Quoting Steven Peterson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>: > Hi Platt, > > Steve: > You had said that you had a problem with Harris because he wrote about the bad > results of religious belief but not the bad results of atheism. > > I asked: > >> >> >> What are the bad results of not believing in God? > > >> >> Platt: > >> >> >National Socialism, Fascism, Communism. > >> >> > >> >> Steve: > >> >> How are these the result of not believing in God? > >> >> > >> >> I'm sure that you can follow the logic that if one believes that > >> >> Americans > >> >> are infidels and that God will reward him in Heaven for participating in > >> >> sacred bombings to kill infidels, then such belief would constitute > >> >> motivation for "bad results." Perhaps you can explain how not believing > >> >> inGod results in Fascism? > >> > >> Platt: > >> >By substituting belief in the supreme value of God to belief in the > >> >supreme > >> >value of the state, e.g., "Deutschland uber alles." > >> > >> Steve: > >> Okay, but belief in the supreme value of the state isn't atheism. Atheism > >> is > just > >> not believing in God. > > Platt: > >OK. But if you believe in the supreme value of the state, you can't believe > >in > the > >supreme value of God. If you believe in state supremacy you are likely to > >also > >be an atheist. > > Steve: > You are arguing that people who believe in God are more likely to believe in > God > than people who believe in the supremacy of the state. That is obviously > true, but > irrelevent. > > What you need to be able to argue is that people who don't believe in God are > more > likely to turn into fascists, communists, etc. than those who believe in God. > I > would say it is a lot easier to take people who already have a set of dogmatic > religious beliefs and twist their religion into a worship of the state (which > is > what I think is often done in totalitarian revolutions) than it is to take > people > who have rejected religion as unreasonable to accept the supremacy of the > state. > > This also all seems irrelevent to the original issue which was that you have a > problem with Harris criticizing religious belief without also criticizing > Fascism > and National Socialism and Communism. If there are no national best sellers > out > there right now criticizing these things, it is because we all already agree > that > these are bad. We also don't have any popular books out saying that slavery is > wrong. > > Harris doesn't want to be called an atheist. He doesn't want to be defined as > in > opposition to religion. He is a supporter of reason and in oppostion to > dogmatic > belief. The enemy is uncritical loyalty to any set of beliefs. If National > Socialism was a big issue today he'd probably be writing about it instead of > religious faith, but it's not. Crazy religious beliefs that lead to people > blowing > themselves in public squares is.
Hi Steve, If Harris opposes dogmatic belief and believes the enemy is uncritical loyalty to any set of beliefs, may I presume he would be against the adulation and religious fervor of followers of Barak Obama? Regards, Platt ------------------------------------------------- This mail sent through IMP: http://horde.org/imp/ Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
