World's Most Famous Atheist Now Believes in God
Mike
RICHARD N. OSTLING
Associated Press
Posted on Thu Dec. 09, 2004
http://www.tallahassee.com/mld/tallahassee/news/world/10378501.htm
NEW YORK - A British philosophy professor who has been a leading
champion of atheism for more than a half-century has changed his mind.
He now believes in God - more or less - based on scientific evidence,
and says so on a video released Thursday.
At age 81, after decades of insisting belief is a mistake, Antony Flew
has concluded that some sort of intelligence or first cause must have
created the universe. A super-intelligence is the only good
explanation for the origin of life and the complexity of nature, Flew
said in a telephone interview from England.
Flew said he's best labeled a deist like Thomas Jefferson, whose God
was not actively involved in people's lives.
"I'm thinking of a God very different from the God of the Christian
and far and away from the God of Islam, because both are depicted as
omnipotent Oriental despots, cosmic Saddam Husseins," he said. "It
could be a person in the sense of a being that has intelligence and a
purpose, I suppose."
Flew first made his mark with the 1950 article "Theology and
Falsification," based on a paper for the Socratic Club, a weekly
Oxford religious forum led by writer and Christian thinker C.S. Lewis.
Over the years, Flew proclaimed the lack of evidence for God while
teaching at Oxford, Aberdeen, Keele, and Reading universities in
Britain, in visits to numerous U.S. and Canadian campuses and in
books, articles, lectures and debates.
There was no one moment of change but a gradual conclusion over recent
months for Flew, a spry man who still does not believe in an
afterlife.
Yet biologists' investigation of DNA "has shown, by the almost
unbelievable complexity of the arrangements which are needed to
produce (life), that intelligence must have been involved," Flew says
in the new video, "Has Science Discovered God?"
The video draws from a New York discussion last May organized by
author Roy Abraham Varghese's Institute for Metascientific Research in
Garland, Texas. Participants were Flew; Varghese; Israeli physicist
Gerald Schroeder, an Orthodox Jew; and Roman Catholic philosopher John
Haldane of Scotland's University of St. Andrews.
The first hint of Flew's turn was a letter to the August-September
issue of Britain's Philosophy Now magazine. "It has become
inordinately difficult even to begin to think about constructing a
naturalistic theory of the evolution of that first reproducing
organism," he wrote.
The letter commended arguments in Schroeder's "The Hidden Face of God"
and "The Wonder of the World" by Varghese, an Eastern Rite Catholic
layman.
This week, Flew finished writing the first formal account of his new
outlook for the introduction to a new edition of his "God and
Philosophy," scheduled for release next year by Prometheus Books.
Prometheus specializes in skeptical thought, but if his belief upsets
people, well "that's too bad," Flew said. "My whole life has been
guided by the principle of Plato's Socrates: Follow the evidence,
wherever it leads."
Last week, Richard Carrier, a writer and Columbia University graduate
student, posted new material based on correspondence with Flew on the
atheistic www.infidels.org Web page. Carrier assured atheists that
Flew accepts only a "minimal God" and believes in no afterlife.
Flew's "name and stature are big. Whenever you hear people talk about
atheists, Flew always comes up," Carrier said. Still, when it comes to
Flew's reversal, "apart from curiosity, I don't think it's like a big
deal."
Flew told The Associated Press his current ideas have some similarity
with American "intelligent design" theorists, who see evidence for a
guiding force in the construction of the universe. He accepts
Darwinian evolution but doubts it can explain the ultimate origins of
life.
A Methodist minister's son, Flew became an atheist at 15.
Early in his career, he argued that no conceivable events could
constitute proof against God for believers, so skeptics were right to
wonder whether the concept of God meant anything at all.
Another landmark was his 1984 "The Presumption of Atheism," playing
off the presumption of innocence in criminal law. Flew said the debate
over God must begin by presuming atheism, putting the burden of proof
on those arguing that God exists.
ON THE NET
Varghese page: http://www.thewonderoftheworld.com
Infidels on Flew: http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/antony_flew/index.shtml
raven1
>Yet biologists' investigation of DNA "has shown, by the almost
>unbelievable complexity of the arrangements which are needed to
>produce (life), that intelligence must have been involved,"
Yet curiously, biologists themselves are unpersuaded by this argument,
and it's conspicuously absent from the peer-reviewed journals in the
field.
> Flew says
>in the new video, "Has Science Discovered God?"
>
>The video draws from a New York discussion last May organized by
>author Roy Abraham Varghese's Institute for Metascientific Research in
>Garland, Texas. Participants were Flew; Varghese; Israeli physicist
>Gerald Schroeder, an Orthodox Jew; and Roman Catholic philosopher John
>Haldane of Scotland's University of St. Andrews.
>
>The first hint of Flew's turn was a letter to the August-September
>issue of Britain's Philosophy Now magazine. "It has become
>inordinately difficult even to begin to think about constructing a
>naturalistic theory of the evolution of that first reproducing
>organism," he wrote.
Well, they say the mind is the first thing to go, but even at age 81,
Flew should realize that this is the fallacy of argument from personal
incredulity. A shame, actually.
quibbler
brother...@hotmail.com says...
> Famous Atheist Now Believes in God
Your subject line misrepresents the article. Flew is certainly not the
world's most famous atheist. Even most atheists have probably only
heard of him in passing, but he's nowhere nearly as well known as
Michael Martin, Kai Neilsen, George E. Smith, not to mention notable
atheists from the past like Carl Sagan, Bertrand Russell, Voltaire, etc.
Flew was okay, but never struck me as particularly profound and
certainly not very important.
--
Quibbler (quibbler247atyahoo.com)
"It is fashionable to wax apocalyptic about the
threat to humanity posed by the AIDS virus, 'mad cow'
disease, and many others, but I think a case can be
made that faith is one of the world's great evils,
comparable to the smallpox virus but harder to
eradicate." -- Richard Dawkins
yid...@hotmail.com
have given him some ideas that he might want comfort in his supposed
"afterlife".
I've discussed philosophy extensively in my studies, but not once do
the name "Anthony Flew" ever come up in discussions with atheism.
Perhaps it is because of my own ignorance, but his name is nowhere
mentioned in any of the encyclopedias, and any references you can find
under google are really not all that comprehensive.
It's more correct to say that if he ever was a prominent figure in 20th
century philosophy, his influence was probably a minor one, or
short-lived at best. It's quite easy to refute this man's conversion
by the countless number of people who turn to atheism after Catholic
school, for example. On a broader level, you can merely cite the
declining trend of church attendance in general as an argument.
Radical theists have a nasty habit of selectively emphasizing
exceptions to the rule, as if it could be broadly applied. They should
really stop doing these things if they want to be taken seriously.
Ryan
Ike
"Mike" <brother...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:f6abd7f3.04120...@posting.google.com...
First of all the article lies when it calls Flew an atheist. He is an
atheist in the same sense that early Christians were called atheists when
they didn't follow the state-sanctioned pagan religions of the time. Of
course fundamentalists will now use this alleged defection form atheist
ranks to try to discredit atheists and atheism in general, so that they can
feel good about themselves at someone else's expense. Typical distortion of
propagandists who are apparently under some sort of mass mind-control.
Cary Kittrell
> In article <f6abd7f3.04120...@posting.google.com>,
> brother...@hotmail.com says...
> > Famous Atheist Now Believes in God
>
> Your subject line misrepresents the article. Flew is certainly not the
> world's most famous atheist. Even most atheists have probably only
> heard of him in passing, but he's nowhere nearly as well known as
> Michael Martin, Kai Neilsen, George E. Smith, not to mention notable
> atheists from the past like Carl Sagan, Bertrand Russell, Voltaire, etc.
> Flew was okay, but never struck me as particularly profound and
> certainly not very important.
I've got a quibble to quibble with you, quibbler: wasn't Voltaire
actually virulently anti-priest, anti-Church, but not an atheist?
But I merely quibble quibbles here. I have no problem with what
you said.
-- cary
Rune Børsjø
wrote:
>Yet curiously, biologists themselves are unpersuaded by this argument,
>and it's conspicuously absent from the peer-reviewed journals in the
>field.
Two words: elderly dementia.
As for being the world's most famous atheist, I've never heard of him
before.
Keenan Clay Wilkie
>Famous Atheist Now Believes in God
Not only is this article dishonestly distorting the truth (see
http://www.secweb.org/asset.asp?AssetID=369 ) but it also contains this
gem
"He accepts Darwinian evolution but doubts it can explain the ultimate
origins of life."
A rather meaningless statement considering that Darwinian evolution does
not and has never addressed the ultimate origins of life. Only those who
are ignorant of the theory or who are dishonestly trying to attack it make
the claim that it does.
--
See the documented lies of Pastor Frank: http://tinyurl.com/6009
http://angryflower.com/bobsqu.gif
d a r k s t a r @ i g l o u . c o m | atheist #29
quibbler
ca...@afone.as.arizona.edu says...
It's always hard to establish how pure a strain of atheism people
adhered to. Bertrand Russell also sometimes shied away from calling
himself an atheist, though mainly because he recognized that the term
conveyed many inaccurate connotations at his time. For me it's
sufficient that all these people are strongly atheistic with respect to
conventional religion like xian monotheism.
raven1
wrote:
He's a minor English philosopher, whose work I'm not really familiar
with, as contemplating one's navel has never been of particular
interest to me one way or the other.
raven1
It's difficult to say. His most famous quip was "if God did not exist,
it would be necessary to invent Him", from which one can derive a
world of possible meanings.
>
>But I merely quibble quibbles here. I have no problem with what
>you said.
Indeed, as Voltaire would add, I'll defend to the death his right to
say it! ;-)
Erik Max Francis
> Your subject line misrepresents the article. Flew is certainly not the
> world's most famous atheist. Even most atheists have probably only
> heard of him in passing, but he's nowhere nearly as well known as
> Michael Martin, Kai Neilsen, George E. Smith, not to mention notable
> atheists from the past like Carl Sagan, Bertrand Russell, Voltaire, etc.
> Flew was okay, but never struck me as particularly profound and
> certainly not very important.
Furthermore, it's all irrelevant. It doesn't matter if the most famous
people trumpeting a theory change their minds, because theories stand or
fall on their own merits, not the fame of the people who support them.
There are three major differences between religious dogma and scientific
analysis that result in religious folks who want to bring down science
making the same errors over and over again. It's because while their
objections may make sense in a religious context, they make no sense
when it comes to science.
The first is that in religion, the truth comes from on high (or is
supposed to, at least). So it matters very much what the source of a
claim is. In science that couldn't be further from the truth;
scientific theories stand on their own and are disproved or not based on
their own merits, not those who would support them. If a theory works,
it doesn't matter if the most famous people in the world hate it -- or
even if its creator has a change of heart. It works or it doesn't work
independent of that. So to one in a dogmatic mindset, it is very
profound if a "famous" supporter of a theory under attack from religion
changes his mind; but in science, it makes no difference whatsoever.
The second major departure is that in the dogmatic world, everything
must be absolutely correct or nothing is. The Church wouldn't
acknowledge any problem with Aristotle, because if you doubted one bit
of it you doubted it all, and that was heresy. So you frequently find
religious folks attacking, say, evolution, and trying their hardest to
find the tiniest inconsistency. When they think they've found one --
even if it's their own misunderstanding or a misreading of two bits of
data that _do_ agree but have different error bars on each -- then they
throw up their hands and shout, "See! I've disproved it!" But that
also is not how science works. Scientific support consists of many
different parallel threads, and even if you show that one doesn't work,
that doesn't mean that the others don't either. You can show one line
of evidence might even be a little questionable, but that doesn't
invalidate other lines of evidence if they're not directly related.
The third is that religious dogma is intended as an explanation for
everything, whereas any particular scientific theory essentially never
is. So in a religious all-or-nothing view, either you're right or your
adversaries are. In science that's not how it works at all; if there
are two contesting theories that overlap, if you disprove one then that
does not "prove" (corroborate, really, since there's no proof in
science). It just means you've disproved one. So often Scientific
Creationists will think they've found a problem with evolution and
declare themselves the victor by default. But that's not the way a
scientist looks at the situation, so that's not even remotely
compelling; after all, why should _that_ one religion therefore be
proved right by a supposed failure in evolution?
Religious folks trying desperately to use "science" to validate their
work make these elementary errors over and over again -- errors which
indicate that they don't even understand the basis and functions of
science. When they make these claims, they think it bolsters their
case; when actual scientists hear them, they chuckle and shake their heads.
--
Erik Max Francis && m...@alcyone.com && http://www.alcyone.com/max/
San Jose, CA, USA && 37 20 N 121 53 W && AIM erikmaxfrancis
We learn from history that we do not learn from history.
-- Georg Friedrich Wilhelm Hegel
Elf M. Sternberg
> As for being the world's most famous atheist, I've never heard of him
> before.
Then do yourself a favor and read his relatively small book,
_How To Think Straight_. I can't recommend it highly enough. It's
dense and a bit difficult, but rewarding all the same, especially if
you're gonna argue with other people.
Elf
George Dance
distorted along the way, and it was a nice to get Flew's own words on
what he believes - that a Deist-type God (not the character in the
Bible) is possible.
As for the 'gem,' though, your link led me to
http://www.thewonderoftheworld.com/Sections1-article227-page1.html
On Flew's account, he was responding to a 'famous claim' by Dawkins
that natural selection fully explains the existence of life (the
quote's in the link) - which of course it doesn't, and as you point out
doesn't even pretend to do. I think this is more a case of either
loose speaking or hyperbole by Dawkins, rather than any dishonesty by
Flew.
MJPG
A quick Google will show his extensive writings on critical thinking.
I would doubt the appellation "Most Famous" would apply to him. I would guess
Dawkins would win that one.
His ID version of abiogenesis is no more theistic than panspermia, for example.
Of course this news has sent all the god-botherers into paroxysms of orgasmic
delight. Pity that they don't read what he *really* said.
Mark Fergerson
> Famous Atheist Now Believes in God
Argument from authority.
<snippage here and there>
> NEW YORK - A British philosophy professor who has been a leading
> champion of atheism for more than a half-century has changed his mind.
> He now believes in God - more or less - based on scientific evidence,
> and says so on a video released Thursday.
I've never heard of him, and why should I care what he
"believes", anyway?
> ...biologists' investigation of DNA "has shown, by the almost
> unbelievable complexity of the arrangements which are needed to
> produce (life), that intelligence must have been involved," Flew says
> in the new video, "Has Science Discovered God?"
Non sequitur.
> The video draws from a New York discussion last May organized by
> author Roy Abraham Varghese's Institute for Metascientific Research in
> Garland, Texas. Participants were Flew; Varghese; Israeli physicist
> Gerald Schroeder, an Orthodox Jew; and Roman Catholic philosopher John
> Haldane of Scotland's University of St. Andrews.
Well, there's certainly no bias in the rest of the panel.
Ahem.
> ... Flew said "My whole life has been
> guided by the principle of Plato's Socrates: Follow the evidence,
> wherever it leads."
Belief is not evidence of anything but the believer's
mindset of the moment.
> A Methodist minister's son, Flew became an atheist at 15.
Aha.
> ... his 1984 "The Presumption of Atheism," playing
> off the presumption of innocence in criminal law. Flew said the debate
> over God must begin by presuming atheism, putting the burden of proof
> on those arguing that God exists.
Too bad he lost it in his later years.
Mark L. Fergerson
Robibnikoff
"Mark Fergerson" <nu...@biz.ness> wrote in message
news:z5iud.3317$Af.1503@fed1read07...
Turns out it's also a theist lie:
http://www.secweb.org/asset.asp?AssetID=369
--
---------
Robyn
Resident Witchypoo
#1557
quibbler
says...
> quibbler wrote:
>
> > Your subject line misrepresents the article. Flew is certainly not the
> > world's most famous atheist. Even most atheists have probably only
> > heard of him in passing, but he's nowhere nearly as well known as
> > Michael Martin, Kai Neilsen, George E. Smith, not to mention notable
> > atheists from the past like Carl Sagan, Bertrand Russell, Voltaire, etc.
> > Flew was okay, but never struck me as particularly profound and
> > certainly not very important.
>
> Furthermore, it's all irrelevant. It doesn't matter if the most famous
> people trumpeting a theory change their minds, because theories stand or
> fall on their own merits, not the fame of the people who support them.
Agreed. I would add, that religionists who appeal to the unquestionable
authority of some particular person, such as Tony Flew, whom neither
they nor most atheists had ever heard of before, they are invoking a
species of infallibility argument. They are suggesting that this guy,
who like I say, they don't even know, is somehow incapable of making
mistakes, especially to the extent that he makes some vague argument
that tangentially supports their own biases. It truly is an
entertaining sight to behold these desperate theists, grasping at
whatever meager straws they imagine that they come across.
Iain
Dawkins is more famous than Flew, and noted for his atheistic stance.
~Iain
Iain
I don't think I'll read it. If the author was qualified, he'd have
called it "How to think straightly".
~Iain
Cary Kittrell
>
> I don't think I'll read it. If the author was qualified, he'd have
> called it "How to think straightly".
>
Well, see, you'll just have to read it then. Maybe it's actually a book
on how to go to tittie bars, as opposed to just spending
a quiet evening at home listening to show tunes and redecorating
the place.
-- cary
Iain
~Iain
Gary Peach
"raven1" <quotht...@nevermore.com> wrote in message
news:lbdir0t36bo0prd9u...@4ax.com...
> On Fri, 10 Dec 2004 05:06:25 +0100, Rune Børsjø <bugge...@te.com>
> wrote:
> >On Fri, 10 Dec 2004 00:25:26 GMT, raven1 <quotht...@nevermore.com>
> >wrote:
> >
> with, as contemplating one's navel has never been of particular
> interest to me one way or the other.
The navel is fitted at the front in order that contemplation of it is
easier.
This may explain why so few contemplate their anus yet are moved to speak
through it perpetually.
Gary
Does Adena still subscribe to this group?
Gary Peach
> brother...@hotmail.com says...
> > Famous Atheist Now Believes in God
>
> Your subject line misrepresents the article. Flew is certainly not the
> world's most famous atheist. Even most atheists have probably only
> heard of him in passing, but he's nowhere nearly as well known as
> Michael Martin, Kai Neilsen, George E. Smith, not to mention notable
> atheists from the past like Carl Sagan, Bertrand Russell, Voltaire, etc.
> Flew was okay, but never struck me as particularly profound and
> certainly not very important.
You omitted Malcolm Muggeridge, who incidentally died a good Roman Catholic
on the grounds that in the uncertainty it was wise to bet each way.
If, by definition "God" is all knowing and all powerful, then it would be a
simple matter to inform us of his/her existance and intentions.
As we are blissfully uninformed you may asume:
a) "God" does not want us to know;
( he's doing a good job of that.)
OR
b) "God" is just another convenient device of man's mind
to explain all those loose ends in our confusion.
And of course many other explanations,
but before you offer too many of them consider Occam.
Gary
Keenan Clay Wilkie
Actually, Dawkins didn't mention the ultimate origin of life, so the 'gem'
is the result of the write of the original article being a hack. But,
hey, I'm sure that a number of creationoids will jump on it anyway,
because it says what they want to hear, regardless of the truth.
Mani Deli
Note that Freeman Dyson:
-Like Einstein doesn't believe in a personal god like the fascist in
the sky that you believe in.
-He doesn't support any religion.
-Whether or not he doubts evolution he doesn't support any creationist
baloney.
The gap between believing in some sort indescribable mystical entity
and the feature character of Bible babble is something fundamentalist
sheep can't fathom. Its enough to tell them some prominent atheist was
seen in a church. They can think no further. It makes them feel good
and gets the suckers to loosen their wallets.
Roy Jose Lorr
raven1 wrote:
> On 9 Dec 2004 15:31:37 -0800, brother...@hotmail.com (Mike) wrote:
>
> >Yet biologists' investigation of DNA "has shown, by the almost
> >unbelievable complexity of the arrangements which are needed to
> >produce (life), that intelligence must have been involved,"
>
> Yet curiously, biologists themselves are unpersuaded by this argument,
> and it's conspicuously absent from the
> peer-reviewed journals in the
> field.
Dogs protecting their hen house.
>
>
> > Flew says
> >in the new video, "Has Science Discovered God?"
> >
> >The video draws from a New York discussion last May organized by
> >author Roy Abraham Varghese's Institute for Metascientific Research in
> >Garland, Texas. Participants were Flew; Varghese; Israeli physicist
> >Gerald Schroeder, an Orthodox Jew; and Roman Catholic philosopher John
> >Haldane of Scotland's University of St. Andrews.
> >
> >The first hint of Flew's turn was a letter to the August-September
> >issue of Britain's Philosophy Now magazine. "It has become
> >inordinately difficult even to begin to think about constructing a
> >naturalistic theory of the evolution of that first reproducing
> >organism," he wrote.
>
> Well, they say the mind is the first thing to go, but even at age 81,
> Flew should realize that this is the fallacy of argument from personal
> incredulity. A shame, actually.
Don't like the message?... attack the messenger.
--
The last stage of
utopian sentimentalism
is homicidal mania.
Christopher A. Lee
<gary...@btinternet.com> wrote:
>"quibbler" wrote
>> brother...@hotmail.com says...
>> > Famous Atheist Now Believes in God
>>
>> Your subject line misrepresents the article. Flew is certainly not the
>> world's most famous atheist. Even most atheists have probably only
>> heard of him in passing, but he's nowhere nearly as well known as
>> Michael Martin, Kai Neilsen, George E. Smith, not to mention notable
>> atheists from the past like Carl Sagan, Bertrand Russell, Voltaire, etc.
>> Flew was okay, but never struck me as particularly profound and
>> certainly not very important.
>
>You omitted Malcolm Muggeridge, who incidentally died a good Roman Catholic
>on the grounds that in the uncertainty it was wise to bet each way.
Which was just plain stupid - if he had more than half a brain he
would have known all the pitfalls of Pascal's wager because he had
been bombarded with it several times a week by braindead theists.
Elf M. Sternberg
> Dogs protecting their hen house.
Yeah, there's so much money in the biological sciences.
> Don't like the message?... attack the messenger.
I'd like to see the message first.
Elf
Gary Peach
"Christopher A. Lee" wrote ...
> Gary Peach wrote:
> >"quibbler" wrote
> >> brother...@hotmail.com says...
> >> > Famous Atheist Now Believes in God
> >>
> >> Your subject line misrepresents the article. Flew is certainly not the
> >> world's most famous atheist. Even most atheists have probably only
> >> heard of him in passing, but he's nowhere nearly as well known as
> >> Michael Martin, Kai Neilsen, George E. Smith, not to mention notable
> >> atheists from the past like Carl Sagan, Bertrand Russell, Voltaire,
etc.
> >> Flew was okay, but never struck me as particularly profound and
> >> certainly not very important.
> >
> >You omitted Malcolm Muggeridge, who incidentally died a good Roman
Catholic
> >on the grounds that in the uncertainty it was wise to bet each way.
>
> Which was just plain stupid - if he had more than half a brain he
> would have known all the pitfalls of Pascal's wager because he had
> been bombarded with it several times a week by braindead theists.
Pascal's Wager hinges upon the precept that admission to Heaven by the
Christian scheme is by Faith alone.
Faith and Agnostacism are mutually exclusive.
Your rebuff is valid if and only if you know the state of Muggeridge's mind.
As a life long athiest of prominance, his late "conversion" may have been a
recognition of the fact that no matter what belief system in which we deal
it is axiomatic that its precepts should be consistant. Under such a
structure there must be at least one precept that we must take upon Faith,
as proof of its existance can not be found within that closed system of
belief.
The argument revolves around where that faith should be placed.
Christians confuse me by insisting that it is neccasary to move via an
intemediary to profess Faith in a primative entity. ("Through Jesus Christ
our Lord")
Yet they admit to Grace being in the gift of "God"
> >If, by definition "God" is all knowing and all powerful, then it would be
a
> >simple matter to inform us of his/her existance and intentions.
> >
> >As we are blissfully uninformed you may asume:
> >
> > a) "God" does not want us to know;
> > ( he's doing a good job of that.)
> >OR
> >
> > b) "God" is just another convenient device of man's mind
> > to explain all those loose ends in our confusion.
> >
> >And of course many other explanations,
> > but before you offer too many of them consider Occam.
> >
> >Gary
ditto
George Dance
claiming that Flew's now a 'believer' because of it. Flew himself
makes it clear that he has no belief at all in the Christian God, or
the God of any religion for that matter; and will not describe himself
as a 'believer in God' for that very reason:
http://www.secweb.org/asset.asp?AssetID=369
George William Herbert
>[...]
Gentlemen;
You are giving a pair of Neo-Nazi Racists more airtime.
Killfile them and be done with it. There is nothing to be
gained by anyone else in continuing to argue with them.
-george william herbert
gher...@retro.com
Sean C
<ca...@afone.as.arizona.edu> wrote:
> In article <MPG.1c22b21c1...@news.individual.net> quibbler
> <quibb...@yahoo.com> writes:
> > In article <f6abd7f3.04120...@posting.google.com>,
> > brother...@hotmail.com says...
> > > Famous Atheist Now Believes in God
> >
> > Your subject line misrepresents the article. Flew is certainly not the
> > world's most famous atheist. Even most atheists have probably only
> > heard of him in passing, but he's nowhere nearly as well known as
> > Michael Martin, Kai Neilsen, George E. Smith, not to mention notable
> > atheists from the past like Carl Sagan, Bertrand Russell, Voltaire, etc.
> > Flew was okay, but never struck me as particularly profound and
> > certainly not very important.
>
> I've got a quibble to quibble with you, quibbler: wasn't Voltaire
> actually virulently anti-priest, anti-Church, but not an atheist?
>
> But I merely quibble quibbles here. I have no problem with what
> you said.
In his writings, he appears to be a deist, but he also argued that
religion could be useful as a means of social control. Some scholars
believe that Voltaire's deism was merely politically correct
atheism--as open expressions of atheism were illegal in his time--and
that he was probably an atheist in fact.
Sean C
Christopher A. Lee
<gary...@btinternet.com> wrote:
>
>"Christopher A. Lee" wrote ...
>> Gary Peach wrote:
>> >"quibbler" wrote
>> >> brother...@hotmail.com says...
>> >> > Famous Atheist Now Believes in God
>> >>
>> >> Your subject line misrepresents the article. Flew is certainly not the
>> >> world's most famous atheist. Even most atheists have probably only
>> >> heard of him in passing, but he's nowhere nearly as well known as
>> >> Michael Martin, Kai Neilsen, George E. Smith, not to mention notable
>> >> atheists from the past like Carl Sagan, Bertrand Russell, Voltaire,
>etc.
>> >> Flew was okay, but never struck me as particularly profound and
>> >> certainly not very important.
>> >
>> >You omitted Malcolm Muggeridge, who incidentally died a good Roman
>Catholic
>> >on the grounds that in the uncertainty it was wise to bet each way.
>>
>> Which was just plain stupid - if he had more than half a brain he
>> would have known all the pitfalls of Pascal's wager because he had
>> been bombarded with it several times a week by braindead theists.
>
>Pascal's Wager hinges upon the precept that admission to Heaven by the
>Christian scheme is by Faith alone.
Nope. It hinges on the invalid presumption that there is only one
possible deity-belief, and goes downhill from there.
> Faith and Agnostacism are mutually exclusive.
>
>Your rebuff is valid if and only if you know the state of Muggeridge's mind.
He had to be stupid to be taken in by Pascal's wager.
>As a life long athiest of prominance, his late "conversion" may have been a
>recognition of the fact that no matter what belief system in which we deal
>it is axiomatic that its precepts should be consistant. Under such a
>structure there must be at least one precept that we must take upon Faith,
>as proof of its existance can not be found within that closed system of
>belief.
Except of course that atheism isn't belief system or a faith - it only
requires faith in the minds of the wilfully ignorant who start off
with the presumption of deity and imagine that this presumption
applies to everybody. It no more applies to atheists than eg an
ancient Greek's Zeus premise applies to Christians - both are merely
somebody else's wacky religious belief and neither have any relevance
outside their religions.
It takes no more faith not to be theist than not to believe in Santa
Claus.
>The argument revolves around where that faith should be placed.
Only in the minds of the terminally ignorant who refuse to let
atheists be what they actually are.
>Christians confuse me by insisting that it is neccasary to move via an
>intemediary to profess Faith in a primative entity. ("Through Jesus Christ
>our Lord")
>
>Yet they admit to Grace being in the gift of "God"
Which is irrelevant to atheists.
Chzwmn
>Famous Atheist Now Believes in God
>
>
>Associated Press
>
>Posted on Thu Dec. 09, 2004
He is so fucking famous that NO ONE has ever heard of him!!!
HEHEHEHEHEHEH
A very confused little man by the sounds of it - a real sick puppy!!!
Alan Wostenberg
Erik Max Francis wrote:
> quibbler wrote:
>
>> Your subject line misrepresents the article. Flew is certainly not
>> the world's most famous atheist. Even most atheists have probably
>> only heard of him in passing, but he's nowhere nearly as well known as
>> Michael Martin, Kai Neilsen, George E. Smith, not to mention notable
>> atheists from the past like Carl Sagan, Bertrand Russell, Voltaire,
>> etc. Flew was okay, but never struck me as particularly profound and
>> certainly not very important.
>
>
> Furthermore, it's all irrelevant. It doesn't matter if the most famous
> people trumpeting a theory change their minds, because theories stand or
> fall on their own merits, not the fame of the people who support them.
...
> The first is that in religion, the truth comes from on high (or is
> supposed to, at least). So it matters very much what the source of a
> claim is. In science that couldn't be further from the truth;
> scientific theories stand on their own and are disproved or not based on
> their own merits, not those who would support them. If a theory works,
> it doesn't matter if the most famous people in the world hate it -- or
> even if its creator has a change of heart. It works or it doesn't work
> independent of that. So to one in a dogmatic mindset, it is very
> profound if a "famous" supporter of a theory under attack from religion
> changes his mind; but in science, it makes no difference whatsoever.
Scientists are not immune to peer pressure, publish or perish, the
temptation to fudge the data, and other pressures of any professional.
You say if a theory works it "stands on it's own". If this is a
scientific claim about science, how do we know it's true? What percent
of current theories are true, so we can measure how efficient this
aleged self-correction mechanism in science is?
Alan Wostenberg
Christopher A. Lee wrote:
> On Sat, 11 Dec 2004 05:17:29 +0000 (UTC), "Gary Peach"
> <gary...@btinternet.com> wrote:
>>As a life long athiest of prominance, his late "conversion" may have been a
>>recognition of the fact that no matter what belief system in which we deal
>>it is axiomatic that its precepts should be consistant. Under such a
>>structure there must be at least one precept that we must take upon Faith,
>>as proof of its existance can not be found within that closed system of
>>belief.
>
>
> Except of course that atheism isn't belief system or a faith - it only
> requires faith in the minds of the wilfully ignorant who start off
> with the presumption of deity and imagine that this presumption
> applies to everybody. It no more applies to atheists than eg an
> ancient Greek's Zeus premise applies to Christians - both are merely
> somebody else's wacky religious belief and neither have any relevance
> outside their religions.
Not a belief system? Atheism begins in the faith that most people are
"willfully ignorant". People are models of sanity in small things like
raising a family or building a career, are thought to be willfully
ignorant when it comes to what matters most: the afterlife and God. It
is fallacy of special pleading to say your friends and neighbors are
reasonable in everything *except* religion.
John Popelish
> Not a belief system? Atheism begins in the faith that most people are
> "willfully ignorant".
Bull. My atheism isn't about other people.
> People are models of sanity in small things like
> raising a family or building a career,
You won't catch me saying anything like that. I think most people are
examples of almost completely irrational (and largely subconscious)
minds using rationality and logic only when they absolutely have to,
and then, mostly to rationalize the actions they have taken, non
rationally. I include myself in that group, most of the time.
Rationality is like algebra. It is very useful but is applied only
when easier methods fail.
...
> are thought to be willfully
> ignorant when it comes to what matters most: the afterlife and God.
Since I don't have any suspicion that either afterlife or God have
anything to do with reality, I obviously don't think either matters at
all.
> It is fallacy of special pleading to say your friends and neighbors are
> reasonable in everything *except* religion.
No, it is your strawman.
Try arguing with an atheist, instead of your caricature of one.
--
John Popelish
DJensen
The 'f' in 'sf' stands for 'fiction'.
Mani Deli
<redhawk@/burnspammersalive/hvc.rr.com> wrote:
I recall that Voltaire didn't like Diderot because he was an atheist.
Mani Deli
according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in the sincerity of
your
heart, as to Christ;
6 not by way of eyeservice, as men-pleasers, but as slaves of Christ,
doing the will of God from the heart.
COLOSSIANS 3:22 Slaves, in all things obey those who are your masters
on
earth, not with external service, as those who merely please men, but
with
sincerity of heart, fearing the Lord.
1 TIMOTHY 6:1 Let all who are under the yoke as slaves regard their
own
masters as worthy of all honor so that the name of God and our
doctrine
may not be spoken against.
2 And let those who have believers as their masters not be
disrespectful to them because they are brethren, but let them serve
them
all the more, because those who partake of the benefit are
believers and beloved. Teach and preach these principles.
George William Herbert
>Not a belief system? Atheism begins in the faith that most people are
This is a theist myth about athiesm.
It's a classic debating tactic to invent a mythical
but flawed ideology and ascribe it to your opponent.
Unfortunately, it's a lie, to yourself and those
you are trying to convince.
I have personally drifted into agnosticism in
my adult life, but I do recall that God told
people that they should not lie, Alan. He seemed
rather insistent on that point, last time I
checked.
-george william herbert
gher...@retro.com
The Terminologist
> You say if a theory works it "stands on it's own". If this is a
> scientific claim about science, how do we know it's true?
By understanding it. This requires intellectual acuity and intellectual
discipline.
Nico Demusopelous
raven1 wrote:
> >The first hint of Flew's turn was a letter to the August-September
> >issue of Britain's Philosophy Now magazine. "It has become
> >inordinately difficult even to begin to think about constructing a
> >naturalistic theory of the evolution of that first reproducing
> >organism," he wrote.
>
> Well, they say the mind is the first thing to go, but even at age 81,
> Flew should realize that this is the fallacy of argument from
personal
> incredulity. A shame, actually.
The first time I ever saw a reference to the fallacy of personal
incredulity, it was in the writings of Richard Dawkins. I, however, am
not convinced that it is all that fallacious. When confronted with a
series of scenarios that we are attempting to sift through via
abduction, we often pick the one we find most plausible. There is
nothing fallacious in stating that one finds certain explanations or
approaches increasingly difficult.
Nico Demusopelous
Erik Max Francis
> Scientists are not immune to peer pressure, publish or perish, the
> temptation to fudge the data, and other pressures of any professional.
Social factors come into play, certainly. If the sole champion of a
theory abandons it, obviously it's going to take other people to pick it
up in order to bring the theory to the attention of others. Obviously,
all human endeavour is subject to human behavior.
But it isn't anything like scientists choose which theory is best based
on the most famous person who champions it. _In the scientific method_,
it makes no difference who supports it or who opposes it. It stands on
its own merits.
> You say if a theory works it "stands on it's own". If this is a
> scientific claim about science, how do we know it's true? What percent
> of current theories are true, so we can measure how efficient this
> aleged self-correction mechanism in science is?
There's no such thing as a "true theory" by definition, since scientific
theories cannot be proven. So you're going to have to reformulate your
metric.
Something like "How many currently accepted theories fit the data they
are intended to model?" And the answer to that is something like "All
of them."
--
Erik Max Francis && m...@alcyone.com && http://www.alcyone.com/max/
San Jose, CA, USA && 37 20 N 121 53 W && AIM erikmaxfrancis
Isn't jumping of a bridge / Free fallin'
-- Sandra St. Victor
Yang, AthD (h.c), Kicking AWOL's Cocaine Snorting Ass
wrote:
>>COLOSSIANS 3:22 Slaves, in all things obey those who are your masters
>>on earth, not with external service, as those who merely please men, but
>>with sincerity of heart, fearing the Lord.
>always interpreted it. This is a, "Render unto Caesar that which
>is Caesar's and render unto God that which is God's," situation.
No, the Bible acknowledges the existence of slavery during its time
and is perfectly okay with it. The book is more concerend about people
eating pork than one person enslaving another.
-----
Yang
a.a. #28
AthD (h.c.) conferred by the regents of the LCL
a.a. pastor #-273.15, the most frigid church of Celcius nee Kelvin
EAC Econometric Forecast and Sorcery Division
Proudly plonked by Lani Girl and Crazyalec
The Bush 'balanced' budget: 1.6 trillion and worsening
The Bush 'economic' policy: 12 million FEWER jobs than Clinton and counting
The Bush Iraq lie: -1283 GIs, one friend's co-worker's son and mounting
Having Bush fuck up my country: Worthless
JimC
Yang, AthD (h.c), Kicking AWOL's Cocaine Snorting Ass writes:
> ...the Bible acknowledges the existence of slavery during its time
> and is perfectly okay with it. The book is more concerend about people
> eating pork than one person enslaving another.
Anyone know if cannibalism is kashrut?
Christopher A. Lee
Herbert) wrote:
>Alan Wostenberg <awost...@psalmweaver.com> wrote:
>>Not a belief system? Atheism begins in the faith that most people are
>>"willfully ignorant". [...]
>
>This is a theist myth about athiesm.
It's not a myth, or an honest mistake. It's a deliberate lie when
Wostenberg says it because he's been corrected regularly ever since he
has been repeating it, for maybe a decade.
Or when any other theist repeats it after he has been corrected.
There is something about Christianity that turns people into
sociopaths who won't allow others to have any position that isn't the
one the Liars For God invent for them.
He is a deliberately nasty, in-your-face, stupid liar. But
representative of a large class of Christians.
Christopher A. Lee
<nicodem...@jesusanswers.com> wrote:
Except that what you're describing isn't the fallacy - it's plucking a
"conclusion" that is a non-sequitur out of thin air because one
doesn't know or understand.
Which is what Flew did.
Yang, AthD (h.c), Kicking AWOL's Cocaine Snorting Ass
wrote:
>On Sat, 11 Dec 2004 13:56:08 -0800, "Yang, AthD (h.c), Kicking
>AWOL's Cocaine Snorting Ass" <eacmole@/*AWOLBUSH*/mail.com>
>wrote:
>
>>On Sat, 11 Dec 2004 19:38:26 GMT, Gordon <gord...@DELETEswbell.net>
>>wrote:
>>
>>>>COLOSSIANS 3:22 Slaves, in all things obey those who are your masters
>>>>on earth, not with external service, as those who merely please men, but
>>>>with sincerity of heart, fearing the Lord.
>>
>>>You're taking this with a bit of a different slant than I have
>>>always interpreted it. This is a, "Render unto Caesar that which
>>>is Caesar's and render unto God that which is God's," situation.
>>
>>No, the Bible acknowledges the existence of slavery during its time
>>and is perfectly okay with it. The book is more concerend about people
>>eating pork than one person enslaving another.
>>
>Hardly "okay with it" but willing to concede that it was a part
>of the enforced socio/political structure, and not likely to
>abate, so they had to live with it.
And that would be true if you have passages in the Bible that said
something like "We know slavery is wrong but...". You don't. You see a
simply acceptance of it.
>Until trichinas was understood and brought under control, there
>was probably more danger in eating pork than most people today
>realize. Avoiding pork in one's diet was an option that they
>could aspire to with little or no opposition from the dominant
>elements of those cultures.
Except that the "dominant" culture in Spain and Western Europe
continued to eat pork and lived to tell about it.
Ben Bradley
alt.atheism,
alt.religion.christian,
alt.philosophy.debate,
rec.arts.sf.science,
rec.org.mensa,
on Fri, 10 Dec 2004 10:48:58 +0000, MJPG <m...@privacy.net> wrote:
>On Fri, 10 Dec 2004 05:06:25 +0100, Rune Børsjø <bugge...@te.com> wrote:
>>As for being the world's most famous atheist, I've never heard of him
>>before.
>
>A quick Google will show his extensive writings on critical thinking.
>
>I would doubt the appellation "Most Famous" would apply to him. I would guess
>Dawkins would win that one.
I would have thought Isaac Asimov would be "the world's most famous
atheist" in being the world's most famous person who has publically
stated he is an atheist, but with your mention of Dawkins, perhaps
what was meant was "the person most famous specifically for being an
atheist" and for that the name that comes to mind is Madalyn Murray
O'Hair.
Roy Jose Lorr
"Elf M. Sternberg" wrote:
> Roy Jose Lorr <moses...@worldnet.att.net> writes:
>
> > Dogs protecting their hen house.
>
> Yeah, there's so much money in the biological sciences.
The currancy is the going dogma.
>
>
> > Don't like the message?... attack the messenger.
>
> I'd like to see the message first.
Open eyes when reading.
--
The last stage of
utopian sentimentalism
is homicidal mania.
thomas p
Of course, that is the point. Scientists are just people. The
scientific method allows for that. Peer review (including testing of
the claims made) has a much better record of discovering and
correcting error than does review by theologians or popes.
>
>You say if a theory works it "stands on it's own". If this is a
>scientific claim about science, how do we know it's true? What percent
>of current theories are true, so we can measure how efficient this
>aleged self-correction mechanism in science is?
The theories that actually produce results in the real world remain
valid until new data is discovered that either refines the theory or
replaces it. How do you test whether or not a Church dogma is correct
or not?
thomas p
<awost...@psalmweaver.com> wrote:
>
>
>Christopher A. Lee wrote:
>
>> On Sat, 11 Dec 2004 05:17:29 +0000 (UTC), "Gary Peach"
>> <gary...@btinternet.com> wrote:
>
>>>As a life long athiest of prominance, his late "conversion" may have been a
>>>recognition of the fact that no matter what belief system in which we deal
>>>it is axiomatic that its precepts should be consistant. Under such a
>>>structure there must be at least one precept that we must take upon Faith,
>>>as proof of its existance can not be found within that closed system of
>>>belief.
>>
>>
>> Except of course that atheism isn't belief system or a faith - it only
>> requires faith in the minds of the wilfully ignorant who start off
>> with the presumption of deity and imagine that this presumption
>> applies to everybody. It no more applies to atheists than eg an
>> ancient Greek's Zeus premise applies to Christians - both are merely
>> somebody else's wacky religious belief and neither have any relevance
>> outside their religions.
>Not a belief system? Atheism begins in the faith that most people are
>"willfully ignorant".
That is nonsense. Atheism is the lack of a belief in a god. What
individual atheists think beyond that does not define them as
atheists.
People are models of sanity in small things like
>raising a family or building a career, are thought to be willfully
>ignorant when it comes to what matters most: the afterlife and God. It
>is fallacy of special pleading to say your friends and neighbors are
>reasonable in everything *except* religion.
Their religious beliefs are their own business. If they insist,
however, on telling me what I really believe, even after I have
explained my position, they are not being reasonable; that is just
what you and many like you insist on doing.
Erik Max Francis
> Of course, that is the point. Scientists are just people. The
> scientific method allows for that. Peer review (including testing of
> the claims made) has a much better record of discovering and
> correcting error than does review by theologians or popes.
And if someone makes a mistake and rejects a good theory or corroborates
a bad one, then someone else can come along and redo the experiment.
There's accountability (remember Pons and Fleischmann?) and the ability
to constantly monitor the state of the art and improve it. That's why
science works. All human endeavour is subject to the vagaries of human
behavior, but the scientific method has builtin mechanisms to allow for
that.
--
Erik Max Francis && m...@alcyone.com && http://www.alcyone.com/max/
San Jose, CA, USA && 37 20 N 121 53 W && AIM erikmaxfrancis
I'll tell them that their daddy was / A good man
-- India Arie
Stephen Horgan
wrote:
I can say with a near certainty that whoever you are descended from
would have regarded this as pretty enlightened in the context of the
societies that they were around when this was written. I can also say
with total certainty that my, Christian, country abolished slavery
decades before yours did.
So, do would you like me to post the relevant acts of the British
Parliament, and a few corresponding similar excerpts form the
corresponding years in the US? Or maybe some of the prayers from the,
Christian, men at Gettysburg before the beginning of the third day?
Or maybe you will pause and ruminate on the futility of trying to
rubbish a living religion on the basis of a few out-of-context quotes.
--
Stephen Horgan
"intelligent people will tend to overvalue intelligence"
Rob Duncan
"Yang, AthD (h.c), Kicking AWOL's Cocaine Snorting Ass"
news:f3rmr01huemrsngma...@4ax.com...
> On Sat, 11 Dec 2004 19:38:26 GMT, Gordon <gord...@DELETEswbell.net>
> wrote:
>
>>>COLOSSIANS 3:22 Slaves, in all things obey those who are your masters
>>>on earth, not with external service, as those who merely please men, but
>>>with sincerity of heart, fearing the Lord.
>
>>You're taking this with a bit of a different slant than I have
>>always interpreted it. This is a, "Render unto Caesar that which
>>is Caesar's and render unto God that which is God's," situation.
>
> No, the Bible acknowledges the existence of slavery during its time
> and is perfectly okay with it. The book is more concerend about people
> eating pork than one person enslaving another.
>
Youre arguement is with judaism then.
Rob
Mani Deli
but on the seventh he shall go out as a free man without payment.
EXODUS 21:3 "If he comes alone, he shall go out alone; if he is the
husband of a wife, then his wife shall go out with him.
EXODUS 21:4 "If his master gives him a wife, and she bears him sons or
daughters, the wife and her children shall belong to his master, and
he shall go out alone.
LEVITICUS 25:44 'As for your male and female slaves whom you may have-
you may acquire male and female slaves from the pagan nations that are
around you.
45 'Then too, it is out of the sons of the sojourners who live as
aliens among you that you may gain acquisition, and out of their
families who are with you, whom they will have produced in your land;
they also may become your possession.
46 'You may even bequeath them to your sons after you, to receive as a
possession; you can use them as permanent slaves. But in respect to
your countrymen, the sons of Israel, you shall not rule with severity
over one another.
On Sun, 12 Dec 2004 21:18:30 GMT, Stephen Horgan
<ste...@horgan.REMOVETOREPLY.co.uk> wrote:
>On Sat, 11 Dec 2004 13:29:56 -0500, Mani Deli <ma...@sympatico.ca>
>wrote:
>
>>EPHESIANS 6:5 Slaves, be obedient to those who are your masters
>>according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in the sincerity of
>>your
>>heart, as to Christ;
>>6 not by way of eyeservice, as men-pleasers, but as slaves of Christ,
>>doing the will of God from the heart.
>>
>>COLOSSIANS 3:22 Slaves, in all things obey those who are your masters
>>on earth, not with external service, as those who merely please men, but
>>with sincerity of heart, fearing the Lord.
>>
>>1 TIMOTHY 6:1 Let all who are under the yoke as slaves regard their
>>own masters as worthy of all honor so that the name of God and our
>>doctrine may not be spoken against.
>>2 And let those who have believers as their masters not be
>>disrespectful to them because they are brethren, but let them serve
>>them all the more, because those who partake of the benefit are
>>believers and beloved. Teach and preach these principles.
>
>I can say with a near certainty that whoever you are descended from
>would have regarded this as pretty enlightened in the context of the
>societies that they were around when this was written.
That's the context that those who take the Bible literally have to
believe!
> I can also say with total certainty that my, Christian, country abolished slavery
>decades before yours did.
And I can say with total certainty that this isn't a Christian
country. It is presently a country which Christian right wing fanatics
are trying to take over.
>Or maybe you will pause and ruminate on the futility of trying to
> on the basis of a few out-of-context quotes.
I suppose Bible quotes "rubbish a living religion," in your book.
Or maybe you never read the Bible carefully and are so lost in blind
faith that you have to twist everything you hear from it that might
offend you.
quibbler
awost...@psalmweaver.com says...
> Not a belief system? Atheism begins in the faith that most people are
> "willfully ignorant".
It's not faith, dumbass. It's a fact, as you demonstrate yourself, by
example with your own willful ignorance. That people are willfully
ignorant about one thing or another is probably be one of the least
controversial findings of psychology or sociology. People often believe
what they wish were true, rather than what is. Particularly when
certain beliefs, like one's parent's brand of theism, are reinforced and
considered socially acceptable, it's quite easy to see why otherwise
rational people will compartmentalize and adopt the fantasies known as
religion.
> People are models of sanity in small things
Your dichotomy is idiotic. It's not being claimed that people who adopt
religion are raving lunatics, though certainly lunatics tend to be more
religious. Rather, people can easily be rational about some things and
completely irrational about others. Welcome to reality. It's standard
human behavior.
> like
> raising a family or building a career, are thought to be willfully
> ignorant when it comes to what matters most:
Nice try at mouthing some simple-minded religious apologetics, though
you could at least be honest enough to admit which rag sheet you cribbed
them from. First off, it's not necessarily what matters most, but
merely something that people wish were so, especially because the
thought of death scares them too much to consider things
dispassionately. Furthermore, while many people might say that the
afterlife is important to them, they don't actually behave in ways that
are consistent with this claim. People are brainwashed from infancy to
spout gawd belief and claim that it is important to them. But the
reality is that most people don't act like they give two shits about
religion. They go to church on xmas and maybe easter. They don't live
their lives like they really believe that Jebus is watching them when
they're sleeping or making a list of who is naughty and nice. Besides,
why should we assume that people who waste their lives in obsequious
thraldom to a fantasy sky fairy, like Jesus or Yahweh, would do anything
productive with immortality?
> the afterlife and God. It
> is fallacy of special pleading
No, it is a foolish consistency on your part, couple with your obvious
ignorance of what a special pleading is. It's all to common to see
apparently undereducated people, like yourself, allege fallacies when
none exist. Observing that people compartmentalize and are nowhere near
consistent in all of their judgments is well supported by a large body
of evidence in the social sciences, your misapplications of elementary
rhetoric to one side. BTW, don't even bother erroneously alleging that
my comments constitute ad hominem or argument by assertion. That you
may not be aware of the data is not equivalent to establishing that none
exist. Also, as homework, please look up the definition of ad hominem
before attempting to apply it.
> to say your friends and neighbors are
> reasonable in everything *except* religion.
Actually, you're incorrect in assuming that this is what atheists are
arguing. Raising a family or building a career are wholly different
processes than affirming that Jesus was born of a virgin and sucked our
sins up like a sponge on the cross. Furthermore, many people adopt
religions at very early ages, far before they have developed the
reasoning skills which you describe relating to raising a family or
building a career. But, I don't think that most people are
unreasonable because I don't think that most people honestly believe
that nonsense. It's just dogma that they've been fed for so long that
many people don't have the motivation, the energy or the nerve to
attempt to deconstruct it. Also, people are blackmailed into not
questioning their beliefs by their social support networks and by the
meme-complex of the religion itself. All the major religions
characterize it as a morally objectionable thing to question the
precepts of their particular faith. But since all religions cannot be
true, it also can't be true that it is wrong to question religious
doctrines in general. I'm willing to call you rational when you start
acting that way, but nothing I've seen so far indicates that you merit
this designation.
--
Quibbler (quibbler247atyahoo.com)
"It is fashionable to wax apocalyptic about the
threat to humanity posed by the AIDS virus, 'mad cow'
disease, and many others, but I think a case can be
made that faith is one of the world's great evils,
comparable to the smallpox virus but harder to
eradicate." -- Richard Dawkins
Joseph Hertzlinger
Human milk is pareve. Clearly humans are not classified as animals.
Joseph Hertzlinger
> LEVITICUS 25:44 'As for your male and female slaves whom you may have-
> you may acquire male and female slaves from the pagan nations that are
> around you.
> 45 'Then too, it is out of the sons of the sojourners who live as
> aliens among you that you may gain acquisition, and out of their
> families who are with you, whom they will have produced in your land;
> they also may become your possession.
> 46 'You may even bequeath them to your sons after you, to receive as a
> possession; you can use them as permanent slaves. But in respect to
> your countrymen, the sons of Israel, you shall not rule with severity
> over one another.
Not always that permanent.
| Deuteronomy 23:15. Thou shalt not deliver unto his master the
| servant which is escaped from his master unto thee: 23:16. He shall
| dwell with thee, even among you, in that place which he shall choose
| in one of thy gates, where it liketh him best: thou shalt not
| oppress him.
Also cf. Genesis 27:40, which says that slaves can free themselves.
In any case, Exodus 21:20-21 authorizes lenient treatment for the
accidental death of a slave and Exodus 21:22-25 authorizes lenient
treatment for the accidental death of a fetus. Clearly, abortion and
slavery are supposed to be banned together.
Stephen Horgan
That's why it's called Bible study, not Bible quick-flick-through.
>> I can also say with total certainty that my, Christian, country abolished slavery
>>decades before yours did.
>
>And I can say with total certainty that this isn't a Christian
>country. It is presently a country which Christian right wing fanatics
>are trying to take over.
>
You do not even appear to know what Christianity is. As for politics,
why not try and talk about issues instead of trying to rubbish one of
the major world religions?
>>Or maybe you will pause and ruminate on the futility of trying to
>> on the basis of a few out-of-context quotes.
>
>I suppose Bible quotes "rubbish a living religion," in your book.
>Or maybe you never read the Bible carefully and are so lost in blind
>faith that you have to twist everything you hear from it that might
>offend you.
You see what I mean? I've never met you and I already prefer the
'Christian right wing fanatics'. If you are representative of his
support then no wonder Kerry lost.
The theological position on the bible is quite clear, it is the
revealed word of God, but meaning comes through study, not quoting a
few sentences alluding to a circumstance only common thousands of
years ago. It is a complex work, containing many different kinds or
writings and a balanced critique has to reflect that complexity. As
for faith, I believe in God and I am a Christian. What I have no idea
of is what you believe in, which I think summarises Kerry's political
problem.
Alan Wostenberg
George William Herbert wrote:
> Alan Wostenberg <awost...@psalmweaver.com> wrote:
>
>>Not a belief system? Atheism begins in the faith that most people are
>>"willfully ignorant". [...]
>
>
> This is a theist myth about athiesm.
George, it's a direct quote of Lee, who thinks believers are "willfully
ignorant", "terminally ignorant", and so forth. Does he not represent
the typical atheist in his explanation of why there are so few atheists
and so many believers? Do you have a different explanation?
Alan Wostenberg
John Popelish wrote:
> Alan Wostenberg wrote:
>
>
>>Not a belief system? Atheism begins in the faith that most people are
>>"willfully ignorant".
>
>
> Bull. My atheism isn't about other people.
>
>
>>People are models of sanity in small things like
>>raising a family or building a career,
>
>
> You won't catch me saying anything like that. I think most people are
> examples of almost completely irrational (and largely subconscious)
> minds using rationality and logic only when they absolutely have to,
> and then, mostly to rationalize the actions they have taken, non
> rationally. I include myself in that group, most of the time.
> Rationality is like algebra. It is very useful but is applied only
> when easier methods fail.
I admire the consistency, and tend to agree. Irrationality is one of the
bad effects of original sin.
Alan Wostenberg
thomas p wrote:
> On Sat, 11 Dec 2004 09:06:35 -0600, Alan Wostenberg
> <awost...@psalmweaver.com> wrote:
>>Not a belief system? Atheism begins in the faith that most people are
>>"willfully ignorant".
>
>
> That is nonsense. Atheism is the lack of a belief in a god. What
> individual atheists think beyond that does not define them as
> atheists.
Which lack has consequences. For example the atheist usually offers a
different explanation of why the majority believe, than a Christian. He
will attribute it to brainwashing since infancy, or intellectual sloth,
or a wish-fulfillment. The Christian, on the other hand, can afford to
be more liberal in treating the unbelievers.
> People are models of sanity in small things like
>
>>raising a family or building a career, are thought to be willfully
>>ignorant when it comes to what matters most: the afterlife and God. It
>>is fallacy of special pleading to say your friends and neighbors are
>>reasonable in everything *except* religion.
>
>
> Their religious beliefs are their own business. If they insist,
> however, on telling me what I really believe, even after I have
> explained my position, they are not being reasonable; that is just
> what you and many like you insist on doing.
Thomas, that "their religious beliefs are their own business" is itself
a religious belief
-- that truth in religioun is a matter of taste, like cuisine, and not
truth, like physics.
Alan Wostenberg
Erik Max Francis wrote:
> Alan Wostenberg wrote:
>> You say if a theory works it "stands on it's own". If this is a
>> scientific claim about science, how do we know it's true? What percent
>> of current theories are true, so we can measure how efficient this
>> self-correction mechanism in science is?
>
>
> There's no such thing as a "true theory" by definition, since scientific
> theories cannot be proven. So you're going to have to reformulate your
> metric.
>
> Something like "How many currently accepted theories fit the data they
> are intended to model?" And the answer to that is something like "All
> of them."
Wouldn't the answer "all of them" have been the same a hundred years ago?
Those who say the mechanism is self-correcting are claiming real
progress in science, and progress, implies an unchanging goal: Truth. Of
them, I ask: how do you know the mechanism works?
Alan Wostenberg
thomas p wrote:
I think the mechanism of the scientific method no more bestows honesty
on scientists
than the mechanism of democracy bestows goodness on it's citizens.
As citizens can use the meachinery of democracy to produce bad laws,
so scientsits can use the mechanism of the scientific method to do bad
science.
In science, as in governence and religion, persons are the first order
cause. Not process.
How do I test wether or not Catholic dogma is correct? There were the
preambles to the faith -- the purely rational demonstations that God
exists, made a Revelation, founded a Church, granted her infallibility
in matters of faith and morals, and consequent intellectual duty to
believe what the Church teaches is true.
Ninure Saunders
attributes that will harmonize with slavery; and that all men are born
free and equal. Now, I say let him throw away his Bible as Mr. Jefferson
did his and then they will be fit companions. But never disgrace the
Bible by making Mr. Jefferson its expounder, nor Mr. Jefferson by deriving
his sentiments from it. Mr. Jefferson did not bow to the authority of the
Bible, and on this subject I do not bow to him."
[Rev. Thornton Stringfellow, D.D., in "Scriptural View of Slavery," a work
showing that the Bible sanctions slavery, from John E. Remsburg, "Six
Historic Americans. Chapter 2: Thomas Jefferson"]
http://www.infidels.org/library/historical/john_remsburg/six_historic_americans/chapter_2.html
"The right of holding slaves is clearly established in the Holy
Scriptures, both by precept and example."
[Rev. R. Furman, D.D., Baptist, of South Carolina]
"The extracts from Holy Writ unequivocally assert the right of property in
slaves."
[Rev. E.D. Simms, professor, Randolph-Macon College]
"I draw my warrant from the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to
hold the slave in bondage."
[Rev. Thomas Witherspoon, Presbyterian, of Alabama]
"In another area of human rights, many Christian clergymen advocated
slavery. Historian Larry Hise notes in his book 'Pro-Slavery' that
ministers 'wrote almost half of all defenses of slavery published in
America.' He lists 275 men of the cloth who used the Bible to prove that
white people were entitled to own black people as work animals." [James A.
Haught, 'Holy Horrors']
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0879755784/
"The delegates of the annual conference are decidedly opposed to modern
abolitionism, and wholly disclaim any right, wish, or intention to
interfere in the civil and political relation between master and
slave in the slave-holding states of the union."
[Methodist Episcopal Church, Statement of the General Conference,
Cincinnati, May 1836]
Ninure Saunders aka Rainbow Christian
The Lord is my Shepherd and He knows I'm Gay
http://Ninure-Saunders.tk
Take my polls
http://ninure.100megsfree5.com
My Yahoo Group
http://Ninure.tk
My Online Diary
http://www.ninure.deardiary.net
-
Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches
http://www.MCCchurch.org
The Bible Site - help provide free scripture
http://www.thebiblesite.org
To send e-mail, remove nohate from address
Enkidu
$%x.41299@okepread04:
Who cares who he does or does not represent. The question is "Do you
have any evidence that a god or gods exist?" Lee can be an ass hole or
an oak tree, and this does not matter. The question remains, "Do you
have any compelling evidence, evidence that would stand in any other
field that leads you to believe any reliegion is a true and accurate
representation of the universe?" If not, religion as an explaination, as
a theory, as a basis for rational action, falls.
If the theist wishes his religion to be taken seriously by the man who
bases he decisions on reason and evidence, he *must* provide evidence
that his god among all the other gods, is the one and only god, and that
his god exists. All else is misdirection, obfuscation, wishful thinking,
or just-so stories.
--
Enkidu
"Yee-Ha" is not a foreign policy.
Alan Wostenberg
quibbler wrote:
> In article <42Eud.126915$%x.49309@okepread04>,
> awost...@psalmweaver.com says...
>
>
>>Not a belief system? Atheism begins in the faith that most people are
>>"willfully ignorant".
>
>
> It's not faith...That people are willfully
> ignorant about one thing or another is probably be one of the least
> controversial findings of psychology or sociology. People often believe
> what they wish were true, rather than what is. Particularly when
> certain beliefs, like one's parent's brand of theism, are reinforced and
> considered socially acceptable, it's quite easy to see why otherwise
> rational people will compartmentalize and adopt the fantasies known as
> religion.
It's true, people often believe what they wish were true, rather than
what is true. Take for example atheist confidence there is no hell. Talk
about wish-fulfullment! Wish-fulfillment might explain atheism, and
universalism (that everbody gets to heaven).
But whether true or false, the Catholic view that *I*, personally, might
go to hell, or heaven, isn't wish-fulfilment.
Enkidu
>
>
> thomas p wrote:
>
>> On Sat, 11 Dec 2004 09:06:35 -0600, Alan Wostenberg
>> <awost...@psalmweaver.com> wrote:
>
>>>Not a belief system? Atheism begins in the faith that most people are
>>>"willfully ignorant".
>>
>>
>> That is nonsense. Atheism is the lack of a belief in a god. What
>> individual atheists think beyond that does not define them as
>> atheists.
> Which lack has consequences. For example the atheist usually offers a
> different explanation of why the majority believe, than a Christian.
> He will attribute it to brainwashing since infancy, or intellectual
> sloth, or a wish-fulfillment. The Christian, on the other hand, can
> afford to be more liberal in treating the unbelievers.
Historically, your position is unsupported. Ask the thousands of
"witches" burned alive. Ask the thousands who died in the crusades.
Ask Galileo. Your kind burned my kind alive, simply for being my kind,
so I this "argument" of yours doesn't pass the smell test.
>> People are models of sanity in small things like
>>
>>>raising a family or building a career, are thought to be willfully
>>>ignorant when it comes to what matters most: the afterlife and God.
>>>It is fallacy of special pleading to say your friends and neighbors
>>>are reasonable in everything *except* religion.
>>
>>
>> Their religious beliefs are their own business. If they insist,
>> however, on telling me what I really believe, even after I have
>> explained my position, they are not being reasonable; that is just
>> what you and many like you insist on doing.
>
> Thomas, that "their religious beliefs are their own business" is
> itself a religious belief -- that truth in religioun is a matter of
> taste, like cuisine, and not truth, like physics.
Crap. "Their religious beliefs are their own business" is a statement of
tolerance for others one believes are wrong, but which one feels no duty
to correct.
Stephen Horgan
What exactly are you trying to argue? I think that most people would
regard the fact that pre civil-war slave ownership was widespread in
the US and that it had the support of many of that country's
institutions as a given. However, by time of your last quote the Royal
Navy, who weren't Buddhists by the way, were engaged on open war with
slavers down the West coast of Africa.
stoney
<awost...@psalmweaver.com> wrote:
>
>
>Christopher A. Lee wrote:
>
>> On Sat, 11 Dec 2004 05:17:29 +0000 (UTC), "Gary Peach"
>> <gary...@btinternet.com> wrote:
>
>>>As a life long athiest of prominance, his late "conversion" may have been a
>>>recognition of the fact that no matter what belief system in which we deal
>>>it is axiomatic that its precepts should be consistant. Under such a
>>>structure there must be at least one precept that we must take upon Faith,
>>>as proof of its existance can not be found within that closed system of
>>>belief.
>>
>>
>> Except of course that atheism isn't belief system or a faith - it only
>> requires faith in the minds of the wilfully ignorant who start off
>> with the presumption of deity and imagine that this presumption
>> applies to everybody. It no more applies to atheists than eg an
>> ancient Greek's Zeus premise applies to Christians - both are merely
>> somebody else's wacky religious belief and neither have any relevance
>> outside their religions.
>Not a belief system? Atheism begins in the faith that most people are
>"willfully ignorant".
How sadly common, Alan's continuing to bear false witness.
[]
--
Contempt of Congress meter reading-offscale.
Hello, theocracy with a fundamentalist US Supreme
Court who will ensure church and state are joined
at the hip like clergy and altar boys.
America 1776-Jan 2001 RIP
stoney
wrote:
>rec.arts.sf.science REMOVED.
>
>The 'f' in 'sf' stands for 'fiction'.
And christianity is fiction.
If you want to complain about something then complain to the ISP of
the thread's originator.
stoney
There is no 'sin,' much less 'original sin (which eliminates love,
justice, or any other positive attribute from your daemon god), oh
liar for jesus.
jpop...@rica.net
Thank you for admitting you agree with an atheist
against your original assertion.
In my opinion, irrationality (non rational modes of thinking)
are an inherited mental foundation that evolution has provided for us.
Rational thought is as much a cultural artifact
as pottery or nuclear power.
-- John Popelis
stoney
Why do you keep lying, Wostenberg? Chris represents only himself and
his statement flat indicates it is not applicable to all christians.
Mani Deli
>
They are all verbal and might as well have been grabbed out of a hat
>- the purely rational demonstations that God
>exists, made a Revelation, founded a Church,
What "demonstrations," there aren't any!
> granted her infallibility
>in matters of faith and morals, and consequent intellectual duty to
>believe what the Church teaches is true.
---pure bullshit for the faithful who are too lazy to investigate
facts.
Mani Deli
<awost...@psalmweaver.com> wrote:
>But whether true or false, the Catholic view that *I*, personally, might
>go to hell, or heaven, isn't wish-fulfilment.
True! Its utter stupidity!
Mani Deli
Too someone like you who can't interpert a clear sentence.
Mani Deli
Another true believer who can't believe what the Bible actually says!
Which ever way you read it's mostly baloney. Furthermore you can make
any excuse you want. Don't tell me how to read the Bible.
>>> I can also say with total certainty that my, Christian, country abolished slavery
>>>decades before yours did.
>>
>>And I can say with total certainty that this isn't a Christian
>>country. It is presently a country which Christian right wing fanatics
>>are trying to take over.
>>
>You do not even appear to know what Christianity is.
I suppose you do. People have been killing each other throughout
history making that claim.
> As for politics,
>why not try and talk about issues instead of trying to rubbish one of
>the major world religions?
>
>>>Or maybe you will pause and ruminate on the futility of trying to
>>> on the basis of a few out-of-context quotes.
>>
>>I suppose Bible quotes "rubbish a living religion," in your book.
>>Or maybe you never read the Bible carefully and are so lost in blind
>>faith that you have to twist everything you hear from it that might
>>offend you.
>
>You see what I mean? I've never met you and I already prefer the
>'Christian right wing fanatics'.
I'm sure you do.
> If you are representative of his
>support then no wonder Kerry lost.
Sorry lost because of crooked computer voting machines.
>The theological position on the bible is quite clear,
and that's why you have hundreds of Christian cults.
> it is the revealed word of God,
-revealed by the various branches of the superstition business.
but meaning comes through study, not quoting a
>few sentences
The meaning comes from reading what it clearly says.
>. As
>for faith, I believe in God and I am a Christian. What I have no idea
>of is what you believe in, which I think summarises Kerry's political
>problem.
and your self imposed ignorance.
Erik Max Francis
> Wouldn't the answer "all of them" have been the same a hundred years ago?
Yes. Science progresses. The currently popular theories are the best
that we can do, now. The entire process of science is self-correcting
and advancing.
There is, as I said, no such thing as a true theory, so your question
"How do we know it's true?" inherently shows a deep misunderstanding of
how science works and its purpose.
--
Erik Max Francis && m...@alcyone.com && http://www.alcyone.com/max/
San Jose, CA, USA && 37 20 N 121 53 W && AIM erikmaxfrancis
An undevout astronomer is mad.
-- Edward Young
thomas p
Original sin is an irrational concept and totally unnecessary to
explain human nature.
thomas p
Even if you were not lying about what was actually said (and you are
lying), you would still be wrong about atheism. No matter what some
atheist says about anything, atheism is still just a lack of belief in
a god.
thomas p
<awost...@psalmweaver.com> wrote:
>
>
>quibbler wrote:
>
>> In article <42Eud.126915$%x.49309@okepread04>,
>> awost...@psalmweaver.com says...
>>
>>
>>>Not a belief system? Atheism begins in the faith that most people are
>>>"willfully ignorant".
>>
>>
>> It's not faith...That people are willfully
>> ignorant about one thing or another is probably be one of the least
>> controversial findings of psychology or sociology. People often believe
>> what they wish were true, rather than what is. Particularly when
>> certain beliefs, like one's parent's brand of theism, are reinforced and
>> considered socially acceptable, it's quite easy to see why otherwise
>> rational people will compartmentalize and adopt the fantasies known as
>> religion.
>
>It's true, people often believe what they wish were true, rather than
>what is true. Take for example atheist confidence there is no hell. Talk
>about wish-fulfullment!
I am totally confident that I have never seen any evidence that hell
or heaven exists. I am totally confident that I have asked a great
number of believers for such evidence but have never been given any.
What possible reason would I have for believing in heaven or hell?
>Wish-fulfillment might explain atheism, and
>universalism (that everbody gets to heaven).
>
>But whether true or false, the Catholic view that *I*, personally, might
>go to hell, or heaven, isn't wish-fulfilment.
It is clearly irrational not to mention grotesque.
thomas p
>On Sat, 11 Dec 2004 09:06:35 -0600, Alan Wostenberg
><awost...@psalmweaver.com> wrote:
>
>>
>>
>>Christopher A. Lee wrote:
>>
>>> On Sat, 11 Dec 2004 05:17:29 +0000 (UTC), "Gary Peach"
>>> <gary...@btinternet.com> wrote:
>>
>>>>As a life long athiest of prominance, his late "conversion" may have been a
>>>>recognition of the fact that no matter what belief system in which we deal
>>>>it is axiomatic that its precepts should be consistant. Under such a
>>>>structure there must be at least one precept that we must take upon Faith,
>>>>as proof of its existance can not be found within that closed system of
>>>>belief.
>>>
>>>
>>> Except of course that atheism isn't belief system or a faith - it only
>>> requires faith in the minds of the wilfully ignorant who start off
>>> with the presumption of deity and imagine that this presumption
>>> applies to everybody. It no more applies to atheists than eg an
>>> ancient Greek's Zeus premise applies to Christians - both are merely
>>> somebody else's wacky religious belief and neither have any relevance
>>> outside their religions.
>
>>Not a belief system? Atheism begins in the faith that most people are
>>"willfully ignorant".
>
>How sadly common, Alan's continuing to bear false witness.
He is terrified of admitting that atheists simply do not believe in
his god. Such an admission would ultimately be destructive to his
beliefs, and, of course, if he stops believing, he risks being sent to
hell by the god who loves him so much.
thomas p
<awost...@psalmweaver.com> wrote:
>
>
>thomas p wrote:
>
>> On Sat, 11 Dec 2004 09:06:35 -0600, Alan Wostenberg
>> <awost...@psalmweaver.com> wrote:
>
>>>Not a belief system? Atheism begins in the faith that most people are
>>>"willfully ignorant".
>>
>>
>> That is nonsense. Atheism is the lack of a belief in a god. What
>> individual atheists think beyond that does not define them as
>> atheists.
>Which lack has consequences. For example the atheist usually offers a
>different explanation of why the majority believe, than a Christian. He
>will attribute it to brainwashing since infancy, or intellectual sloth,
>or a wish-fulfillment. The Christian, on the other hand, can afford to
>be more liberal in treating the unbelievers.
Even if your insulting and dishonest description above was actually
true, atheism would still just be a lack of belief in a god.
>
>> People are models of sanity in small things like
>>
>>>raising a family or building a career, are thought to be willfully
>>>ignorant when it comes to what matters most: the afterlife and God. It
>>>is fallacy of special pleading to say your friends and neighbors are
>>>reasonable in everything *except* religion.
>>
>>
>> Their religious beliefs are their own business. If they insist,
>> however, on telling me what I really believe, even after I have
>> explained my position, they are not being reasonable; that is just
>> what you and many like you insist on doing.
>
>Thomas, that "their religious beliefs are their own business" is itself
>a religious belief
>-- that truth in religioun is a matter of taste, like cuisine, and not
>truth, like physics.
The above claim is nonsense, but, once again, even if it were true,
atheism would still just be a lack of belief in any god - no matter
what was said or done or believed by any individual atheist. I really
do not think that you are too dumb to understand that, so the only
other explanation is dishonesty.
Christopher A. Lee
Plenty of believers aren't wilfully ignorant - they're the ones that
don't make up positions we don't have, they tolerate beliefs different
from theirs, they're not literalists who deny reality when it
conflicts with the Bible stories, they don't lie about the state of
modern scientific understanding, etc.
Eg the Lady In My Life is Catholic and comes from a place where
Catholics, Hindus and Muslims live alongside each other; she
understands that different people have different religious beliefs and
doesn't tell them that they are wrong. She even understands that the
Muslims and Hindus she grew up among, see Christianity the way she saw
their beliefs: somebody else's sincerely held beliefs that they were
entitled to.
But then she is secure in her faith and doesn't feel the need to
impose it on others.
Stephen Horgan
wrote:
You can read it any way you like, but if you want to use it to support
a particular point it helps if you demonstrate some understanding.
>
>>>> I can also say with total certainty that my, Christian, country abolished slavery
>>>>decades before yours did.
>>>
>>>And I can say with total certainty that this isn't a Christian
>>>country. It is presently a country which Christian right wing fanatics
>>>are trying to take over.
>>>
>>You do not even appear to know what Christianity is.
>
>I suppose you do. People have been killing each other throughout
>history making that claim.
>
People have been killing each other throughout history.
>> As for politics,
>>why not try and talk about issues instead of trying to rubbish one of
>>the major world religions?
>>
>>>>Or maybe you will pause and ruminate on the futility of trying to
>>>> on the basis of a few out-of-context quotes.
>>>
>>>I suppose Bible quotes "rubbish a living religion," in your book.
>>>Or maybe you never read the Bible carefully and are so lost in blind
>>>faith that you have to twist everything you hear from it that might
>>>offend you.
>>
>>You see what I mean? I've never met you and I already prefer the
>>'Christian right wing fanatics'.
>
>I'm sure you do.
>
Right...so you actually want to alienate people. Good political
strategy.
>> If you are representative of his
>>support then no wonder Kerry lost.
>
>Sorry lost because of crooked computer voting machines.
>
He didn't seem to think so. From the UK perspective he never looked
able to string coherent arguments together about the few, key, issues
that really mattered. On the War on Terror just about all he said was
that he would be tougher than the President; just think about what
that means for a moment.
>>The theological position on the bible is quite clear,
>
>and that's why you have hundreds of Christian cults.
>
Having taken large chunks of the Bible out of context I don't suppose
that chopping a sentence in two to help your argument would cause so
much as an eyeblink.
>
>> it is the revealed word of God,
>
>-revealed by the various branches of the superstition business.
>
Ah, so all religions are bad are they? That's most of the world's
population you are annoying now.
>
>but meaning comes through study, not quoting a
>>few sentences
>
>The meaning comes from reading what it clearly says.
>
Which you think means that Christians support slavery? Which they
clearly do not by the way. Or else you think that you alone have found
the key that invalidates the Christian faith?
Or perhaps it doesn't mean either of those things.
>>. As
>>for faith, I believe in God and I am a Christian. What I have no idea
>>of is what you believe in, which I think summarises Kerry's political
>>problem.
>
>and your self imposed ignorance.
What I am ignorant of is what point you are trying to make beyond that
when sections of the bible are quoted in isolation they seem to
contradict modern Christian teaching.
George William Herbert
>George William Herbert wrote:
>> Alan Wostenberg <awost...@psalmweaver.com> wrote:
>>
>>>Not a belief system? Atheism begins in the faith that most people are
>>>"willfully ignorant". [...]
>>
>> This is a theist myth about athiesm.
>
>George, it's a direct quote of Lee, who thinks believers are "willfully
>ignorant", "terminally ignorant", and so forth.
There appears to be a significant amount of evidence that
you are fabricating this position from whole cloth.
The only question I have is whether you are doing so
consciously or not. If you are doing so consciously,
you have damned yourself in doing so. If not, you are
operating outside the bounds of rational thought,
regardless of your faith's validity.
>Does he not represent the typical atheist in his
>explanation of why there are so few atheists
>and so many believers?
This is clearly a straw man argument.
For arguments sake, the position you are falsely claiming
that he has bears no relation to the actual position of
any agnostic or athiest who I know personally, though I
have heard it in some circles.
>Do you have a different explanation?
I have an excellent explanation. I believe that spirituality is
an innate (but not universal) human trait, and that most people
interpret their spiritual feelings in terms of the religious
structure they are born into, i.e. faith, and stick with that
throughout their lives.
But there are several places for people to leave that path:
some are simply not significantly spiritual to begin with;
some are but interpret that in different manners than the
religious structure around them; and finally, some who do
start out with faith change their interpretation from faith
based to a more generically spiritual later in life, or change
the nature of their faith from one system to another.
Logically, spiritualty is a necessary but not sufficient
requirement for faith.
-george william herbert
gher...@retro.com
George William Herbert
>Erik Max Francis wrote:
>> Alan Wostenberg wrote:
>>> You say if a theory works it "stands on it's own". If this is a
>>> scientific claim about science, how do we know it's true? What percent
>>> of current theories are true, so we can measure how efficient this
>>> self-correction mechanism in science is?
>>
>> There's no such thing as a "true theory" by definition, since scientific
>> theories cannot be proven. So you're going to have to reformulate your
>> metric.
>>
>> Something like "How many currently accepted theories fit the data they
>> are intended to model?" And the answer to that is something like "All
>> of them."
>
>Wouldn't the answer "all of them" have been the same a hundred years ago?
Yes, of course. That's the definition of
scientific theories, Alan.
>Those who say the mechanism is self-correcting are claiming real
>progress in science, and progress, implies an unchanging goal: Truth. Of
>them, I ask: how do you know the mechanism works?
Because the fraction of total observations about
the nature and character of the universe that we
all live in which are fitted by currently accepted
theories has remained relatively constant, through
a period of exponential increase in observed data.
Science would be shown to be inadequate as a single
universal mechanism of truthseeking if we stopped
being able to produce theories to match future
observations.
-george william herbert
gher...@retro.com
Joseph Hertzlinger
I've noticed an intersting characteristic of Creationists. They'll
start out with plausible-sounding talking points but, when someone
argues against those points, they won't have any counterarguments and
will fall back on bluffs and insults.
Erik Max Francis
> I've noticed an intersting characteristic of Creationists. They'll
> start out with plausible-sounding talking points but, when someone
> argues against those points, they won't have any counterarguments and
> will fall back on bluffs and insults.
In a somewhat related issue, I was watching Penn & Teller: Bullshit! and
they were interviewing some woman representing an organization that was
providing some grossly overestimated figures about potential species
loss due to technology. After citing some implausibly ridiculous
figure, the interviewer checked her on it, and she immediately said
something to the effect of, "Well, it's not always possible to get
completely accurate figures on this, but ..." and then continued to
repeat the same point.
The only conclusion one can draw from that behavior is that she knew
from the start that those figures were complete made up. If you cited
some figure that you thought was significant and accurate, there's no
way that your first response would be to immediately sidestep over the
figure that you just presented as evidence of your point. You'd argue
it. Instead she almost expected the figure to be questioned and had an
alternate line of questioning.
You see this a lot with people who are not arguing from a scientific
basis, and Scientific Creationists in particular do it a great deal
since their whole modus operandi is to tweak, confused, and obfuscate
actual science in order to further their utterly nonscientific goals.
--
Erik Max Francis && m...@alcyone.com && http://www.alcyone.com/max/
San Jose, CA, USA && 37 20 N 121 53 W && AIM erikmaxfrancis
In this world, nothing is certain but death and taxes.
-- Benjamin Franklin
stoney
His loving 'god' already has him on the 'express' to 'Hell.'
stoney
Herbert) wrote:
>Alan Wostenberg <awost...@psalmweaver.com> wrote:
>>George William Herbert wrote:
>>> Alan Wostenberg <awost...@psalmweaver.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>>Not a belief system? Atheism begins in the faith that most people are
>>>>"willfully ignorant". [...]
>>>
>>> This is a theist myth about athiesm.
>>
>>George, it's a direct quote of Lee, who thinks believers are "willfully
>>ignorant", "terminally ignorant", and so forth.
>
>There appears to be a significant amount of evidence that
>you are fabricating this position from whole cloth.
>
>The only question I have is whether you are doing so
>consciously or not. If you are doing so consciously,
>you have damned yourself in doing so. If not, you are
>operating outside the bounds of rational thought,
>regardless of your faith's validity.
Lying is Wostenberg's forte of several years duration.
He's also woefully uneducated.
[]
stoney
>
>Yang, AthD (h.c), Kicking AWOL's Cocaine Snorting Ass writes:
>
>> ...the Bible acknowledges the existence of slavery during its time
>> and is perfectly okay with it. The book is more concerend about people
>> eating pork than one person enslaving another.
>
>Anyone know if cannibalism is kashrut?
Cannibalism and eating and drinking waste is just fine with the "Good
Book."
Mani Deli
wrote:
>You see this a lot with people who are not arguing from a scientific
>basis, and Scientific Creationists in particular do it a great deal
>since their whole modus operandi is to tweak, confused, and obfuscate
>actual science in order to further their utterly nonscientific goals.
Never argue science with a creationist. Its a waste of time. Get them
to defend their beliefs. You can always lead them back to Bible
babble. That's all the have to stand on.
Now ask them whether they believe in Adam and Eve and Noah?