BS: Still no gods 2008 (continued)

Subject: RE: BS: Still no gods 2008 (continued)
From: Riginslinger
Date: 20 Jan 08 - 09:13 PM

Would you be willing to offer an explanation for 400!!!?

Subject: RE: BS: Still no gods 2008 (continued)
From: Nickhere
Date: 20 Jan 08 - 09:14 PM

400 posts, Ringslinger, if I am not mistaken, and still going strong!

Subject: RE: BS: Still no gods 2008 (continued)
From: Mrrzy
Date: 20 Jan 08 - 09:32 PM

Nickhere - where you say "I believe most kids would grow up ok if they weren't maltreated one way or another by grown-ups" - ever read Lord of the Flies? They won't grow up civilized without discipline...

Subject: RE: BS: Still no gods 2008 (continued)
From: Riginslinger
Date: 20 Jan 08 - 09:45 PM

Yes, there should be a place in the world for grownups. The problem is, they never seem to make it to positions of influence.

Subject: RE: BS: Still no gods 2008 (continued)
From: Nickhere
Date: 20 Jan 08 - 09:49 PM

Yes, I remember reading that many years ago. I agree they won't grow up without discipline. Indeed I remember reading somwhere "10 top tips for turning your child into a delinquent" and it included such advice as "make sure he only eats the best organic food etc., while allowing hsi mind feast on any junk it likes on TV etc., / Give him everything he wants that way he'll grow up thinking the world owes him a living / laugh when he uses bad langauge so he'll think it's cute and clever..." etc., I can't remember the rest of it now, but it was going round for a while as one of those posters you sometimes find in novelty shopps and bookshops.

But when I said maltreated, I wasn't thinking of discipline, I was thinking of the ways adults can mess kids up through inconsistent parenting, lack of love, selfishness (kids have to come first, and by that I don't mean getting spoiled either). It's a tough job, no doubt.

In the area where I live, you sometimes see the kids playing. Most of the time it's just background noise you hardly notice, but now and again they do things that make you smile or wonder. There's one kid who, though he's still only about 9 or 10, just can't seem to leave other kids alone. He's always playing with them ina rough way and doesn't seem happy until he's amanged to upset someone. It amkes me wonder what kind of examples he's had that he feels the need to act like that. It'd be just as easy to be nice, and probably more productive even for him, but no, he has to act the jerk. I dread to think what he'll be like when he gets into his teens, unless he grows out of it. I had to knock on his parent's door one day to complain about something he'd done (which I didn't want to have to do, as it's very embarrasing for both). I wanted him to come out to the door so I could explain to him in person what the problem was. His mother's response? "He's just about to sit down to his dinner". ! I thought to myself 'well, actually I was just about to sit down to my dinner as well until I was obliged to come up here after finding your son climbing round in my back garden - again". My problem didn't matter a whit to her, all that mattered was that her son ate his dinner and she had a stress free life. So I began to undertand why he had no respect for anyone, it seemd clear he'd learned not to from his parents.

Subject: RE: BS: Still no gods 2008 (continued)
From: Mrrzy
Date: 20 Jan 08 - 09:57 PM

Yes, indeed. I wrote a paper on drug use (not abuse, that is recreational drug use that doesn't lead to addiction) and found that the only real consistency in people who become addicted is a history of alternating spoiling and neglect... apparently that leaves you not having enough of anything till you have too much of it. It was an interesting research topic.

Whereas, one of my sons was BORN civilized. Didn't have anything to do with what a completely nice person he is...

Subject: RE: BS: Still no gods 2008 (continued)
From: Nickhere
Date: 20 Jan 08 - 10:05 PM

You're lucky with your son, I'm delighted for you!

Subject: RE: BS: Still no gods 2008 (continued)
From: Mrrzy
Date: 20 Jan 08 - 10:07 PM

Yes, he is a delight. There are times I wish I could take credit for him, though!

Subject: RE: BS: Still no gods 2008 (continued)
From: GUEST,Will
Date: 20 Jan 08 - 10:08 PM

"There is a terrible lot of us who don't think that we come from a monkey, but if there are some people who think that they do, why, it's not our business to rob them of what little pleasure they might get out of imagining it." -- Will Rogers

Subject: RE: BS: Still no gods 2008 (continued)
From: Nickhere
Date: 20 Jan 08 - 10:23 PM

Well I guess you can at least take credit for bringing him into the world and start from there. And when he's a grown man (if he isn't already) sounds like he'll make some woman a great husband, too. So she'll have you to thank for that. I often think of this if I'm starting to feel a bit cranky towards my mother-in-law (she can be difficult at times): I think well, I have to admit if it wasn't for her, I wouldn't have met my wonderful wife, so I have to at least thank her for that!

Subject: RE: BS: Still no gods 2008 (continued)
From: Mrrzy
Date: 20 Jan 08 - 10:47 PM

Or some man a great husband... And yes, I didn't like my grandmother but she did make my dad who he was, so I admired her anyway...

Subject: RE: BS: Still no gods 2008 (continued)
From: M.Ted
Date: 20 Jan 08 - 11:25 PM

Well, since you've asked--

Firstly, most religious denominations do not categorically deny science. There are, in fact, many religious institutions that actually teach and advance science. Catholic Unversity of America, for instance, has reputable Departments of Biology, Physics, Mathematics, and Chemistry.

Secondly, most religious denomination do not advocate the oppression of individuals or groups.
In fact, many are actively engaged in civil and human rights activities. Martin Luther King, Jr. for instance, was a Baptist minister. And then of course there is liberation theology.

Thirdly, though there are certainly many religious persons who believe in an afterlife, for many, the concerns are primarily in the here and now, and for whom the reasons to live morally and ethically have to do with real world consequences. In a 1996 Presbyterian Panel survey only 51 percent of members and 46 percent of pastors said they believed in hell.

Even your statement about believing in a supernatural entity is up for grabs. It has been a long time since Christianity advocated that there was an actual guy walking around in the sky--St. Thomas Acquinas pretty much put that idea to rest for mainstream Christianity, and that was quite a while back.

Given that, yes, there are some people out there who believe things, advocate things, and do things that we disagree with. And it would be nice if they'd get out of our faces--

Subject: RE: BS: Still no gods 2008 (continued)
From: Mrrzy
Date: 20 Jan 08 - 11:28 PM

Most religious denominations do not categorically deny science... - Not categorically, no; just when it contradicts their dogma.

Most religious denomination do not advocate the oppression of individuals or groups. - Sure they do - any individual or group that doesn't believe as they do.

See, there is usually only one god/supernatural being/ between theistic beliefs and atheism: The one that the theist believes in. All others, we all agree (theists and atheists) don't exist...

Subject: RE: BS: Still no gods 2008 (continued)
From: M.Ted
Date: 21 Jan 08 - 01:08 AM

So you're saying that most religious denominations deny science, and that most advocate the supression of those that don't agree with them?

Subject: RE: BS: Still no gods 2008 (continued)
From: Tweed
Date: 21 Jan 08 - 06:28 AM

Ain't no Heaven
Ain't no burning Hell
There ain't no heaven
and no burning hell
When I die, Where I go..
Nobody know

John Lee Hooker's "Burning Hell"

Subject: RE: BS: Still no gods 2008 (continued)
From: Riginslinger
Date: 21 Jan 08 - 07:52 AM

"*Sigh* I'm going to have to write a book, I can already tell... yikes! And one should be responsible to one's loved ones as well as to one's self, no? And to one's community? And to those upon whom one depends?"


             Mrzzy - This has been bothering me for a while now. I think there is some confusion as to what was meant by the statement, "One should be responsible for oneself."
             It was in the context of: what do you use for moral guidance?
             An individual who is not addicted to some ancient superstion has to depend on his own sense of right and wrong when making these kinds of decisions. Church goers make the case that they are morally superior because they have the "dogma" to direct them.
             In most cases, churchgoers have the luxury of using the "dogma" for a cleansing mechanism.
             One learns--as I have on many occasions--that if you are going to engage in doing business with church goers, especially if you engage in doing business with a whole gaggle of them at one time, you need to keep your guard up.
             They will happily screw you to death--in a financial sense--and then grovel around on the floor of their church on Sunday morning, god forgives them, and they are ready to go out and screw some other poor sap on Monday.
             So beware if you intend on doing business with a gaggle of churchgoers.
             A rational, free thinking individual, on the other hand, if he does you wrong, has to deal with his conscience. So that's what was meant by being responsible to oneself.

Subject: RE: BS: Still no gods 2008 (continued)
From: Amos
Date: 21 Jan 08 - 09:46 AM

A charming quote from a columnist, Ms. L:ovell, writing in the NEw York TImes:

"I live in Lower Manhattan. In my seriously secular neck of the woods, Christians are often dismissed as those homophobes on the news hell-bent on keeping half the population of Chelsea out of the wedding pages. Once, I told a member of the fabled East Coast Media Elite that I was raised Pentecostal and he asked if that meant I grew up "fondling snakes in trailers."

I replied: "You know that book club you're in? Well, my church was a lot like that, except that we actually read the book."

Until my heathen Damascene moment during a ninth grade unit on Greek mythology — my disbelief that a great civilization could actually believe in such far-fetched malarkey made me take a hard look at the virgin birth — I was one of the meek majority of Christians who never make the news, who would never dream of judging or hating others because the primary occupation of a true Christian is self-loathing. (All that wretch-like-me, original sin talk meant I spent my entire childhood believing I was as depraved as Charles Manson when in reality I might have been the best-behaved 9-year-old of the 20th century.) "

Subject: RE: BS: Still no gods 2008 (continued)
From: Riginslinger
Date: 21 Jan 08 - 10:32 AM

Okay, but you have to wonder about a book club that reads the same book over, and over, and...

Subject: RE: BS: Still no gods 2008 (continued)
From: M.Ted
Date: 21 Jan 08 - 11:23 AM

At least they can read, Riginslinger;-)

As to your other comment, if you're doing business with a gaggle of free-thinking individuals, you need to keep a close eye on them, as well.

Subject: RE: BS: Still no gods 2008 (continued)
From: Mrrzy
Date: 21 Jan 08 - 01:17 PM

I see what you mean, Riginslinger - yes, one's own conscience is what one should answer to.

And no, I'm not saying "most denominations" deny science. I'm saying that many denomination deny scientific findings that contradict their dogma. Here in the old Southern US, you can belong to one of many, many "denominations" and still be a Christian who doesn't "believe in" evolution. This is the crux of what I am so against - people who insist that mindless dogma trumps intelligent discovery.

And all religions do claim that all others are false. Thus all religions preach at the very least that nonbelievers are worse (in some way, you can pick your Axis of Evil) than believers. Christianity and Islam, more so than Judaism or polytheisms, specifically teach that in order to be a good follower you have to convince (or kill) others who do not believe as you do. But of course the First Commandment, No Other Gods Before Me, was jewish before the other monotheisms happened.

Again, there is only a slight difference between followers of any one religion or god, and atheists, and it's that one religion or god. We all agree that all the other religions are false. Atheists just go one god farther.

Subject: RE: BS: Still no gods 2008 (continued)
From: Amos
Date: 21 Jan 08 - 01:37 PM

people who insist that mindless dogma trumps intelligent discovery.

I think this is a good thing to be against, Mrrz.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Still no gods 2008 (continued)
From: Mrrzy
Date: 21 Jan 08 - 01:44 PM

Thanks, Amos!

Subject: RE: BS: Still no gods 2008 (continued)
From: M.Ted
Date: 21 Jan 08 - 05:06 PM

It other words, Mrzzy, you're saying atheism is just another mindless dogma. No big surprise here.

Subject: RE: BS: Still no gods 2008 (continued)
From: M.Ted
Date: 21 Jan 08 - 05:12 PM

One question, Mrzzy, why don't you just get a job teaching somewhere that people think more like you do? That way, we wouldn't have to listen to all this complaining.

Subject: RE: BS: Still no gods 2008 (continued)
From: Mrrzy
Date: 21 Jan 08 - 06:05 PM

Nonsense (to the mindless dogma comment). Conclusions are drawn from data; beliefs form from nothing. We've been through this one before. It is not dogmatic to believe what has been demonstrated.

If people thought like me, i wouldn't have to teach them, now, would I (*BG*)?

And, nobody is making you read my posts, either. We've been through that before too.

M.Ted, why do you repeat old, discarded arguments? Nothing new to say? You know perfectly well that intelligent conclusions drawn from data are anything but mindless. Trying to get my goat? Heard the joke about the railway tie?

Subject: RE: BS: Still no gods 2008 (continued)
From: Nickhere
Date: 21 Jan 08 - 06:08 PM

Bee - " Embryos are a common product of unprotected human sexual intercourse. They seldom survive, which is a good thing or there's be sixty billion of us instead of six"

I still find it difficult to get my head round atheistic 'reasoning' here. From what you say, lots of people die naturally while they're still at the embryo stage. Surely with all the natural mishaps that occur that only makes the ones that do make it even more precious? Surely what they need is all our humanity and help, not our murderous intervention?

Then another oddity - atheists keep on going on about all the progress and benefits science will bring. All those embryos who are sacrificed in embryonic research etc., in the quest for knowledge that might save someone or another, all this is good we are told, if we can save even one life! Science will bring us benefits, extend our livespans, improve the quality of our lives.... Sounds wonderful. But scientific research doesn't come cheap and experience has shown that the only ones who'll benefit from cutting edge science and medicine - with a few exceptions - will be the well-off who can afford it. Only recently have big pharmaceuticals caved into pressure to allow generic drug manufacture, arguing their R&D investment must be compensated for. Fair point, but it shows money and not so much altruism, to be at the base of their operations.

I seem to hear a contradictory message, too - "it's a good thing there's abortion and spontaneous abortions or there'd be too many of us on this planet. But it's also a good thing there's scientific progress or there'd be too many people dying on this planet from disease etc.," ???????

I should add that a drastically falling birthrate is one of the biggest demographic, economic and social problems facing western society these days. There's a recognition that Europe, for example, is only managing to maintain a healthy aged v young population balance through immigration and the children born to immigrants. There's a realisation that there will for example, be a pensions crisis in 30 years or so unless enough younger people can be found to work, pay taxes and support the social welfare net. Maybe we've been pulling the carpet out from under our own feet?

Subject: RE: BS: Still no gods 2008 (continued)
From: Mrrzy
Date: 21 Jan 08 - 06:32 PM

From what you say, lots of people die naturally while they're still at the embryo stage. Surely with all the natural mishaps that occur that only makes the ones that do make it even more precious? Surely what they need is all our humanity and help, not our murderous intervention? - No, what I think Bee means is that lots of embryos never become people, and that is the way that nature works - you always have more than can survive so that those that do, will be the strongest. That doesn't make the ones who are not going to survive precious - it makes them expendable, and needing to be expended to keep the species going. The wolf keep the caribou strong, in other words.

And if only rich people benefit from science, that is a failing in society, not in science. The point here is to keep people from dying in ways that are preventable - like diseases and accidents - not to keep people from dying at all. Death at the end of a fulfilled life is not tragic; premature death is.

And here in the good ole USA, the pension crisis is already upon us...

Subject: RE: BS: Still no gods 2008 (continued)
From: M.Ted
Date: 21 Jan 08 - 06:45 PM

What have we been through? You don't really seem to know much about what people believe--and you have a bad habit of combining unsubstantiatable overgeneralizations with insults--not logic, not science. Not even good Atheism, which was a respectable tradition, til you got a hold of it.

That is what I object to--not your belief in God, not your ideas about drug use, not your apparent dislike for the Charlottesville area.

Subject: RE: BS: Still no gods 2008 (continued)
From: Mrrzy
Date: 21 Jan 08 - 06:55 PM

I actually love living in Charlottesville, so I am as confused as you. What ideas about drug use? What belief in god?

Could you tell me please, where what I say inmplies, or states, that atheism is a "mindless dogma" - Then we can have more facts to shout at each other - arguing's more fun that way. I'm quoting Larry Niven here, not being serious...

Subject: RE: BS: Still no gods 2008 (continued)
From: Nickhere
Date: 21 Jan 08 - 07:39 PM

Mrrzzy: No, what I think Bee means is that lots of embryos never become people"

Maybe that's what she means, I'd say she is using the word 'people' in a very loose way. People is the plural of person, and 'person' is an individual human being (Collins English Dictionary). On pro-choice criteria, many adults are not 'people' either. Who gets to decide who's a person and who's not?
Perhaps she, or you could explain to me when you believe the unborn human in the womb becomes a human?

Mrrzy; "And if only rich people benefit from science, that is a failing in society, not in science"

I think one needs to take into account more the context and environment in which most scientific research takes place. Whether done in university, but especially when done by private companies - who often fund university research anyway through grants etc., - scientific R&D is mostly conducted through patronage. And we must ask who are the patrons and what is their purpose in promoting the R&D they do? Science does not occur in a vaccuum. Do any scientists reject R&D money even though they know the results are unlikely to be used for the benefit of the populace at large? Then scientists themselves are part of the problem.

"The point here is to keep people from dying in ways that are preventable - like diseases and accidents - not to keep people from dying at all"

It's a losing battle though. Scientific research and support from NGOs might have helped eradicate smallpox, and I'm all in favour of that, but since then a host of new diseases have appeared on the scene. People are also living longer, long enough to get illnesses they would never have been troubled by in the past.
While science has contributed to our knowledge of the spread of disease etc., what has made the real difference has been more basic - better sanitation and diet principally. Headline-grabbing surgical breakthroughs and new genome mapping techniques (for example) are there too, but compared to the former, are of far less impact overall.

Science will never eradicate disease, I think that old 'hubris' has been replaced by the more realistic assessment that science is only tinkering around on the edges of a system it has a far from perfect grasp on. A typical case in point is the antibiotics example. Hailed as the wonder drug for a while it seemed all our ills were cured. That turned out to be only because scientists hadn't counted on bacterias' ability to evolve and adapt at such speed (which should have been a basic realisation). Science seems to suffer often from the Frankenstein approach - the desire to gain new knowledge is rarely tempered by the more sober thought that the new knowledge may turn out to be a pandora's box. And only of late are scientists beginning to realise they usually cannot forsee all probabale outcomes of their interventions.

But that still does not explain why so much time and energy is spent on curing disease and helping people live longer (at great cost) when another key concern of these latter day Malthusian economists is the over-population of the earth. Why not just encourage people to die off and that problem could be solved? Wouldn't the resources be better spent in ensuring every new human life was protected as much as possible, to introduce 'new blood' into the world? Young energetic and productive people who don't have all the ailments and handicaps of the ageing fogies. This would also comply neatly with the Darwinism you espoused above. Why should science be helping the (albeit wealthy) diseased and infirm of this planet if this is violating the natural order of things?

Once again it seems to me this kind of 'science' is tearing itself in two opposite and contradictory ways, setting istelf contradictory goals.

"Death at the end of a fulfilled life is not tragic; premature death is"

And what is a 'fulfilled' life? Who defines it and why? When is death 'premature'? Surely being deliberately killed before you're even born is the most premature and easily avoidable / preventable death of all?

And if the pensiosn crisis is already on you in the US, maybe it's a good time to rethink the abortion stance?

Subject: RE: BS: Still no gods 2008 (continued)
From: Mrrzy
Date: 21 Jan 08 - 08:00 PM

My take is, if you live to be old, your life has been fulfilled... but I grew up in an ancestor-worshiping society, not a child-centered one as here. Premature death = death before you're old, in that case. One of the points of human life is to live to be old. This isn't Darwinian, FYI.

Science may well never eradicate disease, but we'll give it a run for its money!

And I'm not worried about overpopulation; I'm worried about distribution of resources.

Humanity's specialty is "violating the natural order of things" - agriculture, domestication, vaccinations, etc. That is natural to us... we are ruining our gene pool anyway, and have been for millennia, by protecting the weak, making glasses and canes and wheelchairs, having kids while diabetics or albino, and so on - we are hardly being Darwinian when we are being kind. But I'd still prefer a human society that takes care of people (defined as having been born already). If it comes to a crunch between the "rights" of a fetus against the "rights" of a woman, I'd vote for the woman every time. No unwanted pregnancies! No unwanted children! (I have a fantasy where a pregnant woman could legally register a fetus as "wanted" - then (a)she has to wear bright Baby On Board clothing so people know she's being considered, for legal purposes, 2 people; (b) she can get in trouble for behaviors that are known to damage fetuses; (c) somebody who assaults her and causes a miscarriage is then guilty of infanticide; (d)if she miscarries she can have a funeral. This allows for early miscarriage of embryos, which is so very common, not to be an issue, no pun intended. It also allows for abortion of unwanted pregnancies, especially in the first trimester. Later abortions could still be chosen if there was something wrong with the fetus such that a "wrongful birth" would otherwise occur. I haven't thought it all the way through, but that's the approach I'd like to see taken. Coupled with, of course, and pun intended, enough education that women would know if they were pregnant, had access to contraception, and used it.)

But when you get into the patronage of research, now, you're getting somewhere. Have you read State of Fear? Crichton goes into a whole thing about how funding should be as blind as design. Yes indeedy. But I'd rather have science than superstition, even if it isn't the best science we could have come up with.

How would preventing abortions help the pension crisis? Or do you mean making them illegal (now, they are just unobtainable in most states)?

Subject: RE: BS: Still no gods 2008 (continued)
From: Amos
Date: 21 Jan 08 - 08:04 PM

You are talking around the counter-argument, Nick, deviously.

A person, in the full sense of the word, is one who is born to a human mother.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Still no gods 2008 (continued)
From: M.Ted
Date: 21 Jan 08 - 08:07 PM

Was it you that wrote this, or are my eyes even worse than I thought--"Yes, indeed. I wrote a paper on drug use (not abuse, that is recreational drug use that doesn't lead to addiction) and found that the only real consistency in people who become addicted is a history of alternating spoiling and neglect...""

Atheism is a belief about God-which makes it a theism, when it comes down to it. Paul Tillich had something to say about fervant

As for Charlottesville, just tell me when you usually go to "Whole Foods" and I'll go to Harris Teeter instead.

Subject: RE: BS: Still no gods 2008 (continued)
From: Riginslinger
Date: 21 Jan 08 - 08:09 PM

Would it help to point out, as Darwinism relates to abortion, that the most feeble minded individuals are prone to go to church, and less apt to get an abortion so...?

Subject: RE: BS: Still no gods 2008 (continued)
From: Amos
Date: 21 Jan 08 - 08:18 PM

It does no such thing. The proposition that "evidence available provides no or little support for the existence of God as proposed in CHristian tradition" is a statement about a hypothesis, not a statement about God, and not a theism.

It is very different from the proposition "God does not exist" or "God is dead" or others which pre-postulate a meaning to the word.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Still no gods 2008 (continued)
From: M.Ted
Date: 21 Jan 08 - 08:38 PM

Mrzzy, I think i'll leave you to the mercies of Nickhere--but only after I finish my thought about Tillich, who said , "God does not exist. He is being itself beyond essence and existence. Therefore to argue that God exists is to deny him."

It would follow therefore, that to argue that God does not exist afirms him. Which pretty much makes you a Christian Evangelist, Mrrzy--ready for your first communion? Don't worry, most evangelicals believe the wine is only symbolic of, well, you know...

Subject: RE: BS: Still no gods 2008 (continued)
From: Amos
Date: 21 Jan 08 - 11:05 PM

M. Ted:

Unfortunately,. your statement, while cosmically meaningful at some level, perhaps, is meaningless in the semantic terms it uses. Being itself MUST exist, for anything at all to exist, if that particular cosmology is to be accepted at all. So the proposition of Tillich's is semantically nul. Apparently, God-according-to-Tillich is substantively nul, and therefore all is well in the screwy world of metacosmics.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Still no gods 2008 (continued)
From: Amos
Date: 22 Jan 08 - 01:15 AM

My word!! An epigram that turns on an aphaeresis!! How could I have been so blind!! Remarkable!! And here on Mudcat, of all places!!!



:D


A

Subject: RE: BS: Still no gods 2008 (continued)
From: Mrrzy
Date: 22 Jan 08 - 09:01 AM

Atheism is a belief about God-which makes it a theism. Nonsense - atheism is the absence of beliefs about god. And it is a logically-drawn conclusion, not a dogmatic affirmation. If you have any DATA that contradict that hypothesis, we'd all love to see them.

And my research about drug use was just that - research - so again, what I wrote wasn't my BELIEF, it was a FINDING. A datum, if you will.

I don't shop at Whole Foods. Are you a local here? I'd love to meet you! Imagine the talks we could have at Greenberry's!

Subject: RE: BS: Still no gods 2008 (continued)
From: wysiwyg
Date: 22 Jan 08 - 09:13 AM

Just checking if any gods turned up. Yes or no, folks? Did He wander in here yet?

~S~

Subject: RE: BS: Still no gods 2008 (continued)
From: Amos
Date: 22 Jan 08 - 09:39 AM

Yeah, actually, it did. But it was so different from the usual definiton used by organized adherents that no-one recognized it. It wouldn't answer to male pronouns, had no beard or visage, didn't care about weewees, was indifferent to morphemic abuse, and had no babies. Absolutely unrecognizable.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Still no gods 2008 (continued)
From: Mrrzy
Date: 22 Jan 08 - 10:00 AM

Hey, I'll answer to male pronouns, if they are addressed to me!

Subject: RE: BS: Still no gods 2008 (continued)
From: wysiwyg
Date: 22 Jan 08 - 10:27 AM

Absolutely unrecognizable.

That's exactly what the spiritual gift of discernment is for.

~S~

Subject: RE: BS: Still no gods 2008 (continued)
From: Amos
Date: 22 Jan 08 - 10:34 AM

LOL!

I was referring to Tillich's metaphysical proposition, which is the first definition of Goddyness I have seen which makes intutiive sense despite being semantically null. It is also a definition which would pull the rug out from under all the efforts to turn any sense of Goddyness into blathering moralization and social control, secret superiority, self-satisfied pomposity, emotional starve-and-binge personalities, and other merely human failings to which Its name is so often attached erroneously.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Still no gods 2008 (continued)
From: Riginslinger
Date: 22 Jan 08 - 10:34 AM

It's good to have spiritual gifts.

Subject: RE: BS: Still no gods 2008 (continued)
From: Wesley S
Date: 22 Jan 08 - 11:07 AM

"It's good to have spiritual gifts."

Yeah - but you really have to hunt around to find a good deal on spiritual wrapping paper and bows.

Subject: RE: BS: Still no gods 2008 (continued)
From: Amos
Date: 22 Jan 08 - 11:11 AM

I dunno--some ORganized SPirituality efforts present all the colors and bows, layers of wrapping, furbelows to the max, and then when you get through all that, you either can't open the box or it's empty when you do.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Still no gods 2008 (continued)
From: wysiwyg
Date: 22 Jan 08 - 11:14 AM

For an excellent non-Christian treatment of the spiritual gift of discernment, see or hear George MacDonald's 2-volume children's novels:

The Princess and the Goblin
The Princess and Curdie

Available at audiobooksforfree.com

Top recommendation.

~S~

Subject: RE: BS: Still no gods 2008 (continued)
From: Amos
Date: 22 Jan 08 - 11:44 AM

I grew up on those two books. I am amazed to see them resurfacing.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Still no gods 2008 (continued)
From: wysiwyg
Date: 22 Jan 08 - 12:07 PM

"At the Back of the North Wind" is even better.

~S~