Date: 27-Apr-89 22:22
From: John Windmueller
To:   Ron Sparks
Subj: Re: God--good or evil?

I'm not to fond of organized religion as a
whole.  Frankly, I think God is a man-made security blanket.  Further, if a
God did really exist, I'd have to hate him for the suffering he has allowed
to thousands of people who placed their complete faith in him.

My comment was ment in  - s a r c a s m -.

Sorry, but I will not be held a sponsor of God.  If "he" makes your life
better, more power to you.  Frankly, I have enough faith in the human
spirit to believe that "man will not only endure: but prevail".. Faulkner

.. John Windmueller
--- QuickBBS v2.03
 * Origin: FLAME363 - It's quite an echo! -- Gallifrey - (1:363/17)


Date: 28-Apr-89 11:07
From: Ron Sparks
To:   John Windmueller
Subj: Re: God--good or evil?

.
I don't know about God, but religion is a farce.  Religion is a man-made
security blanket, changing ever to meet societies needs.  If there ever was 
a "true" religion that worshiped a "true" diety, it is now perverted beyond 
all recognition.
.
My views, then, are very similar to your own.  I apologize if you were under
the impression that I disagreed with you.  If you would have read my message
a little more carefully, you would have seen this.
.
--- QuickBBS v2.03
 * Origin: West Orange Wildcat BBS, Winter Garden Fla.(407) 877-8324


Date: 29-Apr-89 02:03
From: Mark Woodruff
To:   Ron Sparks
Subj: Re: God--good or evil?


>I don't know about God, but religion is a farce.  Religion is 
>a man-made security blanket, changing ever to meet societies 
>needs.  If there ever was a "true" religion that worshiped a 
>"true" diety, it is now perverted beyond all recognition. 
 
 Bullshit.  Religion is a way of transcending man's fears, doubts, and
guilts. If you deny the transcendent, you deny your own ability to achieve
greatness. 
 
 mark 

---
 * Origin: MaMaB--the Machine in Mark's Bedroom *HST* (Opus 1:363/9)


Message #1305 "FLAME ECHO"
Date: 29-Apr-89 02:58
From: Rick Harrison
To:   Mark Woodruff
Subj: God--good or evil

 > Bullshit.  Religion is a way of transcending 
 > man's fears, doubts, and guilts.
 > If you deny the transcendent, you deny your 
 > own ability to achieve greatness. 
 .
 Tell it to the victims of the Crusades and the Inquisitions. Tell it to 
 the people throughout mediaeval Europe and the old United States who were 
 hung in irons, locked in dungeons, stretched on racks, burned at the 
 stake, hanged, and impaled for daring to be heretics, or for having 
 epilepsy or being social outcasts, and therefore labelled "witches." Tell 
 it to the victims of human sacrifice. Religion has been a blot of shame on 
 the course of human history, the velvet glove covering the iron fist of 
 authority and coercion. To be an apologist for religion is to be a traitor 
 to the causes of logic and liberty.
 .
 "When the priests and preachers are alone among their own kind, away from
 the eyes and ears of the public, they could burst with laughter at the
 nonsense they preach in return for ready cash." - Johann Most

---
 * Origin: Midas Touch: First step on a new journey! (407) 648-1133 


Message #1437 "FLAME ECHO"
Date: 29-Apr-89 23:14
From: Rick Harrison
To:   Ron Sparks
Subj: Re: God--good or evil?
 .
 Tell me, Ron, what is your "soul" or "essence"? Is there any reason 
 to believe it's anything other than a bunch of electrical impulses 
 racing between synapses in your brain, and if not, how can you imagine 
 that your "soul" will continue to exist after your brain stops 
 functioning? Can a computer program continue to run after the computer 
 has been turned off and dismantled?
 .
 -> However, the moral rights we adhere to often DO
 -> stem from metaphysical backgrounds.
 Did you mean "moral codes" or "moral standards"? What do you mean by
 "metaphysical backgrounds" - do you mean morals are handed down from
 supernatural entities, or promulgated by metaphysicians? A little less
 ambiguity would be helpful. Focus, please, you simplist.

---
 * Origin: Midas Touch: First step on a new journey! (407) 648-1133 


Message #1494 "FLAME ECHO" 
Date: 30-Apr-89 12:21
From: Ron Sparks
To:   Rick Harrison
Subj: Re: God--good or evil?

I reason that the "essense" is more than electrical impulses because of what
French Philosopher Descarte mentioned.  The whole is greater than the sum of
the parts.  We could throw all the elements that make a human together and 
it would still be lifeless.  It is mising something vital--some essense. 
(allow a pretty bad analogy please)
.
I'm the simplist, yet I must focus for YOU.  Hmmm.  Sounds like youre the
simplist. 
.
Anyway, perhaps "metaphysical background" was an inapropriate term.  I
should have said, "religious background"  Most of our moral standards and
codes come from our religion.  (either that, or the society PUTS their
already existant moral coded into their religion)
.
--- QuickBBS v2.03
 * Origin: West Orange Wildcat BBS, Winter Garden Fla.(407) 877-8324


Message #1558 "FLAME ECHO" (RECEIVED)
Date: 30-Apr-89 21:17
From: Mark Woodruff
To:   Rick Harrison
Subj: Re: God--good or evil

>> Bullshit.  Religion is a way of transcending 
>> man's fears, doubts, and guilts. 
>> If you deny the transcendent, you deny your 
>> own ability to achieve greatness. 
>. 
>Tell it to the victims of the Crusades and the Inquisitions. 
>Tell it to the [this goes on for some time] 
>To be an apologist for religion is to be a traitor 
>to the causes of logic and liberty. 
 
 Oh, so we're a judge now, are we? 
 
 Religion has been used for many things, but that does not change what
religion *is* anymore than the use of machine guns by the SS to kill Jews
changes the nature of a gun as a projectile firing device. 
 
 mark 

---
 * Origin: MaMaB--the Machine in Mark's Bedroom *HST* (Opus 1:363/9)


Message #1672 "FLAME ECHO"
Date: 02-May-89 01:39
From: Rick Harrison
To:   Mark Woodruff
Subj: Re: God--good or evil

 > Religion has been used for many things, but that does
 > not change what religion *IS*
 For 1900 years, Christ's followers have been insisting that their actions
shouldn't be used as evidence against Christianity. Come on, Mark, how could
anyone who has studied this echo, imagine that religion has a helpful,
calming, or transcendental effect?

--- ConfMail V4.00
 * Origin: Big Blue BBS (1:363/3)


Message #1709 "FLAME ECHO"
Date: 02-May-89 07:28
From: Rick Harrison
To:   Mark Woodruff
Subj: my abyss or yours?

 > Kierkegaard believed that man's senses and reasons were limited
 > and thus could only take him to an abyss, the depths
 > of which his reason could not penetrate.  Only through a
 > "leap of faith" could man pass over the abyss and into
 > a meaningful world.
  
  With apologies to Frank Salerno's dictionary...

  Regrettably, this leads us into a circular (or at best, helical) argument.
Sensory data and logical reasoning certainly have their limitations, as you
can see by observing any hedonist or logician. However, taking a "leap of
faith" is an identical form of intellectual and spiritual self-hypnosis, 
i.e. gestaltic hypnopomposity.

  Since there are no rational/factual criteria for evaluating the truth of
the various religions, they must all be considered equally valid and true,
even though most of them contradict each other and, in most instances, each
religion claims to be the only true way to Heaven/ Asgard/ Valhala/ Nirvana/
you name it. Those who take a leap of faith do not "pass over the abyss and
into a meaningful world," but rather into another abyss of distorted,
disagreeable deities and demigods, where any absurd claim made by a prophet
or medium must be accepted as valid because all have entered into an
agreement not to apply rational criteria to each other's beliefs and
practices. The New Age movement is a vivid illustration of this,
with some of its members getting advice from the swinging motions of quartz
crystals dangling on the ends of strings, and others paying hundreds of
dollars to see actresses pretend to be possessed by the spirits of dead
humans.

  Also, I think the atrocities committed by religionists, of which I cited
examples in an earlier message, are not to be dismissed or ignored as you
would wish. If religion frequently causes people to persecute and despise
others, as it clearly does, then its alleged beneficence is clearly
chimerical. The Crusades, the Inquisition, the witch-burners and Jew-burners
of history, the Irish Republican Army, the Israeli Zionists, the Muslims who
are presently frothing with blood-lust regarding the author Salman Rushdie,
the Christ-crazed zealots who want to ban books, movies and anything else
which seems different from them -- all these are examples of what the "leap
of faith" generally does to people, and it hardly seems desirable; indeed,
it's one of the biggest threats to the continued existence of our species.
(This is not to say that a species, like a bureaucracy, has no purpose other
than self- perpetuation.)

  When offered a choice between Abyss Number One, the pit of logic and
sensory data, or Abyss Number Two, the leap of faith into religion and
supernaturalism, I opt for None of the Above -- and so do most practical
people, who have no interest in such matters, and are interested instead in
what's for dinner tonight and is there enough beer in the refrigerator to
last through the telecast of the ballgame.  These denizens of the demotic
plane are a distinct denegation of dependence on dieties, desires, and
dialectics; they're also a delightful demonstration that Buddha wasn't just
whistlin' Dixie when he said that speculations about the afterlife and
supernatural world are irresolvable and counter-productive to human progress
and happiness.

--- ConfMail V4.00
 * Origin: Big Blue BBS (1:363/3)


Date: 03-May-89 12:27
From: Mark Woodruff
To:   Rick Harrison
Subj: Re: my abyss or yours?


>  Since there are no rational/factual criteria for evaluating
>the truth of the various religions, they must all be considered
>equally valid and true, even though most of them contradict each
>other and, in most instances, each religion claims to be the
>only true way to Heaven/ Asgard/ Valhala/ Nirvana/ you name it.

 Religion is neither true nor untrue.  It transcends reason and therefore
cannot be judged by reason.

 Your statements remind me of the description of a cube by the residents of
Flatland.

 mark

 We are all that you see and more...

---
 * Origin: MaMaB--the Machine in Mark's Bedroom *HST* (Opus 1:363/9)


Message #7756 "Flame363 Echo"
Date: 03-May-89 12:32
From: Mark Woodruff
To:   Rick Harrison
Subj: Re: blow it out your abyss


>  Also, I think the atrocities committed by religionists, of
>which I cited examples in an earlier message, are not to be dismissed
>or ignored as you would wish. If religion frequently causes people
>to persecute and despise others, as it clearly does, then its
>alleged beneficence is clearly chimerical.

 I don't ignore them, but their attribution to religion doesn't affect my
faith in any way.

>  When offered a choice between Abyss Number One, the pit of
>logic and sensory data, or Abyss Number Two, the leap of faith
>into religion and supernaturalism, I opt for None of the Above

 If you accept the limits of your senses you accept being on one side of the
abyss.  If you exalt imagination, you fly above both.

 mark

---
 * Origin: MaMaB--the Machine in Mark's Bedroom *HST* (Opus 1:363/9)


EOF


 
 
 


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