Briefly: Christmas Day is a national holiday. Why would my not believing in God make me want to work on a national holiday?
Reply off-list please; we really shouldn't cause a ruckus; Jesus is coming. Are you ready?
Regards, Dan
On Dec 24, 2003, at 5:22 PM, f winkler wrote:
Okay, so I want to know. After having been an anti-Catholic and an espouser of hate email, does Daniel Aharon take Christmas day off? If he is the atheist he professes to be then I imagine that he will be working on Christmas Day.
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After all, it would be hypocritical to take off a religious holy day if he practices what he preaches. Oops that is a religious reference. I guess he can say what he wants and be a big an a-hole as he wants.
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Daniel Aharon <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>wrote:
Liz, I may sound to you like a crabby child who needs a nap, but you're speaking now with the sanctimonious faux-serenity that Christians have adopted throughout the ages. It implies (and you make explicit that you believe this) that you are possessed of understanding and wisdom that I, the unbeliever, have not yet experienced or grown into.
Lady, you haven't done your homework.
First of all, I haven't said anything about the "chasm... between belief and
disbelief". If you perceive a chasm between us, then I'll guess it's just
the age-old fight of Faith against Reason.
According to everything we know about everything, the existence of the
Judeo-Christian god is impossible. This is provable in one example after
another.
Here's a few: http://ravingatheist.com/archives/basic_assumptions.html
There does not, conversely, appea! r to be a single proof of the existence of
god.
Warm fuzzy feelings of oneness or belonging don't count: I get those
every time I encounter a good plate of barbecue.
So, you understand that with you coming from a position of nontruth, your
sundry personal opinions about nonsensical concepts like Confession and Prayer,
or Faith-based views on death, human emotion, the meaning or implications
of terminal disease, etc., ALL of that is just so much static until you begin
justifying your beliefs, or at least making sense. You have a precedent
to speak pretty-sounding words and present them as argument: brilliantly,
Christianity has built-in to itself the ultimate protection from
responsibility.
Faith is its own justification. All the atheist can do is point out that in no
other facet of life do people accept such faulty reasoning as valid.
Liz, I think that the only honest thing you said in your previous email was:
>Death is inevitable. >I believe I enjoy the life journey more, with faith.
You should understand this: atheists (generally, I hope, but at least
specifically in this case) aren't crippled by their inability to tap into some
sacred stream that the religious feel they can sense; rather, atheists have
waded in that stream, recognized that it was just a hallucination,
and gone to find the REAL water. Generally we've sung the songs, felt the
community, and gone years in the fold before having an inkling that
something didn't add up. For me, it was Mark Twain's "Letters from the
Earth"
I never heard of anybody dying or even becoming unhappy from their "loss
of faith". All one has to do is look and listen and learn, without
filtering or
prejudging what you see. Try it! You could be
Born Again! Dan
P.S. Are you getting the fanmail that I'm getting? People seem to be quite
invested in this debate!
Do you Yahoo!?
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____________________________________________________________________ Daniel Aharon, System Administrator University of Pennsylvania 3-9089 School of Medicine/IS [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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