| Topic: |
Religions > Atheism |
| User: |
"ohoe" |
| Date: |
11 Sep 2004 07:37:01 PM |
| Object: |
What if Lenin is wrong? What if there is a God? |
Marxism and Me
by Marvin Olasky, Ph.D.
Twenty-five years ago, this Christian professor was a leader in the
rebellion
Man without God is a beast, and never more beastly than when he is
most intelligent about his beastliness.
-- Whittaker Chambers
The debate at Big University in 1995 was ostensibly about welfare
reform, but the real subject for the professor of social work and his
coterie of students was capitalist exploitation. "Some of us fight
against exploitation [hooray] and some of us join in [hiss]." The
rhetoric and response did not irritate me because twenty-five years
earlier I had been a student member of the hurrah-and-hiss drill team.
But the professor had more to say: "And the immigrants at the
beginning of this century, whom Olasky claims were helped by the
provision of effective compassion, were even more ruthlessly
exploited."
That was too much for me. Insult me, insult my intellectual and
political teammates who are working to replace welfare, but don't
insult my grandparents by saying they were exploited and too dumb to
notice. They all came from the Russian Empire shortly before World War
I and found the streets of America paved not with gold but with
liberty, which, in the hands of people who wanted to work hard,
amounted to virtually the same thing.
My father's father had the wisdom to desert from the Russian army and
make his way through Europe to New York and then to Boston, where he
became a boilermaker. Louis Olasky worked for a capitalist so
exploitive that he was able to save money, buy a home, go to the
synagogue regularly and otherwise prosper without running afoul of the
government -- an amazing prospect for someone used to the czar's
tender mercies. My mother's father was also terribly exploited. Robert
Green drove a horse and wagon through the streets of Malden,
Massachusetts, picking up used mattresses that he could recondition
and sell at a profit without having to pay bribes to the czar's men.
My grandparents were able to build a better material life for their
children and they for their children.
I was a material beneficiary of all that hard work. The spiritual side
was to be taken care of by Hebrew school, which I attended after
public school for seven years. I learned Jewish customs, ceremonies
and history, and read the Hebrew Scriptures and a little Talmud. But
by the time I was fourteen, the rituals that were at the heart of my
family's practice seemed inadequate. It puzzled me that the
sacrificial system designed to cover over sins could simply end two
thousand years ago without God's setting up something else to take its
place. More fundamental, however, was a desire not to think about sin,
or even limitations. I excelled in school and became used to receiving
praise for "creative thinking ... independent analysis ... questioning
dogmas." There were no moral boundaries, and the intellectual
arrogance that won praise from liberal teachers prepared me to win
scholarships and enter Yale, where I was ripe for further training by
professors and graduate students who relished the radical.
What I remember most about college is that I could do and write the
silliest things and receive plaudits, as long as my lunacy was
leftward. I received honors grades for, among other things, cutting
out pictures of old Red Sox yearbooks and interspersing them with
commentary about baseball racism; describing my own atheism and then
claiming that such belief was at the core of the American tradition;
taking a black cat in a bag to a course in the art museum, letting him
out on the floor and explaining that I had just created a work of art
that showed how the Black Panthers were freeing themselves from the
container in which American society placed members of their race. (The
cat ran away and hid among some expensive canvases, prompting a
frenzied search.)
In 1969 I convinced a college council to make one of the janitors an
honorary Yale fellow. Life ran an affectionate article about the
bemused proletarian and me. In 1970, when students such as I wanted to
travel around protesting the Vietnam War, the college called off the
last month of classes. In 1971, when I participated in a five-day
hunger strike outside the administration building, the college
president offered us his sympathies. Once, when my roommates and I
went to Washington to educate members of Congress about their
deceitfulness, Speaker John McCormick took us into the House chamber
and let each of us spin around in his big chair.
Journalism also fanned my pride. As a twenty-year-old intern on the
Boston Globe, I could go into a suburban Boston community, spend a day
talking to people about a complicated issue, write an article that was
probably filled with gross misunderstandings but was nevertheless
correctly progressive, and the Globe would print it without even
checking to see if I had gotten it right. The day after graduation I
headed west from Boston on a bicycle and pedaled to Oregon, where I
became a reporter on a small-town newspaper. With some physical
toughness now to go along with my intellectual superiority, I would
proceed to educate the residents of Deschutes County on the way things
ought to be. I wrote snotty articles and was surprised when the
bourgeoisie took umbrage. My publisher tried to explain to me that I
was not the center of the world. Being quick to speak and slow to
listen, I grandiosely resigned and pushed further left.
I became a casual Marxist in college and in 1972 spent six months
writing a draft of the great proletarian novel and reading Marx and
Lenin. I joined the Communist Party and thought I had it all figured
out. Communists were the most enlightened heirs of the Enlightenment.
There was no God who could change people from the inside out, and
anyway, ordinary individuals were unimportant. Radical change could
come only outside in, by shifting the socioeconomic environment; the
only way to do so quickly and decisively was through dictatorial
action by a wise collective of leaders who would act for the good of
all. I, of course, would be one of those leaders.
CPUSA activities -- distributing party newspapers, playing chess at
parties with Paul Robeson music in the background -- were uninspiring,
but I joined to ride on the big bear. The Soviet Union was then on a
roll, with America heading out of Vietnam and apparently ready to
retreat around the world. A trip in 1972 across the Pacific on a
Soviet freighter and across my new fatherland on the Trans-Siberian
railroad should have disillusioned me, but Lenin had said it would be
necessary to "crawl on one's belly, like a snake," for the good of the
revolution, and I was ready to slither.
In 1973 I worked at the Boston Globe and then went on to graduate
school at the University of Michigan. Professors there were so
impressed by my theorizing that they wrote recommendations citing my
"brilliance" and "genius." They also increased my fellowship. (Get
Marx. It pays.) Each month I paid my party dues, pasting the dues
stamps bearing Lenin's picture onto a genuine Communist Party card.
We were all full of ourselves and our own wisdom, and we were
vindictive toward anyone who might get in our way. Once I sneered to
comrades that my Russian language instructor, a morose escapee from
Moscow, had said that he would cut his throat if Communists ever came
to power in the United States. A sweet young CP lady replied, "That
old fool won't have to cut his throat. We'll do it for him." And I
wanted to be there; at least holding the coats of those who wielded
long knives.
One day near the end of 1973 I was reading Lenin's famous essay
"Socialism and Religion," in which he write, "We must combat religion
-- this is the ABC of all materialism, and consequently Marxism." But
a small whisper made itself heard somewhere within me and it became a
repeated, resounding question: "What if Lenin is wrong? What if there
is a God?"
My communism was based on atheism, and when I could no longer be an
atheist, I resigned from the party. In 1974, with the goal of
satisfying a Ph.D. language requirement by improving my reading
knowledge of Russian, I plucked from my bookcase a Russian New
Testament that had been given to me as a novelty item two years
before. To my surprise, what had before seemed like superstition now
had the ring of truth. (It helped that I had to read it very slowly
and puzzle over many words.) In 1975, when I was assigned to teach a
course in early American literature, my preparation involved reading
Puritan sermons. Those dead white males also made great sense to me.
During the mid-1970s I went through an intellectual change. When I was
a communist I believed that humanity's problems were external and that
revolution was the solution. But Bible and sermon reading pushed me to
see that the problem was internal and the cure was personal. God
reconfigured my psychology so that the arrogance that had previously
characterized me was largely gone. I remain a sinner and still have
periods of self-centeredness, but ego does not control me as it used
to. I no longer exalt my wisdom above God's. Reading the whole Bible
helped me to confess sin. The New Testament clearly lays out the full
gravity of humankind's problem and the full opportunity for
redemption. When I was baptized and joined a church in 1976, I did not
agonize about leaving Judaism to accept Christ, since I had left
Judaism a long time before. Joining a church seemed like a homecoming.
My political philosophy changed along with my theology. I began to see
family and business as God-given aids in the pursuit of true
happiness. I became a partisan of governmental decentralization, since
the doctrine of original sin suggests that those who gain godlike
power act like the devil. Because people are prone to sin, it is vital
to create a social environment that does not foster depravity.
American history is a story of striving for liberty and virtue. God
can change people, no matter how self-centered, as he changed me.
Transforming people one by one, not passing legislation or writing
checks leads to social transformation. We must serve one another
directly, following Christ's example. As I began to write form a
nascent biblical worldview, my academic reputation began to fall. I
received a Ph.D. in 1976 only through the support of the one
conservative in the Michigan history department, Stephen Tonsor. He
came on to chair my dissertation committee after the previous
chairman, who had written glowingly about my intellect when I was
spouting communist dialectic, decided that I had suddenly become
stupid. Because the academic environment had grown so politically
hostile toward me, I left it to join the Du Pont public affairs
department in 1978.
By 1983, however, I returned to academe because I wanted more freedom
to research and write on my own. During the next six years at the
University of Texas, faced with a publish-or-perish mandate, I dug
deep but narrow holes in the history of journalism and public
relations. Since Christianity was central to my being, I began to
couple implicitly biblical academic writing with writing that made the
principles explicit. For example, I began editing (and writing some
of) a series of sixteen books called the Turning Point Christian
Worldview Series. I also wrote the first of two books on the history
of abortion in America.
Following our marriage in 1976, my wife, Susan, and I had three
children by birth and a fourth by adoption, between 1977 and 1990. We
put our faith into action by volunteering in various ways. I came to
believe that mustard-seed-sized groups could grow and change America
because I have seen efforts that began at my kitchen table affect for
the better a little piece of our country. For example, Susan started a
crisis pregnancy center in Austin shortly after we arrived. Over the
years that center has saved hundreds of lives by helping pregnant
women discover alternatives to abortion. If folk like us can do a few
kind things, through God's grace, then I see no reason why many people
cannot do the same.
My book The Tragedy of American Compassion came out of historical
research that I did at the Library of Congress in 1989 and 1990. The
criticism I often receive about welfare replacement proposals is that
they are overly optimistic about what volunteers can accomplish. But
millions of ordinary people keep this country going by building
enterprises and praying to the Lord of all. These people are the one
we speak to in World, the weekly Christian news magazine that I edit.
These are the people I try to keep in mind as I write because in quiet
ways they do heroic things and, if challenged, can do even more. They
are people like my grandparents who should not be underestimated:
people whose task is to ask not what they can do for their country but
what their country can encourage them to do, without impediment, for
their families, neighbors and others in need.
Marvin Olasky is a professor of journalism at the University of Texas
and the editor of World magazine.
http://www.boundless.org/1999/features/a0000097.html
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| User: "Ron Baker, Pluralitas!" |
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| Title: Re: What if Lenin is wrong? What if there is a God? |
12 Sep 2004 02:07:28 AM |
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"ohoe" <oohoe@lycos.com> wrote in message
news:d0507f0b.0409111637.390a9724@posting.google.com...
Marxism and Me
by Marvin Olasky, Ph.D.
Hey, Ohoe, what point are you trying to make?
--
RB
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| User: "" |
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| Title: Re: What if Lenin is wrong? What if there is a God? |
12 Sep 2004 01:57:13 AM |
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.. . . and what if Billy Graham and Jerry Falwell and the Pope and all those
other preachers are wrong, and there is no god?
Then while atheists were busy living their lives to the fullest, you would
have wasted the only life you had conforming to a totally absurd code of
behaviour, given 10% of your income to a bunch of idiots, and forced
yourself to endure countless hours of pointless and boring sermons. Ya,
atheists would have lived their lives, you would have lived somebody else's
life, never your own.
That is what you are risking . . .
--Tock
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| User: "Dave" |
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| Title: Re: What if Lenin is wrong? What if there is a God? |
12 Sep 2004 10:39:40 AM |
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(ohoe) wrote in message news:<d0507f0b.0409111637.390a9724@posting.google.com>...
[...] The New Testament clearly lays out the full gravity
of humankind's problem and the full opportunity for redemption.
The New Testament is a collection of fibs tacked on to an older
collection of fibs. Adam and Eve never existed -- so no one ate the
'forbidden' fruit; thus there was no 'original sin.'
The miracles of Jesus were only recorded by his own followers. No one
else, no Roman or Jewish scholars, took an interest in them.
Approximately 0.05% of the adult population suffers from moderate to
severe schizophrenia and no doubt this rate has been a relative
constant throughout history. Schizophrenia can produce severe visual
or auditory hallucinations or even affect the senses of taste and
touch.
Throughout history various civilizations have worshipped various Gods,
to no noticeable effect.
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| User: "anne marie hovgaard" |
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| Title: Re: What if Lenin is wrong? What if there is a God? |
17 Sep 2004 03:08:19 AM |
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(Dave) wrote in message news:<5591d176.0409120739.74d058c5@posting.google.com>...
oohoe@lycos.com (ohoe) wrote in message news:<d0507f0b.0409111637.390a9724@posting.google.com>...
[...] The New Testament clearly lays out the full gravity
of humankind's problem and the full opportunity for redemption.
The New Testament is a collection of fibs tacked on to an older
collection of fibs. Adam and Eve never existed -- so no one ate the
'forbidden' fruit; thus there was no 'original sin.'
The miracles of Jesus were only recorded by his own followers. No one
else, no Roman or Jewish scholars, took an interest in them.
Approximately 0.05% of the adult population suffers from moderate to
severe schizophrenia and no doubt this rate has been a relative
constant throughout history. Schizophrenia can produce severe visual
or auditory hallucinations or even affect the senses of taste and
touch.
If you look at lifetime prevalence and count schizotypals as well, the
number is much higher. Add some manic people for religious ecstacy and
mysticism and OCDers to invent rituals, and you have a religion!
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| User: "Michael Gray" |
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| Title: Re: What if Lenin is wrong? What if there is a God? |
12 Sep 2004 11:31:20 AM |
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On 12 Sep 2004 08:39:40 -0700, (Dave) wrote:
:
Approximately 0.05% of the adult population suffers from moderate to
severe schizophrenia and no doubt this rate has been a relative
constant throughout history. Schizophrenia can produce severe visual
or auditory hallucinations or even affect the senses of taste and
touch.
:
There is considerable scholarly evidence that schizophrenia was more
prevalent in the past.
In fact, some have suggested that schizophrenia was the norm, (pre
history); not alone, but pre-eminent amongst them the late Julian
Jaynes.
http://julianjaynessociety.tripod.com/essays.html
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| User: "Budikka" |
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| Title: Re: What if Lenin is wrong? What if there is a God? |
12 Sep 2004 02:42:04 PM |
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(ohoe) wrote in message news:<d0507f0b.0409111637.390a9724@posting.google.com>...
Do you have permission to post this copyrighted material all over the Internet?
Budikka
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| User: "Daniel Kolle" |
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| Title: Re: What if Lenin is wrong? What if there is a God? |
12 Sep 2004 12:43:45 PM |
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On 11 Sep 2004 17:37:01 -0700, (ohoe) thought hard and
said:
Marxism and Me
by Marvin Olasky, Ph.D.
Yet more essays comparing atheism to Marxism. Let me clear up one
thing for everyone: Marxists are idiots. Atheists typically are not.
--
-Daniel "Mr. Brevity" Kolle; 16 A.A. #2035
Koji Kondo, Yo-Yo Ma, Gustav Mahler, Krzysztof Penderecki, and Geirr Tveitt are my Gods.
I HAVE YO-YO MA TICKETS AND YOU DO NOT!
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| User: "DUCKofDEATH" |
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| Title: Re: What if Lenin is wrong? What if there is a God? |
12 Sep 2004 12:49:48 PM |
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"Imagine there's no heaven. It isn't hard to do."
Lenin or Lennon, I can't remember which
--DoD
In article <hk29k0drentq76i2qhfeimdlfd1s56nruq@4ax.com>, Daniel Kolle
<DKolle@hotmail.com> wrote:
On 11 Sep 2004 17:37:01 -0700, (ohoe) thought hard and
said:
Marxism and Me
by Marvin Olasky, Ph.D.
Yet more essays comparing atheism to Marxism. Let me clear up one
thing for everyone: Marxists are idiots. Atheists typically are not.
--
-Daniel "Mr. Brevity" Kolle; 16 A.A. #2035
Koji Kondo, Yo-Yo Ma, Gustav Mahler, Krzysztof Penderecki, and Geirr Tveitt
are my Gods.
I HAVE YO-YO MA TICKETS AND YOU DO NOT!
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| User: "raven1" |
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| Title: Re: What if Lenin is wrong? What if there is a God? |
12 Sep 2004 01:01:22 AM |
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On 11 Sep 2004 17:37:01 -0700, (ohoe) wrote:
But
by the time I was fourteen, the rituals that were at the heart of my
family's practice seemed inadequate. It puzzled me that the
sacrificial system designed to cover over sins could simply end two
thousand years ago without God's setting up something else to take its
place.
If you accept this sort of superstitious twaddle to begin with, it's
hardly surprising that you'll keep falling for nonsense throughout
your life.
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| User: "nemo nemo outis" |
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| Title: Re: What if Lenin is wrong? What if there is a God? |
12 Sep 2004 01:35:26 AM |
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In article <7up7k0p4es7fc0o5nirfqnhc892v25d12v@4ax.com>, raven1 <quoththeraven@nevermore.com> wrote:
On 11 Sep 2004 17:37:01 -0700, (ohoe) wrote:
But
by the time I was fourteen, the rituals that were at the heart of my
family's practice seemed inadequate. It puzzled me that the
sacrificial system designed to cover over sins could simply end two
thousand years ago without God's setting up something else to take its
place.
If you accept this sort of superstitious twaddle to begin with, it's
hardly surprising that you'll keep falling for nonsense throughout
your life.
Actually, I have far more reason to believe in Santa Claus, the
tooth fairy, or the Easter Bunny, than god. The former three
have come through with concrete benefits for me - the latter
hasn't :-)
Regards,
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| User: "Guardian Pegasus" |
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| Title: Re: What if Lenin is wrong? What if there is a God? |
12 Sep 2004 08:59:33 AM |
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On Sun, 12 Sep 2004 06:35:26 GMT, nemo (nemo outis)
wrote:
Actually, I have far more reason to believe in Santa Claus, the
tooth fairy, or the Easter Bunny, than god. The former three
have come through with concrete benefits for me - the latter
hasn't :-)
I've seen Santa on many occasions! Every year, in fact!
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| User: "Guardian Pegasus" |
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| Title: Re: What if Lenin is wrong? What if there is a God? |
11 Sep 2004 09:01:08 PM |
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On 11 Sep 2004 17:37:01 -0700, (ohoe) wrote:
Man without God is a beast, and never more beastly than when he is
most intelligent about his beastliness.
-- Whittaker Chambers
Atheists in prison: 0.07% (virtually nill violent crime)
Theists in prison: 99.93%
Who's beastly now?
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| User: "Jack" |
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| Title: Re: What if Lenin is wrong? What if there is a God? |
16 Sep 2004 12:47:14 PM |
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"Guardian Pegasus" <pope@holysee.va> wrote in message
news:3cb7k0dn3mai68on66dgcjmsdf3q0j9q5b@4ax.com...
On 11 Sep 2004 17:37:01 -0700, (ohoe) wrote:
Man without God is a beast, and never more beastly than when he is
most intelligent about his beastliness.
-- Whittaker Chambers
Atheists in prison: 0.07% (virtually nill violent crime)
Theists in prison: 99.93%
Nice fake stats.
Who's beastly now?
Hmmm.... you ?
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| User: "Michael Gray" |
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| Title: Re: What if Lenin is wrong? What if there is a God? |
16 Sep 2004 11:11:06 PM |
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On Thu, 16 Sep 2004 13:47:14 -0400, "Jack" <jklewis@hotmail.com>
wrote:
"Guardian Pegasus" <pope@holysee.va> wrote in message
news:3cb7k0dn3mai68on66dgcjmsdf3q0j9q5b@4ax.com...
On 11 Sep 2004 17:37:01 -0700, (ohoe) wrote:
Man without God is a beast, and never more beastly than when he is
most intelligent about his beastliness.
-- Whittaker Chambers
Atheists in prison: 0.07% (virtually nill violent crime)
Theists in prison: 99.93%
Nice fake stats.
:
Nice baldfaced lying.
Methinks that little bit of deliberate falshood bought you a one way
ticket on Satan's rollercoaster'o'fun.
"The 1999 poll by the Barna Research Group showed exactly the opposite
for divorce rates. If prison statistics are reliable, religious people
are imprisoned by at least 40 times the rate of atheists...
Statistics for other measures of morality provide similar results"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_morality
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| User: "Jack" |
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| Title: Re: What if Lenin is wrong? What if there is a God? |
19 Sep 2004 12:40:53 AM |
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"Michael Gray" <fleetg@newsguy.spam.com> wrote in message
news:4ookk0drhjrrni2b8c5g622rjsetir9asu@4ax.com...
On Thu, 16 Sep 2004 13:47:14 -0400, "Jack" <jklewis@hotmail.com>
wrote:
"Guardian Pegasus" <pope@holysee.va> wrote in message
news:3cb7k0dn3mai68on66dgcjmsdf3q0j9q5b@4ax.com...
On 11 Sep 2004 17:37:01 -0700, (ohoe) wrote:
Man without God is a beast, and never more beastly than when he is
most intelligent about his beastliness.
-- Whittaker Chambers
Atheists in prison: 0.07% (virtually nill violent crime)
Theists in prison: 99.93%
Nice fake stats.
:
Nice baldfaced lying.
What reference makes you believe these silly made up stats ?
Methinks that little bit of deliberate falshood bought you a one way
ticket on Satan's rollercoaster'o'fun.
Well if it's fun count me in.
"The 1999 poll by the Barna Research Group showed exactly the opposite
for divorce rates. If prison statistics are reliable, religious people
are imprisoned by at least 40 times the rate of atheists...
Statistics for other measures of morality provide similar results"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_morality
Now there's some really hilarious stuff on that link !
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| User: "" |
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| Title: Re: What if Lenin is wrong? What if there is a God? |
15 Sep 2004 07:16:01 PM |
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On 11 Sep 2004 17:37:01 -0700, (ohoe) wrote:
Nothing of substance.
What's a g-o-d?
[]
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| User: "John Baker" |
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| Title: Re: What if Lenin is wrong? What if there is a God? |
15 Sep 2004 04:53:19 PM |
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<stoney@the.net> wrote in message
news:tomhk012fc87vv201ie17q925m6mge3eiu@4ax.com...
On 11 Sep 2004 17:37:01 -0700, (ohoe) wrote:
Nothing of substance.
What's a g-o-d?
A 3-letter string most commonly found immediately preceding "damn it." <G>
[]
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| User: "" |
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| Title: Re: What if Lenin is wrong? What if there is a God? |
16 Sep 2004 05:27:07 PM |
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On Wed, 15 Sep 2004 21:53:19 GMT, "John Baker" <nunya@bizniz.net>
wrote:
<stoney@the.net> wrote in message
news:tomhk012fc87vv201ie17q925m6mge3eiu@4ax.com...
On 11 Sep 2004 17:37:01 -0700, (ohoe) wrote:
Nothing of substance.
What's a g-o-d?
A 3-letter string most commonly found immediately preceding "damn it." <G>
Ok....that'll be 50 million.
/me brings in a heavy construction crew.....
If a client wants a damn where there's no water, that's what they'll
get.....
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| User: "Mike Painter" |
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| Title: Re: What if Lenin is wrong? What if there is a God? |
15 Sep 2004 01:36:53 PM |
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wrote:
On 11 Sep 2004 17:37:01 -0700, (ohoe) wrote:
Nothing of substance.
What's a g-o-d?
It's what the dyslexic see when they find a good dog.
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| User: "" |
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| Title: Re: What if Lenin is wrong? What if there is a God? |
16 Sep 2004 05:24:50 PM |
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On Wed, 15 Sep 2004 18:36:53 GMT, "Mike Painter"
<mddotpainter@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
stoney@the.net wrote:
On 11 Sep 2004 17:37:01 -0700, (ohoe) wrote:
Nothing of substance.
What's a g-o-d?
It's what the dyslexic see when they find a good dog.
That leaves the yappers out.
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| User: "BlackWater" |
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| Title: Re: What if Lenin is wrong? What if there is a God? |
15 Sep 2004 03:15:00 PM |
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On Wed, 15 Sep 2004 17:16:01 -0700, wrote:
On 11 Sep 2004 17:37:01 -0700, (ohoe) wrote:
Nothing of substance.
What's a g-o-d?
Gods are in charge of those cold black gaps
in your knowledge of the universe. They're
getting smaller and smaller though as the
gaps close in. Eventually they'll be gone,
except in song and story.
Alternatively, gods are anything about three
times as smart or technologically capable as
you are. Little grey guys from outer space
might qualify ...
Alternatively, gods are the programmers of
the reality Matrix - they which created the
template from which all we know evolved as
emergent qualities inherent to the initial
pattern.
Alternatively, god is the universe and the
universe is god. Kinda 'holographic' in
quality ... each part of is both distinct
and yet clearly a part and contributor to
the whole.
Alternatively, gods are exactly the same as
people, just more ... more violent, more
capricious, more lustful, more greedy, more
vain, more vindictive, more immature - and
can usually hurl lightning bolts or something
if they're not properly catered-to. 5-year-olds
playing with toy people ...
Alternatively ........
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| User: "" |
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| Title: Re: What if Lenin is wrong? What if there is a God? |
16 Sep 2004 05:25:23 PM |
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On Wed, 15 Sep 2004 20:15:00 GMT, (BlackWater) wrote:
On Wed, 15 Sep 2004 17:16:01 -0700, wrote:
On 11 Sep 2004 17:37:01 -0700, (ohoe) wrote:
Nothing of substance.
What's a g-o-d?
Gods are in charge of those cold black gaps
in your knowledge of the universe. They're
getting smaller and smaller though as the
gaps close in. Eventually they'll be gone,
except in song and story.
Alternatively, gods are anything about three
times as smart or technologically capable as
you are. Little grey guys from outer space
might qualify ...
Alternatively, gods are the programmers of
the reality Matrix - they which created the
template from which all we know evolved as
emergent qualities inherent to the initial
pattern.
Alternatively, god is the universe and the
universe is god. Kinda 'holographic' in
quality ... each part of is both distinct
and yet clearly a part and contributor to
the whole.
Alternatively, gods are exactly the same as
people, just more ... more violent, more
capricious, more lustful, more greedy, more
vain, more vindictive, more immature - and
can usually hurl lightning bolts or something
if they're not properly catered-to. 5-year-olds
playing with toy people ...
Alternatively ........
(big grin)
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| User: "raven1" |
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| Title: Re: What if Lenin is wrong? What if there is a God? |
12 Sep 2004 09:34:38 AM |
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On 11 Sep 2004 17:37:01 -0700, (ohoe) wrote:
What if Pascal is wrong?
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| User: "Michael Gray" |
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| Title: Re: What if Lenin is wrong? What if there is a God? |
12 Sep 2004 10:42:27 AM |
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On Sun, 12 Sep 2004 14:34:38 GMT, raven1 <quoththeraven@nevermore.com>
wrote:
On 11 Sep 2004 17:37:01 -0700, (ohoe) wrote:
What if Pascal is wrong?
What if Gilligan is wrong?
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| User: "ChuckPFb" |
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| Title: Re: What if Lenin is wrong? What if there is a God? |
12 Sep 2004 01:33:32 PM |
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"Michael Gray" <fleetg@newsguy.spam.com> wrote in message
On Sun, 12 Sep 2004 14:34:38 GMT, raven1 <quoththeraven@nevermore.com>
wrote:
On 11 Sep 2004 17:37:01 -0700, (ohoe) wrote:
What if Pascal is wrong?
What if Gilligan is wrong?
Well, life will still go on as usual.
Poor dumb rednecks rolling along!
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| User: "Budikka" |
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| Title: Re: What if Lenin is wrong? What if there is a God? |
16 Sep 2004 09:12:27 PM |
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raven1 <quoththeraven@nevermore.com> wrote in message news:<t2o8k05i17otd6g15n8frs3ahg8t3e4hcs@4ax.com>...
On 11 Sep 2004 17:37:01 -0700, (ohoe) wrote:
What if Pascal is wrong?
I'll wager he is!
B.
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| User: "" |
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| Title: Re: What if Lenin is wrong? What if there is a God? |
17 Sep 2004 05:32:50 PM |
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On 16 Sep 2004 19:12:27 -0700, (Budikka) wrote:
raven1 <quoththeraven@nevermore.com> wrote in message news:<t2o8k05i17otd6g15n8frs3ahg8t3e4hcs@4ax.com>...
On 11 Sep 2004 17:37:01 -0700, (ohoe) wrote:
What if Pascal is wrong?
I'll wager he is!
Sucker bet. :)
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| User: "John Baker" |
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| Title: Re: What if Lenin is wrong? What if there is a God? |
12 Sep 2004 02:15:31 AM |
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What if Lenin was wrong? What does that have to do with anything?
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| User: "First Last" |
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| Title: Re: What if Lenin is wrong? What if there is a God? |
11 Sep 2004 07:47:09 PM |
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What is there isn't?
--
Alternative computer stuff, primitivism, nihilism, and comedy:
http://home.earthlink.net/~e-group/homepage.html
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| User: "ChuckPFb" |
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| Title: Re: What if Lenin is wrong? What if there is a God? |
11 Sep 2004 08:06:55 PM |
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"First Last" <e-group@earthlink.net> wrote in message
What is there isn't?
What isn't there is?
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