> From: "The Fool" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> > From: Deborah Harrell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>
<I snipped quite a bit here, and am snipping a lot
from my previous post, which follows, except that I
retained certain points which I must not have
emphasized clearly enough - DLH>
>
> > I have not commented on this for some time
> > <snip>
> > My background:...Lutheran...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 <snip>
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.
>
See next paragraph...
> > 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, <snip>
> >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.
>
_Weak_ people do indeed look for _divine_
justification, whether to kill millions of people or
to destroy the environment.
> > 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?
I personally don't think that God _does_ stand above
Ers laws - where 'God' proclaims slaughter of entire
populations (can't remember which books/verses of the
Bible list these, but there are several), I see that
that selfsame 'fundamentalist' justification has
occurred throughout history, to the sorrow and
detriment of all.
>
> > 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!" - <snip>
> It is mathematically impossible to prove / disprove
> god.
Of course it is! Couldn't agree with you more!
>
> All examples (cept the EE) were taken from the
> bible.
>
Which is chock-full of heinous acts, hate and lies -
as well as messages of peace, kindness, and love for
one's fellows. I choose to see the former as created
by 'the dark side' of humanity, the latter as
reflecting our capacity for 'goodness.' There's no
need for a god to create "Hell" - we homo saps do that
all by ourselves. (Although I'd be the first to admit
that the Divine left us LOUSY instructions on
self-improvement, at least from a 'do-able'
standpoint...)
As for "Heaven" - who knows? What's important is what
we do here-and-now, at least IMO.
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