| Topic: |
Religions > Atheism |
| User: |
"Larry Heath" |
| Date: |
13 Jun 2005 10:31:42 PM |
| Object: |
Sun herald OP/ED by Charley Reese |
I am taking the liberity of reproducing in its intirety an op/ed article to
my local newspaper the Sun Herald. I have attempted to procure a link to the
article below, but quite frankly I didn't wish to have to fend off the
stream of popup ads necessary to locate the article on there web site.
http:/www/sun-herald.com
Begin Article
Write to Charley Reese at P.O. Box 2446, Orlando, FL 32802.
Christopher Hitchens, the British writer who has fallen in love with
American neoconservatives, recently said this about people of faith: "I
can't stand anyone who believes in God, who invokes the divinity, or who is
a person of faith. I mean, that to me is a horrible, repulsive thing."
Well, it doesn't really matter what the old-left, born-again
neoconservatives think. I cite the quotation, from a radio interview in the
United Kingdom, to set the stage for the point that atheism and Darwinism
are matters of faith, not scientific fact They are rationalizations for
another form of secular faith: Materialism.
It is impossible to prove there is no God, just as it has so far been
impossible to prove that life began as a single cell in some primordial
pond. If either of these beliefs was just a matter of reason and science,
then the people who hold it would feel no hostility against those who
disagree with them. But, as my example shows, they are hostile to people who
disagree with them.
The atheist-Darwinist-materialist acts exactly like the religious zealots he
professes to scorn. He is evangelical, dogmatic and tends to view people who
disagree with him as either idiots or
enemies. It seems that humans are incapable of living without faith. They
just have different gods.
Intelligent design is a far more plausible theory than the belief that life
in all its incredible profusion and complexity is a mere accident. There is
no fossil evidence of any species ever becoming another species. What the
fossil records shows exactly what mankind has seen since we learned to
write: Some species die out. Some don't. Occasionally, some genetic mutation
will cause a slight change in some life-form, but never to the extent of
creating a new form of life. The fact that one occasionally sees an albino
squirrel does not mean that all of sqnirreldom will become white.
The war between materialists and people of faith has gone on for millennia.
It is going on today. There are very important philosophical differences
between the two camps. The materialist believes he has no responsibility to
take care of others. That's why Darwinism and its survival-of-the-fittest
claim were seized upon by the materialists as a perfect rationalization of
their selfishness. People of faith, however, feel a God-given responsibility
to help their fellow human beings.
Every tyranny has been materialistic, though some tyrannies are frequently
disguised with a false altruistic covering. As we have seen in communist
countries both past and present, the reality contradicts theory. The reality
is rule by an oligarchy that enslaves the population. As George Orwell so
perceptively saw, everybody is equal, but some are more equal than others.
In the Soviet Union, the aristocracy was replaced by the Communist Party
leadership, and the top communist acted with the same absolutism as the
czars of old. The communist czars, however, were a million times more
murderous than the old czars.
Today, the selfish materialists have trotted out another god - the free
market. The market, these people claim, if left free will always make
rational economic decisions. Once again, reality contradicts theory
Unregulated capitalism will make the rich extremely rich and the poor
extremely poor. "Rational" and "moral" are two different and unrelated
things. In the unregulated early days of capitalism, industrialism created
hellish conditions for the workingmen and women. The capitalist, unless
constrained by religious faith or, in the absence of that, government
regulation, can be as ruthless and brutal as any commissar. It may be
rational to close a factory in America and move it to a country where
desperate people will work for pennies, but it darn sure isn't moral.
Keep in mind the bet as expressed by the French genius Blaise Pascal: If you
bet there is no God and you win, you win nothing, but if you lose, you lose
everything. If you bet there is a God and you win, you win everything, and
if you lose, you lose nothing. Rationally speaking, God is the best bet.
I prefer to live in a country of people of faith rather than in a country of
people like Christopher Hitchens. People who claim there is no God intend
to play God themselves, with us as their subjects.
End Article.
Your responses to Charley at his snail mail address as above, I guess that
he distains the use of email, no email address was found in the article or
the first few dozen hits on a google search, or to http:/www.sun-hearld.com
the purveyor of the above article.
Later Larry
aa # 2216
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| User: "Katt" |
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| Title: Re: Sun herald OP/ED by Charley Reese |
16 Jun 2005 01:44:05 AM |
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"Larry Heath" <lgheath@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:wrWdnUi2me3WlDPfRVn-rQ@comcast.com...
[snip]
The entire article is shite, of course; but I can't help commenting upon the
following clip:
Keep in mind the bet as expressed by the French genius Blaise Pascal: If
you bet there is no God and you win, you win nothing, but if you lose, you
lose everything. If you bet there is a God and you win, you win
everything, and if you lose, you lose nothing. Rationally speaking, God is
the best bet.
I'm struck by this because it had never occurred to me quite so forcibly
before that Pascal's rotten argument actually adds a new version of 'God' to
the pantheon: along with the hands-off 'Clockmaker God' and the
fossil-planting 'Prankster God', we now have the *Tosser God*: he's powerful
enough that through him you can 'win everything' -- yet at the same time
he's *so fucking stupid* that he can't tell that you're *just a chancer
trying to take him for a ride*...!
LOL!!
Katt.
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| User: "Ordog" |
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| Title: Re: Sun herald OP/ED by Charley Reese |
14 Jun 2005 02:18:17 AM |
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Larry Heath wrote:
I am taking the liberity of reproducing in its intirety an op/ed article to
my local newspaper the Sun Herald. I have attempted to procure a link to the
article below, but quite frankly I didn't wish to have to fend off the
stream of popup ads necessary to locate the article on there web site.
http:/www/sun-herald.com
-SNIP-
Please, not this again! Can't you try something new?
Ordog
"Beware of the man whose God is in the skies." Bernard Shaw
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