| Topic: |
Religions > Atheism |
| User: |
"Desertphile" |
| Date: |
19 Dec 2005 03:01:15 PM |
| Object: |
An Atheist Manifesto |
Some might find this interesting.
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http://www.truthdig.com/dig/item/200512_an_atheist_manifesto/
An Atheist Manifesto
A Dig led by Sam Harris
Editor's Note: At a time when fundamentalist religion has an
unparalleled influence in the highest government levels in the United
States, and religion-based terror dominates the world stage, Sam Harris
argues that progressive tolerance of faith-based unreason is as great a
menace as religion itself. Harris, a philosophy graduate of Stanford
who has studied eastern and western religions, won the 2004 PEN Award
for nonfiction for The End of Faith, which powerfully examines and
explodes the absurdities of organized religion. Truthdig asked Harris
to write a charter document for his thesis that belief in God, and
appeasement of religious extremists of all faiths by moderates, has
been and continues to be the greatest threat to world peace and a
sustained assault on reason.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Somewhere in the world a man has abducted a little girl. Soon he will
rape, torture and kill her. If an atrocity of this kind is not
occurring at precisely this moment, it will happen in a few hours, or
days at most. Such is the confidence we can draw from the statistical
laws that govern the lives of 6 billion human beings. The same
statistics also suggest that this girl s parents believe at this very
moment that an all-powerful and all-loving God is watching over them
and their family. Are they right to believe this? Is it good that they
believe this?
No.
The entirety of atheism is contained in this response. Atheism is not a
philosophy; it is not even a view of the world; it is simply a refusal
to deny the obvious. Unfortunately, we live in a world in which the
obvious is overlooked as a matter of principle. The obvious must be
observed and re-observed and argued for. This is a thankless job. It
carries with it an aura of petulance and insensitivity. It is,
moreover, a job that the atheist does not want.
It is worth noting that no one ever needs to identify himself as a
non-astrologer or a non-alchemist. Consequently, we do not have words
for people who deny the validity of these pseudo-disciplines. Likewise,
atheism is a term that should not even exist. Atheism is nothing more
than the noises reasonable people make when in the presence of
religious dogma. The atheist is merely a person who believes that the
260 million Americans (87% of the population) who claim to never doubt
the existence of God should be obliged to present evidence for his
existence and, indeed, for his benevolence, given the relentless
destruction of innocent human beings we witness in the world each day.
Only the atheist appreciates just how uncanny our situation is: Most of
us believe in a God that is every bit as specious as the gods of Mount
Olympus; no person, whatever his or her qualifications, can seek public
office in the United States without pretending to be certain that such
a God exists; and much of what passes for public policy in our country
conforms to religious taboos and superstitions appropriate to a
medieval theocracy. Our circumstance is abject, indefensible and
terrifying. It would be hilarious if the stakes were not so high.
We live in a world where all things, good and bad, are finally
destroyed by change. Parents lose their children and children their
parents. Husbands and wives are separated in an instant, never to meet
again. Friends part company in haste, without knowing that it will be
for the last time. This life, when surveyed with a broad glance,
presents little more than a vast spectacle of loss. Most people in this
world, however, imagine that there is a cure for this. If we live
rightly-not necessarily ethically, but within the framework of
certain ancient beliefs and stereotyped behaviors-we will get
everything we want after we die. When our bodies finally fail us, we
just shed our corporeal ballast and travel to a land where we are
reunited with everyone we loved while alive. Of course, overly rational
people and other rabble will be kept out of this happy place, and those
who suspended their disbelief while alive will be free to enjoy
themselves for all eternity.
We live in a world of unimaginable surprises--from the fusion energy
that lights the sun to the genetic and evolutionary consequences of
this lights dancing for eons upon the Earth--and yet Paradise conforms
to our most superficial concerns with all the fidelity of a Caribbean
cruise. This is wondrously strange. If one didn't know better, one
would think that man, in his fear of losing all that he loves, had
created heaven, along with its gatekeeper God, in his own image.
Consider the destruction that Hurricane Katrina leveled on New Orleans.
More than a thousand people died, tens of thousands lost all their
earthly possessions, and nearly a million were displaced. It is safe to
say that almost every person living in New Orleans at the moment
Katrina struck believed in an omnipotent, omniscient and compassionate
God. But what was God doing while a hurricane laid waste to their city?
Surely he heard the prayers of those elderly men and women who fled the
rising waters for the safety of their attics, only to be slowly drowned
there. These were people of faith. These were good men and women who
had prayed throughout their lives. Only the atheist has the courage to
admit the obvious: These poor people died talking to an imaginary
friend.
Of course, there had been ample warning that a storm of biblical
proportions would strike New Orleans, and the human response to the
ensuing disaster was tragically inept. But it was inept only by the
light of science. Advance warning of Katrina's path was wrested from
mute Nature by meteorological calculations and satellite imagery. God
told no one of his plans. Had the residents of New Orleans been content
to rely on the beneficence of the Lord, they wouldn't have known that
a killer hurricane was bearing down upon them until they felt the first
gusts of wind on their faces. Nevertheless, a poll conducted by The
Washington Post found that 80% of Katrina's survivors claim that the
event has only strengthened their faith in God.
As Hurricane Katrina was devouring New Orleans, nearly a thousand
Shiite pilgrims were trampled to death on a bridge in Iraq. There can
be no doubt that these pilgrims believed mightily in the God of the
Koran: Their lives were organized around the indisputable fact of his
existence; their women walked veiled before him; their men regularly
murdered one another over rival interpretations of his word. It would
be remarkable if a single survivor of this tragedy lost his faith. More
likely, the survivors imagine that they were spared through God's
grace.
Only the atheist recognizes the boundless narcissism and self-deceit of
the saved. Only the atheist realizes how morally objectionable it is
for survivors of a catastrophe to believe themselves spared by a loving
God while this same God drowned infants in their cribs. Because he
refuses to cloak the reality of the world's suffering in a cloying
fantasy of eternal life, the atheist feels in his bones just how
precious life is--and, indeed, how unfortunate it is that millions of
human beings suffer the most harrowing abridgements of their happiness
for no good reason at all.
One wonders just how vast and gratuitous a catastrophe would have to be
to shake the world's faith. The Holocaust did not do it. Neither did
the genocide in Rwanda, even with machete-wielding priests among the
perpetrators. Five hundred million people died of smallpox in the 20th
Century, many of them infants. God's ways are, indeed, inscrutable.
It seems that any fact, no matter how infelicitous, can be rendered
compatible with religious faith. In matters of faith, we have kicked
ourselves loose of the Earth.
Of course, people of faith regularly assure one another that God is not
responsible for human suffering. But how else can we understand the
claim that God is both omniscient and omnipotent? There is no other
way, and it is time for sane human beings to own up to this. This is
the age-old problem of theodicy, of course, and we should consider it
solved. If God exists, either he can do nothing to stop the most
egregious calamities or he does not care to. God, therefore, is either
impotent or evil. Pious readers will now execute the following
pirouette: God cannot be judged by merely human standards of morality.
But, of course, human standards of morality are precisely what the
faithful use to establish God's goodness in the first place. And any
God who could concern himself with something as trivial as gay
marriage, or the name by which he is addressed in prayer, is not as
inscrutable as all that. If he exists, the God of Abraham is not merely
unworthy of the immensity of creation; he is unworthy even of man.
There is another possibility, of course, and it is both the most
reasonable and least odious: The biblical God is a fiction. As Richard
Dawkins has observed, we are all atheists with respect to Zeus and
Thor. Only the atheist has realized that the biblical god is no
different. Consequently, only the atheist is compassionate enough to
take the profundity of the world's suffering at face value. It is
terrible that we all die and lose everything we love; it is doubly
terrible that so many human beings suffer needlessly while alive. That
so much of this suffering can be directly attributed to religion--to
religious hatreds, religious wars, religious delusions and religious
diversions of scarce resources--is what makes atheism a moral and
intellectual necessity. It is a necessity, however, that places the
atheist at the margins of society. The atheist, by merely being in
touch with reality, appears shamefully out of touch with the fantasy
life of his neighbors.
The Nature of Belief
According to several recent polls, 22% of Americans are certain that
Jesus will return to Earth sometime in the next 50 years. Another 22%
believe that he will probably do so. This is likely the same 44% who go
to church once a week or more, who believe that God literally promised
the land of Israel to the Jews and who want to stop teaching our
children about the biological fact of evolution. As President Bush is
well aware, believers of this sort constitute the most cohesive and
motivated segment of the American electorate. Consequently, their views
and prejudices now influence almost every decision of national
importance. Political liberals seem to have drawn the wrong lesson from
these developments and are now thumbing Scripture, wondering how best
to ingratiate themselves to the legions of men and women in our country
who vote largely on the basis of religious dogma. More than 50% of
Americans have a "negative" or "highly negative" view of people
who do not believe in God; 70% think it important for presidential
candidates to be "strongly religious." Unreason is now ascendant in
the United States--in our schools, in our courts and in each branch of
the federal government. Only 28% of Americans believe in evolution; 68%
believe in Satan. Ignorance in this degree, concentrated in both the
head and belly of a lumbering superpower, is now a problem for the
entire world.
Although it is easy enough for smart people to criticize religious
fundamentalism, something called "religious moderation" still
enjoys immense prestige in our society, even in the ivory tower. This
is ironic, as fundamentalists tend to make a more principled use of
their brains than "moderates" do. While fundamentalists justify
their religious beliefs with extraordinarily poor evidence and
arguments, they at least they make an attempt at rational
justification. Moderates, on the other hand, generally do nothing more
than cite the good consequences of religious belief. Rather than say
that they believe in God because certain biblical prophecies have come
true, moderates will say that they believe in God because this belief
"gives their lives meaning." When a tsunami killed a few hundred
thousand people on the day after Christmas, fundamentalists readily
interpreted this cataclysm as evidence of God's wrath. As it turns
out, God was sending humanity another oblique message about the evils
of abortion, idolatry and homosexuality. While morally obscene, this
interpretation of events is actually reasonable, given certain
(ludicrous) assumptions. Moderates, on the other hand, refuse to draw
any conclusions whatsoever about God from his works. God remains a
perfect mystery, a mere source of consolation that is compatible with
the most desolating evil. In the face of disasters like the Asian
tsunami, liberal piety is apt to produce the most unctuous and
stupefying nonsense imaginable. And yet, men and women of goodwill
naturally prefer such vacuities to the odious moralizing and
prophesizing of true believers. Between catastrophes, it is surely a
virtue of liberal theology that it emphasizes mercy over wrath. It is
worth noting, however, that it is human mercy on display--not
God's--when the bloated bodies of the dead are pulled from the sea.
On days when thousands of children are simultaneously torn from their
mothers' arms and casually drowned, liberal theology must stand
revealed for what it is--the sheerest of mortal pretenses. Even the
theology of wrath has more intellectual merit. If God exists, his will
is not inscrutable. The only thing inscrutable in these terrible events
is that so many neurologically healthy men and women can believe the
unbelievable and think this the height of moral wisdom.
It is perfectly absurd for religious moderates to suggest that a
rational human being can believe in God simply because this belief
makes him happy, relieves his fear of death or gives his life meaning.
The absurdity becomes obvious the moment we swap the notion of God for
some other consoling proposition: Imagine, for instance, that a man
wants to believe that there is a diamond buried somewhere in his yard
that is the size of a refrigerator. No doubt it would feel uncommonly
good to believe this. Just imagine what would happen if he then
followed the example of religious moderates and maintained this belief
along pragmatic lines: When asked why he thinks that there is a diamond
in his yard that is thousands of times larger than any yet discovered,
he says things like, "This belief gives my life meaning," or "My
family and I enjoy digging for it on Sundays," or "I wouldn't
want to live in a universe where there wasn't a diamond buried in my
backyard that is the size of a refrigerator." Clearly these responses
are inadequate. But they are worse than that. They are the responses of
a madman or an idiot.
Here we can see why Pascal's wager, Kierkegaard's leap of faith and
other epistemological Ponzi schemes won't do. To believe that God
exists is to believe that one stands in some relation to his existence
such that his existence is itself the reason for one's belief. There
must be some causal connection, or an appearance thereof, between the
fact in question and a person's acceptance of it. In this way, we can
see that religious beliefs, to be beliefs about the way the world is,
must be as evidentiary in spirit as any other. For all their sins
against reason, religious fundamentalists understand this;
moderates--almost by definition--do not.
The incompatibility of reason and faith has been a self-evident feature
of human cognition and public discourse for centuries. Either a person
has good reasons for what he strongly believes or he does not. People
of all creeds naturally recognize the primacy of reasons and resort to
reasoning and evidence wherever they possibly can. When rational
inquiry supports the creed it is always championed; when it poses a
threat, it is derided; sometimes in the same sentence. Only when the
evidence for a religious doctrine is thin or nonexistent, or there is
compelling evidence against it, do its adherents invoke "faith."
Otherwise, they simply cite the reasons for their beliefs (e.g. "the
New Testament confirms Old Testament prophecy," "I saw the face of
Jesus in a window," "We prayed, and our daughter's cancer went
into remission"). Such reasons are generally inadequate, but they are
better than no reasons at all. Faith is nothing more than the license
religious people give themselves to keep believing when reasons fail.
In a world that has been shattered by mutually incompatible religious
beliefs, in a nation that is growing increasingly beholden to Iron Age
conceptions of God, the end of history and the immortality of the soul,
this lazy partitioning of our discourse into matters of reason and
matters of faith is now unconscionable.
Faith and the Good Society
People of faith regularly claim that atheism is responsible for some of
the most appalling crimes of the 20th century. Although it is true that
the regimes of Hitler, Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot were irreligious to
varying degrees, they were not especially rational. In fact, their
public pronouncements were little more than litanies of
delusion--delusions about race, economics, national identity, the march
of history or the moral dangers of intellectualism. In many respects,
religion was directly culpable even here. Consider the Holocaust: The
anti-Semitism that built the Nazi crematoria brick by brick was a
direct inheritance from medieval Christianity. For centuries, religious
Germans had viewed the Jews as the worst species of heretics and
attributed every societal ill to their continued presence among the
faithful. While the hatred of Jews in Germany expressed itself in a
predominately secular way, the religious demonization of the Jews of
Europe continued. (The Vatican itself perpetuated the blood libel in
its newspapers as late as 1914.)
Auschwitz, the gulag and the killing fields are not examples of what
happens when people become too critical of unjustified beliefs; to the
contrary, these horrors testify to the dangers of not thinking
critically enough about specific secular ideologies. Needless to say, a
rational argument against religious faith is not an argument for the
blind embrace of atheism as a dogma. The problem that the atheist
exposes is none other than the problem of dogma itself--of which every
religion has more than its fair share. There is no society in recorded
history that ever suffered because its people became too reasonable.
While most Americans believe that getting rid of religion is an
impossible goal, much of the developed world has already accomplished
it. Any account of a "god gene" that causes the majority of
Americans to helplessly organize their lives around ancient works of
religious fiction must explain why so many inhabitants of other First
World societies apparently lack such a gene. The level of atheism
throughout the rest of the developed world refutes any argument that
religion is somehow a moral necessity. Countries like Norway, Iceland,
Australia, Canada, Sweden, Switzerland, Belgium, Japan, the
Netherlands, Denmark and the United Kingdom are among the least
religious societies on Earth. According to the United Nations' Human
Development Report (2005) they are also the healthiest, as indicated by
measures of life expectancy, adult literacy, per capita income,
educational attainment, gender equality, homicide rate and infant
mortality. Conversely, the 50 nations now ranked lowest in terms of
human development are unwaveringly religious. Other analyses paint the
same picture: The United States is unique among wealthy democracies in
its level of religious literalism and opposition to evolutionary
theory; it is also uniquely beleaguered by high rates of homicide,
abortion, teen pregnancy, STD infection and infant mortality. The same
comparison holds true within the United States itself: Southern and
Midwestern states, characterized by the highest levels of religious
superstition and hostility to evolutionary theory, are especially
plagued by the above indicators of societal dysfunction, while the
comparatively secular states of the Northeast conform to European
norms. Of course, correlational data of this sort do not resolve
questions of causality--belief in God may lead to societal dysfunction;
societal dysfunction may foster a belief in God; each factor may enable
the other; or both may spring from some deeper source of mischief.
Leaving aside the issue of cause and effect, these facts prove that
atheism is perfectly compatible with the basic aspirations of a civil
society; they also prove, conclusively, that religious faith does
nothing to ensure a society's health.
Countries with high levels of atheism also are the most charitable in
terms of giving foreign aid to the developing world. The dubious link
between Christian literalism and Christian values is also belied by
other indices of charity. Consider the ratio in salaries between
top-tier CEOs and their average employee: in Britain it is 24 to 1;
France 15 to 1; Sweden 13 to 1; in the United States, where 83% of the
population believes that Jesus literally rose from the dead, it is 475
to 1. Many a camel, it would seem, expects to squeeze easily through
the eye of a needle.
Religion as a Source of Violence
One of the greatest challenges facing civilization in the 21st century
is for human beings to learn to speak about their deepest personal
concerns--about ethics, spiritual experience and the inevitability of
human suffering--in ways that are not flagrantly irrational. Nothing
stands in the way of this project more than the respect we accord
religious faith. Incompatible religious doctrines have balkanized our
world into separate moral communities--Christians, Muslims, Jews,
Hindus, etc.--and these divisions have become a continuous source of
human conflict. Indeed, religion is as much a living spring of violence
today as it was at any time in the past. The recent conflicts in
Palestine (Jews versus Muslims), the Balkans (Orthodox Serbians versus
Catholic Croatians; Orthodox Serbians versus Bosnian and Albanian
Muslims), Northern Ireland (Protestants versus Catholics), Kashmir
(Muslims versus Hindus), Sudan (Muslims versus Christians and
animists), Nigeria (Muslims versus Christians), Ethiopia and Eritrea
(Muslims versus Christians), Sri Lanka (Sinhalese Buddhists versus
Tamil Hindus), Indonesia (Muslims versus Timorese Christians), Iran and
Iraq (Shiite versus Sunni Muslims), and the Caucasus (Orthodox Russians
versus Chechen Muslims; Muslim Azerbaijanis versus Catholic and
Orthodox Armenians) are merely a few cases in point. In these places
religion has been the explicit cause of literally millions of deaths in
the last 10 years.
In a world riven by ignorance, only the atheist refuses to deny the
obvious: Religious faith promotes human violence to an astonishing
degree. Religion inspires violence in at least two senses: (1) People
often kill other human beings because they believe that the creator of
the universe wants them to do it (the inevitable psychopathic corollary
being that the act will ensure them an eternity of happiness after
death). Examples of this sort of behavior are practically innumerable,
jihadist suicide bombing being the most prominent. (2) Larger numbers
of people are inclined toward religious conflict simply because their
religion constitutes the core of their moral identities. One of the
enduring pathologies of human culture is the tendency to raise children
to fear and demonize other human beings on the basis of religion. Many
religious conflicts that seem driven by terrestrial concerns,
therefore, are religious in origin. (Just ask the Irish.)
These facts notwithstanding, religious moderates tend to imagine that
human conflict is always reducible to a lack of education, to poverty
or to political grievances. This is one of the many delusions of
liberal piety. To dispel it, we need only reflect on the fact that the
Sept. 11 hijackers were college educated and middle class and had no
discernable history of political oppression. They did, however, spend
an inordinate amount of time at their local mosque talking about the
depravity of infidels and about the pleasures that await martyrs in
Paradise. How many more architects and mechanical engineers must hit
the wall at 400 miles an hour before we admit to ourselves that
jihadist violence is not a matter of education, poverty or politics?
The truth, astonishingly enough, is this: A person can be so well
educated that he can build a nuclear bomb while still believing that he
will get 72 virgins in Paradise. Such is the ease with which the human
mind can be partitioned by faith, and such is the degree to which our
intellectual discourse still patiently accommodates religious delusion.
Only the atheist has observed what should now be obvious to every
thinking human being: If we want to uproot the causes of religious
violence we must uproot the false certainties of religion.
Why is religion such a potent source of human violence?
o) Our religions are intrinsically incompatible with one another.
Either Jesus rose from the dead and will be returning to Earth like a
superhero or not; either the Koran is the infallible word of God or it
isn't. Every religion makes explicit claims about the way the world
is, and the sheer profusion of these incompatible claims creates an
enduring basis for conflict.
o) There is no other sphere of discourse in which human beings so fully
articulate their differences from one another, or cast these
differences in terms of everlasting rewards and punishments. Religion
is the one endeavor in which us-them thinking achieves a transcendent
significance. If a person really believes that calling God by the right
name can spell the difference between eternal happiness and eternal
suffering, then it becomes quite reasonable to treat heretics and
unbelievers rather badly. It may even be reasonable to kill them. If a
person thinks there is something that another person can say to his
children that could put their souls in jeopardy for all eternity, then
the heretic next door is actually far more dangerous than the child
molester. The stakes of our religious differences are immeasurably
higher than those born of mere tribalism, racism or politics.
o) Religious faith is a conversation-stopper. Religion is only area of
our discourse in which people are systematically protected from the
demand to give evidence in defense of their strongly held beliefs. And
yet these beliefs often determine what they live for, what they will
die for, and--all too often--what they will kill for. This is a
problem, because when the stakes are high, human beings have a simple
choice between conversation and violence. Only a fundamental
willingness to be reasonable--to have our beliefs about the world
revised by new evidence and new arguments--can guarantee that we will
keep talking to one another. Certainty without evidence is necessarily
divisive and dehumanizing. While there is no guarantee that rational
people will always agree, the irrational are certain to be divided by
their dogmas.
It seems profoundly unlikely that we will heal the divisions in our
world simply by multiplying the opportunities for interfaith dialogue.
The endgame for civilization cannot be mutual tolerance of patent
irrationality. While all parties to liberal religious discourse have
agreed to tread lightly over those points where their worldviews would
otherwise collide, these very points remain perpetual sources of
conflict for their coreligionists. Political correctness, therefore,
does not offer an enduring basis for human cooperation. If religious
war is ever to become unthinkable for us, in the way that slavery and
cannibalism seem poised to, it will be a matter of our having dispensed
with the dogma of faith.
When we have reasons for what we believe, we have no need of faith;
when we have no reasons, or bad ones, we have lost our connection to
the world and to one another. Atheism is nothing more than a commitment
to the most basic standard of intellectual honesty: One's convictions
should be proportional to one's evidence. Pretending to be certain
when one isn't--indeed, pretending to be certain about propositions
for which no evidence is even conceivable--is both an intellectual and
a moral failing. Only the atheist has realized this. The atheist is
simply a person who has perceived the lies of religion and refused to
make them his own.
Dig last updated on Dec. 7, 2005
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| User: "Dubh Ghall" |
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| Title: Re: An Atheist Manifesto |
01 Jan 2006 04:10:58 PM |
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On Sat, 31 Dec 2005 21:33:43 +0800, "Pastor Frank" <PastorFrank@christfirst.edu>
wrote:
You haven't disproved love as yet, and till you do, we believe in our God,
who is love.
Of course, the evidence of your own bible, gives that statement the lie.
If you need a book to tell you what love is, you are warped.
Like I said, if you were born with the knowledge of what love was, and
needed no one, nor anything like books to tell you,
Love is a personal thing, it is a subjective thing.
It cannot be defined, described, or told; only that you feel it.
It cannot be learned from books, or from other people, it can only be learned
from experience.
If you do not know that, I can only conclude that you have never felt love.
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| User: "xeno" |
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| Title: Theocracy sucks, dude |
01 Jan 2006 11:09:39 AM |
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On Sat, 31 Dec 2005, Pastor Frank wrote:
For most atheists, love is merely a vague feeling in the groin designed
to aid reproduction.
What's so vague about it, dude?
But for us, the
ultimate in love is our God incarnate Jesus Christ dying on the cross for
the sake of us sinners. See below
Pastor Frank
Jesus in Jn:15:12-13: This is my commandment: That ye love one another,
as I have loved you. Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down
his life for his friends.
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| User: "" |
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| Title: Re: An Atheist Manifesto |
22 Dec 2005 04:36:58 PM |
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OS XI wrote:
"Virgil" <ITSnetNOTcom#virgil@COMCAST.com> wrote in message
news:ITSnetNOTcom%23virgil-F3C15E.12191522122005@comcast.dca.giganews.com...
In article
<1135258974.13ae6d5aec0e664dce7426d37d915d18@roc.usenetexchange.com>,
"Pastor Frank" <PastorFrank@christfirst.edu> wrote:
"Carl Rooker" <rookerc@dnx.net> wrote in message
news:1135089833.506157@w9.dnx.net...
Just another lame attemtp by a bigot to trash Faith in Christ by
misrepresentation and falsehoods about Faith in Christ.
This is so lame and pathetic.
No god of atheist definition exists. They make sure of that.
No god of any theist definition exists, for any theist of a different
faith.
anything is possible
Strawman. Virgil didn't say it was not possible, he said is was not
the case. Another Fallacy from Septic.
Jeff
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| User: "Pastor Frank" |
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| Title: Re: An Atheist Manifesto |
28 Dec 2005 01:57:56 PM |
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"Virgil" <ITSnetNOTcom#virgil@COMCAST.com> wrote in message
news:ITSnetNOTcom%23virgil-F3C15E.12191522122005@comcast.dca.giganews.com...
In article
<1135258974.13ae6d5aec0e664dce7426d37d915d18@roc.usenetexchange.com>,
"Pastor Frank" <PastorFrank@christfirst.edu> wrote:
"Carl Rooker" <rookerc@dnx.net> wrote in message
news:1135089833.506157@w9.dnx.net...
Just another lame attemtp by a bigot to trash Faith in Christ by
misrepresentation and falsehoods about Faith in Christ.
This is so lame and pathetic.
No god of atheist definition exists. They make sure of that.
No god of any theist definition exists, for any theist of a different
faith.
So what? There are still plenty of existing gods to go around. Our
Christian "God is love" (1 John 4:8,16), and most theists, if not atheists
as well, will find that an appealing choice.
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| User: "Keith Henson" |
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| Title: Re: An Atheist Manifesto |
22 Dec 2005 02:39:06 PM |
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On Thu, 22 Dec 2005 13:42:54 +0000, "Pastor Frank"
<PastorFrank@christfirst.edu> wrote:
"Carl Rooker" <rookerc@dnx.net> wrote in message
news:1135089833.506157@w9.dnx.net...
Just another lame attemtp by a bigot to trash Faith in Christ by
misrepresentation and falsehoods about Faith in Christ.
This is so lame and pathetic.
No god of atheist definition exists. They make sure of that.
That's true so far.
However, there is a project going among people who are almost
universally atheists to create something with powers on the scale of a
god.
Perhaps atheists regret the lack of a god or gods and are trying to
fix what they see as a lack.
If we are lucky, humans of the future may live as pampered pets. If
we are unlucky, the entire biosphere may die.
Keith Henson
.
|
|
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| User: "Pastor Frank" |
|
| Title: Re: An Atheist Manifesto |
28 Dec 2005 02:04:36 PM |
|
|
"Keith Henson" <hkhenson@rogers.com> wrote in message
news:43b70cec.735882212@news1.sympatico.ca...
On Thu, 22 Dec 2005 13:42:54 +0000, "Pastor Frank"
<PastorFrank@christfirst.edu> wrote:
"Carl Rooker" <rookerc@dnx.net> wrote in message
news:1135089833.506157@w9.dnx.net...
Just another lame attemtp by a bigot to trash Faith in Christ by
misrepresentation and falsehoods about Faith in Christ.
This is so lame and pathetic.
No god of atheist definition exists. They make sure of that.
That's true so far.
However, there is a project going among people who are almost
universally atheists to create something with powers on the scale of a
god.
Then you end up a theist, for whatever you chose is either a god or
devil or both in one. We prefer a God who is wholly good, such as our God
incarnate, Jesus Christ.
.
|
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| User: "wbarwell" |
|
| Title: Re: An Atheist Manifesto |
23 Dec 2005 10:04:51 AM |
|
|
Keith Henson wrote:
On Thu, 22 Dec 2005 13:42:54 +0000, "Pastor Frank"
<PastorFrank@christfirst.edu> wrote:
"Carl Rooker" <rookerc@dnx.net> wrote in message
news:1135089833.506157@w9.dnx.net...
Just another lame attemtp by a bigot to trash Faith in Christ by
misrepresentation and falsehoods about Faith in Christ.
This is so lame and pathetic.
No god of atheist definition exists. They make sure of that.
That's true so far.
However, there is a project going among people who are almost
universally atheists to create something with powers on the scale of
a god.
Perhaps atheists regret the lack of a god or gods and are trying to
fix what they see as a lack.
If we are lucky, humans of the future may live as pampered pets. If
we are unlucky, the entire biosphere may die.
Keith Henson
Its possible that as technology allows us to become
immortal god-like beings, that the benighted and backwards
will reject this great gift and because of religion elect
to remain low grade humans, much as stupid JW's reject life
saving medical techniques.
We will have to set aside some land for the stupid animals.
They can squat in the dust and chant their prayers to a
non-existant god. They won't be pampered, any more than
most animals in a wild life park are pampered. How pampered
are hyenas in African parks?
We may even from time to time cull these 'parks' as they get
overcrowded. Or maybe not. Let them cull themselves in quaint
tribal battles and periodic 'natural' ways such as mass epidemics.
Its God's sacred way.
--
Wassail, Happy Holidays, Merry Solstice, Happy
Saturnalia, mull the wine and pass the eggnog.
Cheerful Charlie
.
|
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| User: "Carl Rooker" |
|
| Title: Re: An Atheist Manifesto |
23 Dec 2005 11:44:47 AM |
|
|
"wbarwell" <wbarwell@mylinuxisp.com> wrote in message
news:11qo7uti6gq03ae@corp.supernews.com...
Keith Henson wrote:
On Thu, 22 Dec 2005 13:42:54 +0000, "Pastor Frank"
<PastorFrank@christfirst.edu> wrote:
"Carl Rooker" <rookerc@dnx.net> wrote in message
news:1135089833.506157@w9.dnx.net...
Just another lame attemtp by a bigot to trash Faith in Christ by
misrepresentation and falsehoods about Faith in Christ.
This is so lame and pathetic.
No god of atheist definition exists. They make sure of that.
That's true so far.
However, there is a project going among people who are almost
universally atheists to create something with powers on the scale of
a god.
Perhaps atheists regret the lack of a god or gods and are trying to
fix what they see as a lack.
If we are lucky, humans of the future may live as pampered pets. If
we are unlucky, the entire biosphere may die.
Keith Henson
Its possible that as technology allows us to become
immortal god-like beings, that the benighted and backwards
will reject this great gift and because of religion elect
to remain low grade humans, much as stupid JW's reject life
saving medical techniques.
We will have to set aside some land for the stupid animals.
They can squat in the dust and chant their prayers to a
non-existant god. They won't be pampered, any more than
most animals in a wild life park are pampered. How pampered
are hyenas in African parks?
We may even from time to time cull these 'parks' as they get
overcrowded. Or maybe not. Let them cull themselves in quaint
tribal battles and periodic 'natural' ways such as mass epidemics.
Its God's sacred way.
--
Wassail, Happy Holidays, Merry Solstice, Happy
Saturnalia, mull the wine and pass the eggnog.
Cheerful Charlie
Thus another mindless bigot warrents the incarceration and elimination of
those who disagree with him.
Are all of you athiests like that?
God Bless
Carl
.
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| User: "ManMadeGod" |
|
| Title: Re: An Atheist Manifesto |
23 Dec 2005 11:52:33 AM |
|
|
"Carl Rooker" <rookerc@dnx.net> wrote in message
news:1135359908.318954@w9.dnx.net...
Thus another mindless bigot warrents the incarceration and elimination of
those who disagree with him.
You mean like this...
Deuteronomy:
At God's instructions, the Israelites "utterly destroyed the men, women, and
the little ones" leaving "none to remain." 2:33-36
The Israelites, with God's help, kill all the men, women, and children of
every city. 3:3-6
When going to war, don't be afraid. God is on your side; "he shall fight for
you." 3:22
God destroyed the followers of Baalpeor. 4:3
God brought the Israelites out of Egypt "by war ... and by great terrors."
4:34
If you worship the wrong god, God will get jealous and kill you. 6:15
God instructs the Israelites to kill, without mercy, all the inhabitants
(strangers) of the land that they conquer. 7:2
God will kill those who hate him. 7:10
God commands his people to "consume all the people which the Lord thy God
shall deliver thee; thine eye shall have no pity on them." 7:16
God will send hornets to kill your enemies, "for the Lord thy God is among
you, a mighty God and terrible." 7:20-23
God is "a consuming fire" that destroys people. 9:3
"The blood of sacrifices shall be poured out ... and thou shalt eat the
flesh." Isn't this the sort of thing that Satanists are accused of doing?
12:27
Kill those of other faiths. 12:30
.
|
|
|
| User: "Pastor Frank" |
|
| Title: Re: An Atheist Manifesto |
24 Dec 2005 10:29:56 PM |
|
|
"ManMadeGod" <spamhere@nospam.com> wrote in message
news:ePWqf.41416$ih5.35260@dukeread11...
"Carl Rooker" <rookerc@dnx.net> wrote in message
news:1135359908.318954@w9.dnx.net...
Thus another mindless bigot warrents the incarceration and elimination of
those who disagree with him.
You mean like this...
Deuteronomy:
At God's instructions, the Israelites "utterly destroyed the men, women,
and the little ones" leaving "none to remain." 2:33-36
The Israelites, with God's help, kill all the men, women, and children of
every city. 3:3-6
When going to war, don't be afraid. God is on your side; "he shall fight
for you." 3:22
God destroyed the followers of Baalpeor. 4:3
God brought the Israelites out of Egypt "by war ... and by great terrors."
4:34
If you worship the wrong god, God will get jealous and kill you. 6:15
God instructs the Israelites to kill, without mercy, all the inhabitants
(strangers) of the land that they conquer. 7:2
God will kill those who hate him. 7:10
God commands his people to "consume all the people which the Lord thy God
shall deliver thee; thine eye shall have no pity on them." 7:16
God will send hornets to kill your enemies, "for the Lord thy God is among
you, a mighty God and terrible." 7:20-23
God is "a consuming fire" that destroys people. 9:3
"The blood of sacrifices shall be poured out ... and thou shalt eat the
flesh." Isn't this the sort of thing that Satanists are accused of doing?
12:27
Kill those of other faiths. 12:30
Are you an anti-Semite, that you should quote Jewish holy scripture
critically to Christians? See below what Christ wants us to do.
Pastor Frank
THE GOSPEL OF JESUS CHRIST
Jesus in Matthew. 5:38 Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye
for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth: (Exodus 21:23-24)
39: But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall
smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.
40: And if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let
him have thy cloke also.
41: And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain.
42: Give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee
turn not thou away.
43: Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour,
and hate thine enemy.
44: But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do
good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you,
and persecute you;
45: That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for
he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on
the just and on the unjust.
46: For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? Do not even
the publicans the same?
47: And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others? Do
not even the publicans so?
48: Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is
perfect.
---------------------
His teaching is a humongous step up from Judaism's Exodus 21:23-24
"If any harm follows, then you shall give life for life, eye for eye, tooth
for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound,
stripe for stripe."
.
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| User: "ManMadeGod" |
|
| Title: Re: An Atheist Manifesto |
26 Dec 2005 01:36:53 AM |
|
|
"Pastor Frank" <PastorFrank@christfirst.edu> wrote in message
news:43aef4d0$0$20941$6d36acad@roc.nntpserver.com...
"ManMadeGod" <spamhere@nospam.com> wrote in message
news:ePWqf.41416$ih5.35260@dukeread11...
"Carl Rooker" <rookerc@dnx.net> wrote in message
news:1135359908.318954@w9.dnx.net...
Thus another mindless bigot warrents the incarceration and elimination
of
those who disagree with him.
You mean like this...
Deuteronomy:
At God's instructions, the Israelites "utterly destroyed the men, women,
and the little ones" leaving "none to remain." 2:33-36
The Israelites, with God's help, kill all the men, women, and children of
every city. 3:3-6
When going to war, don't be afraid. God is on your side; "he shall fight
for you." 3:22
God destroyed the followers of Baalpeor. 4:3
God brought the Israelites out of Egypt "by war ... and by great
terrors." 4:34
If you worship the wrong god, God will get jealous and kill you. 6:15
God instructs the Israelites to kill, without mercy, all the inhabitants
(strangers) of the land that they conquer. 7:2
God will kill those who hate him. 7:10
God commands his people to "consume all the people which the Lord thy God
shall deliver thee; thine eye shall have no pity on them." 7:16
God will send hornets to kill your enemies, "for the Lord thy God is
among you, a mighty God and terrible." 7:20-23
God is "a consuming fire" that destroys people. 9:3
"The blood of sacrifices shall be poured out ... and thou shalt eat the
flesh." Isn't this the sort of thing that Satanists are accused of doing?
12:27
Kill those of other faiths. 12:30
Are you an anti-Semite, that you should quote Jewish holy scripture
critically to Christians? See below what Christ wants us to do.
No Frank (the a-hole), read it and weep!
It's your book!
.
|
|
|
| User: "Pastor Frank" |
|
| Title: Re: An Atheist Manifesto |
27 Dec 2005 11:16:05 AM |
|
|
"ManMadeGod" <spamhere@nospam.com> wrote in message
news:04Nrf.44404$ih5.40037@dukeread11...
critically to Christians? See below what Christ wants us to do.
No Frank (the a-hole), read it and weep!
It's your book!
You don't even know the difference between Judaism and Christianity, do
you? It's all the same to you I bet, ....merely your excuse for screeching
abuse at those who don't believe or disbelieve as you.
.
|
|
|
| User: "ManMadeGod" |
|
| Title: Re: An Atheist Manifesto |
28 Dec 2005 12:01:43 PM |
|
|
"Pastor Frank" <PastorFrank@christfirst.edu> wrote in message
news:43b292a1$0$20948$6d36acad@roc.nntpserver.com...
"ManMadeGod" <spamhere@nospam.com> wrote in message
news:04Nrf.44404$ih5.40037@dukeread11...
critically to Christians? See below what Christ wants us to do.
No Frank (the a-hole), read it and weep!
It's your book!
You don't even know the difference between Judaism and Christianity, do
you? It's all the same to you I bet, ....merely your excuse for screeching
abuse at those who don't believe or disbelieve as you.
All religons that worship mythical characters are the same, INSANE.
.
|
|
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| User: "Pastor Frank" |
|
| Title: Re: An Atheist Manifesto |
31 Dec 2005 07:38:17 AM |
|
|
"ManMadeGod" <spamhere@nospam.com> wrote in message
news:LpAsf.44770$ih5.4470@dukeread11...
"Pastor Frank" <PastorFrank@christfirst.edu> wrote in message
news:43b292a1$0$20948$6d36acad@roc.nntpserver.com...
"ManMadeGod" <spamhere@nospam.com> wrote in message
news:04Nrf.44404$ih5.40037@dukeread11...
critically to Christians? See below what Christ wants us to do.
No Frank (the a-hole), read it and weep!
It's your book!
You don't even know the difference between Judaism and Christianity,
do
you? It's all the same to you I bet, ....merely your excuse for
screeching
abuse at those who don't believe or disbelieve as you.
All religons that worship mythical characters are the same, INSANE.
Perhaps. But our "God is love" (1 John 4:8,16) and therefore a far cry
from being a "mythical character". Are you sure you are not fantasizing
"mythical characters" where there are none?
.
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|
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| User: "ManMadeGod" |
|
| Title: Re: An Atheist Manifesto |
02 Jan 2006 11:59:06 AM |
|
|
"Pastor Frank" <PastorFrank@christfirst.edu> wrote in message
news:43b7ab4e$0$10241$6d36acad@roc.nntpserver.com...
"ManMadeGod" <spamhere@nospam.com> wrote in message
news:LpAsf.44770$ih5.4470@dukeread11...
"Pastor Frank" <PastorFrank@christfirst.edu> wrote in message
news:43b292a1$0$20948$6d36acad@roc.nntpserver.com...
"ManMadeGod" <spamhere@nospam.com> wrote in message
news:04Nrf.44404$ih5.40037@dukeread11...
critically to Christians? See below what Christ wants us to do.
No Frank (the a-hole), read it and weep!
It's your book!
You don't even know the difference between Judaism and Christianity,
do
you? It's all the same to you I bet, ....merely your excuse for
screeching
abuse at those who don't believe or disbelieve as you.
All religons that worship mythical characters are the same, INSANE.
Perhaps. But our "God is love" (1 John 4:8,16) and therefore a far cry
from being a "mythical character". Are you sure you are not fantasizing
"mythical characters" where there are none?
Reciting fictional stories from a man-made book makes you look like an
idiot.
.
|
|
|
| User: "Pastor Frank" |
|
| Title: Re: An Atheist Manifesto |
04 Jan 2006 06:41:38 AM |
|
|
"ManMadeGod" <spamhere@nospam.com> wrote in message
news:dRduf.46586$ih5.23295@dukeread11...
"Pastor Frank" <PastorFrank@christfirst.edu> wrote in message
news:43b7ab4e$0$10241$6d36acad@roc.nntpserver.com...
"ManMadeGod" <spamhere@nospam.com> wrote in message
news:LpAsf.44770$ih5.4470@dukeread11...
"Pastor Frank" <PastorFrank@christfirst.edu> wrote in message
news:43b292a1$0$20948$6d36acad@roc.nntpserver.com...
"ManMadeGod" <spamhere@nospam.com> wrote in message
news:04Nrf.44404$ih5.40037@dukeread11...
critically to Christians? See below what Christ wants us to do.
No Frank (the a-hole), read it and weep!
It's your book!
You don't even know the difference between Judaism and Christianity,
do
you? It's all the same to you I bet, ....merely your excuse for
screeching
abuse at those who don't believe or disbelieve as you.
All religons that worship mythical characters are the same, INSANE.
Perhaps. But our "God is love" (1 John 4:8,16) and therefore a far cry
from being a "mythical character". Are you sure you are not fantasizing
"mythical characters" where there are none?
Reciting fictional stories from a man-made book makes you look like an
idiot.
WRONG again!!!! "Reciting" your very own personal and private opinions
as if they were gospel truth, backed by scripture, authoritative references
and lots of facts, when they aren't, "make you look like a conceited
idiot"!!!
.
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| User: "xeno" |
|
| Title: Theocracy sucks, dude |
06 Jan 2006 02:04:10 AM |
|
|
On Wed, 4 Jan 2006, Pastor Frank wrote:
Reciting fictional stories from a man-made book makes you look like an
idiot.
WRONG again!!!! "Reciting" your very own personal and private opinions
as if they were gospel truth, backed by scripture, authoritative references
and lots of facts, when they aren't, "make you look like a conceited
idiot"!!!
Gee dude, don't get your sam browne all twisted in a knot.
.
|
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| User: "Dubh Ghall" |
|
| Title: Re: An Atheist Manifesto |
01 Jan 2006 04:12:47 PM |
|
|
On Sat, 31 Dec 2005 21:38:17 +0800, "Pastor Frank" <PastorFrank@christfirst.edu>
wrote:
Perhaps. But our "God is love" (1 John 4:8,16) and therefore a far cry
from being a "mythical character". Are you sure you are not fantasizing
"mythical characters" where there are none?
No one claims that love is a myth, only that your incarnation of love, is a
myth.
.
|
|
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| User: "Pastor Frank" |
|
| Title: Re: An Atheist Manifesto |
04 Jan 2006 06:32:07 AM |
|
|
"Dubh Ghall" <puck@pooks.hill.fey> wrote in message
news:iqkgr1p07bbh0kv937g2h80cfu6ekd2gqs@4ax.com...
On Sat, 31 Dec 2005 21:38:17 +0800, "Pastor Frank"
<PastorFrank@christfirst.edu>
wrote:
Perhaps. But our "God is love" (1 John 4:8,16) and therefore a far cry
from being a "mythical character". Are you sure you are not fantasizing
"mythical characters" where there are none?
No one claims that love is a myth, only that your incarnation of love, is
a
myth.
Why would Jesus be "a myth"? Why not present you iron-clad proof and
become instantly famous? But then it's more likely you are just fantasizing
again and are only guessing wildly.
.
|
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| User: "Dubh Ghall" |
|
| Title: Re: An Atheist Manifesto |
06 Jan 2006 04:46:21 PM |
|
|
On Wed, 4 Jan 2006 20:32:07 +0800, "Pastor Frank" <PastorFrank@christfirst.edu>
wrote:
"Dubh Ghall" <puck@pooks.hill.fey> wrote in message
news:iqkgr1p07bbh0kv937g2h80cfu6ekd2gqs@4ax.com...
On Sat, 31 Dec 2005 21:38:17 +0800, "Pastor Frank"
<PastorFrank@christfirst.edu>
wrote:
Perhaps. But our "God is love" (1 John 4:8,16) and therefore a far cry
from being a "mythical character". Are you sure you are not fantasizing
"mythical characters" where there are none?
No one claims that love is a myth, only that your incarnation of love, is
a
myth.
Why would Jesus be "a myth"?
Jesus, is a myth, because there is NO, tangible evidence for such a person.
Or are you going to argue that as Jesus, was a common name, the Jesus of the
bible must have, or at least, could have, existed?
Trouble with that is that there is STILL no tangible evidence that the Jesus of
the bible, existed.
Why not present you iron-clad proof and
become instantly famous?
Okay. You tell me what evidence that which does not exist, and never did exist,
leaves behind, and I will produce it.
That way, I am only producing evidence which you will accept, and not wasting my
time, and yours, with irrelevancies.
Fair enough?
But then it's more likely you are just fantasizing
again
Sadly no, Frank. My fantasies, destroyed my fantasies, before you were ever
born.
Had it not been so, I would still be a xtian.
and are only guessing wildly.
About what, Frank?
--
The spelling Like any opinion stated here
purely my own
#162 BAAWA Knight.
.
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| User: "xeno" |
|
| Title: Theocracy sucks, dude |
06 Jan 2006 01:36:37 AM |
|
|
On Wed, 4 Jan 2006, Pastor Frank wrote:
Why would Jesus be "a myth"?
Because a dead man is hardly a god, dude.
.
|
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|
|
|
|
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| User: "wbarwell" |
|
| Title: Re: An Atheist Manifesto |
23 Dec 2005 05:01:50 PM |
|
|
Carl Rooker wrote:
"wbarwell" <wbarwell@mylinuxisp.com> wrote in message
news:11qo7uti6gq03ae@corp.supernews.com...
Keith Henson wrote:
On Thu, 22 Dec 2005 13:42:54 +0000, "Pastor Frank"
<PastorFrank@christfirst.edu> wrote:
"Carl Rooker" <rookerc@dnx.net> wrote in message
news:1135089833.506157@w9.dnx.net...
Just another lame attemtp by a bigot to trash Faith in Christ
by misrepresentation and falsehoods about Faith in Christ.
This is so lame and pathetic.
No god of atheist definition exists. They make sure of that.
That's true so far.
However, there is a project going among people who are almost
universally atheists to create something with powers on the scale
of a god.
Perhaps atheists regret the lack of a god or gods and are trying
to fix what they see as a lack.
If we are lucky, humans of the future may live as pampered pets.
If we are unlucky, the entire biosphere may die.
Keith Henson
Its possible that as technology allows us to become
immortal god-like beings, that the benighted and backwards
will reject this great gift and because of religion elect
to remain low grade humans, much as stupid JW's reject life
saving medical techniques.
We will have to set aside some land for the stupid animals.
They can squat in the dust and chant their prayers to a
non-existant god. They won't be pampered, any more than
most animals in a wild life park are pampered. How pampered
are hyenas in African parks?
We may even from time to time cull these 'parks' as they get
overcrowded. Or maybe not. Let them cull themselves in quaint
tribal battles and periodic 'natural' ways such as mass epidemics.
Its God's sacred way.
--
Wassail, Happy Holidays, Merry Solstice, Happy
Saturnalia, mull the wine and pass the eggnog.
Cheerful Charlie
Thus another mindless bigot warrents the incarceration and
elimination of those who disagree with him.
No, where did I say that?
let them cull each other.
Isn't that what you religious believers have been doing for centuries
anyway?
Pogroms, heresy hunts, persecutions, crudsades, inquisitions,
religious wars, forced conversions, jihads, and on and on.
What was WWII but another pogroms whike Hitler yelped about
the evil of the Jews and saving Germany's Christianity from the
Bolsheviks and Jews?
And you bible thumpers have been doing it now for some years.
***********************************************************
The Failure of Christianity in America
W. C . Barwell 3-8-05
***********************************************************
Since Nixon, this nation has rapidly moved to the far right,
taken there mainly by christian right wingers who have fully
supported the GOP as it has moved right to gain support of
christian zealots and conservatives. This started when Nixon
played the racist Southern Strategy card building on civil
rights era resentments by far right Southerners, in a purposeful
plan create by Kevin Phillips, playing on unchristian racist
resentments of the post Jim Crow civil rights era. Kevin Phillips,
architect of the Sourthern strategy, apologized on NPR radio a
few years back for this plan, which he admitted often sunk into
rank racism.
So we now have had a essentially a christian GOP government
for 30 years.
Under Nixon:
Christian Americans supported incompetent and corrupt
Vietnamese politicians. And a senseless war in Vietnam
that accomplished nothing. And a corrupt US military that
mislead us steadily about all of this.
Nixon lied about having a secret plan to end the war.
Christians supported Nixon's having instigated awful and
murderous policies as the Phoenix program.
Supported the secret bombings in Cambodia that killed
hundreds of thousands of innocent Cambodians.
Despite the lies and deceits, few Christian leaders seemed
to care or be disturbed by such things.
Winked at the invasion of East Timur and parts of New
Guinea by our allies, the Indonesions.
The Indonesians killed 1/4 of the East Timurese over several
decades, mass murder, genocide. 2 million dead.
Winked at the Greek far right Junta that overthrew the
Greek government. Today many Greeks still intensely
dislike teh US for support these men who tortured and jailed
many without charges, based on politics.
Supported the murderous far right Brazilian generals who
overthrew that democratically elected government.
Supported the mass murdering Argentinian government and
their terroristic "Dirty War" of torture, mass murder
and disappearances.
Supported the murderous Pinochet of Chile and overthrow
yet another democratically elected goverment.
No Christians respected life here. Or freedom. But supported
Nixon heartily despite the horrors we commited in Vietnam
and Cambodia and Chile and winked at support for other
dictators and right winged coups mentioned above.
The right wingers of both parties supported this, and many
claimed to be christians.
Reagan.
Reagan lead the GOP in support for military aid to the
genocidal Rios Montt of Guatemala, who's armies most purposefully
practiced wholesale torture, rape and genocide on the Mayan
Indians of Guatemala. A war of terror.
Reagan and the GOP supported the mass murdering ex-Somoza
Guards of Nicaragua.
Reagan and the GOP supported Saddam Hussein of Iraq, despite
Saddam's starting a warm, and using poison gas in his war.
Reagan and the GOP supported the murderous Robert
D'Aubisson of El Salavador, a known far right death
squad leader.
The El Salvadoran government was involved in numerous
murders, and massacres, such as the killing of 400
villagers at a small village called El Mezote, most
of them young women and children.
Reagan and the GOP supported Noriega of Panama.
Few christiabs complained, not the leadership of
US denominations.
Reagan and the GOP happily supported Pol Pot's claim
to be the rightful government of Cambodia despite the
genocide committed by the insane Pol Pot's Khmer Regime,
and even had teh CIA send money and supplies to Pol Pot
while ignoring China's reaming Pol Pot without complaint.
Reagan and the GOP supported a number of murdering
far right extremist guerrilla movements in Africa
including the genocidal Frelimo in Mozambique.
Reagan fought sanctions to end apartheid in South africa.
The Christian and religous right heavily supported Reagan
and the GOP despite numerous examples of such evils as
listed above. The leaders of the religous right never cared
nor complained, neither did the religous leaders of the
main stream christian denominations.
There was and is no respect for life in American
christianity as these wholesale and repeat failures of
America christianity collectively over 20 years shows.
Then we had Bush.
Bush continued support for the evil dictators above,
including Pinochet, Pol Pot and others. However,
Saddam screwed us and invaded Iraq, mainly because
Bush screwed up and did not warn him to not do so
even though Saddam repeatedly threatened Kuwait for
months, carefully gauguing Bush's lack of reaction
and thinking lack of reaction amounted to de facto
permission or acceptance of an invasion of Kuwait
by the inert Bush.
Bush did not act in case of genocide my Jugoslavia's
Milosevic, and Bush and the GOP's loud and obnoxious
footdragging here allowed Milosevic to kill
hundreds of thousands with near impunity.
The leaders of the GOP, House and Senate, and religous
leaders of the right and mainstream denominations never
cared about any of this, nor made issue of these evils.
In the Desert Storm war, Bush allowed the US air
force to bomb Iraq's water and sewer systems.
A war crime.
They placed sanctions on Iraq that made it impossible
to keep their water supplies safe resulting in numerous
deaths that eventually would total over 2 million dead
Iraqi civilians, mostly children.
Our government coldly calculated that these sanctions would
indeed would cause mass epidemics and mass death, and did
it anyway.
Thomas Nagy, a California college professor used the FOIA
statutes to obtain these documents that were published
in September 2001 in the Progressive Magazine.
http://www.progressive.org/0801issue/nagy0901.html
No Christian leaders of either far right or mainstream
cared nor brought Bush and the GOP leadership of House
and Senate to task for this genocide of innocents.
Clinton
Under Clinton this policy continued. Again, Christians did
not care. All Christians cared about was Clintons
don't-ask-don't-tell gays in military policy and Clinton's
sex life and Whitewater.
$47 million spent investigating whitewater while the Christian
right roared with naked hate. Money spent investigation mass
murder in Iraq caused by our purposeful by our sanctions?
$0. Roars of disaprovable from Christian America over these mass
murders? Few.
What has 30 years or right winged GOP government and right
winger christianity got us? Mass murder, genocide,
Nothing but callousness, disregard for human life,
mass moral failure of religion, Christianity and
the american right.
Not once did religous christian Americans, either
leadership or rank and file ever find any of these
evils unacceptable or punish any who supported any
of this.
Most GOP House and Senate members were people who
did these things claimed to be christians. Not a one
cares, not a christian cares, they did not care or act.
30 years of failure. 30 years of support for
far right genocidal bastards, mass murderers,
and evil.
Total christian failure.
Total lack of any real morality at all
in American christianity.
Christians posture as moral, but American christians have
a very bad track records when it comes to morality, they
will happily support any genocidal monster as long as he's
a right winger, and right winger politicians support
that monster, no matter how murderous or genocidal he
and his evil regime is.
Christianity is evil. The proof here is obvious,
and this is not some atrocity of the middle ages,
or the 1500's,this is here and now and ongoing and
continuing.
Bush lied us into a war in Iraq and rather than being
horrified, the christian far right has applauded this.
The christian failure of christian America is ongoing
and shows no signs of morality. No signs of change.
Thus we see that for the last 30 years in America,
christianity has been an utter and total and complete
moral failure.
(End)
--
Wassail, Happy Holidays, Merry Solstice, Happy
Saturnalia, mull the wine and pass the eggnog.
Cheerful Charlie
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| User: "Keith Henson" |
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| Title: Re: An Atheist Manifesto |
25 Dec 2005 10:33:10 AM |
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On Fri, 23 Dec 2005 17:01:50 -0600, wbarwell <wbarwell@mylinuxisp.com>
wrote:
Carl Rooker wrote
"wbarwell" <wbarwell@mylinuxisp.com> wrote in message
news:11qo7uti6gq03ae@corp.supernews.com...
Keith Henson wrote:
snip
If we are lucky, humans of the future may live as pampered pets.
If we are unlucky, the entire biosphere may die.
Keith Henson
Its possible that as technology allows us to become
immortal god-like beings, that the benighted and backwards
will reject this great gift and because of religion elect
to remain low grade humans, much as stupid JW's reject life
saving medical techniques.
We will have to set aside some land for the stupid animals.
I doubt it. When this proposal came up I was really opposed to it,
but after a while I had to agree it was probably going to be imposed
by the AI (AIs?). Namely, give them what they want. Upload them and
subject the lot of them to the rapture in a Matrix like simulation.
Tweak their brains so they can't get bored and let them spend from now
to the heat death singing around the throne of a simulated god. (Make
appropriate adjustments for Islamic and other cultures.)
They can squat in the dust and chant their prayers to a
non-existant god. They won't be pampered, any more than
most animals in a wild life park are pampered. How pampered
are hyenas in African parks?
We may even from time to time cull these 'parks' as they get
overcrowded. Or maybe not. Let them cull themselves in quaint
tribal battles and periodic 'natural' ways such as mass epidemics.
Its God's sacred way.
The AIs won't put up with this. Anyway, the simulated population can
rise forever in a fixed amount of computation. It just gets slower
and slower.
Wassail, Happy Holidays, Merry Solstice, Happy
Saturnalia, mull the wine and pass the eggnog.
Cheerful Charlie
Thus another mindless bigot warrents the incarceration and
elimination of those who disagree with him.
No, where did I say that?
let them cull each other.
Isn't that what you religious believers have been doing for centuries
anyway?
Pogroms, heresy hunts, persecutions, crudsades, inquisitions,
religious wars, forced conversions, jihads, and on and on.
What was WWII but another pogroms whike Hitler yelped about
the evil of the Jews and saving Germany's Christianity from the
Bolsheviks and Jews?
And you bible thumpers have been doing it now for some years.
It's much worse.
It is a character of humans from the stone age that when they could
see that food was going to get short, the "gain" would go up on memes
dehumanizing the tribe in the next valley. Soon the whole tribe would
be "jump'n up and down and yelling 'kill, kill.'"
In modern times the trigger maps to falling income per capita
especially after a long run up. Population growth increasing the
number of "capita" is one factor, the other is economic. The US
redistribution of income over the last generation has left a lot of
the population ready for the spread of armageddon (kill the evil ones)
type of memes. That's where the support to invade Iraq came from.
The class (religious, ethnic, etc) of the meme that fires up the
warriors is not significant, even the length of ears will do in a
pinch.
The "normal" mode for wild state humans is for about 40% of them to be
killed in raids or wars by other humans (over a lifetime). This
relates to the higher than replacement human reproductive potential.
So if you *want* wars (and some people do) outlawing birth control
makes sense.
Contrariwise . . . . .
Anyway, religions are incidental, they not the root cause of wars.
Keith Henson
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| User: "" |
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| Title: Re: An Atheist Manifesto |
27 Dec 2005 09:05:01 AM |
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Keith Henson wrote:
It is a character of humans from the stone age that when they could
see that food was going to get short, the "gain" would go up on memes
dehumanizing the tribe in the next valley. Soon the whole tribe would
be "jump'n up and down and yelling 'kill, kill.'"
In modern times the trigger maps to falling income per capita
especially after a long run up. Population growth increasing the
number of "capita" is one factor, the other is economic. The US
redistribution of income over the last generation has left a lot of
the population ready for the spread of armageddon (kill the evil ones)
type of memes. That's where the support to invade Iraq came from.
I think you're oversimplifying your sociology here to force events
of the past few years to fit your general pattern. The redistributions
of US income you're talking about happened in a historically unique
context regarding base and changing standards of living. Historians
repeat themselves far more often than history does.
The class (religious, ethnic, etc) of the meme that fires up the
warriors is not significant, even the length of ears will do in a
pinch.
The "normal" mode for wild state humans is for about 40% of them to be
killed in raids or wars by other humans (over a lifetime). This
relates to the higher than replacement human reproductive potential.
Ridiculous. Human societies don't usually survive more than a
generation with that kind of warfare/conflict loss rate. Disease,
starvation and accidental death are the reapers and always have
been, even in situations where much of the planet's population has
been industriously trying to kill each other off (as in WWI and II).
Anyway, religions are incidental, they not the root cause of wars.
As an organizational meme they can be the factor that makes raids
into wars.
--
Walt Smith
Firelock on DALNet
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| User: "Keith Henson" |
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| Title: Re: An Atheist Manifesto |
28 Dec 2005 10:25:52 PM |
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On 27 Dec 2005 07:05:01 -0800, wrote:
Keith Henson wrote:
It is a character of humans from the stone age that when they could
see that food was going to get short, the "gain" would go up on memes
dehumanizing the tribe in the next valley. Soon the whole tribe would
be "jump'n up and down and yelling 'kill, kill.'"
In modern times the trigger maps to falling income per capita
especially after a long run up. Population growth increasing the
number of "capita" is one factor, the other is economic. The US
redistribution of income over the last generation has left a lot of
the population ready for the spread of armageddon (kill the evil ones)
type of memes. That's where the support to invade Iraq came from.
I think you're oversimplifying your sociology here to force events
of the past few years to fit your general pattern.
That's certainly true that it's oversimplified here. The other big
factor that trips a population into war (rather than slowly edging
them into war) is to be attacked. I discuss this and much else in a
24 page paper that is in for review.
The redistributions
of US income you're talking about happened in a historically unique
context regarding base and changing standards of living.
Again what you say is true, the situation is different in detail from
war to war. But I argue that it is how people feel about their future
prospects that sets the populating wide gain on xenophobic memes. I
thought the US civil war was an exception until I talked to a
historian who was familiar with those times. Though times were good,
the population of the South (correctly) thought they would get much
worse.
Historians
repeat themselves far more often than history does.
The class (religious, ethnic, etc) of the meme that fires up the
warriors is not significant, even the length of ears will do in a
pinch.
The "normal" mode for wild state humans is for about 40% of them to be
killed in raids or wars by other humans (over a lifetime). This
relates to the higher than replacement human reproductive potential.
Ridiculous. Human societies don't usually survive more than a
generation with that kind of warfare/conflict loss rate. Disease,
starvation and accidental death are the reapers and always have
been, even in situations where much of the planet's population has
been industriously trying to kill each other off (as in WWI and II).
"Wild state" is hunter gatherer bands. Disease was far less of a
factor for low density populations and people went to war with
neighbors rather than starve.
Anyway, religions are incidental, they not the root cause of wars.
As an organizational meme they can be the factor that makes raids
into wars.
While that's true, it isn't on point. *Some* xenophobic out of the
local meme pool with be amplified up to induce attacks on the
neighboring tribe. On Easter Island it was the long ears vs the short
ears.
None of these mechanisms work well now that we are post stone age.
See Leblanc on warfare in the southwest.
Keith Henson
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| User: "" |
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| Title: Re: An Atheist Manifesto |
30 Dec 2005 08:07:11 AM |
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Keith Henson wrote:
On 27 Dec 2005 07:05:01 -0800, wrote:
Keith Henson wrote:
It is a character of humans from the stone age that when they could
see that food was going to get short, the "gain" would go up on memes
dehumanizing the tribe in the next valley. Soon the whole tribe would
be "jump'n up and down and yelling 'kill, kill.'"
In modern times the trigger maps to falling income per capita
especially after a long run up. Population growth increasing the
number of "capita" is one factor, the other is economic. The US
redistribution of income over the last generation has left a lot of
the population ready for the spread of armageddon (kill the evil ones)
type of memes. That's where the support to invade Iraq came from.
I think you're oversimplifying your sociology here to force events
of the past few years to fit your general pattern.
That's certainly true that it's oversimplified here. The other big
factor that trips a population into war (rather than slowly edging
them into war) is to be attacked. I discuss this and much else in a
24 page paper that is in for review.
If you didn't mean that US income redistribution was the most
important factor in growth of support for the war in Iraq, pehaps
you shouldn't have presented it as such. It looks like you knew
the data didn't really fit your model but were willing to pretend
it did anyway, and that's a bad habit to get into if you're
presenting 24-page papers to people.
<snip>
The "normal" mode for wild state humans is for about 40% of them to be
killed in raids or wars by other humans (over a lifetime). This
relates to the higher than replacement human reproductive potential.
Ridiculous. Human societies don't usually survive more than a
generation with that kind of warfare/conflict loss rate. Disease,
starvation and accidental death are the reapers and always have
been, even in situations where much of the planet's population has
been industriously trying to kill each other off (as in WWI and II).
"Wild state" is hunter gatherer bands. Disease was far less of a
factor for low density populations and people went to war with
neighbors rather than starve.
I know that there have been many incidents of genocidal conflict,
but what's your resource that tells you a 40% conflict casualty
rate is the *norm*?
--
Walt Smith
Firelock on | | | | | | | | |
