Religion and social capital
I wasn't looking for data to respond to the religion-bashing that we enjoy now and then around here, but I happened across some that seemed too good to ignore. It is from Robert Putnam's Social Capital Benchmark Survey, which can be found in various places online. Here are some of the findings, which I believe add up to a very clear pattern of self-identified religious people doing far more for the greater good than non-religous people. I'm not arguing that religion makes people better; only that there is a strong correlation between being religious and creating social good. * Religious people are far more likely (30 percent v. 15 percent) to volunteer for the needy. * Many more religious people are active in non-religious volunteer work than non-religious people (50 percent v. 35 percent). * Contributions to charity are similar, but religious were slightly more likely to do so. * Religious are more involved in electoral politics. * Non-religious are very slightly more likely to be involved in protests. Nick -- Nick Arnett [EMAIL PROTECTED] Voicemail: 408-904-7198 ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Religion and social capital
On 23 Jun 2005, at 4:32 pm, Nick Arnett wrote: I wasn't looking for data to respond to the religion-bashing that we enjoy now and then around here, but I happened across some that seemed too good to ignore. It is from Robert Putnam's Social Capital Benchmark Survey, which can be found in various places online. Here are some of the findings, which I believe add up to a very clear pattern of self-identified religious people doing far more for the greater good than non-religous people. I'm not arguing that religion makes people better; only that there is a strong correlation between being religious and creating social good. * Religious people are far more likely (30 percent v. 15 percent) to volunteer for the needy. * Many more religious people are active in non-religious volunteer work than non-religious people (50 percent v. 35 percent). * Contributions to charity are similar, but religious were slightly more likely to do so. * Religious are more involved in electoral politics. * Non-religious are very slightly more likely to be involved in protests. LOL. And Mussolini made the trains run on time and Hitler was kind to animals. As Heinlein (?) observed you can't do one thing. Of course the religious are keen to volunteer to interfere in the lives of the unfortunate - this is a golden opportunity to disseminate the virulent poison of their evil religious memes. This is just the same thing as STDs causing people to engage in increased sexual activity. The same goes for politics - if you are an evil busybody filled with religious hatred who wants to interfere in other people's lives *of course* you get involved in politics. -- William T Goodall Mail : [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web : http://www.wtgab.demon.co.uk Blog : http://radio.weblogs.com/0111221/ 'The true sausage buff will sooner or later want his own meat grinder.' -- Jack Schmidling ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Religion and social capital
On 23 Jun 2005, at 5:06 pm, William T Goodall wrote: On 23 Jun 2005, at 4:32 pm, Nick Arnett wrote: I wasn't looking for data to respond to the religion-bashing that we enjoy now and then around here, but I happened across some that seemed too good to ignore. It is from Robert Putnam's Social Capital Benchmark Survey, which can be found in various places online. Here are some of the findings, which I believe add up to a very clear pattern of self-identified religious people doing far more for the greater good than non-religous people. I'm not arguing that religion makes people better; only that there is a strong correlation between being religious and creating social good. * Religious people are far more likely (30 percent v. 15 percent) to volunteer for the needy. * Many more religious people are active in non-religious volunteer work than non-religious people (50 percent v. 35 percent). * Contributions to charity are similar, but religious were slightly more likely to do so. * Religious are more involved in electoral politics. * Non-religious are very slightly more likely to be involved in protests. LOL. And Mussolini made the trains run on time and Hitler was kind to animals. As Heinlein (?) observed you can't do one thing. Of course the religious are keen to volunteer to interfere in the lives of the unfortunate - this is a golden opportunity to disseminate the virulent poison of their evil religious memes. This is just the same thing as STDs causing people to engage in increased sexual activity. Indeed I find the whole idea of faith-based 'charitable' organisations getting involved with vulnerable people utterly obnoxious. They quite plainly have a not-so-hidden agenda, and aid being tied to evangelism is simply disgusting and reprehensible. The same goes for politics - if you are an evil busybody filled with religious hatred who wants to interfere in other people's lives *of course* you get involved in politics. Like taking over school boards to promote fundamentalist Creationist nonsense. -- William T Goodall Mail : [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web : http://www.wtgab.demon.co.uk Blog : http://radio.weblogs.com/0111221/ I speak better English than this villain Bush - Mohammed Saeed al- Sahaf, Iraqi Information Minister ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Religion and social capital
On Jun 23, 2005, at 9:06 AM, William T Goodall wrote: Of course the religious are keen to volunteer to interfere in the lives of the unfortunate - this is a golden opportunity to disseminate the virulent poison of their evil religious memes. Isn't a perspective unassailable by argument, no matter how rational, a hallmark of what we might call a religious mindset? Or is it more of a run-of-the-mill obsession? Perhaps if you'd come to your atheism from an originally religious background you'd have more perspective on some of the *merits* of religion -- as well as considerably more justification to hate it. I got over my hatred (I think), and it took me years to do it. But at least, when I denigrate some of the religious practices extant in the world, I do it from a perspective of experience, from having once been an insider to those claustrophobic and self-righteous memes. That could be why I can see evidence of those memes in your statements, while you're apparently unaware of them yourself. -- Warren Ockrassa, Publisher/Editor, nightwares Books http://books.nightwares.com/ Current work in progress The Seven-Year Mirror http://www.nightwares.com/books/ockrassa/Flat_Out.pdf ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: The disease of the mind
On Jun 22, 2005, at 5:00 PM, Dave Land wrote: Lovely thoughts to cool impassioned minds from Hsin Hsin Ming, (Verses on the Faith Mind): The tao is not difficult for those who have no preferences. When love and hate are both absent everything becomes clear and undisguised. Make the smallest distinction, however, and heaven and earth are set infinitely apart. If you wish to see the truth then hold no opinions for or against anything. To set up what you like against what you dislike is the disease of the mind. When the deep meaning of things is not understood the mind's essential peace is disturbed to no avail. I'll try to remember this -- and avoid the disease of the mind -- when one or another of my brothers or sisters here decides to tell us all How It Should Be. That's one application of the meaning of the passage; a more traditional interpretation is that we're meant to understand there is no dualism. I've carried on with Dan a little about the idea of relative evil, or that social context provides the backdrop against which actions are judged to be meritorious or wrongful. This dovetails with the above passage in the sense that as soon as we pass any judgment we're missing the big picture; we're immersing ourselves in context. If there is no absolute evil -- if there is instead action which, in one context, is appropriate but which, in another context, is not, perhaps this becomes a little more clear. We believe individually that killing is wrong (in the main, anyway), yet it happens all the time, often on our behalf, which means in a system of representative government that we've sanctioned it. Interposing a division between I and you is another example of a concept that, from another perspective, is not valid. An old Buddhist insight-meditation trick is to try to find where your self is located. There are some who get deeply offended by the exercise, because they insist that what they discover is not valid: That there is no one seat of the self in *any* of us, that when you get right down to it we're no more selves than waves are. (This is why Buddhism has no doctrine of a soul; there isn't one to be found, so the teaching is that it doesn't exist. Also it can't in Buddhist thinking, because a soul, being eternal, would have to arise independently, and there is no such thing as independent origination in the Buddhist mindset. There is only cause and effect in an endless chain.) But then you can get bogged down in esoterica, and all the discovery in the world doesn't change the fact that when you're hungry, you need to feed your self. ;) The nondualistic interpretation is that there isn't an individual self; there is only an aggregate (_skhanda_) that *acts like one* and for the most part can be treated as a self. It just doesn't hurt to remember that the apparent solidity of individuality is really nonexistent, an illusion created by consciousness's peculiar properties in humans. Taoism in China eventually colored Ch'an, which in Japan is better known as Zen. There is a deep Taoist flavor to all Zen teachings, and of all the traditions in the Buddhist lineage Zen seems to be the most difficult to grok. Koans don't help; they're deliberately formulated to be inscrutable. Even getting past the idea of dualism is extremely difficult, and Zen makes it muddier by avoiding explication. That's part of the Zen perspective: When you speak of something you are discerning, and discernment takes one away from enlightenment or realization of the essential nature of life. There are schools that go into greater depth; Thich Nhat Hanh (Vietnamese Buddhism), the Dalai Lama (one Tibetan school) and Sakyong Mipham (another Tibetan lineage) have all elaborated quite well on the basics. What it all comes down to is that we want to concretize things, make them permanent, which we can't do; and this leads to suffering. By imposing dualism we can forget that *everyone* is going through this distress to some extent, in one form or another; some respond by inventing a god, while others respond by insisting that no god is there -- but underneath, there's this quest to make *something* real, solid and permanent, even if it's the idea of non-godhead. We suffer in similar ways because we're deluded in similar ways, and in attempting to resolve our distress we generally end up only making things worse. And often we forget that others are experiencing similar distress to our own, so we add, deliberately or not, to their burdens as well. (A prime example of this kind of delusional cycle is car advertising, which suggests that the only way to be really happy, satisfied and at ease is to have a new shiny toy every year or two; never mind the debt, never mind the waste. Many many people fall into this trap, too, even though it's so clearly a trap. This is an example of _samsara_, or confusion/delusion brought about by
Re: Religion and social capital
On 23 Jun 2005, at 7:22 pm, Warren Ockrassa wrote: On Jun 23, 2005, at 9:06 AM, William T Goodall wrote: Of course the religious are keen to volunteer to interfere in the lives of the unfortunate - this is a golden opportunity to disseminate the virulent poison of their evil religious memes. Isn't a perspective unassailable by argument, no matter how rational, a hallmark of what we might call a religious mindset? Or perhaps a hallmark of my being irrefutably correct? There's a reason arguing against religion is like shooting fish in a barrel and that reason is that religion is a load of evil nonsense. Or is it more of a run-of-the-mill obsession? Everyone needs a few hobbies. Perhaps if you'd come to your atheism from an originally religious background you'd have more perspective on some of the *merits* of religion -- as well as considerably more justification to hate it. I got over my hatred (I think), and it took me years to do it. But at least, when I denigrate some of the religious practices extant in the world, I do it from a perspective of experience, from having once been an insider to those claustrophobic and self-righteous memes. That could be why I can see evidence of those memes in your statements, while you're apparently unaware of them yourself. They aren't religious though, so they don't count. -- William T Goodall Mail : [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web : http://www.wtgab.demon.co.uk Blog : http://radio.weblogs.com/0111221/ The Macintosh uses an experimental pointing device called a 'mouse.' There is no evidence that people want to use these things. -John C. Dvorak, SF Examiner, Feb. 1984. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Religion and social capital
On Thu, 23 Jun 2005 17:06:16 +0100, William T Goodall wrote The same goes for politics - if you are an evil busybody filled with religious hatred who wants to interfere in other people's lives *of course* you get involved in politics. And mailing lists, too! I see a number of people on mailing lists who work very hard disseminating ideas that I think are lousy, using logic that I think is faulty, etc. Nick -- Nick Arnett [EMAIL PROTECTED] Voicemail: 408-904-7198 ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Religion and social capital
On Thu, 23 Jun 2005 17:44:05 +0100, William T Goodall wrote Indeed I find the whole idea of faith-based 'charitable' organisations getting involved with vulnerable people utterly obnoxious. They quite plainly have a not-so-hidden agenda, and aid being tied to evangelism is simply disgusting and reprehensible. So we should leave it to the people who are half as likely to do *anything*? Let's see, that would reduce the number of people helping the needy by two- thirds. I don't support or approve of religious organizations that demand some sort of piety before they'll help the needy. Thank goodness, though, I don't see much of that at all in my world. I see organizations like the Salvation Army, homeless shelters and soup kitchens, where everyone is welcome, regardless of their beliefs. Feeding the hungry is evangelism enough in itself, as I believe most Christians believe. Virtue is its own reward. Nick -- Nick Arnett [EMAIL PROTECTED] Voicemail: 408-904-7198 ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Religion and social capital
On 23 Jun 2005, at 9:32 pm, Nick Arnett wrote: On Thu, 23 Jun 2005 17:06:16 +0100, William T Goodall wrote The same goes for politics - if you are an evil busybody filled with religious hatred who wants to interfere in other people's lives *of course* you get involved in politics. And mailing lists, too! I see a number of people on mailing lists who work very hard disseminating ideas that I think are lousy, using logic that I think is faulty, etc. I've noticed that too! In fact there are several on this list... -- William T Goodall Mail : [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web : http://www.wtgab.demon.co.uk Blog : http://radio.weblogs.com/0111221/ Computers in the future may weigh no more than 1.5 tons. - Popular Mechanics, forecasting the relentless march of science, 1949 ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Religion and social capital
On 23 Jun 2005, at 9:36 pm, Nick Arnett wrote: On Thu, 23 Jun 2005 17:44:05 +0100, William T Goodall wrote Indeed I find the whole idea of faith-based 'charitable' organisations getting involved with vulnerable people utterly obnoxious. They quite plainly have a not-so-hidden agenda, and aid being tied to evangelism is simply disgusting and reprehensible. So we should leave it to the people who are half as likely to do *anything*? Let's see, that would reduce the number of people helping the needy by two- thirds. Or you could have one of those socialist welfare systems like we Europeans have where the needy are cared for by social workers and other professionals paid for out of taxes. Professionals who face disciplinary action should they attempt to evangelise their clients. It's a symptom of how infested and rotten with religion America is that Americans think charities controlled by partisan and unaccountable religious organisations are preferable to a proper social welfare system. -- William T Goodall Mail : [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web : http://www.wtgab.demon.co.uk Blog : http://radio.weblogs.com/0111221/ One of the main causes of the fall of the Roman Empire was that, lacking zero, they had no way to indicate successful termination of their C programs. -- Robert Firth ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: The disease of the mind
On Jun 23, 2005, at 12:05 PM, Warren Ockrassa wrote: On Jun 22, 2005, at 5:00 PM, Dave Land wrote: Lovely thoughts to cool impassioned minds from Hsin Hsin Ming, (Verses on the Faith Mind): The tao is not difficult for those who have no preferences. When love and hate are both absent everything becomes clear and undisguised. Make the smallest distinction, however, and heaven and earth are set infinitely apart. If you wish to see the truth then hold no opinions for or against anything. To set up what you like against what you dislike is the disease of the mind. When the deep meaning of things is not understood the mind's essential peace is disturbed to no avail. I'll try to remember this -- and avoid the disease of the mind -- when one or another of my brothers or sisters here decides to tell us all How It Should Be. That's one application of the meaning of the passage; a more traditional interpretation is that we're meant to understand there is no dualism. That's going to cause some difficulty come election time... I've carried on with Dan a little about the idea of relative evil, or that social context provides the backdrop against which actions are judged to be meritorious or wrongful. This dovetails with the above passage in the sense that as soon as we pass any judgment we're missing the big picture; we're immersing ourselves in context. I've just read Bishop John Shelby Spong's Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism, which has as a major theme that the Bible -- and every spiritual experience that has ever been put into words -- mires the inexpressible in the subjective. We do not *have* objective language, he says, and we fool ourselves when we act as though we do. A theologian of the early 20th century said that we needed to demythologize God. Spong counters that we can only remythologize spiritual experiences: as soon as we put them into words, they become locked into our prejudices, experiences, world-view. In a couple of years, generations, centuries, our demythologized explanation will be just as ridiculously dated as the heaven is just above the dome of the sky ideas that underlie the Biblical authors' explanations. Spong's conclusion is that the Bible is nothing more or less than a particular, peculiar peoples' record of *their* experience, rooted as in their world-view. The Bible doesn't tell us as much about God as it tells us about the writers' abilities to express their experience of God. It is for us to try to inhabit their world-view so we can attempt to discern the experience was that their limiting words point to. It bears noting that this is an extraordinarily liberal view of the Bible, which puts a lot of people off. Taoism in China eventually colored Ch'an, which in Japan is better known as Zen. There is a deep Taoist flavor to all Zen teachings, and of all the traditions in the Buddhist lineage Zen seems to be the most difficult to grok. Koans don't help; they're deliberately formulated to be inscrutable. Even getting past the idea of dualism is extremely difficult, and Zen makes it muddier by avoiding explication. That's part of the Zen perspective: When you speak of something you are discerning, and discernment takes one away from enlightenment or realization of the essential nature of life. You root it in the subjective, to root this in the subjective. Thanks, Warren. Much better than Zen is evil and should be eradicated. Dave ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Religion and social capital
Questions to William: What is it that makes something evil? What is it that makes something good? -- Geschenkt: 3 Monate GMX ProMail gratis + 3 Ausgaben stern gratis ++ Jetzt anmelden testen ++ http://www.gmx.net/de/go/promail ++ ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Gulags
- Original Message - From: Gary Denton [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Killer Bs Discussion brin-l@mccmedia.com Sent: Tuesday, June 14, 2005 7:07 PM Subject: Re: Gulags On 6/13/05, Dan Minette [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: You are focusing on one section in several Geneva Conventions. I will repeat what I have above. Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions of 1949 and Additional Protocol II apply to prisoners regardless of the status of the legal standing of their organization. Common Article 3 also applies to government clashes with armed insurgent groups. In the Geneva Convention of 1949, I find. quote Nationals of a State which is not bound by the Convention are not protected by it. Nationals of a neutral State who find themselves in the territory of a belligerent State, and nationals of a co-belligerent State, shall not be regarded as protected persons while the State of which they are nationals has normal diplomatic representation in the State in whose hands they are. (The competent individual tribunals for determination of status is from the 1st protocol to the Geneva Conventions as well as Article 5 of the 3rd Convention. If you point to article 4 would you agree the administration should have to follow article 5?.) Lets see what Article 5 says: quote The present Convention shall apply to the persons referred to in Article 4 from the time they fall into the power of the enemy and until their final release and repatriation. Should any doubt arise as to whether persons, having committed a belligerent act and having fallen into the hands of the enemy, belong to any of the categories enumerated in Article 4, such persons shall enjoy the protection of the present Convention until such time as their status has been determined by a competent tribunal. end quote If they did not have a clear sign, recognizable at a distance, if they were determined to be AQ, then the US could say they didn't have a doubt and no tribunal was needed. That may be a bit lawyerly, but it seems to match the plain sense of article 5. I don't think that Bishop Berkley style doubts count, either. Before getting to the clinchers let's check with some experts. The Administration is applying the wrong part of the Conventions. They have invoked the provisions for irregular combatants not under Article 4-1, but under Article 4-2. They are treating them as though they are guerrillas or partisans who were fighting for a party to the conflict. And that's wrong in my view, said Robert Goldman, professor of law and co-director of the Center for Human Rights and Humanitarian Law at the Washington College of Law, American University. I'm a bit confused as to what point he was making. That AQ was not party to the conflict with the US? I'd argue that they were the senior party and that the Taliban were the junior party...who harbored them and gave them a safe base from which to stage attacks. We don't have the facts. We don't know to what extent these people had a proper command structure, wore some sort of distinguishing features and complied with the laws of armed conflict. We just don't know, said APV Rogers, OBE, a retired major general in the British Army and recognized expert on the laws of war. Who's we? I think it is reasonable to assume that that is a determination that can be made in the field of whether they had a distinguishing feature recognizable at a distance. The Bush Administration, by contrast, is claiming that there is no doubt. In its view, neither Al Qaeda nor the Taliban are eligible for POW status because they did not wear uniforms or otherwise distinguish themselves from the civilian population of Afghanistan or conduct their operations in accordance with the laws and customs of war—an argument that is disputed by the majority of our experts. IIRC, they got back a legal review and grudgingly accepted that the Taliban probably qualified. Some of our experts said they feared the Administration's decision could come back to haunt US soldiers should they ever be captured by a foreign enemy, particularly special forces who usually don't wear uniforms. I think we may have set a bad precedent. The drawback is that we have given the other side some ammunition when they capture our people, said H.Wayne Elliott, a retired US Lieutenant colonel and former chief of the international law division at the US Army's Judge Advocate General's School. From an article on POW's or Unlawful Combatants http://www.crimesofwar.org/expert/pow-intro.html You might claim that is a liberal source so let us see what the International Red Cross has to say: The legal situation of 'unlawful/unprivileged combatants' In it the Red Cross argues while these detainees may not be POWs as defined by the Third Geneva Convention (Geneva Convention relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War), they still deserve more limited protections under the Fourth
Re: Religion and social capital
On 23 Jun 2005, at 10:06 pm, Frank Schmidt wrote: Questions to William: What is it that makes something evil? What is it that makes something good? Why, don't you know? -- William T Goodall Mail : [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web : http://www.wtgab.demon.co.uk Blog : http://radio.weblogs.com/0111221/ I have always wished that my computer would be as easy to use as my telephone. My wish has come true. I no longer know how to use my telephone. - Bjarne Stroustrup ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Religion and social capital
At 03:59 PM Thursday 6/23/2005, William T Goodall wrote: On 23 Jun 2005, at 9:36 pm, Nick Arnett wrote: On Thu, 23 Jun 2005 17:44:05 +0100, William T Goodall wrote Indeed I find the whole idea of faith-based 'charitable' organisations getting involved with vulnerable people utterly obnoxious. They quite plainly have a not-so-hidden agenda, and aid being tied to evangelism is simply disgusting and reprehensible. So we should leave it to the people who are half as likely to do *anything*? Let's see, that would reduce the number of people helping the needy by two- thirds. Or you could have one of those socialist welfare systems like we Europeans have where the needy are cared for by social workers and other professionals paid for out of taxes. Professionals who face disciplinary action should they attempt to evangelise their clients. It's a symptom of how infested and rotten with religion America is that Americans think charities controlled by partisan and unaccountable religious organisations are preferable to a proper social welfare system. Can you point to any specific examples (past or present) of the implementation of a proper social welfare system which is deserving of emulation? -- Ronn! :) ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Religion and social capital
On Jun 23, 2005, at 2:41 PM, William T Goodall wrote: On 23 Jun 2005, at 10:06 pm, Frank Schmidt wrote: Questions to William: What is it that makes something evil? What is it that makes something good? Why, don't you know? I think you're being intentionally obtuse, but on the chance that the vile disease of blind hatred has clouded your mind from being able to understand two very plain and simple questions, I will rephrase: William, what do you think makes something evil? William, what do you think makes something good? Use additional sheets if necessary. Dave ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Religion and social capital
At 04:54 PM Thursday 6/23/2005, Dave Land wrote: On Jun 23, 2005, at 2:41 PM, William T Goodall wrote: On 23 Jun 2005, at 10:06 pm, Frank Schmidt wrote: Questions to William: What is it that makes something evil? What is it that makes something good? Why, don't you know? I think you're being intentionally obtuse, but on the chance that the vile disease of blind hatred has clouded your mind from being able to understand two very plain and simple questions, I will rephrase: William, what do you think makes something evil? William, what do you think makes something good? Use additional sheets if necessary. 400 thread count or better would be good. -- Ronn! :) ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Religion and social capital
On Jun 23, 2005, at 2:57 PM, Ronn!Blankenship wrote: At 04:54 PM Thursday 6/23/2005, Dave Land wrote: On Jun 23, 2005, at 2:41 PM, William T Goodall wrote: On 23 Jun 2005, at 10:06 pm, Frank Schmidt wrote: Questions to William: What is it that makes something evil? What is it that makes something good? Why, don't you know? I think you're being intentionally obtuse, but on the chance that the vile disease of blind hatred has clouded your mind from being able to understand two very plain and simple questions, I will rephrase: William, what do you think makes something evil? William, what do you think makes something good? Use additional sheets if necessary. 400 thread count or better would be good. 400 thread count? DIE, INFIDEL! Dave ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Religion and social capital
On 23 Jun 2005, at 10:54 pm, Dave Land wrote: On Jun 23, 2005, at 2:41 PM, William T Goodall wrote: On 23 Jun 2005, at 10:06 pm, Frank Schmidt wrote: Questions to William: What is it that makes something evil? What is it that makes something good? Why, don't you know? I think you're being intentionally obtuse, but on the chance that the vile disease of blind hatred has clouded your mind from being able to understand two very plain and simple questions, I will rephrase: LOL. If you think those are plain and simple questions your mind is obviously very much more clouded than mine. -- William T Goodall Mail : [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web : http://www.wtgab.demon.co.uk Blog : http://radio.weblogs.com/0111221/ 'The true sausage buff will sooner or later want his own meat grinder.' -- Jack Schmidling ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Religion and social capital
On 23 Jun 2005, at 10:57 pm, Ronn!Blankenship wrote: At 04:54 PM Thursday 6/23/2005, Dave Land wrote: Use additional sheets if necessary. 400 thread count or better would be good. That reminds me of this story http://tinyurl.com/a978z about the Baptist preacher and Klansman who (finally) got 60 years in prison for his role in the murder of civil rights workers in the 1960s. -- William T Goodall Mail : [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web : http://www.wtgab.demon.co.uk Blog : http://radio.weblogs.com/0111221/ Build a man a fire, and he will be warm for a day. Set a man on fire and he will be warm for the rest of his life - Terry Pratchett ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Religion and social capital
On Jun 23, 2005, at 3:12 PM, William T Goodall wrote: On 23 Jun 2005, at 10:54 pm, Dave Land wrote: On Jun 23, 2005, at 2:41 PM, William T Goodall wrote: On 23 Jun 2005, at 10:06 pm, Frank Schmidt wrote: Questions to William: What is it that makes something evil? What is it that makes something good? Why, don't you know? I think you're being intentionally obtuse, but on the chance that the vile disease of blind hatred has clouded your mind from being able to understand two very plain and simple questions, I will rephrase: LOL. If you think those are plain and simple questions your mind is obviously very much more clouded than mine. I submit that the questions are very plain and quite simple. The answers, on the other hand, are extraordinarily complex, and may well be beyond your ken. Dave ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Religion and social capital
On Thu, 23 Jun 2005 21:59:18 +0100, William T Goodall wrote It's a symptom of how infested and rotten with religion America is that Americans think charities controlled by partisan and unaccountable religious organisations are preferable to a proper social welfare system. The current administration talks that way (government can feed the body, but only the churches can reach the soul, as Bush said, in the context, sadly, of helping the needy), but I'm quite sure that the majority of us don't believe that hunger and poverty are moral issues that only churches can address successfully. To insist, as our president does, that real, physical needs such as food and shelter *belong* to churches is a terrible insult to the people in need, since it implies that they are in their situation due to their own moral failure. I believe, and so do the majority of religious in this country, that a big part of the reason we invented government is to create just that sort of social safety net. But I gotta admit that the talk out of the leadership in Washington sure wouldn't lead one to believe that the majority agrees with me. But that's political, not religious evil. Nick -- Nick Arnett [EMAIL PROTECTED] Voicemail: 408-904-7198 ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Religion and social capital
On 23 Jun 2005, at 11:24 pm, Dave Land wrote: On Jun 23, 2005, at 3:12 PM, William T Goodall wrote: LOL. If you think those are plain and simple questions your mind is obviously very much more clouded than mine. I submit that the questions are very plain and quite simple. In normal usage how hard or simple a question is is decided by how hard or simple it is to produce the answer. So if you think they are simple, let's see your simple answers :) The answers, on the other hand, are extraordinarily complex, and may well be beyond your ken. Oh, you don't think they are simple after all. You think they are difficult questions which you hope I am too stupid to have answers for. I guess the ad hominem attack indicates you realise you are on the losing side of this argument :) -- William T Goodall Mail : [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web : http://www.wtgab.demon.co.uk Blog : http://radio.weblogs.com/0111221/ Aerospace is plumbing with the volume turned up. - John Carmack ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Religion and social capital
On Jun 23, 2005, at 5:27 PM, William T Goodall wrote: On 23 Jun 2005, at 11:24 pm, Dave Land wrote: On Jun 23, 2005, at 3:12 PM, William T Goodall wrote: LOL. If you think those are plain and simple questions your mind is obviously very much more clouded than mine. I submit that the questions are very plain and quite simple. In normal usage how hard or simple a question is is decided by how hard or simple it is to produce the answer. So if you think they are simple, let's see your simple answers :) The questions were not difficult to parse. Neither should it have been difficult for a reasonable person (I hope you will accept that either of us could be described thus) to grasp that Frank Schmidt's intent was to elicit an elucidation of the criteria you use to rate religion as evil. The answers, on the other hand, are extraordinarily complex, and may well be beyond your ken. Oh, you don't think they are simple after all. You think they are difficult questions which you hope I am too stupid to have answers for. I guess the ad hominem attack indicates you realise you are on the losing side of this argument :) I never said that providing answers to these simple questions was simple: that was your (possibly intentional) misinterpretation. But you are right in that my ad hominem attack was unwarranted, if not unprovoked. I apologize for it. Here's a problem that I have with your ongoing attack on religion: it relies on numerous logical fallacies: The most common is the appeal to anecdotal evidence: a religious person did an evil thing. Therefore, religion must be evil. You also frequently appeal to ridicule: you present religious people as ridiculous, with the unsupported implication that religion is therefore ridiculous. Of course, you are engaging in the appeal to repetition: religion must be evil, because you said it over and over and over and over and over and over again. But mainly, your fail to state your assumptions. It's not strictly a logical fallacy, but it does cause your argument to be viewed with suspicion. This is what Frank Schmidt was trying to get you to do: to state with some clarity and completeness the assumptions behind your repetition of ridiculing anecdotes. I have no reason to believe that this message will be met with anything approaching serious consideration, but anticipate that a sentence or two will be singled out for some kind of facile ridicule. This is not an ad hominem attack, it is an extrapolation from past experience. Dave PS: A good source of information about logical fallacies is the Atheism Web: http://www.infidels.org/news/atheism/logic.html. Another is at http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/ ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Religion and social capital
At 07:27 PM Thursday 6/23/2005, William T Goodall wrote: On 23 Jun 2005, at 11:24 pm, Dave Land wrote: On Jun 23, 2005, at 3:12 PM, William T Goodall wrote: LOL. If you think those are plain and simple questions your mind is obviously very much more clouded than mine. I submit that the questions are very plain and quite simple. In normal usage how hard or simple a question is is decided by how hard or simple it is to produce the answer. So if you think they are simple, let's see your simple answers :) The answers, on the other hand, are extraordinarily complex, and may well be beyond your ken. Oh, you don't think they are simple after all. You think they are difficult questions which you hope I am too stupid to have answers for. I guess the ad hominem attack indicates you realise you are on the losing side of this argument :) Perhaps he was suggesting that your earlier remarks in this thread suggested that you felt that the questions had, if not exactly simple, at least straightforward answers, such as religion = evil. -- Ronn! :) ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Religion and social capital
On 24 Jun 2005, at 2:05 am, Ronn!Blankenship wrote: Perhaps he was suggesting that your earlier remarks in this thread suggested that you felt that the questions had, if not exactly simple, at least straightforward answers, such as religion = evil. I said 'religion is evil', not 'evil is religion'. Religion is a member of the set of evil things not the definition. -- William T Goodall Mail : [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web : http://www.wtgab.demon.co.uk Blog : http://radio.weblogs.com/0111221/ 'The true sausage buff will sooner or later want his own meat grinder.' -- Jack Schmidling ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Religion and social capital
On 24 Jun 2005, at 2:08 am, Dave Land wrote: I never said that providing answers to these simple questions was simple: that was your (possibly intentional) misinterpretation. But you are right in that my ad hominem attack was unwarranted, if not unprovoked. I apologize for it. I accept your apology. Here's a problem that I have with your ongoing attack on religion: it relies on numerous logical fallacies: The most common is the appeal to anecdotal evidence: a religious person did an evil thing. Therefore, religion must be evil. One instance would be an anecdote. Establishing a pattern of behaviour from many instances isn't. If religion is so good why is it so bad? You also frequently appeal to ridicule: you present religious people as ridiculous, with the unsupported implication that religion is therefore ridiculous. Of course, you are engaging in the appeal to repetition: religion must be evil, because you said it over and over and over and over and over and over again. But mainly, your fail to state your assumptions. It's not strictly a logical fallacy, but it does cause your argument to be viewed with suspicion. This is what Frank Schmidt was trying to get you to do: to state with some clarity and completeness the assumptions behind your repetition of ridiculing anecdotes. One assumption is that 'what is good' is a hard question to which religions provide incorrect answers. And if people think they have the answer they stop asking the question. And that's bad. And bad is evil :) I have no reason to believe that this message will be met with anything approaching serious consideration, but anticipate that a sentence or two will be singled out for some kind of facile ridicule. This is not an ad hominem attack, it is an extrapolation from past experience. It rolls off my back like a duck... -- William T Goodall Mail : [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web : http://www.wtgab.demon.co.uk Blog : http://radio.weblogs.com/0111221/ A bad thing done for a good cause is still a bad thing. It's why so few people slap their political opponents. That, and because slapping looks so silly. - Randy Cohen. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Religion and social capital
Ronn!Blankenship wrote: At 04:54 PM Thursday 6/23/2005, Dave Land wrote: On Jun 23, 2005, at 2:41 PM, William T Goodall wrote: On 23 Jun 2005, at 10:06 pm, Frank Schmidt wrote: Questions to William: What is it that makes something evil? What is it that makes something good? Why, don't you know? I think you're being intentionally obtuse, but on the chance that the vile disease of blind hatred has clouded your mind from being able to understand two very plain and simple questions, I will rephrase: William, what do you think makes something evil? William, what do you think makes something good? Use additional sheets if necessary. 400 thread count or better would be good. If they're sateen weave, make sure you dry them on LOW heat, or they will shrink. And if they're sateen weave, they were probably a little more expensive, so it's more of a pain to replace them. But they feel so nice! Julia ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Religion and social capital
One instance would be an anecdote. Establishing a pattern of behaviour from many instances isn't. If religion is so good why is it so bad? Pulling news articles off the Internet is still anecdotical, since such methodology by its nature cannot represent a significant portion of the population, and besides the fact, is already negatively biased. Your methodology is flawed, and structured to fit into a preconceived notion, rather than used to draw conclusions from. Damon. Damon Agretto [EMAIL PROTECTED] Qui desiderat pacem, praeparet bellum. http://www.geocities.com/garrand.geo/index.html Now Building: Esci's BMP-1 -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. Version: 7.0.323 / Virus Database: 267.8.0/27 - Release Date: 6/23/2005 ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Gulags
Dan Minette wrote: - Original Message - From: Gary Denton [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Killer Bs Discussion brin-l@mccmedia.com Sent: Tuesday, June 14, 2005 7:07 PM Subject: Re: Gulags From an article on POW's or Unlawful Combatants http://www.crimesofwar.org/expert/pow-intro.html You might claim that is a liberal source so let us see what the International Red Cross has to say: The legal situation of 'unlawful/unprivileged combatants' In it the Red Cross argues while these detainees may not be POWs as defined by the Third Geneva Convention (Geneva Convention relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War), they still deserve more limited protections under the Fourth Geneva Convention (Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War) and the First Additional Protocol to the Geneva Conventions. That is a reasonable arguement. But, the question is, what sort of protection do they deserve.. Do they deserve protection against unpleasantness, as do real POWs? Is anything that could be called undignified unacceptable. Take the case in Time magazine. If this is the extreme treatment that was only authorized for a few high value prisioners (like the probable 20th hijacker) is that acceptable, or must Or must what, Dan? Julia ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Supreme Court: Home May Be Seized
This is more than just a little disturbing to me. The abuses of Eminent Domain continue.. Homes may be 'taken' for private projects Justices: Local governments can give OK if it's for public good Excerpts from the article... WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that local governments may seize people's homes and businesses - even against their will - for private economic development. It was a decision fraught with huge implications for a country with many areas, particularly the rapidly growing urban and suburban areas, facing countervailing pressures of development and property ownership rights. As a result, cities now have wide power to bulldoze residences for projects such as shopping malls and hotel complexes in order to generate tax revenue. The 5-4 ruling - assailed by dissenting Justice Sandra Day O'Connor as handing disproportionate influence and power to the well-heeled - represented a defeat for some Connecticut residents whose homes are slated for destruction to make room for an office complex. O'Connor, who has been a key swing vote on many cases before the court, issued a stinging dissent. She argued that cities should not have unlimited authority to uproot families, even if they are provided compensation, simply to accommodate wealthy developers. Any property may now be taken for the benefit of another private party, but the fallout from this decision will not be random, O'Connor wrote. The beneficiaries are likely to be those citizens with disproportionate influence and power in the political process, including large corporations and development firms. Complete article... http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8331097/ ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Supreme Court: Home May Be Seized
In a message dated 6/23/2005 8:41:02 P.M. US Mountain Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Any property may now be taken for the benefit of another private party, but the fallout from this decision will not be random, O'Connor wrote Oh hell yes. I don't think the law on civic improvements has changed either. In Phoenix a big developer put up a 20 story tower in what was a residential area. The homes on the other side of the street had to pay for a part of the new sewer that had to be put in. Payment was based upon property frontage to the street. Ten homes had to pay half of what was needed for 400 offices. So it goes. So it goes. William Taylor - Good words on page I do forbear Not pulled out from my derriere. Blest be the man who says, 'Writes well.' And cursed be he that makes me spell. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Religion and social capital
On Jun 23, 2005, at 2:41 PM, William T Goodall wrote: On 23 Jun 2005, at 10:06 pm, Frank Schmidt wrote: Questions to William: What is it that makes something evil? What is it that makes something good? Why, don't you know? It's an interesting pair of questions, and I notice you've carefully avoided trying to answer them. -- Warren Ockrassa, Publisher/Editor, nightwares Books http://books.nightwares.com/ Current work in progress The Seven-Year Mirror http://www.nightwares.com/books/ockrassa/Flat_Out.pdf ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Religion and social capital
On Jun 23, 2005, at 12:52 PM, William T Goodall wrote: On 23 Jun 2005, at 7:22 pm, Warren Ockrassa wrote: On Jun 23, 2005, at 9:06 AM, William T Goodall wrote: Of course the religious are keen to volunteer to interfere in the lives of the unfortunate - this is a golden opportunity to disseminate the virulent poison of their evil religious memes. Isn't a perspective unassailable by argument, no matter how rational, a hallmark of what we might call a religious mindset? Or perhaps a hallmark of my being irrefutably correct? :D That's certainly possible, but to date I haven't really seen much to support your conclusions except the dual practice of: 1. Selecting, carefully, anecdotes that appear to support your perspective; and 2. Ignoring, carefully, any arguments that seem to show your perspective is not wholly valid. That doesn't constitute evidence of correctness; it's closer in concept to the meaning of there are those who have eyes, yet see not. There's a reason arguing against religion is like shooting fish in a barrel and that reason is that religion is a load of evil nonsense. There's a reason vanilla is superior to chocolate, and that reason is that enjoyment of chocolate is evidence of delusion. Surely if I were to make such a statement you'd want to see some proof to support my assertions. Or is it more of a run-of-the-mill obsession? Everyone needs a few hobbies. True. They do while away the time. Perhaps if you'd come to your atheism from an originally religious background you'd have more perspective on some of the *merits* of religion -- as well as considerably more justification to hate it. I got over my hatred (I think), and it took me years to do it. But at least, when I denigrate some of the religious practices extant in the world, I do it from a perspective of experience, from having once been an insider to those claustrophobic and self-righteous memes. That could be why I can see evidence of those memes in your statements, while you're apparently unaware of them yourself. They aren't religious though, so they don't count. Ah, but they're the same *kind* of memes encountered in the religious thinking you seem to want to eradicate in others. There's a singular insistence on absolute correctness, a refusal to accept that anything that doesn't fit into a narrow and rigidly defined perspective is invalid, and there's even a need to evangelize the memes. All these are hallmarks of religiosity of the worst stripe, and unfortunately these signs are prevalent in many of the statements you've made. That makes it effectively impossible to accept as valid your assertions. They are not arguments; they are dictates of doctrine, effectively declamations of unimpeachable truth. Rationally they are on par with statements such as God said it, I believe it and that settles it, and are worthy of exactly the same level of consideration. -- Warren Ockrassa, Publisher/Editor, nightwares Books http://books.nightwares.com/ Current work in progress The Seven-Year Mirror http://www.nightwares.com/books/ockrassa/Flat_Out.pdf ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Religion and social capital
At 11:44 PM Thursday 6/23/2005, Warren Ockrassa wrote: On Jun 23, 2005, at 12:52 PM, William T Goodall wrote: On 23 Jun 2005, at 7:22 pm, Warren Ockrassa wrote: On Jun 23, 2005, at 9:06 AM, William T Goodall wrote: Of course the religious are keen to volunteer to interfere in the lives of the unfortunate - this is a golden opportunity to disseminate the virulent poison of their evil religious memes. Isn't a perspective unassailable by argument, no matter how rational, a hallmark of what we might call a religious mindset? Or perhaps a hallmark of my being irrefutably correct? :D That's certainly possible, but to date I haven't really seen much to support your conclusions except the dual practice of: 1. Selecting, carefully, anecdotes that appear to support your perspective; and 2. Ignoring, carefully, any arguments that seem to show your perspective is not wholly valid. That doesn't constitute evidence of correctness; it's closer in concept to the meaning of there are those who have eyes, yet see not. There's a reason arguing against religion is like shooting fish in a barrel and that reason is that religion is a load of evil nonsense. There's a reason vanilla is superior to chocolate, and that reason is that enjoyment of chocolate is evidence of delusion. It's all that theobromine which fouls up the mental processes . . . -- Ronn! :) ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Who to blame . . .
[23 June] 1868, Christopher Latham Sholes received a patent for his Type-Writer. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Who to blame . . .
In a message dated 6/23/2005 10:02:04 P.M. US Mountain Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: [23 June] 1868, Christopher Latham Sholes received a patent for his Type-Writer. But it was Don Marquis who in 1916, gave it to a cockroach. Vilyehm. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Religion and social capital
Ronn!Blankenship wrote: At 11:44 PM Thursday 6/23/2005, Warren Ockrassa wrote: On Jun 23, 2005, at 12:52 PM, William T Goodall wrote: On 23 Jun 2005, at 7:22 pm, Warren Ockrassa wrote: On Jun 23, 2005, at 9:06 AM, William T Goodall wrote: Of course the religious are keen to volunteer to interfere in the lives of the unfortunate - this is a golden opportunity to disseminate the virulent poison of their evil religious memes. Isn't a perspective unassailable by argument, no matter how rational, a hallmark of what we might call a religious mindset? Or perhaps a hallmark of my being irrefutably correct? :D That's certainly possible, but to date I haven't really seen much to support your conclusions except the dual practice of: 1. Selecting, carefully, anecdotes that appear to support your perspective; and 2. Ignoring, carefully, any arguments that seem to show your perspective is not wholly valid. That doesn't constitute evidence of correctness; it's closer in concept to the meaning of there are those who have eyes, yet see not. There's a reason arguing against religion is like shooting fish in a barrel and that reason is that religion is a load of evil nonsense. There's a reason vanilla is superior to chocolate, and that reason is that enjoyment of chocolate is evidence of delusion. It's all that theobromine which fouls up the mental processes . . . Foul up? One man's fowl is another man's dinner. (The much better one, but which was not given the set-up it needed, was One man's fish is another man's poisson.) Anyway, I use it to enhance some mental processes at times. The best driving-home-after-midnight fuel I ever tried was MMs -- sugar for the boost, chocolate for the stimulant effect. And if I timed everything just right, the crash after the sugar high would hit about 15-30 minutes after I got home. Julia ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: The disease of the mind
On Jun 23, 2005, at 2:15 PM, Dave Land wrote: I've carried on with Dan a little about the idea of relative evil, or that social context provides the backdrop against which actions are judged to be meritorious or wrongful. This dovetails with the above passage in the sense that as soon as we pass any judgment we're missing the big picture; we're immersing ourselves in context. I've just read Bishop John Shelby Spong's Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism, which has as a major theme that the Bible -- and every spiritual experience that has ever been put into words -- mires the inexpressible in the subjective. We do not *have* objective language, he says, and we fool ourselves when we act as though we do. That's definitely a problem, yes. Language is awkward, in many instances; in some cases it's just not the right tool to use. When trying to use language to express a nondualistic understanding of the cosmos, one is left with things that seem very foolish: A flower is not actually a flower, which makes it the one and only real flower that exists. Ouch. Language is, like the Buddha, two and a half pounds of flax. A theologian of the early 20th century said that we needed to demythologize God. Spong counters that we can only remythologize spiritual experiences: as soon as we put them into words, they become locked into our prejudices, experiences, world-view. In a couple of years, generations, centuries, our demythologized explanation will be just as ridiculously dated as the heaven is just above the dome of the sky ideas that underlie the Biblical authors' explanations. Very possibly, which is a solid argument against literalism of any kind, of course. If you take religious expression as -- at its best -- being a kind of dialectic between humans and the universe we inhabit, we can almost see that understandings gained from religion are useful only in a given context. (They ARE useful, but *only in context*.) There's a striking parallel here between the self-correcting modes of science and the idea of a genuine religious (or perhaps philosophical) dialectic. As the search for understanding -- *any* understanding -- progresses, ideas must be tested against what is observable. If the ideas don't match apparent reality, it is always the ideas that must change. Hence we've had to retool our understanding of physics, not once, not twice, but three times in one century. That's really astounding when you think about it. It seems to me that the best religions would include something like this self-correcting process, and use the human mind's ability to inquire to update and self-correct, excising doctrines that are clearly and simply false. *Sometimes* this happens, albeit slowly; the RC Church, after all, finally did come around to the heliocentric model of the solar system, though 400 years after the rest of the world had accepted the facts. Most of the time, though, we end up with an almost pathological separation between apparent reality and the views held by (at least some) religious-minded individuals. Often this separation is superficially harmless, but I'd argue that anything that allows a person to become comfortable with intellectual separation from what appears to be real is actually quite dangerous; it lays the groundwork for further breaches from what is, in a larger view, a more real or at least rational world model and approach to life in that world. Religion isn't like pot, in the sense that pot is alleged to be a gateway drug via which users will eventually become addicted to crack; however, just as pot use can be a sign of generally edgy or risky behavioral tendencies, an addictive personality or a wish to abrogate even the most basic life-skills and responsibilities, early acceptance -- particularly unquestioning acceptance -- of some outrageously false religious doctrines might be a sign of eventual separation from reality. You don't go right from pot to crack, and you don't go right from baptism to bombing abortion clinics; but there's *some* reason, perhaps, to be concerned. Spong's conclusion is that the Bible is nothing more or less than a particular, peculiar peoples' record of *their* experience, rooted as in their world-view. The Bible doesn't tell us as much about God as it tells us about the writers' abilities to express their experience of God. It is for us to try to inhabit their world-view so we can attempt to discern the experience was that their limiting words point to. That's a remarkably Zennish/Buddhist-in-general conclusion. Thich Nhat Hanh -- a pretty highly-respected Buddhist monk -- has stated that one requirement of Buddhist teachings, in order for them to be valid, is that they be relevantized to meet the needs of a given audience or student. That is, you not only speak in terms a given person can understand, but you use his language and world metaphors. It makes no sense to speak to a
Re: Who to blame . . .
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: In a message dated 6/23/2005 10:02:04 P.M. US Mountain Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: [23 June] 1868, Christopher Latham Sholes received a patent for his Type-Writer. But it was Don Marquis who in 1916, gave it to a cockroach. I like Don Marquis' contribution very much, actually. :) And thanks to Ronn! now, I have a Howard Jones song stuck in my head. But I can't *blame* him, since No-One Is To Blame. Julia ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: The disease of the mind
Warren Ockrassa wrote: On Jun 23, 2005, at 2:15 PM, Dave Land wrote: It bears noting that this is an extraordinarily liberal view of the Bible, which puts a lot of people off. I'm hardly surprised. There are several beloved sacred cows being tipped here. I knew a couple of girls who went cow-tipping in high school on a regular basis. I got all the details about the night that the cow they tipped turned out to be a bull. The rest that might be said here is left as an exercise to the reader Julia ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
