homeless shelter any number of things clyde little girls like butterflies don t need a reason robert heinlein

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re some thoughts bissda saturn wwc edu dan lawrence bissell writes the book says that jesus was either a liar or he was crazy a modern day koresh or he was actually who he said he was or he was just convinced by religious fantasies of the time that he was the messiah or he was just some rebel leader that an organisation of jews built into godhood for the purpose off throwing of the yoke of roman oppression or some reasons why he wouldn t be a liar are as follows who would die for a lie are the moslem fanatics who strap bombs to their backs and driving into jewish embassies dying for the truth hint they think they are were the nazi soldiers in wwii dying for the truth people die for lies all the time wouldn t people be able to tell if he was a liar people was hitler a liar how about napoleon mussolini ronald reagan we spend millions of dollars a year trying to find techniques to detect lying so the answer is no they wouldn t be able to tell if he was a liar if he only lied about some things gathered around him and kept doing it many gathered from hearing or seeing someone who was or had been healed call me a fool but i believe he did heal people why do you think he healed people because the bible says so but if god doesn t exist the other possibility then the bible is not divinely inspired and one can t use it as a piece of evidence as it was written by unbiased observers niether was he a lunatic would more than an entire nation be drawn to someone who was crazy very doubtful in fact rediculous for example were hitler or mussolini lunatics how about genghis khan jim jones there are thousands of examples through history of people being drawn to lunatics anyone who is drawn to david koresh is obviously a fool logical people see this right away therefore since he wasn t a liar or a lunatic he must have been the real thing so we obviously cannot rule out liar or lunatic not to mention all the other possibilities not given in this triad some other things to note he fulfilled loads of prophecies in the psalms isaiah and elsewhere in hrs alone this in his betrayal possibly self fulfilling prophecy ie he was aware what he should do in order to fulfil these prophecies possibly selective diting on behalf of those keepers of the holy bible for a thousand years or so before the general public had access possibly also that the text is written in such riddles like nostradamus that anything that happens can be twisted to fit the words of raving fictional prophecy and crucifixion i don t have my bible with me at this moment next time i write i will use it stuff about how hard it is to be a christian deleted i severely recommend you reconsider the reasons you are a christian they are very unconvincing to an unbiased observer jeff

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re political atheists in article ql ajinn kj gap caltech edu keith cco caltech edu keith allan schneider writes kmr po cwru edu keith m ryan writes but chimps are almost human does this mean that chimps have a moral will well chimps must have some system they live in social groups as we do so they must have some laws dictating undesired behavior ah the verb to must i was warned about that one back in kindergarten so why must they have such laws jon

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re some thoughts bissda saturn wwc edu dan lawrence bissell writes first i want to start right out and say that i m a christian it i know i shouldn t get involved but bit deleted the book says that jesus was either a liar or he was crazy a modern day koresh or he was actually who he said he was some reasons why he wouldn t be a liar are as follows who would die for a lie wouldn t people be able to tell if he was a liar people gathered around him and kept doing it many gathered from hearing or seeing someone who was or had been healed call me a fool but i believe he did heal people niether was he a lunatic would more than an entire nation be drawn to someone who was crazy very doubtful in fact rediculous for example anyone who is drawn to david koresh is obviously a fool logical people see this right away therefore since he wasn t a liar or a lunatic he must have been the real thing righto dan try this one with your cornflakes the book says that muhammad was either a liar or he was crazy a modern day mad mahdi or he was actually who he said he was some reasons why he wouldn t be a liar are as follows who would die for a lie wouldn t people be able to tell if he was a liar people gathered around him and kept doing it many gathered from hearing or seeing how his son in law made the sun stand still call me a fool but i believe he did make the sun stand still niether was he a lunatic would more than an entire nation be drawn to someone who was crazy very doubtful in fact rediculous for example anyone who is drawn to the mad mahdi is obviously a fool logical people see this right away therefore since he wasn t a liar or a lunatic he must have been the real thing ron house usq house helios usq edu au toowoomba australia

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re yet more rushdie re islamic law in article bu edu jaeger buphy bu edu gregg jaeger writes in article qi l jkj fido asd sgi com livesey solntze wpd sgi com jon livesey writes i hope an islamic bank is something other than bcci which ripped off so many small depositors among the muslim community in the uk and elsewhere jon grow up childish propagandist gregg i m really sorry if having it pointed out that in practice things aren t quite the wonderful utopia you folks seem to claim them to be upsets you but exactly who is being childish here is open to question bbci was an example of an islamically owned and operated bank what will someone bet me they weren t real islamic owners and operators and yet it actually turned out to be a long running and quite ruthless operation to steal money from small and often quite naive depositors and why did these naive depositors put their life savings into bcci rather than the nasty interest motivated western bank down the street could it be that they believed an islamically owned and operated bank couldn t possibly cheat them so please don t try to con us into thinking that it will all work out right next time jon

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re morality was re political atheists in article ql sninn vm gap caltech edu keith cco caltech edu keith allan schneider writes livesey solntze wpd sgi com jon livesey writes so you are saying that it isn t possible for an instinctive act to be moral one i like to think that many things are possible explain to me how instinctive acts can be moral acts and i am happy to listen for example if it were instinctive not to murder then not murdering would have no moral significance since there would be nothing voluntary about it that is in order for an act to be an act of morality the person must consider the immoral action but then disregard it weaker than that there must be the possibility that the organism it s not just people we are talking about can consider alternatives so only intelligent beings can be moral even if the bahavior of other beings mimics theirs you are starting to get the point mimicry is not necessarily the same as the action being imitated a parrot saying pretty polly isn t necessarily commenting on the pulchritude of polly and how much emphasis do you place on intelligence see above animals of the same species could kill each other arbitarily but they don t they do i and other posters have given you many examples of exactly this but you seem to have a very short memory are you trying to say that this isn t an act of morality because most animals aren t intelligent enough to think like we do i m saying there must be the possibility that the organism it s not just people we are talking about can consider alternatives it s right there in the posting you are replying to jon

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re moraltiy was re political atheists livesey solntze wpd sgi com jon livesey writes what if i act morally for no particular reason then am i moral what if morality is instinctive as in most animals saying that morality is instinctive in animals is an attempt to assume your conclusion which conclusion you conclusion correct me if i err that the behaviour which is instinctive in animals is a natural moral system see we are disagreeing on the definition of moral here earlier you said that it must be a conscious act by your definition no instinctive behavior pattern could be an act of morality you are trying to apply human terms to non humans i think that even if someone is not conscious of an alternative this does not prevent his behavior from being moral you don t think that morality is a behavior pattern what is human morality a moral action is one that is consistent with a given pattern that is we enforce a certain behavior as moral you keep getting this backwards you are trying to show that the behaviour pattern is a morality whether morality is a behavior pattern is irrelevant since there can be behavior pattern for example the motions of the planets that most all people would not call a morality i try to show it but by your definition it can t be shown and morality can be thought of a large class of princples it could be defined in terms of many things the laws of physics if you wish however it seems silly to talk of a moral planet because it obeys the laws of phyics it is less silly to talk about animals as they have at least some free will keith

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re cruel was re political atheists livesey solntze wpd sgi com jon livesey writes this whole thread started because of a discussion about whether or not the death penalty constituted cruel punishment which is forbidden by the us constitution yes but they didn t say what they meant by cruel which is why a you have the supreme court and b it makes no sense to refer to the constitution which is quite silent on the meaning of the word cruel they spent quite a bit of time on the wording of the constitution they picked words whose meanings implied the intent we have already looked in the dictionary to define the word isn t this sufficient oh but we were discussing the death penalty and that discussion resulted from the one about murder which resulted from an intial discussion about objective morality so this is already three times removed from the morality discussion actually we were discussing the mening of the word cruel and the us constitution says nothing about that but we were discussing it in relation to the death penalty and the constitution need not define each of the words within anyone who doesn t know what cruel is can look in the dictionary and we did keith

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re political atheists kcochran nyx cs du edu keith justified and ancient cochran writes no that s just what you thought the theory meant while all humans are generally capable of overpowering their instincts it does not follow that those who do this often are necessarily more intelligent ok so why aren t animals generally capable of overpowering their instincts good question i m sure some biologist could answer better than i but animals brains are just set up differently animals can be trained but if they re instincts serve them well there is no reason to contradict them keith

alt.atheism

re morality was re political atheists in article ql inn a gap caltech edu keith cco caltech edu keith allan schneider writes livesey solntze wpd sgi com jon livesey writes i don t expect the lion to know or not know anything of the kind in fact i don t have any evidence that lions ever consider such issues and that of course is why i don t think you can assign moral significance to the instinctive behaviour of lions what i ve been saying is that moral behavior is likely the null behavior that is it doesn t take much work to be moral but it certainly does to be immoral in some cases that s the craziest thing i ever heard are you serious it doesn t take much work to be moral also i ve said that morality is a remnant of evolution really and that s why people discuss morality on a daily basis because it s a kind of evolutionary hangover like your little toe our moral system is based on concepts well practiced in the animal kingdom this must be some novel use of the phrase based on with which i am not sufficiently familiar what do you mean by based on and what is the significance of it for your argument so you are basically saying that you think a moral is an undefinable term and that moral systems don t exist if we can t agree on a definition of these terms then how can we hope to discuss them no it s perfectly clear that i am saying that i know what a moral is in my system but that i can t speak for other people but this doesn t get us anywhere your particular beliefs are irrelevant unless you can share them or discuss them well we can what would you like to know about my particular moral beliefs if you raise a topic i ve never considered i ll be quite happy to invent a moral belief out of thin air jon