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I3150101@dbstu1.rz.tu-bs.de (Benedikt Rosenau) | Re: Gospel Dating | Technical University Braunschweig, Germany | In article <65974@mimsy.umd.edu>
mangoe@cs.umd.edu (Charley Wingate) writes:
>>Well, John has a quite different, not necessarily more elaborated theology.
>>There is some evidence that he must have known Luke, and that the content
>>of Q was known to him, but not in a 'canonized' form.
>
>This is a new argument to me. Could you elaborate a little?
>
The argument goes as follows: Q-oid quotes appear in John, but not in
the almost codified way they were in Matthew or Luke. However, they are
considered to be similar enough to point to knowledge of Q as such, and
not an entirely different source.
>>Assuming that he knew Luke would obviously put him after Luke, and would
>>give evidence for the latter assumption.
>
>I don't think this follows. If you take the most traditional attributions,
>then Luke might have known John, but John is an elder figure in either case.
>We're talking spans of time here which are well within the range of
>lifetimes.
We are talking date of texts here, not the age of the authors. The usual
explanation for the time order of Mark, Matthew and Luke does not consider
their respective ages. It says Matthew has read the text of Mark, and Luke
that of Matthew (and probably that of Mark).
As it is assumed that John knew the content of Luke's text. The evidence
for that is not overwhelming, admittedly.
>>>(1) Earlier manuscripts of John have been discovered.
>
>>Interesting, where and which? How are they dated? How old are they?
>
>Unfortunately, I haven't got the info at hand. It was (I think) in the late
>'70s or early '80s, and it was possibly as old as CE 200.
>
When they are from about 200, why do they shed doubt on the order on
putting John after the rest of the three?
>>I don't see your point, it is exactly what James Felder said. They had no
>>first hand knowledge of the events, and it obvious that at least two of them
>>used older texts as the base of their account. And even the association of
>>Luke to Paul or Mark to Peter are not generally accepted.
>
>Well, a genuine letter of Peter would be close enough, wouldn't it?
>
Sure, an original together with Id card of sender and receiver would be
fine. So what's that supposed to say? Am I missing something?
>And I don't think a "one step removed" source is that bad. If Luke and Mark
>and Matthew learned their stories directly from diciples, then I really
>cannot believe in the sort of "big transformation from Jesus to gospel" that
>some people posit. In news reports, one generally gets no better
>information than this.
>
>And if John IS a diciple, then there's nothing more to be said.
>
That John was a disciple is not generally accepted. The style and language
together with the theology are usually used as counterargument.
The argument that John was a disciple relies on the claim in the gospel
of John itself. Is there any other evidence for it?
One step and one generation removed is bad even in our times. Compare that
to reports of similar events in our century in almost illiterate societies.
Not even to speak off that believers are not necessarily the best sources.
>>It is also obvious that Mark has been edited. How old are the oldest
>>manuscripts? To my knowledge (which can be antiquated) the oldest is
>>quite after any of these estimates, and it is not even complete.
>
>The only clear "editing" is problem of the ending, and it's basically a
>hopeless mess. The oldest versions give a strong sense of incompleteness,
>to the point where the shortest versions seem to break off in midsentence.
>The most obvious solution is that at some point part of the text was lost.
>The material from verse 9 on is pretty clearly later and seems to represent
>a synopsys of the end of Luke.
>
In other words, one does not know what the original of Mark did look like
and arguments based on Mark are pretty weak.
But how is that connected to a redating of John?
Benedikt
| 0alt.atheism
|
darice@yoyo.cc.monash.edu.au (Fred Rice) | Re: Yet more Rushdie [Re: ISLAMIC LAW] | Monash University, Melb., Australia. | In <1qla0g$afp@fido.asd.sgi.com> livesey@solntze.wpd.sgi.com (Jon Livesey) writes:
>In article <115565@bu.edu>, jaeger@buphy.bu.edu (Gregg Jaeger) writes:
>|> In article <1qi3l5$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.
>|>
[...deletions...]
>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.
An "Islamic Bank" is something which operates in a different fashion to
your modern bank, as I have explained here (on another thread) before.
For example, Islamic banks don't pay fixed interests on deposits, but a
return on investments (which varies according to the market, and is not
fixed like interest is).
Islamic banks are a relatively new phenomenon in the Islamic world.
There are no Islamic banks in "the West", including the USA, to my
knowledge. I doubt if the market for them exists there -- at least not
while "Islamic banks" are at a relatively early stage of their
development as is the case now. BCCI is most certainly not an "Islamic
bank" -- did BCCI ever pay a fixed interest rate on deposits? If the
answer to this question is "yes", then BCCI was not an Islamic bank, as
Islamic banks are specifically set up to _not_ pay or charge interest.
Whether some Muslims partially owned the bank or whatever is completely
irrelevant.
Fred Rice
darice@yoyo.cc.monash.edu.au
| 0alt.atheism
|
bil@okcforum.osrhe.edu (Bill Conner) | Re: Americans and Evolution | Okcforum Unix Users Group | Robert Singleton (bobs@thnext.mit.edu) wrote:
: > Sure it isn't mutually exclusive, but it lends weight to (i.e. increases
: > notional running estimates of the posterior probability of) the
: > atheist's pitch in the partition, and thus necessarily reduces the same
: > quantity in the theist's pitch. This is because the `divine component'
: > falls prey to Ockham's Razor, the phenomenon being satisfactorily
: ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
: > explained without it, and there being no independent evidence of any
: ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
: > such component. More detail in the next post.
: >
Occam's Razor is not a law of nature, it is way of analyzing an
argument, even so, it interesting how often it's cited here and to
what end.
It seems odd that religion is simultaneously condemned as being
primitive, simple-minded and unscientific, anti-intellectual and
childish, and yet again condemned as being too complex (Occam's
razor), the scientific explanation of things being much more
straightforeward and, apparently, simpler. Which is it to be - which
is the "non-essential", and how do you know?
Considering that even scientists don't fully comprehend science due to
its complexity and diversity. Maybe William of Occam has performed a
lobotomy, kept the frontal lobe and thrown everything else away ...
This is all very confusing, I'm sure one of you will straighten me out
tough.
Bill
| 0alt.atheism
|
bil@okcforum.osrhe.edu (Bill Conner) | Re: Allah Akbar and Praise the Lord. | Okcforum Unix Users Group | Maddi Hausmann (madhaus@netcom.com) wrote:
:
: And thank the Lord that Bill Connor has returned to set
: us straight! Now I know I can die happy when my Lexus
: SE400 wipes out on that rain-slick curve in 1997. The
: rest of you had best straighten up, because your time
: is even more limited. Most of you are going in the Flu
: of 1994.
Maddi,
You know you're glad to have me visit ...
But I won't stay long this time, just shopping around.
Bill
| 0alt.atheism
|
keith@cco.caltech.edu (Keith Allan Schneider) | Re: >>>>>>Pompous ass | California Institute of Technology, Pasadena | kmr4@po.CWRU.edu (Keith M. Ryan) writes:
>>Then why do people keep asking the same questions over and over?
>Because you rarely ever answer them.
Nope, I've answered each question posed, and most were answered multiple
times.
keith
| 0alt.atheism
|
SSAUYET@eagle.wesleyan.edu (Scott D. Sauyet) | Religion As Cause (Was: islamic authority over women) | null | Bill Conner (bil@okcforum.osrhe.edu) writes:
[ ... my stuff deleted ... ]
> I don't have to make outrageous claims about religion's affecting and
> effecting history, for the purpsoe of a.a, all I have to do point out
> that many claims made here are wrong and do nothing to validate
> atheism.
Bill, you seem to have erroneously assumed that this board has as its
sole purpose the validation of atheism. It doesn't. This board is
used to discuss atheism as a philosophy, to share posters' experiences
regarding atheism, to debunk various theisms and theism as a whole, to
share resources relating to atheism, and even to socialize with others
with similar views. And of course with the number of theists who come
here to preach, it is also used to argue the case for atheism.
> At no time have I made any statement that religion was the
> sole cause of anything, what I have done is point out that those who
> do make that kind of claim are mistaken, usually deliberately.
If you want to accuse people of lying, please do so directly. The
phrase "deliberately mistaken" is rather oxymoronic.
> To credit religion with the awesome power to dominate history is to
> misunderstand human nature, the function of religion and of course,
> history. I believe that those who distort history in this way know
> exaclty what they're doing, and do it only for affect.
The two forms of theism most often discussed here these days are
Christianity and Islam. Both of these claim to make their followers
into good people, and claim that much of benefit to humanity has been
accomplished through their faiths. IMHO they are right. The American
Friends Service Committee (Quaker), Catholic Relief Services, Bread
For The World, Salvation Army soup kitchens, and Mother Theresa spring
to mind. (Can someone with more knowledge of Islam supply the names
of some analagous Islamic groups?)
When Mother Theresa claims that her work is an outgrowth of her
Christianity, I believe her. Her form of theism ascribes to her deity
such a benevolence toward humanity that it would be wrong not to care
for those in need. The point is that such a philosophy does have the
power to change the behavior of individuals; if it is widespread
enough, it can change societies.
The same works for the horrors of history. To claim that Christianity
had little to do with the Crusades or the Inquisition is to deny the
awesome power that comes from faith in an absolute. What it seems you
are doing twisting the reasonable statement that religion was never
the solitary cause of any evil into the unreasonable statement that
religion has had no evil impacts on history. That is absurd.
-- Scott Sauyet ssauyet@eagle.wesleyan.edu
| 0alt.atheism
|
keith@cco.caltech.edu (Keith Allan Schneider) | Re: <<Pompous ass | California Institute of Technology, Pasadena | Andrew Newell <TAN102@psuvm.psu.edu> writes:
>>>Sure, they may fall back on other things, but this is one they
>>>should not have available to use.
>>It is worse than others?
>Worse? Maybe not, but it is definately a violation of the
>rules the US govt. supposedly follows.
Oh?
>>>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?
>No. ...not unless the only way to get rid of the current one
>was to change it to such as that.
What is wrong with *this* motto, now? If you wouldn't approve of
even that one, I am beginning to think that you just have something
against mottos in general. What do you think of "E plurbis unum?"
keith
| 0alt.atheism
|
jaeger@buphy.bu.edu (Gregg Jaeger) | Re: The Inimitable Rushdie | Boston University Physics Department | In article <1qlb7oINN684@shelley.u.washington.edu>
jimh@carson.u.washington.edu (James Hogan) writes:
>20:52 P.S.T. I come to my senses and accept the all-knowing
>wisdom and power of the Quran and Allah. Not only that, but Allah
>himself drops by to congratulate me on my wise choice. Allah rolls a
>few bones and we get down. Then Allah gets out the Crisco, bends
>over, and invites me to take a spin around the block. Wow.
>20:56 P.S.T. I realize that maybe Allah is looking for more of a
>commitment than I'm ready for, so I say "Man, I've got some
>programming to do. Gotta go. I'll call you."
>20:59 P.S.T Thinking it over, I renounce Islam.
What loyalty!
Jim, it seems you've been reading a little too much Russell Hoban
lately. As Hemingway said, my imitators always imitate the _bad_
aspects of my writing. Hoban would, no doubt, say the same here.
Gregg
| 0alt.atheism
|
klap@dirac.phys.ualberta.ca (Kevin Klapstein) | Re: Are atoms real? | University Of Alberta, Edmonton Canada | In article <C5uE4t.G4K@news.rich.bnr.ca> bcash@crchh410.NoSubdomain.NoDomain
(Brian Cash) writes:
> Petri and Mathew,
>
> Your discusion on the "reality" of atoms is interesting, but it
> would seem that you are verging on the question "Is anything real":
> that is, since observation is not 100% reliable, how can we say
> that anything is "real". I don't think this was the intention
> of the original question, since you now define-out the word
> "real" so that nothing can meet its criteria.
> Just a thought.
>
> Brian /-|-\
>
> PS Rainbows and Shadows are "real": they are not objects, they
> are phenomenon. An interesting question would be if atoms
> are objects (classical) or phenomenon (neo-quantum) or what?
I've been following this train of talk, and the question of dismissing atoms as
being in some sense "not real" leaves me uneasy.
It seems to be implied that we obseve only the effects, and therefore the
underlying thing is not necessarily real. The tree outside my window is in
this category... is observe the light which bounces off of it, not the tree
itself. The observation is indirect, but no more so than observations I have
made of atoms.
Also, what about observations and experiments that have been routinely done
with individual atoms. I am thinking in particular of atom trapping
experiments and tests of fundamental quantum mechanics such as the quantum Zeno
effect, where an individual atom is studied for a long period of time.
Some of the attempts at quantum mechanical arguments were not very satisfying
either. One has to be carefull about making such arguments without a solid
technical background in the field. What I read seemed a little confused a
quite a red herring.
Anyway, if the purpose of a public debate is to make the audience think, it
worked. After doing so, I'm willing to try to defend the following assertion
if anyone cares:
Atoms are as real as trees, and are real in the ussual every-day sense of the
word "real".
| 0alt.atheism
|
jimh@carson.u.washington.edu (James Hogan) | Re: The Inimitable Rushdie | University of Washington, Seattle | In article <115571@bu.edu> jaeger@buphy.bu.edu (Gregg Jaeger) writes:
>In article <2BCC892B.21864@ics.uci.edu> bvickers@ics.uci.edu (Brett J. Vickers) writes:
>
>>In article <115290@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.
As much as I considered some of the (so-called) Islam-related dialogue
here a total waste of time, I somehow can't restrain myself in this
instance, so, Gregg, try this:
20:52 P.S.T. I come to my senses and accept the all-knowing
wisdom and power of the Quran and Allah. Not only that, but Allah
himself drops by to congratulate me on my wise choice. Allah rolls a
few bones and we get down. Then Allah gets out the Crisco, bends
over, and invites me to take a spin around the block. Wow.
20:56 P.S.T. I realize that maybe Allah is looking for more of a
commitment than I'm ready for, so I say "Man, I've got some
programming to do. Gotta go. I'll call you."
20:59 P.S.T Thinking it over, I renounce Islam.
BTW, Gregg, Allah said he still thinks of you.
Jim
| 0alt.atheism
|
strom@Watson.Ibm.Com (Rob Strom) | Re: [soc.motss, et al.] "Princeton axes matching funds for Boy Scouts" | IBM Research | In article <N4HY.93Apr5120934@harder.ccr-p.ida.org>, n4hy@harder.ccr-p.ida.org (Bob McGwier) writes:
|> [1] HOWEVER, I hate economic terrorism and political correctness
|> worse than I hate this policy.
|> [2] A more effective approach is to stop donating
|> to ANY organizating that directly or indirectly supports gay rights issues
|> until they end the boycott on funding of scouts.
Can somebody reconcile the apparent contradiction between [1] and [2]?
--
Rob Strom, strom@watson.ibm.com, (914) 784-7641
IBM Research, 30 Saw Mill River Road, P.O. Box 704, Yorktown Heights, NY 10598
| 0alt.atheism
|
(Rashid) | Re: Yet more Rushdie [Re: ISLAMIC LAW] | NH | In article <1993Apr22.132909.5001@nic.csu.net>,
davec@silicon.csci.csusb.edu (Dave Choweller) wrote:
>
> In article <1993Apr22.004405.28052@bnr.ca> (Rashid) writes:
> [stuff deleted...]
> >The point of my post was that Rushdie was not being condemned solely
> >for the "words" in his book (although this was certainly a contributing
> >factor). It was the whole series of actions of Rushdie and his
> >publishers following the publication of the book and the initial media
> >spotlight placed on the book, that (in large part) led to the fatwa. The
> >kind of fatwa levelled against Rushdie is not lightly placed and there
> >are any number of anti-Islamic writers both within and outside the
> >Islamic world who have not had fatwas made against them. Here, someone
> >who adds fuel to an explosive situation, might be charged with incitement
> >to riot - if people die in the rioting the charges against him might
> >become even more serious.
>
> How can Rushdie be blamed for the deaths of people who are demonstrating
> against him? The deaths should be blamed on the people who dealt with
> the demonstrations, or on the demonstrators themselves, if they were
> violent. To what lengths will you go to justify this barbaric behaviour
> against Rushdie?
Once the Rushdie situation exploded into the media, the Muslim voice on
the matter of the book was effectively restricted to short video bytes
showing
the dramatic highlights of Muslim demonstrations. For every twenty or so
newspaper, magazine articles, interviews etc. supporting Rushdie, there
would
appear one Muslim voice. This person was usually selected based on how
dramatic and incoherent he was, not on his knowledge of Islam or the
situation at the time. This approx. twenty to one ratio continued
throughout the escalation of the crisis, with Rushdie in the central
spotlight as the man of the moment, the valiant defender of everyman's
right to free speech decoupled from responsibility. (As an aside, it's
interesting that while the hue and cry about freedom of speech went up,
some books (defaming certain ethnic and religious groups) continued
to be banned here. It was felt that they injured the sensibilities of these
groups and presented a false image which could promote feelings of
hate towards these groups. For Muslims this kind of double standard
was annoying.)
Rushdie saw this spotlight as a golden opportunity to lash out at
"organized"
Islam, and he did so with admirable verbal skill. The only kind of Islam
which Rushdie finds palatable is what he calls a "secular" Islam - an Islam
separated from it's Qur'an, it's Prophet, God, its legislation, and most
importantly from any intrusion into any political arena. Fine - Rushdie
made
his views known - the Muslim's made their anger at his book known. The
scale of the whole affair erupted into global proportions - it was, by this
time,
already a political situation - affecting governments as well as
individuals.
The situation was a serious one, with far-reaching political implications.
At the centre of this turmoil was Rushdie, throwing fuel on the fire -
engaged
in a personal crusade that made him oblivious to any sense of caution.
Now you may feel that the person in the centre of a worldwide storm such as
this has no responsibility, has no reason to exercise restraint of any
kind, has no
obligation to perhaps step back momentarily out of the spotlight till
matters calm down. Perhaps you even feel that he is justified in "boldly"
defying the anger of all those who dare to take umbrage at his literary
work, no matter what insult they find within it. Perhaps you see him as
a kind of secular "heroic Knight",mounted on the his media steed,
doing battle with the "dragon" of Islamic "fundamentalism".
Well Khomeini saw him as a disingeneous author who
grew up in a Muslim atmosphere, knew well what Muslim's hold dear,
who wrote a book which mischievously uses certain literary conventions
to slander, insult, and attack Islam and its most notable personalities -
who, when
faced with a situation that became a worldwide crisis, continued with
his mischief in the world stage of the media - who, even after people were
injured and killed because of the magnitude and emotion of the situation,
continued his mischief, instead of having the good sense to desist.
Khomeini saw the crisis as mischief making on a grand scale, mischief
making that grew in scale as the scale of the crisis enlarged. The deaths
of Muslims around the world and Rushdie's continued media mischief
even after this, was the triggering factor that seemed to
decide Khomeini on putting a stop to the mischief. The person at the
centre of all these events was Rushdie - he was the source of the
continuing mischief - all media support, government support was
just that - support. The source was Rushdie (and his publishers, who
were nothing short of ecstatic at the publicity and were very happy
to see Rushdie constantly in the media). The Islamic rulings that
deal with people who engage in this kind of grand-scale mischief
making, was applied to Rushdie.
>You're attempts at justification are not doing the
> image of Islam any good.
I have made no attempts at justification, only at explanation. "Image" is
the chief concern of Muslim 'apologists' for Islam and for Rushdie.
If Muslims willingly relegated themselves to becoming a sub-culture
within a larger secular culture, such that the secular principles and laws
had precedence over the laws of Islam - then I have no doubt that Islam
would then be thought to have a good "image" (Principally because it would
by and large reflect the secular image). A "good image" usually means " be
more
like me".
Your attempts at TOTALLY exonerating Rushdie reflect exactly the attitude
that
resulted in the polarization brought about by the crisis.
> In Iran, the situation was monitored for many
> >months - when Rushdie kept adding fuel to the flames through the free
> >worldwide voice that the media gave him, the situation was monitored
> >more seriously. When, even after many deaths occured worldwide, Rushdie
> >still did not desist - the fatwa was pronounced. When behaving like
> >a total jerk endangers lives, and the jerk sees this and still insists
> >on his right to behave like a total jerk - he has the rug jerked out
> >from under him.
>
> If the muslims didn't make such a big fuss over the book, like issuing
> death threats, and killing publishers, NO ONE WOULD HAVE HEARD OF IT.
The fatwa came later - much later. If Rushdie didn't mouth off so much in
the
media, the fuss would have died down - no one would have been killed, no
fatwa would have been passed - the whole episode would have fizzled away.
| 0alt.atheism
|
ekr@squick.eitech.com (Eric Rescorla) | Re: After 2000 years, can we say that Christian Morality is | EIT | In article <1r0m89$r0o@horus.ap.mchp.sni.de> frank@D012S658.uucp (Frank O'Dwyer) writes:
>In article <1qvu33$jk3@kyle.eitech.com> ekr@kyle.eitech.com (Eric Rescorla) writes:
>#In article <1quokn$c49@horus.ap.mchp.sni.de> frank@D012S658.uucp (Frank O'Dwyer) writes:
>#>In article <1qktbg$bmh@squick.eitech.com> ekr@squick.eitech.com (Eric Rescorla) writes:
>#>#No, I don't see what the popularity of a value has to do with whether
>#>#it is objective or not. Pls. explain.
>#>If almost all people agree that the sun exists (in the usual, uncritical sense),
>#>and almost all people agree that a deal is bad, it's a reasonable
>#>conclusion that the sun really does exist, and that the deal really is bad.
>#I disagree completely. Until rather recently, most people did not
>#believe in evolution or the possibility of the atom bomb. Popular
>#opinion is notoriously wrong about matters of fact.
>True, but nevertheless the basis of all "matters of fact" is overwhelming
>popular opinion, and some overwhelming popular opinion *is* fact ("the
>sun shines"). If it were not so, physics would be a personal matter,
>assumed to be different for each of us. There would be YourGravity and
>MyGravity and no theoretical framework to encompass them and predict
>both.
This is simply complete nonsense. The basis for 'matters of fact' is,
if any class of opinion, the majority of INFORMED popular opinion
for some value of informed. I would really hate to base my knowledge
of, for instance, QM on what the overwhelming popular opinion is.
>about *raw* observations ("the dial reads 1.2") matter, in other words, though
>they can surely be mistaken (or even lying) there too ("I saw the statue
>move!"). Getting to theories from raw facts is certainly error-prone, but
>one assumes that the raw facts are usually as reported, otherwise science
>is impossible.
Opinions about 'raw facts' as you call them are somewhat different
than interpretations of those raw facts.
>Now I take an experience of good/evil to be every bit as raw a fact as an
>experience of pain, or vision.
That might seem like a good first pass guess, but it turns out to
be a pretty cruddy way to look at things, because we all seem to
have rather different opinions (experiences) about what is good
and evil, while we seem to be able to agree on what the meter says.
> For me, an ethical standard can be nothing
>more than a hypothesis about the modification of observed value through
>human actions ("It will be better if..." == "You ought").
See above. We can't seem to agree on what's better.
> In that context,
>then I see the choice as being between scepticism, relativism, and
>objectivism. IMO, the existence of supermajority experiences of
>good (life, freedom, truth, peace, love, intelligence) testifies that
>objectivism is true for fundamental values - and this in turn is weak
>evidence that objective ethics may be possible.
I don't see that it's any evidence at all.
As I point out above, I'm really not interested very much in
what the popular opinion is. I'm prepared to trust--to some extent--
the popular opinion about direct matters of physical observation
because by and large they accord with my own. However, if everyone
else said the dial read 1.5 and it looked like a 3 to me, I would
hope that I would believe myself. I.e. believing other people about
these matters seems to have a reasonable probability of predicting
what I would believe if I observed myself, but the possibility exists
that it is not. Since I know from observation that others disagree
with me about what is good, I believe I can discount popular opinion
about 'good' from the beginning as a predictor of my opinion.
I would say that the fact that it seems almost impossible to get
people to agree on what is good in a really large number of situations
is probably the best evidence that objective morality is bogus, actually.
>#>#> I don't think I'm way off beam in saying that "something is
>#>#>better than nothing" is a rational and objective valuation.
>#>#Nope. No tetanus is better than tetanus.
>#>I was referring to the situation at hand, in which "something is better than
>#>nothing " is a rational valuation for any disinterested observer, not
>#>making a general observation on all situations. But you knew that.
>#No, I didn't. I assumed you were merely making a generalization
>#which you hadn't thought through very carefully. You're not much of
>#a mind-reader, Frank.
>Nor are you, it seems. (cf. "I assumed..." above).
Perhaps true, but I didn't make assertions about what you believed.
You did.
-Ekr
--
Eric Rescorla ekr@eitech.com
Would you buy used code from this man?
| 0alt.atheism
|
bil@okcforum.osrhe.edu (Bill Conner) | Re: IF ONLY HE KNEW | Okcforum Unix Users Group | prudenti@juncol.juniata.edu wrote:
: Upon arriving at home, Joseph probably took advantage of Mary...had his way
: with her so to speak. Of course, word of this couldn't get around so Mary,
: being the highly-religious follower that she was decided "Hey, I'll just say
: that GOD impregnated me...no one will ever know!"
:
: Thus, seen as a trustworthy and honorable soul, she was believed...
:
: And then came Jesus, the child born from violence.
:
:
:
Dave,
Can you explain the purpose of your post, I can't imagine what you
must have thougt it meant.
Bill
| 0alt.atheism
|
livesey@solntze.wpd.sgi.com (Jon Livesey) | Re: >>>>>>Pompous ass | sgi | In article <1pi9jkINNqe2@gap.caltech.edu>, keith@cco.caltech.edu (Keith Allan Schneider) writes:
|> livesey@solntze.wpd.sgi.com (Jon Livesey) writes:
|>
|> >>>How long does it [the motto] have to stay around before it becomes the
|> >>>default? ... Where's the cutoff point?
|> >>I don't know where the exact cutoff is, but it is at least after a few
|> >>years, and surely after 40 years.
|> >Why does the notion of default not take into account changes
|> >in population makeup?
|>
|> Specifically, which changes are you talking about? Are you arguing
|> that the motto is interpreted as offensive by a larger portion of the
|> population now than 40 years ago?
No, do I have to? I'm just commenting that it makes very
little sense to consider everything we inherit to be the default.
Seen any steam trains recently?
jon.
| 0alt.atheism
|
frank@D012S658.uucp (Frank O'Dwyer) | Re: After 2000 years, can we say that Christian Morality is | Siemens-Nixdorf AG | In article <1qk1md$6gs@kyle.eitech.com> ekr@kyle.eitech.com (Eric Rescorla) writes:
#In article <1qjbn0$na4@horus.ap.mchp.sni.de> frank@D012S658.uucp (Frank O'Dwyer) writes:
#>In article <kmr4.1571.734847050@po.CWRU.edu> kmr4@po.CWRU.edu (Keith M. Ryan) writes:
#># You have only pushed back the undefined meaning. You must now define
#>#what "objective values" are.
#>
#>Really? You don't know what objective value is? If I offered the people
#>of the U.S., collectively, $1 for all of the land in America, would that
#>sound like a good deal?
#Well, that would depend on how much we wanted the US and how much
#we wanted the $1, wouldn't it?
Yes it would. Luckily these parameters are fixed by reality. If I can
predict with almost 100% accuracy that Americans prefer to own their portions of
the US than an infinitesmal portion of $1, in what sense are these values
not objective? I don't think I'm way off beam in saying that "something is
better than nothing" is a rational and objective valuation. Do you agree
with me then that the assertion "no values are objective" is false?
--
Frank O'Dwyer 'I'm not hatching That'
odwyer@sse.ie from "Hens", by Evelyn Conlon
| 0alt.atheism
|
frank@D012S658.uucp (Frank O'Dwyer) | Re: After 2000 years, can we say that Christian Morality is | Siemens-Nixdorf AG | In article <sandvik-150493180341@sandvik-kent.apple.com> sandvik@newton.apple.com (Kent Sandvik) writes:
#In article <1qkndq$k@fido.asd.sgi.com>, livesey@solntze.wpd.sgi.com (Jon
#Livesey) wrote:
#> In article <1qjbn0$na4@horus.ap.mchp.sni.de>, frank@D012S658.uucp (Frank O'Dwyer) writes:
#> |> Really? You don't know what objective value is? If I offered the people
#> |> of the U.S., collectively, $1 for all of the land in America, would that
#> |> sound like a good deal?
#>
#> You mean that if you can find a ridiculous price, the rest of
#> us are supposed to conclude that an objectively correct price
#> exists?
#
#Another Gedanken experiment is "selling the London bridge" adjusted to
#this situation, selling USA for $1 to a foreign tourist. Yet again,
#is this an objective deal?
Good question. Under the assumption that things are as they are,
and the seller is not the owner (I assume this is what you mean)
then one can say that with high confidence that this is a bad deal
for any tourist, regardless of their private beliefs. There isn't
enough information to draw good conclusions about the seller - but one
could say (with less confidence) that it can be a good deal for any seller.
That the seller and buyer come out with different values on the deal is
*not* relativism since in fact any number of disinterested observers can
predict this, which sounds pretty objective to me.
--
Frank O'Dwyer 'I'm not hatching That'
odwyer@sse.ie from "Hens", by Evelyn Conlon
| 0alt.atheism
|
madhaus@netcom.com (Maddi Hausmann) | Re: free moral agency | Society for Putting Things on Top of Other Things | bil@okcforum.osrhe.edu (Bill Conner) writes: >
>I see that you still can't grasp the obvious, is it because your are devious
>by nature, or can you only find fault with an argument by
>misrepresenting it?
Gee, since you ignored the entire substance of my substantial
post, you got a lot of nerve claiming that I don't understand
what's being talked about.
Respond to the previous post or shut the fuck up. You're
really annoying.
--
Maddi Hausmann madhaus@netcom.com
Centigram Communications Corp San Jose California 408/428-3553
Kids, please don't try this at home. Remember, I post professionally.
| 0alt.atheism
|
frank@D012S658.uucp (Frank O'Dwyer) | Re: After 2000 years, can we say that Christian Morality is | Siemens-Nixdorf AG | In article <kmr4.1576.734879396@po.CWRU.edu> kmr4@po.CWRU.edu (Keith M. Ryan) writes:
#In article <1qj9gq$mg7@horus.ap.mchp.sni.de> frank@D012S658.uucp (Frank O'Dwyer) writes:
#
#>Is good logic *better* than bad? Is good science better than bad?
#
# By definition.
True enough. O.K., in the universe we have today, which is better, a science
that predicts the motion of the planets, and it happens so, or a science
which predicts that sonic the hedgehog will record an album with Elvis on
a certain date, and it doesn't happen? Can the answer to this question
be called objective, or is it a matter of opinion?
--
Frank O'Dwyer 'I'm not hatching That'
odwyer@sse.ie from "Hens", by Evelyn Conlon
| 0alt.atheism
|
sham@cs.arizona.edu (Shamim Zvonko Mohamed) | Re: Who has read Rushdie's _The Satanic Verses_? | U of Arizona CS Dept, Tucson | In article <1r1cl7INNknk@bozo.dsinc.com> perry@dsinc.com (Jim Perry) writes:
>Anyway, since I seem to be the only one following this particular line
>of discussion, I wonder how many of the rest of the readership have
>read this book? What are your thoughts on it?
I read it when it first came out, and the controversy broke. Put my name
on the waiting list at the library (that way if the book was really
offensive, none of my money would find its way to the author or
publisher), and read it, "cover to cover" (to use a phrase that seems
popular here right now).
And I *liked* it. The writing style was a little hard to get used to, but
it was well worth the effort. Coming from a similar background (Rushdie
grew up in Bombay in a muslim family, and moved to England; I grew up in
New Delhi), it made a strong impression on me. (And he used many of the
strange constructions of Indian English: the "yaar" at the end of a
sentence, "Butbutbut," the occasional hindi phrase, etc.)
At the time I still "sorta-kinda" thought of myself as a muslim, and I
couldn't see what the flap was all about. It seemed clear to me that this
was allegory. It was clear that he described some local prostitutes who
took on the names and personae of Muhammed's wives, and had not (as my
grandfather thundered) implied that Muhammed's wives were prostitutes; in
short, every angry muslim that had read even part of the book seemed to
have missed the point completely. (And I won't mention the fact that the
most militant of them had never even seen the book. Oops, I just did!)
Perhaps in a deep sense, the book is insulting to Islam, because it
exposes the silliness of revealed religion - why does an omnipotent deity
need an agent? She can come directly to me, can't she? How do we know that
Muhammed didn't just go out into the desert and smoke something? And how
do we know that the scribes he dictated the Quran to didn't screw up, or
put in their own little verses? And why can Muhammed marry more than four
women, when no other muslim is allowed to? (Although I think the biggest
insult to Islam is that the majority of its followers would want to
suppress a book, sight unseen, on the say-so of some "holy" guy. Not to
mention murder the author.)
>Over the years, when I have made this point, various primarily muslim
>posters have responded, saying that yes indeed they have read the book
>and had called it such things as "filth and lies", "I would rank
>Rushdie's book with Hitler's Mein Kempf or worse", and so on.
I had much the same response when I tried to talk about the book. A really
silly argument - after all, how many of these same people have read "Mein
Kampf?" It just made me wonder - what are they afraid of? Why don't they
just read the book and decide for themselves?
Maybe the reaction of the muslim community to the book, and the absence of
protest from the "liberal" muslims to Khomeini's fatwa outrage, was the
final push I needed into atheism!
-s
--
Shamim Mohamed / {uunet,noao,cmcl2..}!arizona!shamim / shamim@cs.arizona.edu
"Take this cross and garlic; here's a Mezuzah if he's Jewish; a page of the
Koran if he's a Muslim; and if he's a Zen Buddhist, you're on your own."
Member of the League for Programming Freedom - write to lpf@uunet.uu.net
| 0alt.atheism
|
frank@D012S658.uucp (Frank O'Dwyer) | Re: Theism and Fanatism (was: Islamic Genocide) | Siemens-Nixdorf AG | In article <16BB8D25C.I3150101@dbstu1.rz.tu-bs.de> I3150101@dbstu1.rz.tu-bs.de (Benedikt Rosenau) writes:
#In article <1r3tqo$ook@horus.ap.mchp.sni.de>
#frank@D012S658.uucp (Frank O'Dwyer) writes:
#
#>#>|>#>#Theism is strongly correlated with irrational belief in absolutes. Irrational
#>#>|>#>#belief in absolutes is strongly correlated with fanatism.
#>#
#>#(deletion)
#>#
#>#>|Theism is correlated with fanaticism. I have neither said that all fanatism
#>#>|is caused by theism nor that all theism leads to fanatism. The point is,
#>#>|theism increases the chance of becoming a fanatic. One could of course
#>#>|argue that would be fanatics tend towards theism (for example), but I just
#>#>|have to loook at the times in history when theism was the dominant ideology
#>#>|to invalidate that conclusion that that is the basic mechanism behind it.
#>#>
#>#>IMO, the influence of Stalin, or for that matter, Ayn Rand, invalidates your
#>#>assumption that theism is the factor to be considered.
#>#
#>#Bogus. I just said that theism is not the only factor for fanatism.
#>#The point is that theism is *a* factor.
#>
#>That's your claim; now back it up. I consider your argument as useful
#>as the following: Belief is strongly correlated with fanaticism. Therefore
#>belief is *a* factor in fanaticism. True, and utterly useless. (Note, this
#>is *any* belief, not belief in Gods)
#>
#
#Tiring to say the least. I have backed it up, read the first statement.
I have read it. Conspicuous by its absence is any evidence or point.
#
#The latter is the fallacy of the wrong analogy. Saying someone believes
#something is hardly an information about the person at all. Saying someone
#is a theist holds much more information. Further, the correlation between
#theists and fanatism is higher than that between belief at all and fanatism
#because of the special features of theistic belief.
Truth by blatant assertion. Evidence?
#
#
#>#>Gullibility,
#>#>blind obedience to authority, lack of scepticism, and so on, are all more
#>#>reliable indicators. And the really dangerous people - the sources of
#>#>fanaticism - are often none of these things. They are cynical manipulators
#>#>of the gullible, who know precisely what they are doing.
#>#
#>#That's a claim you have to support. Please note that especially in the
#>#field of theism, the leaders believe what they say.
#>
#>If you believe that, you're incredibly naive.
#>
#
#You, Frank O'Dwyer, are living in a dream world. I wonder if there is any
#base of discussion left after such a statement. As a matter of fact, I think
#you are ignorant of human nature. Even when one starts with something one does
#not believe, one gets easily fooled into actually believing what one says.
#
#To give you the benefit of the doubt, prove your statement.
The onus of proof is on you, sunshine. What makes you think that
theist leaders believe what they say? Especially when they say
one thing and do another, or say one thing closely followed by its
opposite? The practice is not restricted to theism, but it's there
for anyone to see. It's almost an epidemic in this country.
Just for instance, if it is harder for a camel to pass thru' the eye
of a needle, why is the Catholic church such a wealthy land-owner? Why
are there churches to the square inch in my country?
#
#>#>Now, *some*
#>#>brands of theism, and more precisely *some* theists, do tend to fanaticism,
#>#>I grant you. To tar all theists with this brush is bigotry, not a reasoned
#>#>argument - and it reads to me like a warm-up for censorship and restriction
#>#>of religious freedom. Ever read Animal Farm?
#>#>
#>#That's a straw man. And as usually in discussions with you one has to
#>#repeat it: Read what I have written above: not every theism leads to
#>#fanatism, and not all fanatism is caused by theism. The point is,
#>#there is a correlation, and it comes from innate features of theism.
#>
#>No, some of it comes from features which *some* theism has in common
#>with *some* fanaticism. Your last statement simply isn't implied by
#>what you say before, because you're trying to sneak in "innate features
#>of [all] theism". The word you're groping for is "some".
#>
#
#Bogus again. Not all theism as is is fanatic. However, the rest already
#gives backup for the statement about the correlation about fanatism and
#theism. And further, the specialty of other theistic beliefs allows them
#to switch to fanatism easily. It takes just a nifty improvement in the
#theology.
Truth by blatant assertion.
#
#
#>#Gullibility, by the way, is one of them.
#>
#>No shit, Sherlock. So why not talk about gullibility instead of theism,
#>since it seems a whole lot more relevant to the case you have, as opposed
#>to the case you are trying to make?
#>
#
#Because there is more about theism that the attraction to gullible people
#causing the correlation. And the whole discussion started that way by the
#statement that theism is meaningfully correlated to fanatism, which you
#challenged.
Indeed I did. As I recall, I asked for evidence. What is the correlation
of which you speak?
#
#
#>#And to say that I am going to forbid religion is another of your straw
#>#men. Interesting that you have nothing better to offer.
#>
#>I said it reads like a warm up to that. That's because it's an irrational
#>and bogus tirade, and has no other use than creating a nice Them/Us
#>split in the minds of excitable people such as are to be found on either
#>side of church walls.
#>
#
#Blah blah blah. I am quite well aware that giving everyone their rights
#protects me better from fanatics than the other way round.
Of course, other people are always fanatics, never oneself. Your
wish to slur all theists seems pretty fanatical to me.
#
#It is quite nice to see that you are actually implying a connection between
#that argument and the rise of fanatism. So far, it is just another of your
#assertions.
So? You can do it.
#
#
#>#>|>(2) Define "irrational belief". e.g., is it rational to believe that
#>#>|> reason is always useful?
#>#>|>
#>#>|
#>#>|Irrational belief is belief that is not based upon reason. The latter has
#>#>|been discussed for a long time with Charley Wingate. One point is that
#>#>|the beliefs violate reason often, and another that a process that does
#>#>|not lend itself to rational analysis does not contain reliable information.
#>#>
#>#>Well, there is a glaring paradox here: an argument that reason is useful
#>#>based on reason would be circular, and argument not based on reason would
#>#>be irrational. Which is it?
#>#>
#>#That's bogus. Self reference is not circular. And since the evaluation of
#>#usefulness is possible within rational systems, it is allowed.
#>
#>O.K., it's oval. It's still begging the question, however. And though
#>that certainly is allowed, it's not rational. And you claiming to be
#>rational and all.
#>
#
#Another of your assertions. No proof, no evidence, just claims.
Hey - I learned it from you. Did I do good?
#
#
#>At the risk of repeating myself, and hearing "we had that before" [we
#>didn't hear a _refutation_ before, so we're back. Deal with it] :
#>you can't use reason to demonstrate that reason is useful. Someone
#>who thinks reason is crap won't buy it, you see.
#>
#
#That is unusually weak even for you. The latter implies that my proof
#depends on their opinion. Somehow who does not accept that there are
#triangles won't accept Pythagoras. Wow, that's an incredible insight.
#I don't have to prove them wrong in their opinion. It is possible to
#show that their systems leave out useful information respectively claims
#unreliable or even absurd statements to be information.
Totally circular, and totally useless.
#
#Their wish to believe makes them believe. Things are judges by their appeal,
#and not by their information. It makes you feel good when you believe that
#may be good for them, but it contains zillions of possible pitfalls. From
#belief despite contrary evidence to the bogus proofs they attempt.
Truth by blatant assertion. I've seen as many bogus proofs of the
non-existence of gods as I have of their existence.
#
#Rational systems, by the way, does not mean that every data has to come from
#logical analysis, the point is that the evaluation of the data does not
#contradict logic. It easily follows that such a system does not allows to
#evaluate if its rational in itself. Yes, it is possible to evaluate that
#it is rational in a system that is not rational by the fallacies of that
#system, but since the validity of the axioms is agreed upon, that has as
#little impact as the possibility of a demon ala Descartes.
This just doesn't parse, sorry.
#
#So far it just a matter of consistency. I use ratiional arguments to show
#that my system is consistent or that theirs isn't. The evaluation of the
Nor this.
#predictions does not need rationality. It does not contradict, however.
#
#
#>#Your argument is as silly as proving mathematical statements needs mathematics
#>#and mathematics are therfore circular.
#>
#>Anybody else think Godel was silly?
#>
#
#Stream of consciousness typing? What is that supposed to mean?
#
#
#>#>The first part of the second statement contains no information, because
#>#>you don't say what "the beliefs" are. If "the beliefs" are strong theism
#>#>and/or strong atheism, then your statement is not in general true. The
#>#>second part of your sentence is patently false - counterexample: an
#>#>axiomatic datum does not lend itself to rational analysis, but is
#>#>assumed to contain reliable information regardless of what process is
#>#>used to obtain it.
#>#>
#>#
#>#I've been speaking of religious systems with contradictory definitions
#>#of god here.
#>#
#>#An axiomatic datum lends itself to rational analysis, what you say here
#>#is a an often refuted fallacy. Have a look at the discussion of the
#>#axiom of choice. And further, one can evaluate axioms in larger systems
#>#out of which they are usually derived. "I exist" is derived, if you want
#>#it that way.
#>#
#>#Further, one can test the consistency and so on of a set of axioms.
#>#
#>#what is it you are trying to say?
#>
#>That at some point, people always wind up saying "this datum is reliable"
#>for no particular reason at all. Example: "I am not dreaming".
#>
#
#Nope. There is evidence for it. The trick is that the choice of an axiomatic
#basis of a system is difficult, because the possibilities are interwoven.
#One therefore chooses that with the least assumptions or with assumptions
#that are necessary to get information out of the system anyway.
I'd like to see this alleged evidence.
#
#One does not need to define axioms in order to define an evaluation method
#for usefulness, the foundation is laid by how one feels at all (that's not
#how one feels about it).
I see. You have no irrational beliefs. But then, fanatics never do, do
they?
#
#>#>|Compared the evidence theists have for their claims to the strength of
#>#>|their demands makes the whole thing not only irrational but antirational.
#>#>
#>#>I can't agree with this until you are specific - *which* theism? To
#>#>say that all theism is necessarily antirational requires a proof which
#>#>I suspect you do not have.
#>#>
#>#
#>#Using the traditonal definition of gods. Personal, supernatural entities
#>#with objective effects on this world. Usually connected to morals and/or
#>#the way the world works.
#>
#>IMO, any belief about such gods is necessarily irrational. That does
#>not mean that people who hold them are in principle opposed to the exercise of
#>intelligence. Some atheists are also scientists, for example.
#>
#
#They don't use theism when doing science. Or it wouldn't be science. Please
#note that subjective data lend themselves to a scientific treatment as well.
#They just prohibit formulating them as objective statements.
Ergo, nothing is objective. Fair enough.
#
#
#>#>|The affinity to fanatism is easily seen. It has to be true because I believe
#>#>|it is nothing more than a work hypothesis. However, the beliefs say they are
#>#>|more than a work hypothesis.
#>#>
#>#>I don't understand this. Can you formalise your argument?
#>#
#>#Person A believes system B becuase it sounds so nice. That does not make
#>#B true, it is at best a work hypothesis. However, the content of B is that
#>#it is true AND that it is more than a work hypothesis. Testing or evaluating
#>#evidence for or against it therefore dismissed because B (already believed)
#>#says it is wronG/ a waste of time/ not possible. Depending on the further
#>#contents of B Amalekites/Idolaters/Protestants are to be killed, this can
#>#have interesting effects.
#>
#>Peculiar definition of interesting, but sure. Now show that a belief
#>in gods entails the further contents of which you speak. Why aren't my
#>catholic neighbours out killing the protestants, for example? Maybe they
#>don't believe in it. Maybe it's the conjunction of "B asserts B" and
#>"jail/kill dissenters" that is important, and the belief in gods is
#>entirely irrelevant. It certainly seems so to me, but then I have no
#>axe to grind here.
#>
#
#The example with your neighbours is a fallacy. That *your* neighbours don't
#says little about others. And there were times when exactly that happened.
Nope, it's not a fallacy. It just doesn't go to the correlation you
wish to see.
#
#And tell me, when it is not irrelevant, why are such statements about
#Amalekites and Idolaters in the Holy Books? Please note that one could
#edit them out when they are not relevant anymore. Because gods don't err?
#What does that say about that message?
Excuse me - THE Holy Books?
#
#And how come we had theists saying genocides ordered by god are ok. A god
#is the easiest way to excuse anything, and therefore highly attracting to
#fanatics. Not to mention the effect interpretation by these fanatics can
#have on the rest of the believers. Happens again and again and again.
A god is neither the easiest way to excuse anything, nor the only way.
--
Frank O'Dwyer 'I'm not hatching That'
odwyer@sse.ie from "Hens", by Evelyn Conlon
| 0alt.atheism
|
jbrown@batman.bmd.trw.com | Omnipotence (was Re: Speculations) | null | In article <2942949719.2.p00261@psilink.com>, "Robert Knowles" <p00261@psilink.com> writes:
>>DATE: Fri, 2 Apr 1993 23:02:22 -0500
>>FROM: Nanci Ann Miller <nm0w+@andrew.cmu.edu>
>>
>>
>>> > 3. Can god uncreate itself?
>>>
>>> No. For if He did, He would violate His own nature which He cannot do.
>>> It is God's nature to Exist. He is, after all, the "I AM" which is
>>> a statement of His inherent Existence. He is existence itself.
>>> Existence cannot "not-exist".
>>
>>Then, as mentioned above, he must not be very omnipotent.
>>
What do you mean by omnipotent here? Do you mean by "omnipotent"
that God should be able to do anything/everything? This creates
a self-contradictory definition of omnipotence which is effectively
useless.
To be descriptive, omnipotence must mean "being all-powerful" and
not "being able to do anything/everything".
Let me illustrate by analogy.
Suppose the United States were the only nuclear power on earth. Suppose
further that the US military could not effectively be countered by any
nation or group of nations. The US has the power to go into any country
at any time for any reason to straighten things out as the leaders of the
US see fit. The US would be militarily "omnipotent".
But suppose further that the US holds to a doctrine/philosophy of not
interfering in the internal affairs of any nation, such as the current
civil war in the former Yugoslavian states.
Technically (in this scenario) the US would have the power to
unilaterally go into Yugoslavia and straighten out the mess. But
effectively the US could not intervene without violating its own policy
of non-interference. If the policy of non-interference were held to
strongly enough, then there would never be a question that it would
ever be violated. Effectively, the US would be limited in what it
could actually do, although it had the power to do "whatever it wanted".
The US would simply "never want to interfere" for such an idea would
be beyond the consideration of its leaders given such an inviolate
non-interference policy.
God is effectively limited in the same sense. He is all powerful, but
He cannot use His power in a way that would violate the essence of what
He, Himself is.
I hope this helps to clear up some of the misunderstanding concerning
omnipotence.
Regards,
Jim B.
| 0alt.atheism
|
bobbe@vice.ICO.TEK.COM (Robert Beauchaine) | Re: What's a shit shoveler to do? (was Re: Amusing atheists and) | Tektronix Inc., Beaverton, Or. | In article <1qvn1pINNj90@shelley.u.washington.edu> jimh@carson.u.washington.edu (James Hogan) writes:
>
>When the various Bill Conners and Bobbys post here, I felt that
>their passive-aggressive "knock that chip off my shoulder"
>type of approach meant that attempts at reasoned argument
>would be wasted. I still think that. However, while more
>primitive responses (teasing, bronx cheers, sarcasm) are somewhat
>satisfying ( :-) apologies to anyone who still thinks Bobby is
>a performance artist! ), some of them feed in to a pointless,
>circular round of ad hominem name-calling. Witness:
>
Precisely my position.
As a newbie, I tried the point-by-point approach to debate with
these types. It wasted both my time and my lifespan. Ignoring
them is not an option, since they don't go away, and doing so
would leave one with large stretches of complete anonymity in this
group.
What's left? Healthy flaming. I'm sure on occassion I've
appeared to be little more than a caustic boob to some of the
Bobby types. But why waste breath arguing with someone whose most
rational though process involves his excretory system?
And I stand by my record of recognizing these people long before
most of the rest of the group. So let's see what this Timmons
character has in store for us...
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
Bob Beauchaine bobbe@vice.ICO.TEK.COM
They said that Queens could stay, they blew the Bronx away,
and sank Manhattan out at sea.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
| 0alt.atheism
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bcash@crchh410.NoSubdomain.NoDomain (Brian Cash) | Re: Room for Metaphor? | Bell Northern Research | I can (and do) take religious writings as a metaphor for life.
I do this with all sorts of fiction, from Beowolf to Deep Space Nine.
The idea is to not limit yourself to one book, screen out the good
stuff from what you read, and to remember that it is all just a story.
You sound Buddist to me :^)
Brian /-|-\
| 0alt.atheism
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Nanci Ann Miller <nm0w+@andrew.cmu.edu> | Re: Concerning God's Morality (long) | Sponsored account, School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA |
jbrown@batman.bmd.trw.com writes:
> > Sorry, but there are no supernatural
> > forces necessary to create a pathogen. You are saying, "Since
> > diseases are bad, the bad entity must have created it." So
> > what would you say about acid rain, meteors falling from the
> > sky, volcanoes, earthquakes, and other QUOTE UNQUOTE "Acts
> > of God?"
>
> I would say that they are not "acts of God" but natural
> occurrences.
It amazes me that you have the audacity to say that human creation was not
the result of the natural process of evolution (but rather an "act of God")
and then in the same post say that these other processes (volcanos et al.)
are natural occurrences. Who gave YOU the right to choose what things are
natural processes and what are direct acts of God? How do you know that
God doesn't cause each and every natural disaster with a specific purpose
in mind? It would certainly go along with the sadistic nature I've seen in
the bible.
> >>Even if Satan had nothing to do with the original inception of
> >>disease, evolution by random chance would have produced them since
> >>humanity forsook God's protection. If we choose to live apart from
> >>God's law (humanity collectively), then it should come as no surprise
> >>that there are adverse consequences to our (collective) action. One
> >>of these is that we are left to deal with disease and disorders which
> >>inevitably result in an entropic universe.
> >
> > May I ask, where is this 'collective' bullcrap coming from?
>
> By "collective" I was referring to the idea that God works with
> humanity on two levels, individually and collectively. If mankind
> as a whole decides to undertake a certain action (the majority of
> mankind), then God will allow the consequences of that action to
> affect mankind as a whole.
Adam & Eve (TWO PEOPLE), even tho they had the honor (or so you christians
claim) of being the first two, definitely do NOT represent a majority in
the billions and trillions (probably more) of people that have come after
them. Perhaps they were the majority then, but *I* (and YOU) weren't
around to vote, and perhaps we might have voted differently about what to
do with that tree. But your god never asked us. He just assumes that if
you have two bad people then they ALL must be bad. Hmm. Sounds like the
same kind of false generalization that I see many of the theists posting
here resorting to. So THAT's where they get it... shoulda known.
> Jim B.
Nanci
.........................................................................
If you know (and are SURE of) the author of this quote, please send me
email (nm0w+@andrew.cmu.edu):
Lying to ourselves is more deeply ingrained than lying to others.
| 0alt.atheism
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livesey@solntze.wpd.sgi.com (Jon Livesey) | Re: <Political Atheists? | sgi | In article <1993Apr17.080321.18675@daffy.cs.wisc.edu>, mccullou@snake2.cs.wisc.edu (Mark McCullough) writes:
|> In article <1ql9a6$afp@fido.asd.sgi.com> livesey@solntze.wpd.sgi.com (Jon Livesey) writes:
|> >In article <1ql0ajINN2kj@gap.caltech.edu>, keith@cco.caltech.edu (Keith Allan Schneider) writes:
|> >|> 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.
|> Hey, must is a verb in some languages. Just happens it is only a modifier
|> in English. But, the verb of the sentence is to have. This is modified
|> by "must".
I know that "must" is a verb in some languages. I'm complaining
about the assertion containing the word must.
jon.
| 0alt.atheism
|
salem@pangea.Stanford.EDU (Bruce Salem) | Re: Science and theories | Stanford Univ. Earth Sciences | In article <C5u7Bq.J43@news.cso.uiuc.edu> cobb@alexia.lis.uiuc.edu (Mike Cobb) writes:
>As per various threads on science and creationism, I've started dabbling into a
>book called Christianity and the Nature of Science by JP Moreland.
As I don't know this book, I will use your heresay.
> A question
>that I had come from one of his comments. He stated that God is not
>necessarily a religious term, but could be used as other scientific terms that
>give explanation for events or theories, without being a proven scientific
>fact.
It depends on how he defines God. The way I understand the meaning
of that term preclues it being used in a useful way in science. Ideas drawn
from an understanding that God is supernatural precludes us from forming
scientific assertions that can be falsified, that is, where we can decide
that they are true or false within the terms of we use and useful observations
drawn from them.
Some religionists have an interest in bluring the definitions within
science to make them more reconcilable, and especially subserviant in a basic
way, to religious dogma. This pursuit always fails.
> I think I got his point -- I can quote the section if I'm being vague.
>The examples he gave were quarks and continental plates. Are there
>explanations of science or parts of theories that are not measurable in and of
>themselves, or can everything be quantified, measured, tested, etc.?
Reconciliation of science with religion involves circumventing the
tendancy to claim that either pursuit can gain absolute or certian knowledge,
or that the domain of truth in each is fundementally limited in some way. It
gererally confurs the element of uncertainty and limitations to human knowledge
while allowing for the different concerns of these separate pursuits. Science
and religion ask different questions which have imperfect and provisional
answers, at best. Science is distinctly limited in where it can ask meaningful
questions. More questions can be posed than it can answer. At the basis of
sacred language is the place where words fail us and mere assertions disolve
in contradiction.
Bruce Salem
| 0alt.atheism
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nancyo@shnext15.ucslabs.sfu.ca (Nancy Patricia O'Connor) | Re: THE POPE IS JEWISH! | Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, B.C., Canada | In article <1993Apr15.180024.19308@wam.umd.edu>
west@next02cville.wam.umd.edu (Stilgar) writes:
+Last night, while watching the 2a.m. rebroadcast of Jerry Springer (a
+talk show) I heard this Jewel of a thought from a 12 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 2??? (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 +
| 0alt.atheism
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frank@D012S658.uucp (Frank O'Dwyer) | Re: After 2000 years, can we say that Christian Morality is | Siemens-Nixdorf AG | In article <pww-150493204912@spac-at1-59.rice.edu> pww@spacsun.rice.edu (Peter Walker) writes:
#In article <1qkj31$4c6@horus.ap.mchp.sni.de>, frank@D012S658.uucp (Frank
#O'Dwyer) wrote:
#> If there
#> is no objective worth, usefulness, or importance then science has no
#> objective worth, usefulness, or importance. If nothing is inherently
#> worthwhile or desirable, then simple theories with accurate predictions
#> are not inherently worthwhile or desirable. Do you see any flaws in this?
#>
#Count me for one. The simple theory that makes accurate predictions does so
#whether or not we value it.
If the quality x does not exist, nothing has quality x. Which part did
you not understand?
#Frank, you're desperately confusing science with the reasons we, as
#individuals and as a society, *want* to do science.
Peter, you may assert that I am confused about this all you want, but
wishing it does not make it so. A simple theory is not simple until
someone judges it to be. A theory merely makes predictions. Predictions
are not accurate until someone judges them to be. You are choosing
theories at subjective whim, in other words? At what point do things
get objective, Peter?
--
Frank O'Dwyer 'I'm not hatching That'
odwyer@sse.ie from "Hens", by Evelyn Conlon
| 0alt.atheism
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bcash@crchh410.NoSubdomain.NoDomain (Brian Cash) | Re: some thoughts. | BNR, Inc. | I'm sold! Where do I sign up?
Brian /-|-\ The next book: "Charles Manson: Lord, Lunatic, or Liar"
| 0alt.atheism
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livesey@solntze.wpd.sgi.com (Jon Livesey) | Re: An Anecdote about Islam | sgi | In article <114127@bu.edu>, jaeger@buphy.bu.edu (Gregg Jaeger) writes:
|>
|> I don't understand the point of this petty sarcasm. It is a basic
|> principle of Islam that if one is born muslim or one says "I testify
|> that there is no god but God and Mohammad is a prophet of God" that,
|> so long as one does not explicitly reject Islam by word then one _must_
|> be considered muslim by all muslims. So the phenomenon you're attempting
|> to make into a general rule or psychology is a direct odds with basic
|> Islamic principles. If you want to attack Islam you could do better than
|> than to argue against something that Islam explicitly contradicts.
Then Mr Mozumder is incorrect when he says that when committing
bad acts, people temporarily become atheists?
jon.
| 0alt.atheism
|
livesey@solntze.wpd.sgi.com (Jon Livesey) | Re: Genocide is Caused by Atheism | sgi | In article <1qugin$9tf@horus.ap.mchp.sni.de>, frank@D012S658.uucp (Frank O'Dwyer) writes:
|> In article <1qkogg$k@fido.asd.sgi.com> livesey@solntze.wpd.sgi.com (Jon Livesey) writes:
|>
|> #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.
|>
|> Indeed I may. And one may be an atheist and also be gullible, excitable
|> and easily led.
|>
|> #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.
|>
|> Sure. But whether or not they are atheists is what we are discussing,
|> not whether they are easily led.
Not if you show that these hypothetical atheists are gullible, excitable
and easily led from some concrete cause. In that case we would also
have to discuss if that concrete cause, rather than atheism, was the
factor that caused their subsequent behaviour.
jon.
| 0alt.atheism
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Alan.Olsen@p17.f40.n105.z1.fidonet.org (Alan Olsen) | After 2000 years, can we say that Christian Morality is | null |
MC> Theory of Creationism: MY theistic view of the theory of
MC> creationism, (there are many others) is stated in Genesis
MC> 1. In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
And which order of Creation do you accept? The story of creation is one of the
many places in the Bible where the Story contradicts itself. The following is
an example...
GEN 1:25 And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle
after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his
kind: and God saw that it was good.
GEN 1:26 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness:
and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of
the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every
creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.
GEN 2:18 And the LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be
alone; I will make him an help meet for him.
GEN 2:19 And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the
field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he
would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was
the name thereof.
Even your Bible cannot agree on how things were created. Why should we
believe in it?
Alan
| 0alt.atheism
|
bobbe@vice.ICO.TEK.COM (Robert Beauchaine) | Re: Requests | Tektronix Inc., Beaverton, Or. | In article <healta.157.735271671@saturn.wwc.edu> healta@saturn.wwc.edu (Tammy R Healy) writes:
>
>Bob, if you're wanting an excuse to convert to Christianity, you gonna have
>to look elsewhere.
>
Damn. And I did so have my hopes up.
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
Bob Beauchaine bobbe@vice.ICO.TEK.COM
They said that Queens could stay, they blew the Bronx away,
and sank Manhattan out at sea.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
| 0alt.atheism
|
rm03@ic.ac.uk (Mr R. Mellish) | Re: university violating separation of church/state? | Imperial College | In article <199304041750.AA17104@kepler.unh.edu> dmn@kepler.unh.edu (...until kings become philosophers or philosophers become kings) writes:
>
>
>
> Recently, RAs have been ordered (and none have resisted or cared about
>it apparently) to post a religious flyer entitled _The Soul Scroll: Thoughts
>on religion, spirituality, and matters of the soul_ on the inside of bathroom
>stall doors. (at my school, the University of New Hampshire) It is some sort
>of newsletter assembled by a Hall Director somewhere on campus.
[most of post deleted]
>
> Please respond as soon as possible. I'd like these religious postings to
>stop, NOW!
>
>
>Thanks,
>
> Dana
>
>
>
There is an easy way out....
Post the flyers on the stall doors, but add at the bottom, in nice large
capitals,
EMERGENCY TOILET PAPER
:)
--
------ Robert Mellish, FOG, IC, UK ------
Email: r.mellish@ic.ac.uk Net: rm03@sg1.cc.ic.ac.uk IRC: HobNob
------ and also the mrs joyful prize for rafia work. ------
| 0alt.atheism
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frank@D012S658.uucp (Frank O'Dwyer) | Re: After 2000 years, can we say that Christian Morality is | Siemens-Nixdorf AG | In article <1qvtk4$jep@kyle.eitech.com> ekr@kyle.eitech.com (Eric Rescorla) writes:
#In article <1qu2c9$4o4@horus.ap.mchp.sni.de> frank@D012S658.uucp (Frank O'Dwyer) writes:
#>Ordinarily, it is also a *value* judgement, though it needn't be (one
#>could "do science" without believing it was worth a damn in any context,
#>though that hardly seems sensible).
#No, you're just overloading the word "value" again. It is an
#estimation of probability of correctness, not an estimation of "worth."
#Shit, I don't even know what "worth" means. Consider the possibility
#that I am not interested in knowing truth. I could still believe
#that science was the most likely way to get truth, and not value
#science at all.
But once you make a decision on the value of truth, and the likelihood of
science getting it, the rest follows. In your example, science is necessarily
worthless, and so are its results, because truth is worthless, assuming that's
all science is good for. And it's no accident that phrases such as "good
for" fit so naturally in this context.
#Just because evaluating an arithmetic expression
#and asking how much you value life both involve the word "value" doesn't
#mean that they refer to the same thing at all. I understand that
#the word value is used for both, but you have to be clear in what
#sense you are using the words. I agree with judging science as a
#value in the first sense, but not the second.
But I don't use it in the second sense. Consider that F=ma is no
different than F=$3 until I note the connection with reality that F=ma has, and
F=$3 does not. I'm making a decision as to the importance of F=ma
over other expressions I can compute. I'm valuing it, whether implicitly or
directly, because I'm saying that things that have a basis in reality
are different to other things which do not. And _no-one_ points
out an _unimportant_ difference, _except_ to say that it's unimportant.
"Important", "useful", "worthy", etc. are all words with evaluative
power, quite different from evaluating an expression. I'm careful
to use "value" in the sense I mean, which is invariably the first.
#>#I don't understand your point here. What do you mean by "not quite-sure
#>#observations?" It gets observed all the time that if you don't
#>#buy into a whole series of assumptions about how science is
#>#done, the results become meaningless.
#>Well, how do you know that "it" gets observed all the time? This
#>is your own private, subjective, "it" is it not? It is not binding
#>on the rest of us.
#Huh? What are you talking about? People frequently point out the
#point I made above. That is what I mean by 'observed'.
O.K., I misunderstood. I thought you meant observed in the sense
of 'not-quite-sure-observations', by which I mean those undertaken
by people.
#>#>DES does not work in a value vacuum. Nothing else does, either.
#>#This is just truth by blatant assertion. Your "in any important sense"
#>#seem to be just weasel words. Imagine that I have a box which
#>#accepts 16 bytes and uses the first 8 to ECB the second 8.
#>#It still does a perfect job of DESing, whether or not any input
#>#is being made at the time--whether or not anyone values mathematics..
#>The concept of a DES box which can be assumed to work as you describe in
#>the absence of an assumption of objective reality is incoherent. Such a box
#>may as well be assumed to wear a dufflecoat and go to the Limerick Races.
#Truth by blatant assertion again, Frank. It's observationally the
#case that when you measure it, it works. It can be reasonably well
#assumed that it will work even when you are not measuring it, barring
#quantum silliness about how it might have disappeared and reappeared.
#It doesn't take a notion of objective reality to discuss my observations.
Yes it does. You're saying in effect "it works independently of what I
believe", and basing that statement on your "reasonable assumption" (i.e.
unsupported belief) that it works indepently of what you believe. It
begs the question rather obviously. And of course, "reasonable
assumption" seems to be weasel words for "seems useful", "useful"
belonging to world of ghosts and values, and therefore being unreal.
--
Frank O'Dwyer 'I'm not hatching That'
odwyer@sse.ie from "Hens", by Evelyn Conlon
| 0alt.atheism
|
danb@shell.portal.com (Dan E Babcock) | Re: Amusing atheists and agnostics | Portal Communications Company -- 408/973-9111 (voice) 408/973-8091 (data) | In article <ofp1qP600VpdINppwh@andrew.cmu.edu> Nanci Ann Miller <nm0w+@andrew.cmu.edu> writes:
>timmbake@mcl.ucsb.edu (Bake Timmons) writes:
>> There lies the hypocrisy, dude. Atheism takes as much faith as theism.
>> Admit it!
>
>Besides... not believing in a god means one doesn't have to deal with all
>of the extra baggage that comes with it! This leaves a person feeling
>wonderfully free, especially after beaten over the head with it for years!
>I agree that religion and belief is often an important psychological healer
>for many people and for that reason I think it's important. However,
>trying to force a psychological fantasy (I don't mean that in a bad way,
>but that's what it really is) on someone else who isn't interested is
>extremely rude. What if I still believed in Santa Claus and said that my
It should be noted that belief in God is in itself no more a behavoral
imperative than lack of belief. It is religion which causes the harm,
not the belief in God.
Dan
| 0alt.atheism
|
jbrown@batman.bmd.trw.com | Re: Gulf War and Peace-niks | null | In article <1993Apr20.062328.19776@bmerh85.bnr.ca>,
dgraham@bmers30.bnr.ca (Douglas Graham) writes:
[...]
>
> Wait a minute. You said *never* play a Chamberlain. Since the US
> *is* playing Chamberlain as far as East Timor is concerned, wouldn't
> that lead you to think that your argument is irrelevant and had nothing
> to do with the Gulf War? Actually, I rather like your idea. Perhaps
> the rest of the world should have bombed (or maybe missiled) Washington
> when the US invaded Nicaragua, Grenada, Panama, Vietnam, Mexico, Hawaii,
> or any number of other places.
Wait a minute, Doug. I know you are better informed than that. The US
has never invaded Nicaragua (as far as I know). We liberated Grenada
from the Cubans to protect US citizens there and to prevent the completion
of a strategic air strip. Panama we invaded, true (twice this century).
Vietnam? We were invited in by the government of S. Vietnam. (I guess
we "invaded" Saudi Arabia during the Gulf War, eh?) Mexico? We have
invaded Mexico 2 or 3 times, once this century, but there were no missiles
for anyone to shoot over here at that time. Hawaii? We liberated it from
Spain.
So if you mean by the word "invaded" some sort of military action where
we cross someone's border, you are right 5 out of 6. But normally
"invaded" carries a connotation of attacking an autonomous nation.
(If some nation "invades" the U.S. Virgin Islands, would they be
invading the Virgin Islands or the U.S.?) So from this point of
view, your score falls to 2 out of 6 (Mexico, Panama).
[...]
>
> What's a "peace-nik"? Is that somebody who *doesn't* masturbate
> over "Guns'n'Ammo" or what? Is it supposed to be bad to be a peace-nik?
No, it's someone who believes in "peace-at-all-costs". In other words,
a person who would have supported giving Hitler not only Austria and
Czechoslakia, but Poland too if it could have averted the War. And one
who would allow Hitler to wipe all *all* Jews, slavs, and political
dissidents in areas he controlled as long as he left the rest of us alone.
"Is it supposed to be bad to be a peace-nik," you ask? Well, it depends
on what your values are. If you value life over liberty, peace over
freedom, then I guess not. But if liberty and freedom mean more to you
than life itself; if you'd rather die fighting for liberty than live
under a tyrant's heel, then yes, it's "bad" to be a peace-nik.
The problem with most peace-niks it they consider those of us who are
not like them to be "bad" and "unconscionable". I would not have any
argument or problem with a peace-nik if they held to their ideals and
stayed out of all conflicts or issues, especially those dealing with
the national defense. But no, they are not willing to allow us to
legitimately hold a different point-of-view. They militate and
many times resort to violence all in the name of peace. (What rank
hypocrisy!) All to stop we "warmongers" who are willing to stand up
and defend our freedoms against tyrants, and who realize that to do
so requires a strong national defense.
Time to get off the soapbox now. :)
[...]
> --
> Doug Graham dgraham@bnr.ca My opinions are my own.
Regards,
Jim B.
| 0alt.atheism
|
9051467f@levels.unisa.edu.au (The Desert Brat) | Keith IS a relativist! | Cured, discharged | In article <1pigidINNsot@gap.caltech.edu>, keith@cco.caltech.edu (Keith Allan Schneider) writes:
> Not so. If you are thrown into a cage with a tiger and get mauled, do you
> blame the tiger?
AHA! He admits it! He IS a moral relativist!
Keith, if you start wafffling on about how it is different for a human
to maul someone thrown into it's cage (so to speak), you'd better start
posting tome decent evidence or retract your 'I think there is an absolute
morality' blurb a few weeks ago.
> keith
The Desert Brat
--
John J McVey, Elc&Eltnc Eng, Whyalla, Uni S Australia, ________
9051467f@levels.unisa.edu.au T.S.A.K.C. \/Darwin o\
For replies, mail to whjjm@wh.whyalla.unisa.edu.au /\________/
Disclaimer: Unisa hates my opinions. bb bb
+------------------------------------------------------+-----------------------+
|"It doesn't make a rainbow any less beautiful that we | "God's name is smack |
|understand the refractive mechanisms that chance to | for some." |
|produce it." - Jim Perry, perry@dsinc.com | - Alice In Chains |
+------------------------------------------------------+-----------------------+
| 0alt.atheism
|
timmbake@mcl.ucsb.edu (Bake Timmons) | Re: Amusing atheists and agnostics | null | nancyo@fraser.sfu.ca (Nancy Patricia O'Connor) writes:
>timmbake@mcl.ucsb.edu (Bake Timmons) writes:
>>Rule #4: 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.
Yup. I can hear the _millions_ cheering for DK right now! Josef Stalin eat
your heart out! :)
--
Bake Timmons, III
-- "...there's nothing higher, stronger, more wholesome and more useful in life
than some good memory..." -- Alyosha in Brothers Karamazov (Dostoevsky)
| 0alt.atheism
|
livesey@solntze.wpd.sgi.com (Jon Livesey) | Re: Genocide is Caused by Atheism | sgi | In article <1993Apr19.112008.26198@monu6.cc.monash.edu.au>, darice@yoyo.cc.monash.edu.au (Fred Rice) writes:
|> In <1qi3fc$jkj@fido.asd.sgi.com> livesey@solntze.wpd.sgi.com (Jon Livesey) writes:
|>
|> >In article <1993Apr14.110209.7703@monu6.cc.monash.edu.au>, darice@yoyo.cc.monash.edu.au (Fred Rice) writes:
|> >>
|> >> Some here on alt.atheism think that by condemning the actions
|> >> of some of those who call themselves Muslims, they are condemning
|> >> Islam.
|>
|> >Do you read minds, Mr Rice? You know what posters think now,
|> >not just what they write?
|>
|> >For myself, I only have what people are posting here to go on,
|> >and that's what I am commenting on.
|>
|> I think you may have misunderstood me.
|>
|> I mean that one does not really criticize _Islam_ necessarily by
|> bringing Khomeini etc. into the argument, for whether he is or is not
|> following Islam has to be determined by examining his actions against
|> Islamic teachings. Islamic teachings are contained in the Qur'an and
|> hadiths (reported sayings and doings of the Prophet).
That's funny, I thought you were making a statement about what
people think. In fact, I see it quoted up there.
jon.
| 0alt.atheism
|
keith@cco.caltech.edu (Keith Allan Schneider) | Re: <Political Atheists? | California Institute of Technology, Pasadena | livesey@solntze.wpd.sgi.com (Jon Livesey) writes:
>Now along comes Mr Keith Schneider and says "Here is an "objective
>moral system". And then I start to ask him about the definitions
>that this "objective" system depends on, and, predictably, the whole
>thing falls apart.
It only falls apart if you attempt to apply it. This doesn't mean that
an objective system can't exist. It just means that one cannot be
implemented.
keith
| 0alt.atheism
|
cobb@alexia.lis.uiuc.edu (Mike Cobb) | Science and theories | University of Illinois at Urbana | As per various threads on science and creationism, I've started dabbling into a
book called Christianity and the Nature of Science by JP Moreland. A question
that I had come from one of his comments. He stated that God is not
necessarily a religious term, but could be used as other scientific terms that
give explanation for events or theories, without being a proven scientific
fact. I think I got his point -- I can quote the section if I'm being vague.
The examples he gave were quarks and continental plates. Are there
explanations of science or parts of theories that are not measurable in and of
themselves, or can everything be quantified, measured, tested, etc.?
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 3rd Debate cobb@alexia.lis.uiuc.edu
Nobody can explain everything to anybody. G.K.Chesterton
| 0alt.atheism
|
ednclark@kraken.itc.gu.edu.au (Jeffrey Clark) | Re: Societal basis for morality References: <4fm9iYO00iV303voYt@andrew.cmu.edu> | ITC, Griffith University, Brisbane, Australia | cobb@alexia.lis.uiuc.edu (Mike Cobb) writes:
>I'll yield the discussion on absolute morality until I can think of another way
>to discuss it. If you're interested in a change, here's an idea.
>If morals come from what is societally accepted, why follow that? What right do
>we have to expect others to follow our notion of societally mandated morality?
>Pardon the extremism, but couldn't I murder your "brother" and say that I was
>exercising my rights as I saw them, was doing what felt good, didn't want
>anyone forcing their morality on me, or I don't follow your "morality" ?
Yes, and then you can suffer the consequences in our collective decision to
incarcerate you for that act. Morality is not a necessity for a functional
collection of peoples, just a set of acceptable behaviours (is this the same
thing?). There is no universal moral standard as there are many different
situations in which collections of social organisms find themselves. Some
species of bees see nothing wrong with kicking out a large number of male
bees because they are being a burden on the food supplies of the colony. The
bees die of course, but it was for the good of the colony as a whole, so was
it immoral?
Our society (at least our western one) is one of abundance when it comes to
the basics; food, water and shelter. Therefore our moral standards are
based upon those circumstances. Unfortunately we enforce our moral
standards on collections of peoples who are not in similar situations,
because we believe in some "universal morality". What I am saying is that,
yes, you CAN still murder my sibling, but don't expect your peers to be
impressed by it in our society. However in some other circumstances, it may
actually be a "moral" thing to do (in which case it wouldn't be called
murder, probably sacrifice). After the act, you could say what you liked,
but you must make a conscious decision on whether or not your society will
condone your act, so as to evaluate the consequences to yourself, including
how you will feel about it (remember your feelings have been socially
imbued).
Jeff.
I keep trying to write a book of ideas in two paragraphs and it just comes
out disorganised garble!
| 0alt.atheism
|
cfairman@leland.Stanford.EDU (Carolyn Jean Fairman) | Re: *** The list of Biblical contradictions | DSG, Stanford University, CA 94305, USA | joslin@pogo.isp.pitt.edu (David Joslin) writes:
>Someone writes:
>>I found a list of Biblical contradictions and cleaned it up a bit,
>>but now I'd like some help with it.
>I'm curious to know what purpose people think these lists serve.
It's about time. Why do atheists spend so much time paying attention
to the bible, anyway?
Face it, there are better things to do with your life! I used to
chuckle and snort over the silliness in that book and the absurdity
of people believing in it as truth, etc. Why do we spend so little
time on the Mayan religion, or the Native Americans? Heck, the Native
Americans have signifigantly more interesting myths. Also, what
about the Egyptians.
I think we pay so much attention to Christianity because we accept
it as a _religion_ and not a mythology, which I find more accurate.
I try to be tolerant. It gets very hard when someone places a book
under my nose and tells me it's special. It's not.
Carolyn
| 0alt.atheism
|
kmr4@po.CWRU.edu (Keith M. Ryan) | Re: After 2000 years, can we say that Christian Morality is | Case Western Reserve University | In article <1qkhju$43c@horus.ap.mchp.sni.de> frank@D012S658.uucp (Frank O'Dwyer) writes:
> Truth is better than falsehood,
So, if you were housing a Jew in your home in Holand, 1942; and
the SS troopers asks if you are housing a Jew, is it objectively better to
tell the truth, " I am holding a Jew ", than a falsehood, " No I am not
holding a Jew"?
In this case, let us assume that if you lie, the SS trooper leaves,
never to bother you. Either way, nothing is ever done to you- no prison,
trouble, etc.
Of course, if you tell the truth, then the Jew will be executed.
Is it better to tell the truth, or lie?
[ In this case, I would consider not saying anything to be a lie.
Or, at the very least, it implies that falsehood is on the same level of
telling the truth. Or, we can stipulate that the SS have methods to make you
say something: only they can not control whether or not you say "yes" or
"no". Only that you will say one or the other. ]
---
Only when the Sun starts to orbit the Earth will I accept the Bible.
| 0alt.atheism
|
Alan.Olsen@p17.f40.n105.z1.fidonet.org (Alan Olsen) | Albert Sabin | null |
BR> From: wpr@atlanta.dg.com (Bill Rawlins)
BR> Newsgroups: alt.atheism
BR> Organization: DGSID, Atlanta, GA
BR> Since you have referred to the Messiah, I assume you
BR> are referring to the New Testament. Please detail
BR> your complaints or e-mail if you don't want to post.
BR> First-century Greek is well-known and
BR> well-understood. Have you considered Josephus, the Jewish
BR> Historian, who also wrote of Jesus? In addition,
BR> the four gospel accounts are very much in harmony.
It is also well known that the comments in Josephus relating to Jesus were
inserted (badly) by later editors. As for the four gospels being in harmony
on the issue of Jesus... You know not of what you speak. Here are a few
contradictions starting with the trial and continuing through the assension.
>The death of Judas after the betrayal of Jesus
Acts 1:18: "Now this man (Judas) purchased a field with the reward of
iniquity; and falling headlong, he burst asunder in the midst, and all his
bowels gushed out."
Matt. 27:5-7: "And he (Judas) cast down the pieces of silver in the temple,
and departed, and went and hanged himself. And the chief priests...bought
with them the potter's field."
>What was Jesus' prediction regarding Peter's denial?
Before the cock crow - Matthew 26:34
Before the cock crow twice - Mark 14:30
>How many times did the cock crow?
MAR 14:72 And the second time the cock crew. And Peter called to mind the
word that Jesus said unto him, Before the cock crow twice, thou shalt deny
me thrice. And when he thought thereon, he wept.
MAT 26:74 Then began he to curse and to swear, saying, I know not the man.
And immediately the cock crew.
MAT 26:75 And Peter remembered the word of Jesus, which said unto him,
Before the cock crow, thou shalt deny me thrice. And he went out, and wept
bitterly.
LUK 22:60 And Peter said, Man, I know not what thou sayest. And immediately,
while he yet spake, the cock crew.
LUK 22:61 And the Lord turned, and looked upon Peter. And Peter remembered
the word of the Lord, how he had said unto him, Before the cock crow, thou
shalt deny me thrice.
JOH 13:38 Jesus answered him, Wilt thou lay down thy life for my sake?
Verily,
verily, I say unto thee, The cock shall not crow, still thou hast denied me
thrice.
JOH 18:27 Peter then denied again: and immediately the cock crew.
>destruction of cities (what said was jeremiah was zechariah)
(This is interesting because Matthew quotes a prophesy that was never made!
Not the only time he does this either...)
MAT 27:9 Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremy the prophet,
saying, And they took the thirty pieces of silver, the price of him that was
valued, whom they of the children of Israel did value;
zechariah 11:11-13
(nothing in Jeremiah remotely like)
What was the color of the robe placed on Jesus during his trial?
scarlet - Matthew 27:28
purple John 19:2
>The time of the Crucifiction
Mark says the third hour, or 9 a.m., but John says the sixth hour (noon) was
when the sentence was passed.
>Inscription on the Cross
Matthew -- This is Jesus the king of the Jews
Mark -- The King of the Jews
Luke -- This is the king of the Jews
John -- Jesus of Nazareth the king of the Jews
>What did they give him to drink?
vinegar - Matthew 27:34
wine with myrrh - Mark 15:23
>Women at the Cross
Matthew said many stood far off, including Mary Magdaline, Mary the mother of
James, and the mother of Zebedee's children. Mark and Luke speak of many far
off, and Mark includes Mary Magdeline and Mary the mother of James the less.
John says that Jesus's mother stood at the cross, along with her sister and
Mary Magdalene.
>Jesus' last words
Matt.27:46,50: "And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice,
saying, "Eli, eli, lama sabachthani?" that is to say, "My God, my God, why
hast thou forsaken me?" ...Jesus, when he cried again with a loud voice,
yielded u the ghost."
Luke23:46: "And when Jesus had cried with a loud voice, he said, "Father, unto
thy hands I commend my spirit:" and having said thus, he gave up the ghost."
John19:30: "When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, he said, "It is
finished:" and he bowed his head, and gave up the ghost."
>Events of the crucifiction
Matthew says that the veil of the temple was rent, that there was an
earthquake, and that it was dark from the sixth to the ninth hour, that graves
opened and bodies of the saints arose and went into Jeruselem, appearing to
many (beating Jesus to the resurection). Mark and Luke speak of darkness and
the veil of the temple being rent but mention no earthquake or risen saints.
John is the only one who mentions Jesus's side being peirced.
>Burial of Jesus
Matthew says the Jews asked Pilate for a guard to prevent the body from being
stolen by the disciples, and for the tomb to be sealed. All of this was
supposedly done, but the other gospels do not mention these precautions.
>How long was Jesus in the tomb?
Depends where you look; Matthew 12:40 gives Jesus prophesying that he will
spend "three days and three nights in the heart of the earth", and Mark 10:34
has "after three days (meta treis emeras) he will rise again". As far as I can
see from a quick look, the prophecies have "after three days", but the
post-resurrection narratives have "on the third day".
>Time of the Resurection
Matthew says Sunday at dawn, Mark says the sun was rising, and John says it
was dark.
> Who was at the Empty Tomb? Is it :
MAT 28:1 In the end of the sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first
day of the week, came Mary Magdalene and the other Mary to see the sepulchre.
MAR 16:1 And when the sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother
of James, and Salome, had bought sweet spices, that they might come and
anoint him.
JOH 20:1 The first day of the week cometh Mary Magdalene early, when it
was yet dark, unto the sepulchre, and seeth the stone taken away from the
sepulchre.
>Whom did they see at the tomb?
MAT 28:2 And, behold, there was a great earthquake: for the angel of the
Lord descended from heaven, and came and rolled back the stone from the door,
and sat upon it.
MAT 28:3 His countenance was like lightning, and his raiment white as
snow: MAT 28:4 And for fear of him the keepers did shake, and became as
dead men. MAT 28:5 And the angel answered and said unto the women, Fear
not ye: for I know that ye seek Jesus, which was crucified.
MAR 16:5 And entering into the sepulchre, they saw a young man sitting on
the right side, clothed in a long white garment; and they were affrighted.
LUK 24:4 And it came to pass, as they were much perplexed thereabout,
behold, two men stood by them in shining garments:
JOH 20:12 And seeth two angels in white sitting, the one at the head, and
the other at the feet, where the body of Jesus had lain.
>Belief that the disciples stole Jesus's body
Matthew says the guard was paid to tell this story, but no other gospel makes
this claim.
>Appearences of the risen Jesus
Matthew says an angel at the tomb told the two Marys and that Jesus also told
them, to tell the disciples to meet him in Galilee. The disciples then went
to a mountain previously agreed opon, and met Jesus there. This was his only
appearance, except to the women at the tomb. Matthew only devotes five verses
to the visit with the disciples.
Mark says that Jesus walked with two of the disciples in the country, and that
they told the rest of the disciples, who refused to believe. Later he
appeared to the 11 disciples at mealtime.
Luke says two followers went, the same day that Jesus rose from the dead, to
Emmaus, a village eight miles from Jeruselem, and there Jesus jioned them but
was unrecognised. While they ate a meal together that evening, they finally
recognised Jesus, whereopon he dissapeared. Returning at once to Jeruselem,
they told the
disciples of their experience, and suddenly Jesus appeared among them,
frightening them, as they thought he was a spirit. Jesus then ate some fish
and honey and then preached to them.
John says Jesus appeared to the disciples the evening of the day he arrose, in
Jeruselem, where they were hiding. He breathed the Holy Ghost opon them, but
Thomas was not present and refused to believe. Eight days later Jesus joined
the disciples again at the same place and this time he convinced Thomas. Once
more Jesus made an
appearance to the disciples at the sea of Tiberias but again was not
recognised.
After telling them to cast their netson the other side of the boat, Jesus
becomes known to them and prepares bread and fish for them. They all eat
together and converse.
The book of acts further adds to the confusion. It says that Jesus showed
himself to the apostles for a period of 40 days after his resurection (thus
contradicting Matthew, Mark, Luke AND John) and spoke to them of things
pertaining to the kingdom of God: "And when he had spoken these things, while
they beheld, he was taken up; and a cloud recieved him out of their sight.
And while they looked steadfastly toward heaven as he went up, two men stood
by them in white apparel: Which also said, Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye
gazing into heaven? This same Jesus, which is taken from you into heaven,
shall so comein like manneras ye have seen him go into heaven" Acts 1:3-11
Paul outdoes every other "authority" by saying that Jesus was seen by 500
persons between the time of the resurection and the
assension, although he does not say where. He also claims that he himself "as
one born out of due time" also saw Jesus. 1 Cor 15:6-8.
>The Ascension
Matthew says nothing about it. Mark casually says that Jesus was recieved into
heaven after he was finished talking with the
disciples in Jeruselem. Luke says Jesus led the desciples to Bethany and that
while he blessed them, he was parted from them and carried up into heaven.
John says nothing about it. Acts
contradicts all of the above. (See previous section)
>When second coming?
MAT 24:34 Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass, till all
these things be fulfilled.
MAR 13:30 Verily I say unto you, that this generation shall not pass, till
all these things be done.
LUK 21:32 Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass away, till
all be fulfilled.
1 thessalonians 4:15-18
>How many apostles were in office between the resurection and ascention
1 Corinthians 15:5 (12)
Matthew 27:3-5 (minus one from 12)
Acts 1:9-26 (Mathias not elected until after resurrection)
MAT 28:16 Then the eleven disciples went away into Galilee, into a mountain
where Jesus had appointed them.
> ascend to heaven
"And Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven." (2 Kings 2:11)
"No man hath ascended up to heaven but he that came down from heaven, ...
the Son of Man." (John 3:13)
As you can see, there are a number of contradictions in the account of the
trial, crucifiction and resurection of Jesus. If these are good witnesses,
you would think that they could get SOME of these important details right!
(In fact, I cannot find very many points on where they AGREE. You would think
that they could at least agree on some of the points they were supposedly
observing!) Because of the fact that there is so much contradiction and error,
the story of the resurection as presented cannot be taken as literal truth.
(Due to the nature of the story, I doubt if it should be taken as ANY sort of
truth.)
Alan
| 0alt.atheism
|
marshall@csugrad.cs.vt.edu (Kevin Marshall) | Re: Rawlins debunks creationism | Virginia Tech Computer Science Dept, Blacksburg, VA |
king@ctron.com (John E. King) writes:
>"The modern theory of evolution is so inadequate that it deserves to be
>treated as a matter of faith." -- Francis Hitching
The Modern Theory of Creationism: "He did it!" - Joe Creationist
I like it. Short. To the point. Made for Hollywood. This makes a hell
of a lot more sense than evolution! 8^)
--
--- __ _______ ---
||| Kevin Marshall \ \/ /_ _/ Computer Science Department |||
||| Virginia Tech \ / / / marshall@csugrad.cs.vt.edu |||
--- Blacksburg, Virginia \/ /_/ (703) 232-6529 ---
| 0alt.atheism
|
arromdee@jyusenkyou.cs.jhu.edu (Ken Arromdee) | Re: After 2000 years, can we say that Christian Morality is oxymoronic? | Johns Hopkins University CS Dept. | In article <1993Apr20.053355.19185@bmerh85.bnr.ca> dgraham@bmers30.bnr.ca (Douglas Graham) writes:
>>It is fallacious to state something as an undisputed fact when the "fact"'s
>>truth assumes that one side of a dispute is correct.
>If this were truly a fallacy, nobody would be able to say anything about
>anything. Is it a fallacy for me to state that the earth is nearly
>spherical, knowing full well that there are people who think it's flat?
If you were arguing with a group of people likely to contain flat-earthers, and
did not mention the sphericity of the Earth but instead made a comment which
used it as a hidden assumption and was otherwise phrased so that flat-earthers
would agree with it, yes....
--
"On the first day after Christmas my truelove served to me... Leftover Turkey!
On the second day after Christmas my truelove served to me... Turkey Casserole
that she made from Leftover Turkey.
[days 3-4 deleted] ... Flaming Turkey Wings! ...
-- Pizza Hut commercial (and M*tlu/A*gic bait)
Ken Arromdee (arromdee@jyusenkyou.cs.jhu.edu)
| 0alt.atheism
|
frank@D012S658.uucp (Frank O'Dwyer) | Re: After 2000 years, can we say that Christian Morality is | Siemens-Nixdorf AG | In article <16BB7B468.I3150101@dbstu1.rz.tu-bs.de> I3150101@dbstu1.rz.tu-bs.de (Benedikt Rosenau) writes:
#In article <1r0fpv$p11@horus.ap.mchp.sni.de>
#frank@D012S658.uucp (Frank O'Dwyer) writes:
#
#(Deletion)
#># Point: Morals are, in essence, personal opinions. Usually
#>#(ideally) well-founded, motivated such, but nonetheless personal. The
#>#fact that a real large lot of people agree on some moral question,
#>#sometimes even for the same reason, does not make morals objective; it
#>#makes humans somewhat alike in their opinions on that moral question,
#>#which can be good for the evolution of a social species.
#>
#>And if a "real large lot" (nice phrase) of people agree that there is a
#>football on a desk, I'm supposed to see a logical difference between the two?
#>Perhaps you can explain the difference to me, since you seem to see it
#>so clearly.
#>
#(rest deleted)
#
#That's a fallacy, and it is not the first time it is pointed out.
It's not a fallacy - note the IF. IF a supermajority of disinterested people
agree on a fundamantal value (we're not doing ethics YET Benedikt), then what
is the difference between that and those people agreeing on a trivial
observation?
#For one, you have never given a set of morals people agree upon. Unlike
#a football. Further, you conveniently ignore here that there are
#many who would not agree on tghe morality of something. The analogy
#does not hold.
I have, however, given an example of a VALUE people agree on, and explained
why. People will agree that their freedom is valuable. I have also
stated that such a value is a necessary condition for doing objective
ethics - the IF assertion above. And that is what I'm talking about, there
isn't a point in talking about ethics if this can't be agreed.
#One can expect sufficiently many people to agree on its being a football,
#while YOU have to give the evidence that only vanishing number disagrees
#with a set of morals YOU have to give.
I'm not doing morals (ethics) if we can't get past values. As I say,
the only cogent objection to my 'freedom' example is that maybe people
aren't talking about the same thing when they answer that it is valuable.
Maybe not, and I want to think about this some, especially the implications
of its being true.
#Further, the above is evidence, not proof. Proof would evolve out of testing
#your theory of absolute morals against competing theories.
Garbage. That's not proof either.
#The above is one of the arguments you reiterate while you never answer
#the objections. Evidence that you are a preacher.
Name that fallacy.
--
Frank O'Dwyer 'I'm not hatching That'
odwyer@sse.ie from "Hens", by Evelyn Conlon
| 0alt.atheism
|
lmh@juliet.caltech.edu (Henling, Lawrence M.) | Re: Americans and Evolution | California Institute of Technology | In article <1993Apr3.195642.25261@njitgw.njit.edu>, dmu5391@hertz.njit.edu (David Utidjian Eng.Sci.) writes...
>In article <31MAR199321091163@juliet.caltech.edu> lmh@juliet.caltech.edu (Henling, Lawrence M.) writes:
> For a complete description of what is, and is not atheism
>or agnosticism see the FAQ for alt.atheism in alt.answers... I think.
>utidjian@remarque.berkeley.edu
I apologize for posting this. I thought it was only going to talk.origins.
I also took my definitions from a 1938 Websters.
Nonetheless, the apparent past arguments over these words imply that like
'bimonthly' and 'biweekly' they have no commonly accepted definitions and
should be used with care.
larry henling lmh@shakes.caltech.edu
| 0alt.atheism
|
madhaus@netcom.com (Maddi Hausmann) | Re: some thoughts. | Society for Putting Things on Top of Other Things | 1. Did you read the FAQs?
2. If NO, Read the FAQs.
3. 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.
4. 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.
5. 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 408/428-3553
Kids, please don't try this at home. Remember, I post professionally.
| 0alt.atheism
|
cobb@alexia.lis.uiuc.edu (Mike Cobb) | Re: After 2000 years, can we say that Christian Morality is | University of Illinois at Urbana | I see the point on falsifying God as per the scientific method. A question
I've always wanted to ask is this: When scientists say that the second law
does not apply to the earth they say it is because it is not a closed system,
i.e. there is energy coming in from an outside force -- namely, the sun. Is
the universe a closed or open system, and how could either be proven? If it is
a closed system, have you been to the outside to look in? If it is open, how
do you know?
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 3rd Debate cobb@alexia.lis.uiuc.edu
With new taxes and spending cuts we'll still have 310 billion dollar deficits.
| 0alt.atheism
|
bil@okcforum.osrhe.edu (Bill Conner) | Re: After 2000 years, can we say that Christian Morality is | Okcforum Unix Users Group | Mark McCullough (mccullou@snake2.cs.wisc.edu) wrote:
: In article <30136@ursa.bear.com> halat@pooh.bears (Jim Halat) writes:
: >Atoms are not objective. They aren't even real. What scientists call
: >an atom is nothing more than a mathematical model that describes
: >certain physical, observable properties of our surroundings. All
: >of which is subjective.
: >
: >-jim halat
: This deserves framing. It really does. "[Atoms] aren't even real."
: Tell me then, those atoms we have seen with electron microscopes are
: atoms now, so what are they? Figments of our imaginations? The
: evidence that atoms are real is overwhelming, but I won't bother with
: most evidence at the moment.
You would have us believe that what the eye perceives as images are
actaully there - as perceived? This may be interesting. I thought
that an electron microscope was used because no wavelength of "light"
can illuminate any "object" of atomic scale. If this image is to have
useful resolution, wouldn't the illuminating sources wavelength have
to be several orders of magnitude less than size of thing observed?
If an atom is a "probablity cloud", lower resolutions would give the
appearance of solidity, but it seems fairly certain that an atom is
not an object is any conventional sense. Obviously I am not a
physicist, but the question does have ramification of a philosophic
nature. Anyway, just a stray thought, carry on ...
Bill
| 0alt.atheism
|
9051467f@levels.unisa.edu.au (The Desert Brat) | Re: Keith Schneider - Stealth Poster? | Cured, discharged | In article <1pa0f4INNpit@gap.caltech.edu>, keith@cco.caltech.edu (Keith Allan Schneider) writes:
> But really, are you threatened by the motto, or by the people that use it?
Every time somone writes something and says it is merely describing the norm,
it is infact re-inforcing that norm upon those programmed not to think for
themselves. The motto is dangerous in itself, it tells the world that every
*true* American is god-fearing, and puts down those who do not fear gods. It
doesn't need anyone to make it dangerous, it does a good job itself by just
existing on your currency.
> keith
The Desert Brat
--
John J McVey, Elc&Eltnc Eng, Whyalla, Uni S Australia, ________
9051467f@levels.unisa.edu.au T.S.A.K.C. \/Darwin o\
For replies, mail to whjjm@wh.whyalla.unisa.edu.au /\________/
Disclaimer: Unisa hates my opinions. bb bb
+------------------------------------------------------+-----------------------+
|"It doesn't make a rainbow any less beautiful that we | "God's name is smack |
|understand the refractive mechanisms that chance to | for some." |
|produce it." - Jim Perry, perry@dsinc.com | - Alice In Chains |
+------------------------------------------------------+-----------------------+
| 0alt.atheism
|
lmh@juliet.caltech.edu (Henling, Lawrence M.) | Re: Americans and Evolution | California Institute of Technology | In article <1APR199313404295@skyblu.ccit.arizona.edu<, lippard@skyblu.ccit.arizona.edu (James J. Lippard) writes...
<In article <31MAR199321091163@juliet.caltech.edu<, lmh@juliet.caltech.edu (Henling, Lawrence M.) writes...
<<Atheism (Greek 'a' not + 'theos' god) Belief that there is no god.
<<Agnosticism (Greek 'a' not + ~ 'gnostein ?' know) Belief that it is
<< not possible to determine if there is a god.
<No. Agnosticism as you have here defined it is a positive belief--a
<belief that it is not possible to determine the existence of any gods.
<That's a belief I'm inclined to reject. You have also defined atheism
<here as a positive belief--that there is no god. A fairly large number
<of atheists on alt.atheism reject this definition, instead holding that
<atheism is simply the absence of belief in a god. Michael Martin, in
<_Atheism: A Philosophical Justification_, distinguishes strong atheism
My mistake. I will have to get a newer dictionary and read the
follow up line.
larry henling lmh@shakes.caltech.edu
| 0alt.atheism
|
livesey@solntze.wpd.sgi.com (Jon Livesey) | Re: Branch Athiests Cult (was Rawlins debunks creationism) | sgi | In article <1r9dd7INNqfk@ctron-news.ctron.com>, king@ctron.com (John E. King) writes:
|>
|> Let me try again.
|>
|> "The doubt that has infiltrated the previous, smugly confident certitude
|> of evolutionary biology has inflamed passions. There is lack of agreement
|> even within warring camps. Sometimes it seems as if there are as many
|> variations on each evolutionary theme as there are individual biologists."
|>
|> Niles Eldridge (yes he's a paleontologist); Natural History; "Evolutionary
|> Housecleaning"; Feb 1982; pg. 78.
It would probably help your education if you actually read some
of Eldridge's books, instead of quoting excerpts from some fact sheet.
Yes, Eldridge doesn't go along with gradualism 100%. However,
in Time Frames he relates how one can sometimes trace the gradual
development of a feature - in this case trilobite eye - over time
scales as long as millions of years.
jon.
| 0alt.atheism
|
marshall@csugrad.cs.vt.edu (Kevin Marshall) | Re: Faith and Dogma | Virginia Tech Computer Science Dept, Blacksburg, VA |
tgk@cs.toronto.edu (Todd Kelley) writes:
>In light of what happened in Waco, I need to get something of my
>chest.
>
>Faith and dogma are dangerous.
>
>Religion inherently encourages the implementation of faith and dogma, and
>for that reason, I scorn religion.
I don't necessarily disagree with your assertion, but I disagree with
your reasoning. (Faith = Bad. Dogma = Bad. Religion -> (Faith ^ Dogma).
Religion -> (Bad ^ Bad). Religion -> Bad.) Unfortunately, you never
state why faith and dogma are dangerous.
If you believe faith and dogma are dangerous because of what happened in
Waco, you are missing the point.
The Branch Davidians made the mistake of confusing the message with the
messenger. They believed Koresh was a prophet, and therefore believed
everything he said. The problem wasn't the religion, it was the
followers. They didn't die because of faith and dogma, they died because
of their zealotry (or, in the case of the children, the zealotry of their
parents).
>I have expressed this notion in the past. Some Christians debated
>with me whether Christianity leaves any room for reasoning. I claimed
>rationality is quelled out of Christianity by faith and dogma.
So Christians are totally irrational? Irrational with respect to their
religion only? What are you saying? One's belief in a Christian God does
not make one totally irrational. I think I know what you were getting at,
but I'd rather hear you expand on the subject.
>A philosopher cannot be a Christian because a philosopher can change his mind,
>whereas a Christian cannot, due to the nature of faith and dogma present
>in any religion.
Again, this statement is too general. A Christian is perfectly capable of
being a philosopher, and absolutely capable of changing his/her mind. Faith in
God is a belief, and all beliefs may change. Would you assert that atheists
would make poor philosophers because they are predisposed to not believe in a
God which, of course, may show unfair bias when studying, say, religion?
>I claimed that a ``Christian philosopher'' is not a Christian,
>but is a person whose beliefs at the moment correspond with those
>of Christianity. Consider that a person visiting or guarding a prison
>is not a prisoner, unless you define a prisoner simply to be someone
>in a prison.
>Can we define a prisoner to be someone who at the moment is in a prison?
>Can we define a Christian to be someone who at the moment has Christian
>beliefs? No, because if a person is free to go, he is not a prisoner.
>Similarly, if a person is not constrained by faith and dogma, he is not
>a Christian.
So, Christianity is a prison, eh? Ever heard of parole? You have read far
too much into this subject. A Christian is one who follows the religion
based on the teachings of a man named Jesus Christ. Nowhere does this
definition imply that one cannot change one's mind. In prison, however,
you can't just decide to leave. One is voluntary, the other is not. The
two are not compatible.
>Religion is like the gun that doesn't kill anybody. Religion encourages
>faith and dogma and although it doesn't directly condemn people,
>it encourages the use of ``just because'' thinking. It is
>``just because'' thinking that kills people.
I prefer to think of religion as a water pistol filled with urine. 8^)
Seriously, though, some (but certainly not all) religions do condemn
groups of people. The common target is the "infidel," a curious being
who is alternately an atheist, a non-<insert specific religious
affiliation here>, a person of a different race, or an Egyptian. 8^)
Please explain how "just because" thinking kills people. (And please
state more in your answer than "Waco.")
>Of course, not all humans are capable of thought, and we'd still
>have genocide and maybe even some mass suicide...but not as much.
>I'm willing to bet on that.
I'll see your conscientious peacenik and raise you a religious
zealot with bad acne. 8^) By the way, I wasn't aware mass suicide
was a problem. Waco and Jonestown were isolated incidents.
Mass suicides are far from common.
--
--- __ _______ ---
||| Kevin Marshall \ \/ /_ _/ Computer Science Department |||
||| Virginia Tech \ / / / marshall@csugrad.cs.vt.edu |||
--- Blacksburg, Virginia \/ /_/ (703) 232-6529 ---
| 0alt.atheism
|
schlegel@cwis.unomaha.edu (Mark Schlegel) | Re: Amusing atheists and agnostics | University of Nebraska at Omaha | timmbake@mcl.ucsb.edu (Bake Timmons) writes:
> Atheism denies the existence of God. This is logically bankrupt --
>where is the proof of this nonexistence? It's a joke.
This is one of my favorite fallacious points against atheism, i.e. the
belief that you can't deny anything that you can't prove doesn't exist.
This is easily nailed by showing that an infinite number of beings are
conceivable but not observed to exist, does this mean that we would have
to believe in all of them? According to the above poster, we must believe
in objects or beings that haven't been proved not to exist so why stop at
God? (there could be a huge number of beings identical to Ronald Reagan
except for trivial differences, say one is missing a finger, one has blond
hair,... and they all live on other planets so we can't see them) The
reason no one but atheists bring this up is that none of these christians
have a vested interest in these unknown beings with the exception of God.
>Fine, but why do these people shoot themselves in the foot and mock the idea of
>a God? Here again is a classic atheist fallacy.
How did they shoot themselves in the foot?
> Radical Muslims, the Crusades, the Inquisition are common examples that
>atheists like to bring up as marks against religion. How weak! Only fools can
>take that drivel seriously. How about the grand-daddy of all human atrocities,
>the Stalinist movement?
> Twenty eight MILLION people _killed_ under this leadership, which
>proudly featured atheism.
There is a big difference here, Stalin didn't say that he stood for a
particular moral position (i.e. against murder and terrorism, etc.) and
then did the opposite (like the religious movements), he was at least
an honest killer. (This is NOT a support of Stalin but an attack on this
viewpoint). Saying that atheism supports murder and violence just because
one man was a tyrant and an atheist is just bad logic, look at all the
russians that helped Stalin that weren't atheists - don't they contradict
your point? Besides your point assumes that his atheism was relevant
to his murdering people, this is just the common assumption that atheists
can't value life as much as theists (which you didn't support).
> Agnostics are not as funny because they are more reasonable. Yet
>they do in some sense seem funny because they believe that the existence of God
>is unknowable. This in itself is every bit the assumption that atheism is,
>though it's less arrogant and pompous.
Ah, and here's another point you didn't get out of the FAQ. An atheist
doesn't have to hold the positive view that god doesn't exist, he/she may
just have the non-existence of the positive belief. Here's the example:
Strong atheism - "I believe god does not exist" a positive belief
Weak atheism - "I don't believe in a god" a negative belief
these are NOT the same, some one that has never thought of the idea of
god in their whole life is technically an atheist, but not the kind that
you are calling unreasonable. Or let's look at it this way (in sets)
suppose that a given person has a huge set of ideas that I will represent
as capital letters and these people then either believe that these ideas
exist as real objects or not. So if S = santa, then E(S)= no is the person
not believing in santa but still having the idea of santa. But notice that
even E(S) = no is itself another idea! This means you have lots of cases:
christian : (A,E(A)=yes,B,E(B)=no, . . . G,E(G)=yes......) where G = god
atheist (strong) : (A,E(A). . . . .G,E(G)=no)
atheist (weak) : (A,.....E) i.e. no G at all in the set
agnostic : (A,.......G, E(G) = indeterminate, E', ....)
> Why are people so afraid to say "undecided"? It must just be another
>feature of human nature -- "undecided" is not a sexy, trendy, or glamorous
>word. It does not inspire much hate or conflict. It's not blasphemous.
>It's not political. In fact it is too often taken to mean unsophisticated.
Nietzsche once said that a man would rather will nonexistence than not
will at all but the darwinist way to put this is that humanity always
prefers no or yes to a maybe because indecision is not a useful survival
trait, evolution has drilled it in us to take positions, even false ones.
>Bake Timmons, III
M.S.
| 0alt.atheism
|
bdunn@cco.caltech.edu (Brendan Dunn) | Re: The wrong and the right. | California Institute of Technology, Pasadena | In article <93090.141001E62763@TRMETU.BITNET> <E62763@TRMETU.BITNET> writes:
>Hi.I'm a Turkish guy who had tried atheism,satenism and buddism at some instant
>s of hislife.Finally I decided on Islambecause of many facts which I intend to
> write here.From my point of view,you atheists are people who has dropped to a
>deep,dark well and thinking the only reality is the dusty walls of the well.But
> if you had looked a little bit upward you would see the blue skies.You'dsee t
>he truth but you close your eyes.Allah is the only GOD and Mohammed is his mess
> ager.now,let's generate some entropy in means of theology and thermodynamics.W
>hat's your point of view to the problem of the ''FIRST KISS''?That is,the first
> spark which was generated for the formation of the universe.Has it formed by i
>tself?You are bothering yourselves with the Big Bang but where is the first spa
>rk?Please think a bit.Think and return to the only reality of the universe:ISLA
>M|
Uh oh. This looks a bit too much like Bobby's "Atheism Is False" stuff. Are
we really going to have to go through this again? Maybe the universe is
cyclical! :) :(
--Brendan Dunn
| 0alt.atheism
|
"Robert Knowles" <p00261@psilink.com> | Re: THE POPE IS JEWISH! | Performance Systems Int'l | >DATE: Tue, 20 Apr 1993 18:13:09 GMT
>FROM: R. Bruce Rakes <bruce@cortex.dixie.com>
>
>mcgoy@unicorn.acs.ttu.edu (David McGaughey) writes:
>
>>I always thought that the Pope was a bear.
>
>>You know, because of that little saying:
>
>>Does a bear shit in the woods?
>>Is the Pope Catholic?
>
>>There MUST be SOME connection between those two lines!
>
>And I always heard it:
>
>Is the bear Catholic?
>Does the pope ????
>
>Oh nevermind!
>--
>R. Bruce Rakes, Software Systems Manager
>Elekta Instruments, Inc. 8 Executive Park W, Suite 809, Atlanta, GA 30329
>Voice:(404)315-1225 FAX:(404)315-7850 email: bruce@elekta.com
>
Anyone from Alabama knows it should be:
Is "The Bear" Catholic?
Does a Pope shit in the woods?
The Pope may not be a bear, but "The Bear" is a god.
(Paul "Bear" Bryant, Football coach/god, University of Alabama.)
| 0alt.atheism
|
huston@access.digex.com (Herb Huston) | Re: Albert Sabin | Express Access Online Communications, Greenbelt, MD USA | In article <1ph4c8$8j6@shrike.und.ac.za> dace@shrike.und.ac.za (Roy Dace) writes:
}Herb Huston (huston@access.digex.com) wrote:
}
}: Actually, cannibalism is quite widespread. My favorite examples are sand
}: sharks and mackerel sharks. The fetuses begin cannibalizing each other, and
}: the one that is eventually born enters the sea with a full stomache. Would
}: you like some more gruesome examples?
}
}Fair enough - I'm pretty well aware of the examples used - and mine were very
}rapidly and thoughtlessly pulled out of thin air, but the point I'm making is
}that our non-cannibalism doesn't imply any `value' over other animals.
Did something happen while I wasn't looking? When did _Homo sapiens_ become
non-cannibalistic?
-- Herb Huston
-- huston@access.digex.com
| 0alt.atheism
|
eczcaw@mips.nott.ac.uk (A.Wainwright) | Re: Death Penalty (was Re: Political Atheists?) | Nottingham University | In article <C5rLyz.4Mt@darkside.osrhe.uoknor.edu>, bil@okcforum.osrhe.edu (Bill Conner) writes:
|> This is fascinating. Atheists argue for abortion,
Prove it. I am an atheist. It doesn't mean I am for or against abortion.
|> defend homosexuality
|> as a means of population control,
An obvious effect of homosexuality is non-procreation. That, unlike your
statement, is a fact. Please prove that (a) homosexuality is defended as
means of population control, (b) being atheist causes you to hold these
beliefs. I defend homosexuality because (a) what people do with their
bodies is none of my business (b) I defend the equal rights of
all humans. Do you?
|> insist that the only values are
|> biological
Define values. Prove your statement.
|> something is contardictory, it cannot exist, which in
|> this case means atheists I suppose.
Prove your statement. Electrons are waves. Electrons are particles. I
believe in both. I have physical proof of both. I have no proof of god(tm)
only an ancient book. That is not indicative of the existence of a being
with omnipotence or omnipresence. And, by your own argument, christians
don't exist.
|> I would like to understand how an atheist can object to war (an
|> excellent means of controlling population growth), or to capital
|> punishment, I'm sorry but the logic escapes me.
|> And why just capital punishment, what is being questioned here, the
|> propriety of killing or of punishment? What is the basis of the
|> ecomplaint?
|>
First of all, your earlier statements have absolutely nothing to do
with your question. Why did you post them? To show that athiests,
besides not existing (your view), are more humane than christians/other
religions?
Secondly I am very much for the control of population growth.
The logic that you cannot grasp indicates ignorance of contraception.
But of course, this is 'outlawed' (sometimes literally) by religion
since if it can't create more followers, it will die.
I
|> Bill
|>
--
+-------------------------+-----------------------------------------------+
| Adda Wainwright | Does dim atal y llanw! 8o) |
| eczcaw@mips.nott.ac.uk | 8o) Mae .sig 'ma ar werth! |
+-------------------------+-----------------------------------------------+
| 0alt.atheism
|
nrp@st-andrews.ac.uk (Norman R. Paterson) | Re: After 2000 years, can we say that Christian Morality is | St. Andrews University, Scotland. | In article <1qj9gq$mg7@horus.ap.mchp.sni.de> frank@D012S658.uucp (Frank O'Dwyer) writes:
...
>Plus questions for you: why do subjectivists/relativists/nihilists get so
>het up about the idea that relativism is *better* than objectivism?
>Is good logic *better* than bad? Is good science better than bad? Ought
>I to prefer simple theories with accurate predictions to complex and useless
>theories? Is almost anything preferable to genocide? Is there a sense in
>which such value judgements are objective, or not?
>
>--
>Frank O'Dwyer 'I'm not hatching That'
>odwyer@sse.ie from "Hens", by Evelyn Conlon
Frank-
It's quite simple. Objective is better than subjective. :-)
-Norman
| 0alt.atheism
|
jaeger@buphy.bu.edu (Gregg Jaeger) | Re: Yet more Rushdie [Re: ISLAMIC LAW] | Boston University Physics Department | In article <11847@vice.ICO.TEK.COM> bobbe@vice.ICO.TEK.COM (Robert Beauchaine) writes:
>In article <115670@bu.edu> jaeger@buphy.bu.edu (Gregg Jaeger) writes:
>>In article <11826@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 18 10:01:11 PDT 1993
>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 13, 1991.
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
| 0alt.atheism
|
madhaus@netcom.com (Maddi Hausmann) | Re: Nicknames | Society for Putting Things on Top of Other Things | cmtan@iss.nus.sg (Tan Chade Meng - dan) writes: >
>Somebody forgotten me................
>
>"No Nickname" Tan Chade Meng
>(Chinese have nicknames in the front)
>
>--
>
>The UnEnlightened One
I thought your nickname was "UnEnlightened"
--
Maddi Hausmann madhaus@netcom.com
Centigram Communications Corp San Jose California 408/428-3553
Kids, please don't try this at home. Remember, I post professionally.
| 0alt.atheism
|
a137490@lehtori.cc.tut.fi (Aario Sami) | Re: Genocide is Caused by Atheism | Tampere University of Technology, Computing Centre | In <kmr4.1466.734160929@po.CWRU.edu> kmr4@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, #2
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
a137490@cc.tut.fi | one. Sunlight is comprised of many atoms."
-------------------' "Your stupid minds! Stupid, stupid!"
Eros in "Plan 9 From Outer Space" DISCLAIMER: I don't agree with Eros.
| 0alt.atheism
|
livesey@solntze.wpd.sgi.com (Jon Livesey) | Re: Omnipotence (was Re: Speculations) | sgi | In article <1993Apr5.171143.828@batman.bmd.trw.com>, jbrown@batman.bmd.trw.com writes:
|> In article <2942949719.2.p00261@psilink.com>, "Robert Knowles" <p00261@psilink.com> writes:
|> >>DATE: Fri, 2 Apr 1993 23:02:22 -0500
|> >>FROM: Nanci Ann Miller <nm0w+@andrew.cmu.edu>
|> >>
|> >>
|> >>> > 3. Can god uncreate itself?
|> >>>
|> >>> No. For if He did, He would violate His own nature which He cannot do.
|> >>> It is God's nature to Exist. He is, after all, the "I AM" which is
|> >>> a statement of His inherent Existence. He is existence itself.
|> >>> Existence cannot "not-exist".
|> >>
|> >>Then, as mentioned above, he must not be very omnipotent.
|> >>
|>
|> What do you mean by omnipotent here? Do you mean by "omnipotent"
|> that God should be able to do anything/everything? This creates
|> a self-contradictory definition of omnipotence which is effectively
|> useless.
|>
|> To be descriptive, omnipotence must mean "being all-powerful" and
|> not "being able to do anything/everything".
|>
|> Let me illustrate by analogy.
|> Suppose the United States were the only nuclear power on earth. Suppose
|> further that the US military could not effectively be countered by any
|> nation or group of nations. The US has the power to go into any country
|> at any time for any reason to straighten things out as the leaders of the
|> US see fit. The US would be militarily "omnipotent".
Did you check with the Afghans before posting this? They
might disagree.
jon.
| 0alt.atheism
|
perry@dsinc.com (Jim Perry) | Re: Gulf War and Peace-niks | Decision Support Inc. | In article <1993Apr20.102306.882@batman.bmd.trw.com> jbrown@batman.bmd.trw.com writes:
>In article <1993Apr20.062328.19776@bmerh85.bnr.ca>,
>dgraham@bmers30.bnr.ca (Douglas Graham) writes:
>> [...] Actually, I rather like your idea. Perhaps
>> the rest of the world should have bombed (or maybe missiled) Washington
>> when the US invaded Nicaragua, Grenada, Panama, Vietnam, Mexico, Hawaii,
>> or any number of other places.
>
>Wait a minute, Doug. I know you are better informed than that. The US
>has never invaded Nicaragua (as far as I know). We liberated Grenada
>[...]
"Liberate" is the way an invader describes an invasion, including, if
I'm not mistaken, the Iraqi liberation of Kuwait. Never invaded
Nicaragua? Only with more word games: can you say "send in the
Marines?"
>So if you mean by the word "invaded" some sort of military action where
>we cross someone's border, you are right 5 out of 6. But normally
>"invaded" carries a connotation of attacking an autonomous nation.
>(If some nation "invades" the U.S. Virgin Islands, would they be
>invading the Virgin Islands or the U.S.?) So from this point of
>view, your score falls to 2 out of 6 (Mexico, Panama).
Oh, good: word games. If you let the aggressor pick the words,
there's scarcely ever been a reprehensible military action.
>> What's a "peace-nik"? Is that somebody who *doesn't* masturbate
>> over "Guns'n'Ammo" or what? Is it supposed to be bad to be a peace-nik?
>
>No, it's someone who believes in "peace-at-all-costs". In other words,
>a person who would have supported giving Hitler not only Austria and
>Czechoslakia, but Poland too if it could have averted the War. And one
>who would allow Hitler to wipe all *all* Jews, slavs, and political
>dissidents in areas he controlled as long as he left the rest of us alone.
That's a convenient technique, much seen on alt.atheism: define those
who disagree with you according to a straw-man extreme that matches
virtually nobody.
>"Is it supposed to be bad to be a peace-nik," you ask? Well, it depends
>on what your values are. If you value life over liberty, peace over
>freedom, then I guess not. But if liberty and freedom mean more to you
>than life itself; if you'd rather die fighting for liberty than live
>under a tyrant's heel, then yes, it's "bad" to be a peace-nik.
Very noble and patriotic. I'm sure the fine young Americans who
carpet-bombed Iraqi infantry positions from over the horizon,
destroyed Iraq's sewer and water infrastructure from the safety of the
sky or further, or who bulldozed other Iraqi infantry into their
trenches [or more importantly the commanders who ordered them to] were
just thrilled to be risking death (if not risking it by much) in the
defense of the liberty of ... well, wealthy Kuwaitis. Can't have
those oil-fields under a tyrant's heel if that tyrant is antagonistic
to US interests...
>The problem with most peace-niks it they consider those of us who are
>not like them to be "bad" and "unconscionable". I would not have any
>argument or problem with a peace-nik if they held to their ideals and
>stayed out of all conflicts or issues, especially those dealing with
>the national defense. But no, they are not willing to allow us to
>legitimately hold a different point-of-view.
Having pigeon-holed "peace-niks" (in this context, "people who
disagree with me about the conduct of the Gulf War") into
"peace-at-all-cost-hitler-supporting-genocide-abetting-wimps", you can
now express righteous indignation when "they" refuse to fit this mold
and question the conduct of the war on legitimate terms. HOW DARE
THEY!
>They militate and
>many times resort to violence all in the name of peace. (What rank
>hypocrisy!)
Yes, hypocrisy indeed! Those violent peace-niks! (Care to list an
example here?)
>All to stop we "warmongers" who are willing to stand up
>and defend our freedoms against tyrants, and who realize that to do
>so requires a strong national defense.
Wow: instant '80's nostalgia! [Of course, "peace-nik" itself is a
'50's Cold War derogatory term equating those who promote pacifism
with Godless Pinko Communists]. Yes indeed, I felt my freedoms
mightily threatened by Iraq...
--
Jim Perry perry@dsinc.com Decision Support, Inc., Matthews NC
These are my opinions. For a nominal fee, they can be yours.
| 0alt.atheism
|
duffy@aslss02.asl.dl.nec.com (Joseph Duffy) | Re: After 2000 years, can we say that Christian Morality is | NEC America, Inc Irving TX | In article <1993Apr17.184948.4847@microsoft.com> russpj@microsoft.com (Russ Paul-Jones) writes:
>In article <1993Apr16.193723.19050@asl.dl.nec.com> duffy@aslss02.asl.dl.nec.com (Joseph Duffy) writes:
>>
>>How does one falsify any origin theory? For example, are a forever existing
>>universe or abiogenesis strictly falsifiable?
>
>The same way that any theory is proven false. You examine the predicitions
>that the theory makes, and try to observe them. If you don't, or if you
>observe things that the theory predicts wouldn't happen, then you have some
>evidence against the theory. If the theory can't be modified to
>incorporate the new observations, then you say that it is false.
>
>For example, people used to believe that the earth had been created
>10,000 years ago. But, as evidence showed that predictions from this
>theory were not true, it was abandoned.
>
>-Russ Paul-Jones
>russpj@microsoft.com
But how does one handle the nonrepeatability of the experiment? In many types ofexperiments the "prediction" is that the observed phenomena will happen again
and be capable of being observed. For example, in chemistry someone may predict
the outcome of a chemical reaction and then actually observe that reaction
repeatedly. You can't repeat or ever know for sure the original conditions that
produced life. So it seems we could never say, "That's exactly how it happened."As far as we know that event was unobserved. (At least no one has admitted
it. :-) ) So unlike the chemistry experiment repeatability and observability,
strictly speaking, are lacking.
--
+----------------------------------------------------------+
| Joe Duffy duffy@asl.dl.nec.com |
| NEC America, Inc. |
| 0alt.atheism
|
bil@okcforum.osrhe.edu (Bill Conner) | Re: islamic authority over women | Okcforum Unix Users Group | SCOTT D. SAUYET (SSAUYET@eagle.wesleyan.edu) wrote:
: Regardless of people's hidden motivations, the stated reasons for many
: wars include religion. Of course you can always claim that the REAL
: reason was economics, politics, ethnic strife, or whatever. But the
: fact remains that the justification for many wars has been to conquer
: the heathens.
: If you want to say, for instance, that economics was the chief cause
: of the Crusades, you could certainly make that point. But someone
: could come along and demonstrate that it was REALLY something else, in
: the same manner you show that it was REALLY not religion. You could
: in this manner eliminate all possible causes for the Crusades.
:
Scott,
I don't have to make outrageous claims about religion's affecting and
effecting history, for the purpsoe of a.a, all I have to do point out
that many claims made here are wrong and do nothing to validate
atheism. At no time have I made any statement that religion was the
sole cause of anything, what I have done is point out that those who
do make that kind of claim are mistaken, usually deliberately.
To credit religion with the awesome power to dominate history is to
misunderstand human nature, the function of religion and of course,
history. I believe that those who distort history in this way know
exaclty what they're doing, and do it only for affect.
Bill
| 0alt.atheism
|
frank@D012S658.uucp (Frank O'Dwyer) | Re: After 2000 years, can we say that Christian Morality is | Siemens-Nixdorf AG | In article <93112.164435J5J@psuvm.psu.edu> John A. Johnson <J5J@psuvm.psu.edu> writes:
#In article <1r39kh$itp@horus.ap.mchp.sni.de>, frank@D012S658.uucp (Frank
#O'Dwyer) says:
#>
#[ . . .]
#>Specifically, I'd like to know what relativism concludes when two
#>people grotesquely disagree. Is it:
#>
#>(a) Both are right
#>
#>(b) One of them is wrong, and sometimes (though perhaps rarely) we have a
#> pretty good idea who it is
#>
#>(c) One of them is wrong, but we never have any information as to who, so
#> we make our best guess if we really must make a decision.
#>
#>(d) The idea of a "right" moral judgement is meaningless (implying that
#> whether peace is better than war, e.g., is a meaningless question,
#> and need not be discussed for it has no correct answer)
#>
#>(e) Something else. A short, positive assertion would be nice.
#>
#>As I hope you can tell, (b) and (c) are actually predicated on
#>the assumption that values are real - so statements like these
#>_can't_ consistently derive from the relativist assumption that values
#>aren't part of objective reality.
#
#I am a relativist who would like to answer your question, but the way you
#phrase the question makes it unanswerable. The concepts of "right"
#and "wrong" (or "correct/incorrect" or "true/false") belong to the
#domain of epistemological rather than moral questions. It makes no
#sense to ask if a moral position is right or wrong, although it is
#legitimate to ask if it is good (or better than another position).
#
#Let me illustrate this point by looking at the psychological derivatives
#of epistemology and ethics: perception and motivation, respectively.
#One can certainly ask if a percept is "right" (correct, true,
#veridical) or "wrong" (incorrect, false, illusory). But it makes little
#sense to ask if a motive is true or false. On the other hand, it is
#strange to ask whether a percept is morally good or evil, but one can
#certainly ask that question about motives.
#
#Therefore, your suggested answers (a)-(c) simply can't be considered:
#they assume you can judge the correctness of a moral judgment.
True, by "correct" I mean "the thing valued is really good". I should
use evaluative terms, but I don't always. Sorry for the sloppy phrasing.
Can you answer if "betterness" is used in in place of @correctness"?
#
#Now the problem with (d) is that it is double-barrelled: I agree with
#the first part (that the "rightness" of a moral position is a
#meaningless question), for the reasons stated above. But that is
#irrelevant to the alleged implication (not an implication at all) that
#one cannot feel peace is better than war. I certainly can make
#value judgments (bad, better, best) without asserting the "correctness"
#of the position.
You can never say that the thing is @really better@, or "more likely
to better, from all realistic frames of reference"?
#
#Sorry for the lengthy dismissal of (a)-(d). My short (e) answer is
#that when two individuals grotesquely disagree on a moral issue,
#neither is right (correct) or wrong (incorrect). They simply hold
#different moral values (feelings).
This is where my difficulty arises, though I'm starting to get
in now. The thing is, there isn't anything simple about different
moral values, when those values are human rights.
#"A ruthless, doctrinaire avoidance of degeneracy is a degeneracy of
# another sort. Getting drunk and picking up bar-ladies and writing
# metaphysics is a part of life." - from _Lila_ by R. Pirsig
Peculiar - you're getting relativism from this, I'm getting
objectivism :-) Good book, though, and a good quote.
--
Frank O'Dwyer 'I'm not hatching That'
odwyer@sse.ie from "Hens", by Evelyn Conlon
| 0alt.atheism
|
keith@cco.caltech.edu (Keith Allan Schneider) | Re: <Political Atheists? | California Institute of Technology, Pasadena | mathew <mathew@mantis.co.uk> writes:
>>Perhaps we shouldn't imprision people if we could watch them closely
>>instead. The cost would probably be similar, especially if we just
>>implanted some sort of electronic device.
>Why wait until they commit the crime? Why not implant such devices in
>potential criminals like Communists and atheists?
Sorry, I don't follow your reasoning. You are proposing to punish people
*before* they commit a crime? What justification do you have for this?
keith
| 0alt.atheism
|
decay@cbnewsj.cb.att.com (dean.kaflowitz) | Re: YOU WILL ALL GO TO HELL!!! | AT&T | In article <C5LH4p.27K@portal.hq.videocart.com>, dfuller@portal.hq.videocart.com (Dave Fuller) writes:
> JSN104@psuvm.psu.edu () writes:
> : YOU BLASHEPHEMERS!!! YOU WILL ALL GO TO HELL FOR NOT BELIEVING IN GOD!!!! BE
> : PREPARED FOR YOUR ETERNAL DAMNATION!!!
>
> What do you mean "be prepared" ?? Surrounded by thumpers like yourself
> has proven to be hellish enough . . . and I'm not even dead yet !!
Well here's how I prepared. I got one of those big beach
umbrellas, some of those gel-pack ice things, a big Coleman cooler
which I've loaded up with Miller Draft (so I like Miller Draft,
so sue me), a new pair of New Balance sneakers, a Sony
Watchman, and a couple of cartons of BonTon Cheddar Cheese
Popcorn.
I haven't decided what to wear yet. What does one wear to an
eternal damnation?
Dean Kaflowitz
| 0alt.atheism
|
nancyo@fraser.sfu.ca (Nancy Patricia O'Connor) | Re: Amusing atheists and agnostics | Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, B.C., Canada | timmbake@mcl.ucsb.edu (Bake Timmons) writes:
>Rule #4: 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.
| 0alt.atheism
|
king@ctron.com (John E. King) | Re: Albert Sabin | Cabletron Systems Inc. |
anthonyp@riscsm.scripps.edu (Anthony Pelletier) writes:
>This stuff is absolute giberish.
and
>I would post the real information, but in my experience you guys are not
>interested in facts. If you happen to be the exception to that rule and
>really would like to know what is known about the "RNA world" as we call it
>and what we can re-create, I would be happy to provide some information and
>references.
I believe you will find me the exception to the rule. I don't claim
to know everything. I would be very interested in your "real information".
By the way, what was giberish? Was it the four letter alphabet?``
Jack
| 0alt.atheism
|
Andrew Newell <TAN102@psuvm.psu.edu> | Re: Christian Morality is | Penn State University | In article <C5prCA.590@news.cso.uiuc.edu>, cobb@alexia.lis.uiuc.edu (Mike Cobb)
says:
>
>In <11836@vice.ICO.TEK.COM> bobbe@vice.ICO.TEK.COM (Robert Beauchaine) writes:
>
>>In article <C5L1Ey.Jts@news.cso.uiuc.edu> cobb@alexia.lis.uiuc.edu (Mike
>Cobb) writes:
>
>> If I'm wrong, god is free at any time to correct my mistake. That
>> he continues not to do so, while supposedly proclaiming his
>> undying love for my eternal soul, speaks volumes.
>
>What are the volumes that it speaks besides the fact that he leaves your
>choices up to you?
Leaves the choices up to us but gives us no better reason
to believe than an odd story of his alleged son getting
killed for us? And little new in the past few thousand
years, leaving us with only the texts passed down through
centuries of meddling with the meaning and even wording.
...most of this passing down and interpretation of course
coming from those who have a vested interest in not allowing
the possibility that it might not be the ultimate truth.
What about maybe talking to us directly, eh?
He's a big god, right? He ought to be able to make time
for the creations he loves so much...at least enough to
give us each a few words of direct conversation.
What, he's too busy to get around to all of us?
Or maybe a few unquestionably-miraculous works here and
there?
...speaks volumes upon volumes to me that I've never
gotten a chance to meet the guy and chat with him.
| 0alt.atheism
|
mathew <mathew@mantis.co.uk> | Alt.Atheism FAQ: Atheist Resources | Mantis Consultants, Cambridge. UK. | Archive-name: atheism/resources
Alt-atheism-archive-name: resources
Last-modified: 11 December 1992
Version: 1.0
Atheist Resources
Addresses of Atheist Organizations
USA
FREEDOM FROM RELIGION FOUNDATION
Darwin fish bumper stickers and assorted other atheist paraphernalia are
available from the Freedom From Religion Foundation in the US.
Write to: FFRF, P.O. Box 750, Madison, WI 53701.
Telephone: (608) 256-8900
EVOLUTION DESIGNS
Evolution Designs sell the "Darwin fish". It's a fish symbol, like the ones
Christians stick on their cars, but with feet and the word "Darwin" written
inside. The deluxe moulded 3D plastic fish is $4.95 postpaid in the US.
Write to: Evolution Designs, 7119 Laurel Canyon #4, North Hollywood,
CA 91605.
People in the San Francisco Bay area can get Darwin Fish from Lynn Gold --
try mailing <figmo@netcom.com>. For net people who go to Lynn directly, the
price is $4.95 per fish.
AMERICAN ATHEIST PRESS
AAP publish various atheist books -- critiques of the Bible, lists of
Biblical contradictions, and so on. One such book is:
"The Bible Handbook" by W.P. Ball and G.W. Foote. American Atheist Press.
372 pp. ISBN 0-910309-26-4, 2nd edition, 1986. Bible contradictions,
absurdities, atrocities, immoralities... contains Ball, Foote: "The Bible
Contradicts Itself", AAP. Based on the King James version of the Bible.
Write to: American Atheist Press, P.O. Box 140195, Austin, TX 78714-0195.
or: 7215 Cameron Road, Austin, TX 78752-2973.
Telephone: (512) 458-1244
Fax: (512) 467-9525
PROMETHEUS BOOKS
Sell books including Haught's "Holy Horrors" (see below).
Write to: 700 East Amherst Street, Buffalo, New York 14215.
Telephone: (716) 837-2475.
An alternate address (which may be newer or older) is:
Prometheus Books, 59 Glenn Drive, Buffalo, NY 14228-2197.
AFRICAN-AMERICANS FOR HUMANISM
An organization promoting black secular humanism and uncovering the history of
black freethought. They publish a quarterly newsletter, AAH EXAMINER.
Write to: Norm R. Allen, Jr., African Americans for Humanism, P.O. Box 664,
Buffalo, NY 14226.
United Kingdom
Rationalist Press Association National Secular Society
88 Islington High Street 702 Holloway Road
London N1 8EW London N19 3NL
071 226 7251 071 272 1266
British Humanist Association South Place Ethical Society
14 Lamb's Conduit Passage Conway Hall
London WC1R 4RH Red Lion Square
071 430 0908 London WC1R 4RL
fax 071 430 1271 071 831 7723
The National Secular Society publish "The Freethinker", a monthly magazine
founded in 1881.
Germany
IBKA e.V.
Internationaler Bund der Konfessionslosen und Atheisten
Postfach 880, D-1000 Berlin 41. Germany.
IBKA publish a journal:
MIZ. (Materialien und Informationen zur Zeit. Politisches
Journal der Konfessionslosesn und Atheisten. Hrsg. IBKA e.V.)
MIZ-Vertrieb, Postfach 880, D-1000 Berlin 41. Germany.
For atheist books, write to:
IBDK, Internationaler B"ucherdienst der Konfessionslosen
Postfach 3005, D-3000 Hannover 1. Germany.
Telephone: 0511/211216
Books -- Fiction
THOMAS M. DISCH
"The Santa Claus Compromise"
Short story. The ultimate proof that Santa exists. All characters and
events are fictitious. Any similarity to living or dead gods -- uh, well...
WALTER M. MILLER, JR
"A Canticle for Leibowitz"
One gem in this post atomic doomsday novel is the monks who spent their lives
copying blueprints from "Saint Leibowitz", filling the sheets of paper with
ink and leaving white lines and letters.
EDGAR PANGBORN
"Davy"
Post atomic doomsday novel set in clerical states. The church, for example,
forbids that anyone "produce, describe or use any substance containing...
atoms".
PHILIP K. DICK
Philip K. Dick Dick wrote many philosophical and thought-provoking short
stories and novels. His stories are bizarre at times, but very approachable.
He wrote mainly SF, but he wrote about people, truth and religion rather than
technology. Although he often believed that he had met some sort of God, he
remained sceptical. Amongst his novels, the following are of some relevance:
"Galactic Pot-Healer"
A fallible alien deity summons a group of Earth craftsmen and women to a
remote planet to raise a giant cathedral from beneath the oceans. When the
deity begins to demand faith from the earthers, pot-healer Joe Fernwright is
unable to comply. A polished, ironic and amusing novel.
"A Maze of Death"
Noteworthy for its description of a technology-based religion.
"VALIS"
The schizophrenic hero searches for the hidden mysteries of Gnostic
Christianity after reality is fired into his brain by a pink laser beam of
unknown but possibly divine origin. He is accompanied by his dogmatic and
dismissively atheist friend and assorted other odd characters.
"The Divine Invasion"
God invades Earth by making a young woman pregnant as she returns from
another star system. Unfortunately she is terminally ill, and must be
assisted by a dead man whose brain is wired to 24-hour easy listening music.
MARGARET ATWOOD
"The Handmaid's Tale"
A story based on the premise that the US Congress is mysteriously
assassinated, and fundamentalists quickly take charge of the nation to set it
"right" again. The book is the diary of a woman's life as she tries to live
under the new Christian theocracy. Women's right to own property is revoked,
and their bank accounts are closed; sinful luxuries are outlawed, and the
radio is only used for readings from the Bible. Crimes are punished
retroactively: doctors who performed legal abortions in the "old world" are
hunted down and hanged. Atwood's writing style is difficult to get used to
at first, but the tale grows more and more chilling as it goes on.
VARIOUS AUTHORS
"The Bible"
This somewhat dull and rambling work has often been criticized. However, it
is probably worth reading, if only so that you'll know what all the fuss is
about. It exists in many different versions, so make sure you get the one
true version.
Books -- Non-fiction
PETER DE ROSA
"Vicars of Christ", Bantam Press, 1988
Although de Rosa seems to be Christian or even Catholic this is a very
enlighting history of papal immoralities, adulteries, fallacies etc.
(German translation: "Gottes erste Diener. Die dunkle Seite des Papsttums",
Droemer-Knaur, 1989)
MICHAEL MARTIN
"Atheism: A Philosophical Justification", Temple University Press,
Philadelphia, USA.
A detailed and scholarly justification of atheism. Contains an outstanding
appendix defining terminology and usage in this (necessarily) tendentious
area. Argues both for "negative atheism" (i.e. the "non-belief in the
existence of god(s)") and also for "positive atheism" ("the belief in the
non-existence of god(s)"). Includes great refutations of the most
challenging arguments for god; particular attention is paid to refuting
contempory theists such as Platinga and Swinburne.
541 pages. ISBN 0-87722-642-3 (hardcover; paperback also available)
"The Case Against Christianity", Temple University Press
A comprehensive critique of Christianity, in which he considers
the best contemporary defences of Christianity and (ultimately)
demonstrates that they are unsupportable and/or incoherent.
273 pages. ISBN 0-87722-767-5
JAMES TURNER
"Without God, Without Creed", The Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore,
MD, USA
Subtitled "The Origins of Unbelief in America". Examines the way in which
unbelief (whether agnostic or atheistic) became a mainstream alternative
world-view. Focusses on the period 1770-1900, and while considering France
and Britain the emphasis is on American, and particularly New England
developments. "Neither a religious history of secularization or atheism,
Without God, Without Creed is, rather, the intellectual history of the fate
of a single idea, the belief that God exists."
316 pages. ISBN (hardcover) 0-8018-2494-X (paper) 0-8018-3407-4
GEORGE SELDES (Editor)
"The great thoughts", Ballantine Books, New York, USA
A "dictionary of quotations" of a different kind, concentrating on statements
and writings which, explicitly or implicitly, present the person's philosophy
and world-view. Includes obscure (and often suppressed) opinions from many
people. For some popular observations, traces the way in which various
people expressed and twisted the idea over the centuries. Quite a number of
the quotations are derived from Cardiff's "What Great Men Think of Religion"
and Noyes' "Views of Religion".
490 pages. ISBN (paper) 0-345-29887-X.
RICHARD SWINBURNE
"The Existence of God (Revised Edition)", Clarendon Paperbacks, Oxford
This book is the second volume in a trilogy that began with "The Coherence of
Theism" (1977) and was concluded with "Faith and Reason" (1981). In this
work, Swinburne attempts to construct a series of inductive arguments for the
existence of God. His arguments, which are somewhat tendentious and rely
upon the imputation of late 20th century western Christian values and
aesthetics to a God which is supposedly as simple as can be conceived, were
decisively rejected in Mackie's "The Miracle of Theism". In the revised
edition of "The Existence of God", Swinburne includes an Appendix in which he
makes a somewhat incoherent attempt to rebut Mackie.
J. L. MACKIE
"The Miracle of Theism", Oxford
This (posthumous) volume contains a comprehensive review of the principal
arguments for and against the existence of God. It ranges from the classical
philosophical positions of Descartes, Anselm, Berkeley, Hume et al, through
the moral arguments of Newman, Kant and Sidgwick, to the recent restatements
of the classical theses by Plantinga and Swinburne. It also addresses those
positions which push the concept of God beyond the realm of the rational,
such as those of Kierkegaard, Kung and Philips, as well as "replacements for
God" such as Lelie's axiarchism. The book is a delight to read - less
formalistic and better written than Martin's works, and refreshingly direct
when compared with the hand-waving of Swinburne.
JAMES A. HAUGHT
"Holy Horrors: An Illustrated History of Religious Murder and Madness",
Prometheus Books
Looks at religious persecution from ancient times to the present day -- and
not only by Christians.
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 89-64079. 1990.
NORM R. ALLEN, JR.
"African American Humanism: an Anthology"
See the listing for African Americans for Humanism above.
GORDON STEIN
"An Anthology of Atheism and Rationalism", Prometheus Books
An anthology covering a wide range of subjects, including 'The Devil, Evil
and Morality' and 'The History of Freethought'. Comprehensive bibliography.
EDMUND D. COHEN
"The Mind of The Bible-Believer", Prometheus Books
A study of why people become Christian fundamentalists, and what effect it
has on them.
Net Resources
There's a small mail-based archive server at mantis.co.uk which carries
archives of old alt.atheism.moderated articles and assorted other files. For
more information, send mail to archive-server@mantis.co.uk saying
help
send atheism/index
and it will mail back a reply.
mathew
ÿ
| 0alt.atheism
|
mathew <mathew@mantis.co.uk> | Re: Gulf War / Selling Arms | Mantis Consultants, Cambridge. UK. | jbrown@batman.bmd.trw.com writes:
> Mathew, I agree. This, it seems, is the crux of your whole position,
> isn't it? That the US shouldn't have supported Hussein and sold him arms
> to fight Iran? I agree. And I agree in ruthlessly hunting down those
> who did or do. But we *did* sell arms to Hussein, and it's a done deal.
> Now he invades Kuwait. So do we just sit back and say, "Well, we sold
> him all those arms, I suppose he just wants to use them now. Too bad
> for Kuwait." No, unfortunately, sitting back and "letting things be"
> is not the way to correct a former mistake. Destroying Hussein's
> military potential as we did was the right move. But I agree with
> your statement, Reagan and Bush made a grave error in judgment to
> sell arms to Hussein.
But it's STILL HAPPENING. That's the entire point. Only last month, John
Major hailed it as a great victory that he had personally secured a sale of
arms to Saudi Arabia. The same month, we sold jet fighters to the same
Indonesian government that's busy killing the East Timorese.
It's all very well to say "Oops, we made a boo-boo, better clean up the
mistake", but the US and UK *keep* making the *same* mistake. They do it so
often that I can't believe it's not deliberate. This suspicion is reinforced
by the fact that the mistake is an extremely profitable one for a decrepit
economy reliant on arms sales.
> So it's really not the Gulf War you abhor
> so much, it was the U.S.'s and the West's shortsightedness in selling
> arms to Hussein which ultimately made the war inevitable, right?
No, I thought both were terrible.
mathew
| 0alt.atheism
|
zazen@austin.ibm.com (E. H. Welbon) | Re: Radical Agnostic... NOT! | Brownian Motion Inc. | The One and Only (jcopelan@nyx.cs.du.edu) wrote:
: In article <dl2021-310393180711@m249-66.bgsu.edu> dl2021@andy.bgsu.edu (Pixie) writes:
: [first post I've seen from the ol' Bug-Zoo (BGSU)]
: > There is no means that i can possibly think of to prove beyond doubt
: >that a god does not exist (but if anyone has one, by all means, tell me
: >what it is). Therefore, lacking this ability of absolute proof, being an
: >atheist becomes an act of faith in and of itself, and this I cannot accept.
: > I accept nothing on blind faith.
: Invisible Pink Flying Unicorns! Need I say more?
There is also the question of what is meant by "atheist". A familiar
example of the importance of the meaning of the word is as follows.
The two statements following ARE consistent:
(1) I do not believe that you are wearing lilac socks
(2) I do not believe that you are are not wearing lilac socks
The two statements following are NOT consistent:
(3) I do believe that you are wearing lilac socks
(4) I do believe that you are are not wearing lilac socks
Statements (1) and (2) require no faith, they make no presumptions about
the nature of reality. Statements (3) and (4) require belief. Many
atheists (myself included) take the following position:
(5) I do not believe that there is a god.
(6) I do not believe that there is not a god.
That is , I harbor no beliefs at all, there is no good evidence
for god existing or not. Some folks call this agnosticism. It does not
suffer from "blind faith" at all. I think of it as "Don't worry, be happy".
| 0alt.atheism
|
melchar@anarky.tch.org (Melchar) | Re: After 2000 years, can we say that Christian Morality is oxymoron | The Canned Ham, San Jose, CA (408) 971-8530 |
It took someone THIS long to figure that out?
| 0alt.atheism
|
tclark@tlcslip.uncecs.edu (Thomas B. Clark) | Re: "So help you God" in court? | UNC School of Medicine | I don't think there is really any question about which god the courts
mean. The request for solemnly swearing, so help you god,
is always made after a request to pick up the bible in your left hand
and hold up your right hand. In the courts of NC, at least, it is always
an old and new testament.
Though it is hard to imagine, picking up the bible and swearing to (whatever)
god is sometimes the least of the religious influence. There is a court in
Greensboro, NC, where the judge routinely has everyone in the courtroom
stand to join him in prayer at the beginning of every session. I've thought about
sitting through it, but I'm not terribly anxious to spend 30 days in jail...
| 0alt.atheism
|
king@ctron.com (John E. King) | Re: Rawlins debunks creationism | Cabletron Systems Inc. |
adpeters@sunflower.bio.indiana.edu (Andy Peters) writes:
>> Macroevolution is
>> a mixture of 15 percent science and 85 percent religion [guaranteed
>> within three percent error :) ]
>Bullshit. This is true only under your ad hoc assertion that only
>religion can explain origins. The history of life through
>macroevolution is a falsifiable theory. If you think it's not, then
>make some substantial argument against it.
"The modern theory of evolution is so inadequate that it deserves to be
treated as a matter of faith." -- Francis Hitching
Jack
| 0alt.atheism
|
jbrown@batman.bmd.trw.com | Re: Gulf War and Peace-niks | null | In article <1r4lva$5vq@fido.asd.sgi.com>, livesey@solntze.wpd.sgi.com (Jon Livesey) writes:
> In article <1993Apr20.102306.882@batman.bmd.trw.com>, jbrown@batman.bmd.trw.com writes:
> |> In article <1993Apr20.062328.19776@bmerh85.bnr.ca>,
> |> dgraham@bmers30.bnr.ca (Douglas Graham) writes:
> |>
> |> [...]
[....]
> |>
> |> Wait a minute, Doug. I know you are better informed than that. The US
> |> has never invaded Nicaragua (as far as I know).
>
> The US invaded Nicaragua several times this century, including
> October 1912, andf again in February 1927.
>
> Haiti was occupied in 1915.
Thanks Jon. I had forgotten about the 1912 and 1927 invasions (if I had
ever learned of them. I mean I *really* forgot!) But I read the context
as more recent, such as when the Sandinistas were expecting an "imminent"
invasion from the U.S. which never happened.
I stand corrected. Thanks.
>
> |> Panama we invaded, true (twice this century).
>
> The US created Panama in the first place by fomenting and then
> intervening in a civil war in the then-Republic of Colombia.
>
> US troops landed in Colombia, to "help" with the uprising, and then
> Colombia was duly dismembered and replaced by two countries, in
> order that the US could build the Panama Canal in the new Republic
> of Panama.
>
I remembered this one. This one and Bush's invasion were the two I
mentioned above. Good ol' Teddy R.-- he knew how to get things done!
> jon.
Regards,
Jim B.
| 0alt.atheism
|
dk@imager (Dave Knapp) | Re: Branch Athiests Cult (was Rawlins debunks creationism) | Laboratory for Experimental Astrophysics | In article <1993Apr27.073723.18577@csis.dit.csiro.au> prl@csis.dit.csiro.au (Peter Lamb) writes:
>king@ctron.com (John E. King) writes:
>>Let me try again.
[ out-of context quotes from Mr. King deleted, along with the context,
thoughtfully provided by Mr. Lamb]
John:
Isn't there one of the ten commandments that says something like "you
shall not bear false witness?" And doesn't quoting someone in a way that
completely inverts what they were trying to say constitute bearing false
witness? Doesn't this cause you any internal conflict at all?
I ask this because I am a Christian and I am very perturbed to see the
"creation-science" camp use what I would characterize as sleazy tactics in
order to try to win the "debate." There is a long tradition of Christian
thought that maintains that an essential Christian ethic is that the end does
not justify the means. In other words, HOW you do something is as important
as what it is intended to accomplish. I don't think that using misquoted
excerpts from people who disagree with you brings very much glory to God,
do you?
-- Dave
--
*-------------------------------------------------------------*
* David Knapp dk@imager.llnl.gov (510) 422-1023 *
* 98.7% of all statistics are made up. *
*-------------------------------------------------------------*
| 0alt.atheism
|
sandvik@newton.apple.com (Kent Sandvik) | Re: Genocide is Caused by Atheism | Cookamunga Tourist Bureau | In article <1993Apr19.113255.27550@monu6.cc.monash.edu.au>,
darice@yoyo.cc.monash.edu.au (Fred Rice) wrote:
> >Fred, the problem with such reasoning is that for us non-believers
> >we need a better measurement tool to state that person A is a
> >real Muslim/Christian, while person B is not. As I know there are
> >no such tools, and anyone could believe in a religion, misuse its
> >power and otherwise make bad PR. It clearly shows the sore points
> >with religion -- in other words show me a movement that can't spin
> >off Khomeinis, Stalins, Davidians, Husseins... *).
>
> I don't think such a system exists. I think the reason for that is an
> condition known as "free will". We humans have got it. Anybody, using
> their free-will, can tell lies and half-truths about *any* system and
> thus abuse it for their own ends.
I don't think such tools exist either. In addition, there's no such
thing as objective information. All together, it looks like religion
and any doctrines could be freely misused to whatever purpose.
This all reminds me of Descartes' whispering deamon. You can't trust
anything. So why bother.
Cheers,
Kent
---
sandvik@newton.apple.com. ALink: KSAND -- Private activities on the net.
| 0alt.atheism
|
I3150101@dbstu1.rz.tu-bs.de (Benedikt Rosenau) | Re: The Inimitable Rushdie (Re: An Anecdote about Islam | Technical University Braunschweig, Germany | In article <115846@bu.edu>
jaeger@buphy.bu.edu (Gregg Jaeger) writes:
(Deletion)
>Certainly. It is a central aspect of Islam to show mercy and to give
>those who've done wrong (even presuming Rushdie _did_ violate Islamic
>Law) and committed crimes. This was the basis for my posts regarding
>leniency which seemed not to have penetrated Benedikt's skull.
You have demanded harsh punishments of several crimes. Repeating
offenders have slipped in only as justification of harsh punishment at
all. Typically religious doublespeak. Whenever you have contradictory
statements you choose the possibility that suits your current argument.
It is disgusting that someone with ideas that would make Theodore KKKaldis
feel cozy can go along under the protection of religion.
Gregg, tell us, would you kill idolaters?
Benedikt
| 0alt.atheism
|
dewey@risc.sps.mot.com (Dewey Henize) | Re: sci.skeptic.religion (Was: Why ALT.atheism?) | Motorola, Inc. -- Austin,TX | In article <93103.071613J5J@psuvm.psu.edu> John A. Johnson <J5J@psuvm.psu.edu> writes:
>
>Standard groups (sci, soc, talk) must conform to stricter rules when being
>established and must show a certain volume of postings or else they will
>cease to exist. These groups also reach more sites on USENET than alt
>groups. I already posted my opinion to mathew's suggestion, which was that
>alt.atheism is on the verge of having too many garbage postings from
>fundies, and "elevating" its status to a standard group (and consequently,
>the volume of such postings) could make it unreadable.
I tend to agree. I came here when it first started and watched it grow
from the roots on talk.religion.misc. It seemed to take a while for enough
atheists to come forward to get past the "Let's trash Xians" and such.
Now there's a stable core, and frankly there's a feeling that this is
_our_ group.
If we go mainstream, we're going to be in a lot more places. And every
fucking fundy loonie freshman will be dumping on us to find Jeesus! and
warn us that we're all going to Hell.
Want to see what we'll get? Go real alt.fan.brother-jed and imagine that
those imbecilic tirades will be here. All the time. Every other post.
I'm being selfish. I find I really learn a lot here and the S/N isn't too
bad. The Browns and the Boobys are a distraction, but they are few enough
that they even bring in some of the leavening needed to offset them. But
I greatly fear that mainstreaming would basically put us at the swamping
level of the Conners of the world.
Regards,
Dew
--
Dewey Henize Sys/Net admin RISC hardware (512) 891-8637 pager 928-7447 x 9637
| 0alt.atheism
|
bobbe@vice.ICO.TEK.COM (Robert Beauchaine) | Re: <<Pompous ass | Tektronix Inc., Beaverton, Or. | In article <1ql6jiINN5df@gap.caltech.edu> keith@cco.caltech.edu (Keith Allan Schneider) writes:
>
>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.
If the Anne Frank exhibit makes it to your small little world,
take an afternoon to go see it.
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
Bob Beauchaine bobbe@vice.ICO.TEK.COM
They said that Queens could stay, they blew the Bronx away,
and sank Manhattan out at sea.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
| 0alt.atheism
|
kmr4@po.CWRU.edu (Keith M. Ryan) | Re: The Inimitable Rushdie (Re: An Anecdote about Islam | Case Western Reserve University | In article <115847@bu.edu> jaeger@buphy.bu.edu (Gregg Jaeger) writes:
>Well, in 1984 one was not allowed to leave the domain of authority. One
>_is_ free to leave Islam. If one regards Islamic law as a curse one
>should consider leaving Islam.
The only way out seems to be death.
---
" I'd Cheat on Hillary Too."
John Laws
Local GOP Reprehensitive
Extolling "Traditional Family Values."
| 0alt.atheism
|
livesey@solntze.wpd.sgi.com (Jon Livesey) | Re: free moral agency | sgi | In article <C5uuL0.n1C@darkside.osrhe.uoknor.edu>, bil@okcforum.osrhe.edu (Bill Conner) writes:
|>
|> Many of the atheists posting here argue against their own parody of
|> religion; they create some ridiculous caricature of a religion and
|> then attack the believers within that religion and the religion itself
|> as ridiculous. By their own devices, they establish a new religion, a
|> mythology.
You mean Bobby Mozumder is a myth? We wondered about that.
|> The point of course, is to erect an easy target and deflect the
|> disputants away from the real issue - atheism. The fictional Christian
|> or Moslem or Jew who is supposed to believe the distorted
|> representation of their beliefs presented here, is therefore made to
|> seem a fool and his/her arguments can thereby be made to appear
|> ludicrous. The mythology is the misrepresentations of religion used
|> here as fact.
You mean Bobby Mozumder didn't really post here? We wondered
about that, too.
So, Mr Conner. Is Bobby Mozumder a myth, a performing artist,
a real Moslem. a crackpot, a provocateur? You know everything
and read all minds: why don't you tell us?
jon.
| 0alt.atheism
|
kcochran@nyx.cs.du.edu (Keith "Justified And Ancient" Cochran) | Re: Where are they now? | Nyx, Public Access Unix at U. of Denver Math/CS dept. | In article <1r8ou3$41u@horus.ap.mchp.sni.de> frank@D012S658.uucp (Frank O'Dwyer) writes:
>In article <1993Apr22.070854.18213@nuscc.nus.sg> cmtan@iss.nus.sg (Tan Chade Meng - dan) writes:
>#I'll be leaving in June. That's because I'm going back to my university
>#& alt.atheism is banned there (stupid theist intolerance). Sad isn't it.
>#Anybody has any idea how I can circumvent this problem?
>
[Frank's solution deleted.]
If you have access to telnet, contact nyx.cs.du.edu. It's a public access
Unix system, completly free, and all you need to for access is a verifiable
form of ID (I think he requires a notarized copy of a picture, or a check, or
some such).
--
=kcochran@nyx.cs.du.edu | B(0-4) c- d- e++ f- g++ k(+) m r(-) s++(+) t | TSAKC=
=My thoughts, my posts, my ideas, my responsibility, my beer, my pizza. OK???=
| 0alt.atheism
|
healta@saturn.wwc.edu (Tammy R Healy) | Re: Requests | Walla Walla College | In article <11857@vice.ICO.TEK.COM> bobbe@vice.ICO.TEK.COM (Robert Beauchaine) writes:
>From: bobbe@vice.ICO.TEK.COM (Robert Beauchaine)
>Subject: Re: Requests
>Date: 19 Apr 93 18:25:08 GMT
>In article <C5qLLG.4BC@mailer.cc.fsu.edu> mayne@cs.fsu.edu writes:
>>
(excess stuff deleted...)
> However, it seems that a local church elder has been getting
> revelations from god about a devastating quake scheduled to level
> the area on May 3rd. He has independent corroboration from
> several friends, who apparently have had similar revelations. The
> 5.7 quake was, in fact, in response to a request from the lot of
> them seeking a sign from god on the veracity of their visions.
>
> None of this would be terribly interesting, except for the amount
> of stir it has created in the area. Many, many people are taking
> these claims very seriously. There are some making plans to be
> out of the are on the target date. My local religious radio
> station devoted 4 hours of discussion on the topic.
>
> I even called up during one of the live broadcasts to tell the
> host that he would have a full account of my conversion on May
> 4th, provided my family and I survived the devastation and ruin
> that will invariably follow the quake.
>
>/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
>
>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 know of a similar incident about 3 years ago. A climatologist( Ithink
that was his profession) named Iben Browning predicted that an earthquake
would hit the New Madrid fault on Dec.3. Some schools in Missouri that were
on the fault line actually cancelled school for the day. Many people
evacuated New Madrid and other towns in teh are. I wouldn't be suprised if
there were more journalists in the area than residents. Of course, teh
earthquake never occured. HOw do I know about his? I used to live in
Southern Illinois and the lican middle school was built directly on the
fault line. No we still had school... We laughed at the poor idiots who
believed the prediction. :):):):)
Bob, if you're wanting an excuse to convert to Christianity, you gonna have
to look elsewhere.
Tammy "No Trim" Healy
| 0alt.atheism
|
kmr4@po.CWRU.edu (Keith M. Ryan) | Re: free moral agency | Case Western Reserve University | In article <C5uxJ9.pJ@darkside.osrhe.uoknor.edu> bil@okcforum.osrhe.edu (Bill Conner) writes:
>See, I told you there was an atheist mythology, thanks for proving my
>point.
>
>Bill
Considering what you quoted and refered to was blank, I must say:
touche!
Of course, you are correct, there is no atheistic mythology employed
on this board. Or, if there is, it is null and void.
---
Private note to Jennifer Fakult.
"This post may contain one or more of the following:
sarcasm, cycnicism, irony, or humor. Please be aware
of this possibility and do not allow yourself to be
confused and/or thrown for a loop. If in doubt, assume
all of the above.
The owners of this account do not take any responsiblity
for your own confusion which may result from your inability
to recognize any of the above. Read at your own risk, Jennifer."
| 0alt.atheism
|
halat@pooh.bears (Jim Halat) | Islam is caused by believing (was Re: Genocide is Caused by Theism) | null |
In article <1993Apr13.173100.29861@ultb.isc.rit.edu> snm6394@ultb.isc.rit.edu (S.N. Mozumder ) writes:
>>I'm only saying that anything can happen under atheism. Being a
>>beleiver, a knowledgeable one in religion, only good can happen.
This is becoming a tiresome statement. Coming from you it is
a definition, not an assertion:
Islam is good. Belief in Islam is good. Therefore, being a
believer in Islam can produce only good...because Islam is
good. Blah blah blah.
That's about as circular as it gets, and equally meaningless. To
say that something produces only good because it is only good that
it produces is nothing more than an unapplied definition. And
all you're application is saying that it's true if you really
believe it's true. That's silly.
Conversely, you say off-handedly that _anything_ can happen under
atheism. Again, just an offshoot of believe-it-and-it-becomes-true-
don't-believe-it-and-it-doesn't.
Like other religions I'm aquainted with, Islam teaches exclusion and
caste, and suggests harsh penalties for _behaviors_ that have no
logical call for punishment (certain limits on speech and sex, for
example). To me this is not good. I see much pain and suffering
without any justification, except for the _waving of the hand_ of
some inaccessible god.
By the by, you toss around the word knowledgable a bit carelessly.
For what is a _knowledgeable believer_ except a contradiction of
terms. I infer that you mean believer in terms of having faith.
And If you need knowledge to believe then faith has nothing
to do with it, does it?
-jim halat
| 0alt.atheism
|
tk@dcs.ed.ac.uk (Tommy Kelly) | Re: After 2000 years, can we say that Christian Morality is | Laboratory for the Foundations of Computer Science, Edinburgh U | In article <30160@ursa.bear.com> halat@pooh.bears (Jim Halat) writes:
>Speed is a quantifiable measure resulting from a set of methods that
>will result in the same value measured no matter the reference.
Hmmm.
>A bullet with zero velocity sitting on a table on a train moving 60mph
>will be moving at a speed of
>
> (a) 0mph to someone on the train.
> (b) 60mph to someone stationary next to the train.
What a coincidence! That's exactly how I've experienced it too.
So far.
Trouble is, I've no way of knowing if it is just coincidence.
That is, it appears to have been that way in all measurements to date.
But I wouldn't go as far as saying that it will always be so - or that it need
always be so.
>The reference frame makes the speed relative. But what's interesting
>here is that every person on the train will see a stationary bullet.
>Every person off, a bullet moving 60mph.
More coincidence! Wow.
Still - I wish I could be *sure* that it was always going to be like that.
tommy
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Definition: PHYSICS - To cut a short story long...
------------------------------------------------------------------------
| 0alt.atheism
|
schinder@leprss.gsfc.nasa.gov (Paul J. Schinder) | Re: The Universe and Black Holes, was Re: 2000 years..... | NASA Goddard Space Flight Center - Greenbelt, MD USA | In <1993Apr20.154658@IASTATE.EDU> kv07@IASTATE.EDU (Warren Vonroeschlaub) writes:
>In article <lt8d3bINNj1g@exodus.Eng.Sun.COM>, emarsh@hernes-sun.Eng.Sun.COM
>(Eric Marsh) writes:
>>In article <1qvmk2$csk@morrow.stanford.edu> salem@pangea.Stanford.EDU (Bruce
>Salem) writes:
>>> I wonder if the Universe would look like a Black Hole
>>>from "outside"? How could we posit an "Outside", whether called
>>>DeSitter space, hyperspace, parallel universes, whatever?
>>
>>I don't think that the universe would look like a black hole from
>>the outside, because that would imply that similar to a black hole we
>>would see stuff coming in from the "outside."
> Now that has always confused me. Once a black hole forms, I don't see how
>anything could pass the event horizon (perhaps including the original mass that
>formed (is forming) the black hole in the first place.
> Let's say that we drop a marble into the black hole. It races, ever faster,
>towards the even horizon. But, thanks to the curving of space caused by the
>excessive gravity, as the object approaches the event horizon it has further to
>travel. Integrating the curve gives a time to reach the event horizon of . . .
>infinity. So the math says that nothing can enter a black hole.
No it doesn't. Check again in any of the popular GR texts (Misner,
Thorne, and Wheeler, for example). It takes a finite proper time for
anything near the horizon to cross it (if it's going to in the first
place), and a finite proper time for anything crossing the horizon to
reach r=0.
> | __L__
>-|- ___ Warren Kurt vonRoeschlaub
> | | o | kv07@iastate.edu
> |/ `---' Iowa State University
>/| ___ Math Department
> | |___| 400 Carver Hall
> | |___| Ames, IA 50011
> J _____
--
--------
Paul J. Schinder
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
schinder@leprss.gsfc.nasa.gov
| 0alt.atheism
|
GMILLS@CHEMICAL.watstar.uwaterloo.ca (Phil Trodwell) | Re: Moral relativism -- what if we all agree? (was Re: After 2000 etc) | University of Waterloo | In article <930426.140835.4f1.rusnews.w165w@mantis.co.uk> mathew <mathew@mantis.co.uk> writes:
>> By which I mean, are you
>> stretching possible to include events such as the atoms in my terminal
>> switching places so that the terminal turns upside down, or do you
>> think it likely that circumstances will arise in which terrorism is
>> superior to peace.
>
>I think that circumstances have already arisen where terrorism would have
>been better than peace. Better in terms of numbers of innocent people
>killed. Assuming it was successful terrorism, of course.
>
Indeed. Successful terrorism is called *revolution* and is admired by
history. Unsuccessful terrorism is just lowly, cowardly terroism.
Just an observation,
Phil Trodwell
*** This space ***| "I'd be happy to ram a goddam 440-volt cattle
*** for rent. ***| prod into that tub with you right now, but not
*** (cheap) ***| this radio!" -Hunter S. Thompson
| 0alt.atheism
|
livesey@solntze.wpd.sgi.com (Jon Livesey) | Re: Genocide is Caused by Atheism | sgi | In article <1r35oe$hqd@horus.ap.mchp.sni.de>, frank@D012S658.uucp (Frank O'Dwyer) writes:
|> In article <1r2kt7$6e1@fido.asd.sgi.com> livesey@solntze.wpd.sgi.com (Jon Livesey) writes:
|> #In article <1qugin$9tf@horus.ap.mchp.sni.de>, frank@D012S658.uucp (Frank O'Dwyer) writes:
|> #|> In article <1qkogg$k@fido.asd.sgi.com> livesey@solntze.wpd.sgi.com (Jon Livesey) writes:
|> #|>
|> #|> #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.
|> #|>
|> #|> Indeed I may. And one may be an atheist and also be gullible, excitable
|> #|> and easily led.
|> #|>
|> #|> #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.
|> #|>
|> #|> Sure. But whether or not they are atheists is what we are discussing,
|> #|> not whether they are easily led.
|> #
|> #Not if you show that these hypothetical atheists are gullible, excitable
|> #and easily led from some concrete cause. In that case we would also
|> #have to discuss if that concrete cause, rather than atheism, was the
|> #factor that caused their subsequent behaviour.
|>
|> I'm not arguing that atheism causes such behaviour - merely that
|> it is not relevant to the definition of atheism, which is 'lack of belief in
|> gods'.
Throw away the FAQ. We can all just ask Mr O'Dwyer, since he can
define the thing that the rest of us only talk about.
jon.
| 0alt.atheism
|
bil@okcforum.osrhe.edu (Bill Conner) | Re: Second Law (was: Albert Sabin) | Okcforum Unix Users Group | Joel Hanes (jjh00@diag.amdahl.com) wrote:
: Mr Connor's assertion that "more complex" == later in paleontology
: is simply incorrect. Many lineages are known in which whole
: structures are lost -- for example, snakes have lost their legs.
: Cave fish have lost their eyes. Some species have almost completely
: lost their males. Kiwis are descended from birds with functional
: wings.
Joel,
The statements I made were illustrative of the inescapably
anthrpomorphic quality of any desciption of an evolutionary process.
There is no way evolution can be described or explained in terms other
than teleological, that is my whole point. Even those who have reason
to believe they understand evolution (biologists for instance) tend to
personify nature and I can't help but wonder if it's because of the
limits of the language or the nature of nature.
Bill
| 0alt.atheism
|