> From: Deborah Harrell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> On Sat, 22 Jun 2002, William T Goodall wrote:
> >
> > on 22/6/02 2:18 am, Robert Seeberger at
> > [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> > > From: "Chad Cooper" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> > >
> > >>> OK....here we go........this is where I tell
> > things one
> > >>> normally doesnt talk
> > >>> about in a public forum.
> > >>>
> > >>> I was raised in the Catholic church and went to
> > a Catholic school for
> > >>> several years...
>
> <major snippage>
>
> > >> Nerd going to Hell (now you know why)
> > >>
> > > I doubt it. Hell is for *bad* people.
> >
> > Someone who believes the pernicious nonsense of
> > religion is capable of *any*
> > evil act.
> >
> > This follows from basic logic. If you insert a false
> > axiom into a system
> > ("There is a God" for example) you can then prove
> > *anything at all* to be
> > true, and thereby justify any act.
> >
> I have not commented on this for some time because
> I've seen that on-line debates of sensitive subjects
> tend to quickly degenerate into what you call "flame
> wars;" without body language and tone-of-voice, it's
> _really_ hard to tell whether someone's serious, angry
> or merely sardonic. You may have already ground this
> topic into the dust - if so, feel free to tell me so.
>
> My background: bred-and-born Lutheran (not Missouri or
> Wisconsin Synod!), formerly active in the church but
> haven't belonged to a congregation for about 10 years.
>
> Currently: best described as a Lutheran heretic Deist
> (really! <grin>).
>
> My position on child molesters: castrate or kill
> <quite serious>.
>
> To call all religion "pernicious nonsense" is
> unjustifiable overkill; there is without question a
> great deal of foolishness and outright absurdity in
> any religion, but what nonsense is it to ask that 'one
> love one's neighbor as oneself?' Or to have compassion
> for the weak, sick or poor, and to respond to the
> needs of those less fortunate than oneself? Most of
> the major religions teach this - although admittedly
> far too few 'adherents' actually follow those
> precepts.
For every useful concept they teach, they teach ten that are really bad.
Frex "if you don't believe in god/jesus/whatever you will go to hell", or
that genocide/murder are OK if god commands you to do it, or does it
himself. They also teach, that your descendants are guilty of crimes
_you_ commit in perpetuity. God can essentially commit acts of
murder/genocide for what amounts to thought crimes, and can then forever
after torture that person.
> Because of the excesses of the past (particularly in
> Christianity, since I grew up in that faith) -
> pogroms, the Inquisition, witch hunts, (etc.)Nth - I
> call myself 'spiritual' rather than 'religious,' but
> there are many good people, who have worked to combat
> poverty, educate the ignorant and heal the ill (just
> to name a few), who _do_ identify themselves as
> 'religious.' It doesn't mean that they've turned off
> their brains or slavishly follow all the dictates of
> their church or are "capable of *any* evil act." And
> yes _of course_ there are too many who have, and
> do...but one only has to look to the former USSR's
> history to know that atrocity is _not_ limited to
> people who believe in a deity for justification of
> their actions.
People only look for justification for their actions. If they can get
justification for committing genocide of a population, from a god that
commanded them to kill them all, men women, children and animal, and then
to drink their blood, all the better. Or because the environment will be
completely destroyed because their are too many, humans, let kill 90% of
them (as some environmental extremists / malthusians would have it).
People will only search for a justification for an act they want to
commit.
> As for "justifying any act," why then would there be
> laws/commandments supposedly sent by a god and whose
> breaking would lead to severe punishment ('hell' or
> 'Gehenna' or reincarnation as a cockroach)?
And why does that god stand above those laws? And why can he also make
commandments that go against those laws?
> Fundamentalists of all ilk certainly try to justify
> their hate-mongering by proclaiming it to be the "will
> of God," but they have to ignore (at least part of)
> their messiah's message. {For the record, I would
> _not_ claim that executing child molesters was God's
> will -- but it damn well would be MINE.}
>
> And (now I'm nit-picking) how can you _disprove_ an
> unprovable premise eg "There is a God?" (All those
> catechism lessons, and I only remember that Martin
> Luther said, "Faith alone!" - OK, and nailed the 95
> Theses to the door at the Diet of Worms (Wurms?) and
> started the Reformation...or something like that
> <sheepish grin>.)
It is mathematically impossible to prove / disprove god.
All examples (cept the EE) were taken from the bible.
