--- Nick Arnett <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> > Behalf Of The Fool
>
> ...
>
> > The Bible makes all kinds of verifiably false assertions. So why should
> > any one particular absurdity that he is putting forth merit any more
> > consideration that than any of the of the other absurdities? People
> > don't walk on water without really advanced technology. It's absurd.
> > And it fits in with other absurdities, like giants and satyrs.
>
> I think that the idea of talking dolphins is quite absurd, but that doesn't
> mean that I don't appreciate Brin's writings. Uplift may well be
> impossible, but that doesn't make the books worthless or dangerous, does
> it?
Actualy it would IF persons in position of leadership were running around
interpreting these stories as NON-FICTION and perscribing what was good and
bad based on them.
The fact that many of the morals tought in the book are obvious doesn't make
all of the book sacred. I can just as easily interpret the bibile to say that
if I am in a postion of leadership and my folowers stop folowing me, I should
pick out the ones that are and drown the rest. Then I would be acting as God
did, and his actions must be a very good example. right? No WRONG!
I'm sorry but promising that you will never do it again just isn't good
enough is it? I can see it now ..."yes Mr. Hitler we understand you were the
leader of a large portion of the world and we understand that the Jews were
not following your idea of what was a good way to be, and since you have
promised not to ever do it again, we will go on letting you ....."
Frel That! No Way!
I'm not going to beleive in any God I have to fear. Sorry. If he does exist
and he is a good god then he will care more about the way I live my life than
what I beleive in, and what leaders I follow. If he exists and he is the god
written about in -that book-, then maybe I should fear him, but if I should
fear him then that makes him my enemy and maybe the enemy of my enemy is my
friend....~No~
It's just as easy to believe that Jesus ment for us to get high and drunk in
rememberence of him as it is to think that for some reason we are suposed to
eat a tiny peice fo bread and sip a tiny amount of wine. We are talking about
the same guy that turned Water into Wine. Come on, wouldn't ~purified watter~
have been more appropriate? Wouldn't that have been better? What about plane
old grape juice or even orange juice, fig, comequat, whatever.
What about if he had said take these vegitables and fruits and eat them in
remeberance of me. This Carrot will help you see me better, these oranges
will help you heal. Drink this milk it's good for your bones. Then we would
be looking back on that and questioning how he could have known.
With all the maraculous things god can do, if he want's us to believe in him,
then why didn't he do something like arange a set of stars in the MW so that
from our perspective they would look like a face? Then say, you travel to the
next closest star which in an eye of the face and their is a new face in
which the next to the next closest star is the eye and so on.
But the way it is there is just this story about a man who supposedly did a
bunch of very fantastic things for just a man, 2000 years ago, with no modern
(or future) tech. There are a bunch of rather fantastic stories which tend to
give a good leson when not taken to seriously, or picked apart. If you pick
them apart to much you get the kind of rediculous moral as above, or a god
that sais do what I say, not what I do, and that just doesn't work does it?
So you have to look at those stories and say ok fiction, good idea behind it
all. Good lesons, but fiction none the less. What does that mean?
It means keep your money. the guy preaching to you on sunday has no right to
tell you anything becouse you know he "sins" just as much as anybody. I'm
talking about priests, preatures, and rabbeyes. What are they going to do
with the money anyway? Build a new fellowship hall? For more converst.
It means don't take the thing too seriously, sure it's a good book, and sure
it means a bunch of good things, but it's just a book.
It means don't follow a leader based on religion, they are no better at
telling you what to do than you are telling them. You can bet that ~they~
HAVE seriously considered how fictional it all seems, so you never know what
they are in it for.
It means don't go around trying to spread some doctrin on othes, all your
going to acomplish is some basterdised version of your religion taped onto
the already existing religion, and more than not your going to get a bunch of
them killed in the process, either through polotics or desiese.
Can you imagine what kind of religion would be based on uplift war? Or better
yet, The Practice Effect. Orthodox Practice Effecters: People who believe
that if they use an item long enough for a particular perpouse, and they are
pure of mind, and pure of soul, the item will turn into a better version of
what you are using it for. Those who's item breaks will burn in hell for
enternity....Actualy I need to read that one again.
But I am sure there are good lessons in the book, as long as you don't get
caried away with it.
> Morality and ethics don't require literal truth to be communicated. Would
> it be irrational to choose to follow the ethics of environmentalism,
> privacy
> and freedom as expressed in "Earth," because it is fiction?
No but it woudl be irational to set up places of worship based on that
fiction. The general gyst is good, but if you start perscribing a way of life
based on every detail you would get something as rediculous as catholocisim
or the Babtists. et. etc. Hay Equal opertunity comparison.
>Is it
> irrational to appreciate "1984" and "Animal Farm" as cautionary tales,
> since
> they are fiction (and the latter has absurd talking animals, darn it!).
Once again If you start focusing on the fictionaly fantastical part as
"proof" and then focus on the details of some or other chapter, then You
could really get someting as equaly bizzar as modern Religion. Just emagine a
whole religios group who refused to walk around on two legs. Or a social
distaste for anything that is doubled and then added.
> I don't spend much more time worrying about whether or not, or how, Jesus
> walked on water than I spend worrying about whether or not, or how, uplift
> is possible.
Good, becouse you know that he didn't right? It's just a story. Head the
message, but don't get cought up in the fiction.
> Spending a lot of time and energy arguing about the literal truth of the
> Bible makes about as much sense to me as learning Klingon. It might be
> entertaining, a distraction or an intellectual exercise, but I don't
> believe
> it has anything to do with morality, ethics and other metaphysics.
>
> So, I'd certainly appreciate it if you'd recognize the lack of logic in
> your
> dismissal of all religion based on literalism.
Well, if the religions right would get out of attempting to be in governemnt,
and if the catholics would stop telling kids not to use condoms, and clerics
would stop calling for holy wars, and budists would stop telling people to
"drop out" and babtists would let women wear pants, and christian scientists
would let their kids see a doctor, and catholics would let their leaders have
sex with consenting adults who love them, and methodists would stop sending
misionarys to Uganda, and and and and and.....
then some of us might have a bit of an easier time with the whole "message"
or "code of living" thing. Until then you can say what you like, and you can
speak for yourself, but when it comes to religion, the actions speak much
louder than the words and the actions look like literalism to me.
>It most definitely is a
> straw man. I believe that the vast majority of religious people would
> agree
> with me because they are not the literalists you portray.
Uh? The vast majority ARE, that's the whole point. Shall I continue the list?
> It seems quite ironic to find such attitudes in a science fiction
> community!
It seems Odd to me that you would find it ironic. There is nothign ironic
about it. It is exactly the kind of strait thinking logical positivism I
would expect from scientists and science fiction enthusiests alike.
> But perhaps the phrase "science fiction" is inherently ironic in the way
> that "religious truth" is.
Or how about Science Truth and Religious Fiction?
=====
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Jan William Coffey
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