maff91@yahoo.com (maff) wrote in message news:<18510aff.0408152322.2384c706@posting.google.com>...

maff91@yahoo.com (maff) wrote in message news:<18510aff.0408130011.2daad586@posting.google.com>...

[Richard Crawford]"it really opened my eyes to how scientists
can bring their own doctrines and agendas to science"

Did the scientist Wilson [RC]"bring" his [RC]"own doctrines
and agendas to science" when writing this?:

Wilson, Edward O. Winter 1997. In "Why I am a secular
humanist" _Free Inquiry_ v18 n1 p18(5). Reprinted at
http://www.world-of-dawkins.com/Dawkins/Work/Interviews/1997-winterhumanist.shtml
_Free Inquiry_ describes Wilson as "Emeritus Professor of
Entomology at Harvard University and author of numerous
widely acclaimed books including _Sociobiology_." The entire
Wilson section:
I was raised a Southern Baptist in a religious environment
that favored a literal interpretation of the Bible. But it
happened that I also became fascinated by natural history
at an early age, and, as a biology concentrator at the
University of Alabama, discovered evolution. All that I
had learned of the living world to that point fell into place
in a wholly new and intellectually compelling way. It was
apparent to me that life is connected not by supernatural
design but by kinship, with species having multiplied out
of other species to create, over hundreds of millions of
years, the great panoply of biodiversity around us today. If
a Divine Creator put it all here several thousand years ago,
he also salted Earth from pole to pole with falsified
massive, interlocking evidence to make scientists believe
life evolved autonomously. I realized that something was
terribly wrong in this dissonance. The God depicted in
Holy Scripture is variously benevolent, didactic, loving,
angry, and vengeful, but never tricky.

As time passed, I learned that scientific materialism
explains vastly more of the tangible world, physical and
biological, in precise and useful detail, than the Iron-Age
theology and mysticism bequeathed us by the modern great
religions ever dreamed. It offers an epic view of the origin
and meaning of humanity far greater, and I believe more
noble, than conceived by all the prophets of old combined.
Its discoveries suggest that, like it or not, we are alone. We
must measure and judge ourselves, and we will decide our
own destiny.

Why then, am I a humanist? Let me give the answer in
terms of Blaise Pascal's Wager. The seventeenth-century
French philosopher said, in effect, live well but accept
religious faith. "If I lost," he wrote. "I would have lost
little: If I won I would have gained eternal life." Given
what we now know of the real world, I would turn the
Wager around as follows: if fear and hope and reason
dictate that you must accept the faith, do so, but treat this
world as if there is none other.

[Wilson ]"We must measure and judge ourselves" Interesting
god you believe in, Wilson. Cute.

Become a secular humanist and you, too, can worship yourself.

So who does Christian fascists and fundamentalists worship?

http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&selm=18510aff.0408031113.1aaafc8f%40posting.google.com

Whoever or whatever [m]"Christian fascists and fundamentalists
worship," they won't continue to do so for long:

So you have become from a Christian fascist historian to a Christian
fascist murderer?

Someone can call for a certain action to be performed without
performing that action. Thus, you, maff, have correctly stated
[m]"Christian Taliban leaders were defeated in the Civil War. This
time they're going to be wiped off from the face off the Earth." This
statement of yours does not mean that you intend to or will
participate in this action when the hour of implementation arrives.

[m]"Christian Taliban leaders were defeated in the Civil War. This
time they're going to be wiped off from the face off the Earth."
Ref:
http://www.google.com/groups?selm=b1c67abe.0406291613.6fc5b18d%40posting.google.com

dford3@gl.umbc.edu (david ford) wrote in message news:<dford3-b1c67abe.0408121848.fb6ab07@posting.google.com>...

[Richard Crawford]"it really opened my eyes to how scientists
can bring their own doctrines and agendas to science"

Did the scientist Wilson [RC]"bring" his [RC]"own doctrines
and agendas to science" when writing this?:

Wilson, Edward O. Winter 1997. In "Why I am a secular
humanist" _Free Inquiry_ v18 n1 p18(5). Reprinted at
http://www.world-of-dawkins.com/Dawkins/Work/Interviews/1997-winterhumanist.shtml
_Free Inquiry_ describes Wilson as "Emeritus Professor of
Entomology at Harvard University and author of numerous
widely acclaimed books including _Sociobiology_." The entire
Wilson section:
I was raised a Southern Baptist in a religious environment
that favored a literal interpretation of the Bible. But it
happened that I also became fascinated by natural history
at an early age, and, as a biology concentrator at the
University of Alabama, discovered evolution. All that I
had learned of the living world to that point fell into place
in a wholly new and intellectually compelling way. It was
apparent to me that life is connected not by supernatural
design but by kinship, with species having multiplied out
of other species to create, over hundreds of millions of
years, the great panoply of biodiversity around us today. If
a Divine Creator put it all here several thousand years ago,
he also salted Earth from pole to pole with falsified
massive, interlocking evidence to make scientists believe
life evolved autonomously. I realized that something was
terribly wrong in this dissonance. The God depicted in
Holy Scripture is variously benevolent, didactic, loving,
angry, and vengeful, but never tricky.

As time passed, I learned that scientific materialism
explains vastly more of the tangible world, physical and
biological, in precise and useful detail, than the Iron-Age
theology and mysticism bequeathed us by the modern great
religions ever dreamed. It offers an epic view of the origin
and meaning of humanity far greater, and I believe more
noble, than conceived by all the prophets of old combined.
Its discoveries suggest that, like it or not, we are alone. We
must measure and judge ourselves, and we will decide our
own destiny.

Why then, am I a humanist? Let me give the answer in
terms of Blaise Pascal's Wager. The seventeenth-century
French philosopher said, in effect, live well but accept
religious faith. "If I lost," he wrote. "I would have lost
little: If I won I would have gained eternal life." Given
what we now know of the real world, I would turn the
Wager around as follows: if fear and hope and reason
dictate that you must accept the faith, do so, but treat this
world as if there is none other.

[Wilson ]"We must measure and judge ourselves" Interesting
god you believe in, Wilson. Cute.

Become a secular humanist and you, too, can worship yourself.

What makes you think we humanists worship ourselves?

Are you lying, or can you just not imagine people who don't
worship *something?

And WTF could it *mean to worship myself?

dford3@gl.umbc.edu (david ford) wrote:

[Wilson ]"We must measure and judge ourselves" Interesting
god you believe in, Wilson. Cute.

You are misconstruing his intent. We *all* measure and judge ourselves.
The only difference is the source of the standard. Christians measure
themselves against the teaching of Jesus.

david ford wrote:

(snip)

Become a secular humanist and you, too, can worship yourself.

So, the weird old notion that secular humanists worship themselves rears
its shallow,

non-insightful head.