Re: POLITICS White Missionaries' Contact with Inuit (Fern)

December 14, 2004

> To classify a rejection of

> religion as a

> religion itself, though, is absurd and misleading.

>

It is actually correct, though.

Atheism is a religion simply because it requires faith to believe in it --

as do all religions. To hold the concept that there is no god as an

absolute truth is actually pretty hard in the face of all of the

circumstantial evidence that there is one. On the other hand, since this

mysterious god refuses to show his or her face and makes the us all guess

whether or not he or she actually exists is a pretty good argument for the

position that god is all smoke and mirrors and is really a human creation

formulated to explain the unknowable.

Either position -- insisting that there is a god or insisting that there is

NO god -- requires faith.

Ron

December 14, 2004

Thank you, Ron.

Enjoy! ;-)

Judith Alta

-----Original Message-----

> To classify a rejection of

> religion as a

> religion itself, though, is absurd and misleading.

>

It is actually correct, though.

Atheism is a religion simply because it requires faith to believe in it --

as do all religions. To hold the concept that there is no god as an

absolute truth is actually pretty hard in the face of all of the

circumstantial evidence that there is one. On the other hand, since this

mysterious god refuses to show his or her face and makes the us all guess

whether or not he or she actually exists is a pretty good argument for the

position that god is all smoke and mirrors and is really a human creation

formulated to explain the unknowable.

Either position -- insisting that there is a god or insisting that there is

NO god -- requires faith.

Ron

December 14, 2004

>

>> To classify a rejection of

>> religion as a

>> religion itself, though, is absurd and misleading.

>>

>

> It is actually correct, though.

You are declaring this as fact?!

If all that is necessary to call something a religion is some loose

rendition of 'faith', then one could call every belief system a religion,

which renders the term rather meaningless.

>

> Atheism is a religion simply because it requires faith to believe in it --

> as do all religions. To hold the concept that there is no god as an

> absolute truth is actually pretty hard in the face of all of the

> circumstantial evidence that there is one.

Please - there is NO circumstantial evidence that there is a god.

> On the other hand, since this

> mysterious god refuses to show his or her face and makes the us all guess

> whether or not he or she actually exists is a pretty good argument for the

> position that god is all smoke and mirrors and is really a human creation

> formulated to explain the unknowable.

>

> Either position -- insisting that there is a god or insisting that there is

> NO god -- requires faith.

>

In the sense that the word 'religion' is used in the English language, and

not in the contrived sense that people use it to construct some sort of

philosophical argument, atheism is not a religion.

> Ron

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December 14, 2004

MFJ A religion is judged by the actions of those who claim to follow it. End

of story.

Vivian

Yes, this is true, but it is still unfortunate. To get away from Christianity

for a moment, think of the Muslims in this country (and all over the world) that

are horrified by the terrorist activites that have taken place in the name of

their

god. Is it fair to lump all Muslims in with that category of people?

December 14, 2004

>

> More importantly, Occam's Razor hardly comes down on the side of God,

> because if the rose's existence requires God to explain it, God requires

> another God to explain his.

>

Beautifully said, and let it be known that I believe in an infinite number of

gods.

December 14, 2004

On Tue, 14 Dec 2004 11:47:45 -0500, Idol <Idol@...> wrote:

> More importantly, Occam's Razor hardly comes down on the side of God,

> because if the rose's existence requires God to explain it, God requires

> another God to explain his.

Not so. God the Creator, the Almighty, always was: something our

finite minds cannot comprehend. But that doesn't make it not true.

Fern

December 14, 2004

Gene-

> >>>>> No. The only thing that's obvious is that you are distorting the

> English language in a self serving way.

How is Ron's misuse of the word *self*-serving?

>Overall you are twisting the language every which way in a self serving

>attempt to disparage those who don't believe in a god. " hah - you may

>THINK you don't have a religion, but you really do. Poor deluded fools... "

By that logic, disagreeing is by its very nature disparaging, and while I

agree that some religious people definitely do disparage non-religious

people, I completely fail to see positive evidence of that in Ron's posts.

Speaking as the list-owner now, I'd also prefer to keep debate and

disagreement *im*personal. If Ron had come out and said " you're a

hypocritical dope for saying atheism isn't a religion "

that would be one thing, but I really don't think he's even implied it.

Also, please trim more of the material you're back-quoting in posts. It's

hard to find what you've written in the mass of verbiage you backquote, and

the excess just wastes space and bandwidth. It's particularly annoying for

people who subscribe in digest mode, but it's a pain generally for

anyone. I don't mean to single you out about that either, and I'll be

making a more general point about it soon, but this instance caught my eye.

-

December 15, 2004

Gene-

>a more complicated example, yes. But why better?

I really must ask you again to trim your posts. Using the web interface or

any modern or even quasi-modern email client (and I see you're set for

individual emails) it should be the work of mere moments to cut off the

excess at the bottom of your messages. It would make things easier and

more pleasant for everyone on the list.

Thanks,

The List-Owner

December 15, 2004

> Re: Re: POLITICS White Missionaries' Contact with Inuit

>(Fern)

>

>MFJ A religion is judged by the actions of those who claim to

>follow it. End

>of story.

> Vivian

>

> Yes, this is true, but it is still unfortunate. To get

>away from Christianity

>for a moment, think of the Muslims in this country (and all over

>the world) that

>are horrified by the terrorist activites that have taken place in

>the name of their

>god. Is it fair to lump all Muslims in with that category of people?

That is a really good point. I think people do a lot of things in the name

of their religion which is NOT a part of their religion's teachings at all,

and thus it's unfair to judge the religion on the person's actions. It's the

*person* and their interpretation of their religion that should be judged. I

don't know, but I sometimes get the sense that religions are more often

MISrepresented by people's actions that represented by them!

>

Suze Fisher

Lapdog Design, Inc.

Web Design & Development

http://members.bellatlantic.net/~vze3shjg

Weston A. Price Foundation Chapter Leader, Mid Coast Maine

http://www.westonaprice.org

----------------------------

" The diet-heart idea (the idea that saturated fats and cholesterol cause

heart disease) is the greatest scientific deception of our times. " --

Mann, MD, former Professor of Medicine and Biochemistry at Vanderbilt

University, Tennessee; heart disease researcher.

The International Network of Cholesterol Skeptics

<http://www.thincs.org>

----------------------------

>

December 15, 2004

> RE: POLITICS White Missionaries' Contact with Inuit (Fern)

>

>You are getting lost in the probabilities here. I think your conclusion

>that agnosticism is irrational does not follow from your statements. That

>the current working model of this universe, quantum mechanics, allows for

>the unlikely probability that any of the worlds current religion is wholly

>true _it still allows for the probability_! How you conclude that this

>makes it irrational is not obvious to me. While I am no statistician, it is

>very clear that there is a chance, however small, that one of these

>religions may be exactly correct. What I perceive that you are doing is

>implying that that chance is far greater than an agnostic would state that

>actually is. Agnosticism recognizes the possibility of the

>coherence of one

>of these religions but also recognizes that the chances of that being true

>are just as small as you so nicely attempted to explain above. _Yet the

>chance remains_. Think about it -- how likely is it that anyone would have

>ever predicted the existence of this particular universe from the viewpoint

>of the void? The chances of this life existing are certainly

>about as small

>as the chances of any religion being wholly true. Yet, here we are.

Just curious Ron - why do you think the chances of any one religion being

true are *small*?

December 15, 2004

>> That

> >the current working model of this universe, quantum mechanics, allows for

> >the unlikely probability that any of the worlds current religion is wholly

> >true _it still allows for the probability_!

I'm not a scholar of quantum mechanics, but I believe this to be nonsense.

>>How you conclude that this

> >makes it irrational is not obvious to me. While I am no statistician, it is

> >very clear that there is a chance, however small, that one of these

> >religions may be exactly correct.

This has nothing at all to do with statistics, and could never be calculated or

quantified.

Think about it -- how likely is it that anyone would have

> >ever predicted the existence of this particular universe from the viewpoint

> >of the void?

How likely is it that someone might have existed in the void 'before' the

universe existed making predictions?

>>The chances of this life existing are certainly

> >about as small

> >as the chances of any religion being wholly true. Yet, here we are.

>

Which suggests that the chances of this life existing are actually quite high

and your presuppositions are a bit shaky.

December 15, 2004

In a message dated 12/15/04 11:04:47 AM Eastern Standard Time,

s.fisher22@... writes:

> That is a really good point. I think people do a lot of things in the name

> of their religion which is NOT a part of their religion's teachings at all,

> and thus it's unfair to judge the religion on the person's actions. It's

the

> *person* and their interpretation of their religion that should be judged.

I

> don't know, but I sometimes get the sense that religions are more often

> MISrepresented by people's actions that represented by them!

_____

That might be true, but I wouldn't be so quick to sugget that those Muslim's

who are not intent upon using violence to take over non-Muslim territory are

more in line with the teachings of Islam than those who are...

Chris

____

" What can one say of a soul, of a heart, filled with compassion? It is a

heart which burns with love for every creature: for human beings, birds, and

animals, for serpents and for demons. The thought of them and the sight of them

make the tears of the saint flow. And this immense and intense compassion,

which flows from the heart of the saints, makes them unable to bear the sight of

the smallest, most insignificant wound in any creature. Thus they pray

ceaselessly, with tears, even for animals, for enemies of the truth, and for

those

who do them wrong. "

--Saint Isaac the Syrian

December 15, 2004

In a message dated 12/15/04 12:53:05 PM Eastern Standard Time,

jaltak@... writes:

> As I said earlier, there is one true religion for each person. There is no

> one religion that is right for all people.

____

" What is truth? "

--Pontius Pilate, post-modernist before his time

December 15, 2004

> That 2 things may be construed as part of a continuum does

> not mean that they should both be considered part of the same

> category out of which you are constructing the continuum. A

> bright sunny day forms a continuum with a rainy day, but this

> does not mean that it is raining while it is sunny out.

This is a perfect example. What you have actually done is illustrate the

duality that frames the continuum. Sunny day, rainy day. What is the

common element? Weather and specifically humidity. So along the continuum

that goes from a sunny day at 15% humidity to a rainy day at 100% humidity

you have varying levels of humidity. Each level has its own effects and

some of those effects are very different but at every point on the continuum

_you have humidity_ and that humidity is the very same thing all the way up

and down.

When you have the duality of belief in God and belief in no-God, faith in

the unknowable is the common element along the continuum. At each level you

have different implications -- baseball religion is different than god

religion is different than the faith that you will not be squashed like a

bug in the next second. Yet each of those expressions of faith have the

very same faith in common.

> Similarly, while you might claim that there is a continuum of

> level of faith between a baseball devotee and a serious

> believer in Christianity, that does not mean that the

> baseball devotee is religious in the same sense.

I think that he actually is as per my example above. That the effects of

that religiousness or faith can be very different at different levels along

the continuum is what causes the confusion and makes it less obvious that

they are the same thing.

> >

> > I am using the rose as a tangible example of implicit

> order. A direct

> > contradiction to the model of the blind watchmaker. You

> can make strong

> > arguments for both and the rose is legitimate evidence.

>

> That there is order in the universe is not evidence that

> there is a God in the same sense that, say, DNA left at the

> scene is evidence that someone committed a crime. It is only

> evidence for a God because you are starting out with the

> presupposition that only God can put order in the universe.

No, I'm not starting out with that supposition. I'm looking at the rose and

seeing fantastic order. I am then trying to deduce the nature of that order

and where it came from. It is actually pretty simply intuitive that

" someone " set the whole thing up. The god model works nicely. So does

evolution. Both have their problems and their pluses.

> I think that when a phenomenon may be subjectively

> interpreted by each person as evidence of something entirely

> different, we do not use the term 'circumstantial evidence'

> in the same sense as we use it elsewhere in the language, say

> about a crime. Here it is more of a metaphorical useage,

> which you are incorrectly citing as an argument that it

> therefore takes an act of faith to disbelieve it. I don't

> think it takes faith at all to disbelieve that the order and

> beauty of a rose is not evidence of a God. The absence of

> belief is not a belief, or else dead people could be

> described as religious.

The absence of belief is agnosticism. We are discussing atheism, which is a

belief in an absolute -- that there is no god. That requires faith.

>

> > > Overall you

> > > are twisting the language every which way in a self serving

> > > attempt to disparage those who don't believe in a god. " hah -

> > > you may THINK you don't have a religion, but you really do.

> > > Poor deluded fools... "

> >

> > That is an incorrect conclusion. I actually do not believe

> in god myself,

> > although I once did. I also know that I might very well be wrong.

> >

>

> That is strange. How can you not believe given all of the

> evidence you cite?

>

Very easily. I don't think that the evidence supports the conclusion that

there is a god despite the fact that I clearly see the power of the argument

that there is one.

Ron

December 15, 2004

> > I think a better example would be the electromagnetic radiation

> > spectrum: a real world application of a continuum. From

> short waves to

> > long we go from gamma and x-rays, UV, visible light, infrared,

> > microwaves, TV, FM, band, AM, Long waves. However, they are quite

> > different in nature: x-rays and radio waves are pretty different in

> > energy alone. And we are only able to detect visible waves

> with the

> > tools contained within our body.

Great example! I would only say that they are the same in nature (waves)

but different in expression. This nicely illustrates how the very same

element that is common to all of the various wavelengths (waves, again) can

create effects so different as to be almost impossible to link together.

Ron

December 15, 2004

Hi Suze,

> Just curious Ron - why do you think the chances of any one

> religion being

> true are *small*?

>

Excellent and fair question. I don't know how to answer this within the

time constraints that I'm willing spend posting on this subject. It has

taken me a lifetime of experience, questioning and thought to come to this

conclusion. I started out a non-practicing protestant, became a

fundamentalist Christian for two years in my late teens and then spent the

rest of my life so far sorting out the implications of all of that.

Generally speaking, though, it seems to me that all of the various religions

evolved to fill the needs of the communities from which they sprung. That

there are billions of people simultaneously believing that their truth is

the one true truth for all eternity and has always been and always will be

true strikes me an expression of the psychology of human beings and makes

the likelihood that any of them are correct in their entirety very, very

small.

Does this make sense to you?

Ron

December 15, 2004

implode7@... wrote:

>>> That

>>>the current working model of this universe, quantum mechanics, allows for

>>>the unlikely probability that any of the worlds current religion is wholly

>>>true _it still allows for the probability_!

>>>

>

>I'm not a scholar of quantum mechanics, but I believe this to be nonsense.

>

Yeah, quantum mechanics works for microscopic particles. Classical

mechanics is certainly valid when looking macroscopically. So quantum

mechanics is only one working model.

Deanna

December 15, 2004

> >> That

> > >the current working model of this universe, quantum

> mechanics, allows for

> > >the unlikely probability that any of the worlds current

> religion is wholly

> > >true _it still allows for the probability_!

>

> I'm not a scholar of quantum mechanics, but I believe this to

> be nonsense.

Yes. Exactly. You believe. An expression of faith in that which is

unknown.

Since this is an important point I ask you support your belief statement

that the above is untrue.

It makes perfect sense to me. Quantum mechanics views the world as a

swirling cloud of probabilities. Therefore it _must_ be possible that the

Primitive Baptists have got the complete and total picture, however

improbable, if you accept that Quantum Mechanics is true.

>

> >>How you conclude that this

> > >makes it irrational is not obvious to me. While I am no

> statistician, it is

> > >very clear that there is a chance, however small, that one of these

> > >religions may be exactly correct.

>

> This has nothing at all to do with statistics, and could

> never be calculated or quantified.

>

> Think about it -- how likely is it that anyone would have

> > >ever predicted the existence of this particular universe

> from the viewpoint

> > >of the void?

>

> How likely is it that someone might have existed in the void

> 'before' the universe existed making predictions?

This is meaningless. And, in reality, it's probably just as likely as the

prediction of the exact nature of this universe from the void.

Infinitesimally small. But, again, here we are.

>

> >>The chances of this life existing are certainly

> > >about as small

> > >as the chances of any religion being wholly true. Yet,

> here we are.

> >

>

> Which suggests that the chances of this life existing are

> actually quite high and your presuppositions are a bit shaky.

>

Now I'm beginning to suspect that you are deliberately attempting to be

non-sensical or that you clearly fail to understand Quantum Mechanics. (And

I'm no Quantum Mechanical scholar, either, believe me!) There actually is

no " probability " that this universe exists as the Quantum Mechanical

waveform has collapsed. We are _observing_ the universe. Probability

doesn't hold.

December 15, 2004

>

> > That 2 things may be construed as part of a continuum does

> > not mean that they should both be considered part of the same

> > category out of which you are constructing the continuum. A

> > bright sunny day forms a continuum with a rainy day, but this

> > does not mean that it is raining while it is sunny out.

>

> This is a perfect example. What you have actually done is illustrate the

> duality that frames the continuum. Sunny day, rainy day. What is the

> common element? Weather and specifically humidity. So along the continuum

> that goes from a sunny day at 15% humidity to a rainy day at 100% humidity

> you have varying levels of humidity. Each level has its own effects and

> some of those effects are very different but at every point on the continuum

> _you have humidity_ and that humidity is the very same thing all the way up

> and down.

Obviously, by definition, in a continuum, there are common elements. The issue

is whether you have chosen a correct characterization for its poles. In the

above example, obviously they are both examples of weather. While there is

humidity at every point between rain and sunny day, the amount of humidity

doesn't map to it - a clear day may have high humidity, for instance - so I'm

not sure that this is a correct way to analyze it.

>

> When you have the duality of belief in God and belief in no-God, faith in

> the unknowable is the common element along the continuum. At each level you

> have different implications -- baseball religion is different than god

> religion is different than the faith that you will not be squashed like a

> bug in the next second. Yet each of those expressions of faith have the

> very same faith in common.

And again, you make logical mistakes. That a belief in God, on one end, may be

connected in some fashion to fanaticism about baseball, or non-belief in God,

makes the presupposition that belief of any kind should be considered religion.

And, no it shouldn't. The continuum that you are constructing is one of belief,

not religion. You are arguing that because there is a continuum, both ends are

religions, but the continuum is of something else, i.e. you are assuming your

conclusion. It is exactly analogous to considering a sunny day as a rainy one.

>

> > Similarly, while you might claim that there is a continuum of

> > level of faith between a baseball devotee and a serious

> > believer in Christianity, that does not mean that the

> > baseball devotee is religious in the same sense.

>

> > >

> > > I am using the rose as a tangible example of implicit

> > order. A direct

> > > contradiction to the model of the blind watchmaker. You

> > can make strong

> > > arguments for both and the rose is legitimate evidence.

> >

> > That there is order in the universe is not evidence that

> > there is a God in the same sense that, say, DNA left at the

> > scene is evidence that someone committed a crime. It is only

> > evidence for a God because you are starting out with the

> > presupposition that only God can put order in the universe.

>

> No, I'm not starting out with that supposition. I'm looking at the rose and

> seeing fantastic order. I am then trying to deduce the nature of that order

> and where it came from.

Maybe it's too complicated to " deduce " . Maybe it's not something that can

possibly be " deduced " . But it's quite a step to conclude that because you can't

fathom what the order or logic is, that a Supreme Being must have done it. One

is simply not evidence for the other, in the sense of 'evidence' that you first

proposed.

>It is actually pretty simply intuitive that

> " someone " set the whole thing up. The god model works nicely. So does

> evolution. Both have their problems and their pluses.

Well, sure - how could a model where you have an ominscient, omnipresent Being

not explain everything?! Whenever you don't get it, you just defer to the God

explanation.

>

> > I think that when a phenomenon may be subjectively

> > interpreted by each person as evidence of something entirely

> > different, we do not use the term 'circumstantial evidence'

> > in the same sense as we use it elsewhere in the language, say

> > about a crime. Here it is more of a metaphorical useage,

> > which you are incorrectly citing as an argument that it

> > therefore takes an act of faith to disbelieve it. I don't

> > think it takes faith at all to disbelieve that the order and

> > beauty of a rose is not evidence of a God. The absence of

> > belief is not a belief, or else dead people could be

> > described as religious.

>

> The absence of belief is agnosticism. We are discussing atheism, which is a

> belief in an absolute -- that there is no god. That requires faith.

I do not believe that there is a personal God. I find arguments like the ones

that you propose to be utterly ridiculous. But I do not have a 'faith' in the

same sense that Christians do. I just simply find the proposition 'there is a

personal God' to be false. This is not what is meant by 'faith' in the religious

sense. YOu are changing the meaning to simply mean belief in something that has

no proof. When one is speaking about religion, we are speaking about the

religious conception of faith, which, although I am not expert enough to churn

out a glib definition, has more to it than simply belief.

>

> >

> > > > Overall you

> > > > are twisting the language every which way in a self serving

> > > > attempt to disparage those who don't believe in a god. " hah -

> > > > you may THINK you don't have a religion, but you really do.

> > > > Poor deluded fools... "

> > >

> > > That is an incorrect conclusion. I actually do not believe

> > in god myself,

> > > although I once did. I also know that I might very well be wrong.

> > >

> >

> > That is strange. How can you not believe given all of the

> > evidence you cite?

> >

>

> Very easily. I don't think that the evidence supports the conclusion that

> there is a god despite the fact that I clearly see the power of the argument

> that there is one.

>

Very curious and self contradictory. You believe that there is no God, despite

the evidence. I also believe that there is no personal God (I find other

conceptions to be far more attractive), but I don't believe that the arguments

(which can be quite compelling, I agree) are as you state that they are, and I

also don't find that they are compelling at all as far as concluding that there

is this personal God who guides human events and torments people in Hell for all

eternity.

December 15, 2004

It makes a whole lot of sense to me.

As I said earlier, there is one true religion for each person. There is no

one religion that is right for all people.