BS: America's Most Distrusted Minority

Subject: RE: BS: America's Most Distrusted Minority
From: Little Hawk
Date: 28 Mar 06 - 10:33 PM

One doesn't necessarily have to interpret prayer as the petitioning of a deity, michael. That's the way it's usually interpreted, but it doesn't have to be.

A prayer can be the holding of a powerfully positive thought. Positive thoughts are good motivators which can help produce good health and positive actions.

Meditation is another approach. It's a process of calming a restless mind and body. That doesn't require a deity either.

Subject: RE: BS: America's Most Distrusted Minority
From: heric
Date: 28 Mar 06 - 10:35 PM

What Midchuck said.

Self professed atheists are likely to be narrow minded, pretentious, boring.

Dangerous, no. I suspect that survey is crap. For one thing, there are too many semantic distinctions involved in the entire subject area.

Subject: RE: BS: America's Most Distrusted Minority
From: GUEST,AR282
Date: 28 Mar 06 - 10:41 PM

>>Did it never occur to you that something like the symbol of a dove descending from heaven could refer to an event in consciousness, rather than a physical event?<<

It was NOT a physical event. No one saw the dove or heard the voice other than Jesus. Read the passage carefully. It is his personal epiphany. I am saying why does he require it when his miraculous birth would have been greatly celebrated and widely known throughout that region. He could hardly have grown not feeling special.

>>Or that legends can be symbolic? That a parable can be metaphorical?<<

Are telling this to me or to a Christian. They're the ones who will fight with you when you say that. According to them, Jesus was real and there wasn't no metaphorical mumbo-jumbo going on. It happened--period.

>>Or is it all just literal for you?<<

No, it is literal for a Christian. If you do not believe in Jesus Christ as a historical person, you can scarcely be considered a Christian these days. Clearly, there was a time when some Christians did believe this way and were still called Christians. Today they are called Gnostics but all they were back then were rival Christian sects.

>>If so, forget it. You cannot be a literalist and come up with anything rational for most ancient spiritual writings.<<

Again, don't tell me, tell the Christians.

>>You can either believe them literally...and become a fanatic fundamentalist...or not...and call yourself an "atheist". Either way, you're missing the boat, in my opinion.<<

That depends. Atheist as materialist or realist misses the boat. Atheist as atheist does not. It cannot because in its pure form atheism is not a position.

>>I do not call myself a "Christian". I call myself a human being.
As a human being, I'm interested in all great changes in human philosopy over the past few centuries. Christianity offers much insight into the development of human philosopy, and for that reason is very much worth studying...and DOES contain much that is of value.<<

It contains no value at all as false, contradictory history. I would place Greek paganism, Sufism as well as Buddhist and Hindu philosophy far, far above it. Interpreted as allegory, Christianity could take its place alongside them. But then they are share the same root, so why not?

>>You don't need to even believe in a "God" to see that.<<

That's what I've been trying to tell people.

Subject: RE: BS: America's Most Distrusted Minority
From: Skivee
Date: 28 Mar 06 - 11:00 PM

An Atheist, a snake-handleing fundamentalist Christian and a Muslim suicide bomber walk into a bar...
Oops, I forgot the Rabbi and the golfer.

Subject: RE: BS: America's Most Distrusted Minority
From: Little Hawk
Date: 29 Mar 06 - 12:03 AM

I still think you're looking at a bowl of water, AR282, and raising a lot of shit about the bowl its in and the people who made the bowl and so on, instead of just drinking the water.

Christianity is absolutely full of challenging philosophical and moral ideas...if you can get past the rituals, the traditional forms, and the literal thinking that would try to count how many angels are on the head of a pin. The pity is that you don't seem to see the philosophy or the moral questions...you just see the rigid beliefs of some (not all) Christians...and because of them you throw out the entire bowl of water and won't drink any of it.

That is incredible to me.

It's like rejecting all of North America as totally useless because some areas are polluted or have crime in them.

Why not quit bellyaching about the literal-minded Christians whose beliefs offend your sense of reality so much and talk to some who are not so literal-minded instead? There are plenty of those around.

I agree that the Eastern religions are more broad-minded and make more sense, but they too can be made into crazy rote belief by more rigid-minded worshippers. So what? Anything can be screwed up by stupid people. Science can be too.

Clarify this for me. Do you believe that a man, some man, existed historically, and that he was the man who came to be known later as "Jesus" (his name was Yeshua in the language of the time)? Or do you believe that no such man ever existed at all? Never mind about the God stuff, the miracles, the virgin birth, all that fancy lore, do you believe there was a physical person, Yeshua, who went around preaching in Palestine at that time, and that the Christian religion was built later by his followers, who saw him as the "Son of God"?

Or are you saying there was no such person at all? Totally a figment of someone's imagination?

And if so, upon what do you base your certainty that there was no such person? ;-D Upon what?????

Subject: RE: BS: America's Most Distrusted Minority
From: Barry Finn
Date: 29 Mar 06 - 01:09 AM

Not caring who believes in what the top on my list would be governments & religions.
Barry

Subject: RE: BS: America's Most Distrusted Minority
From: Little Hawk
Date: 29 Mar 06 - 01:12 AM

On my list would be salesmen, lawyers, politicians, and fundamentalist preachers.

Subject: RE: BS: America's Most Distrusted Minority
From: michaelr
Date: 29 Mar 06 - 01:20 AM

It seems probable that there was such a man. Maybe his name was Isaiah, or the Aramaic equivalent. Maybe he was a rabble-rouser. Maybe the Romans killed him for it.

That's all I'm willing to concede. Everything else in the bible was written decades later, edited and excised numerous times throughout the centuries to suit the political realities of the day, translated and re-translated into several other dead languages, and finally into English.

Anyone who professes to take the result literally is utterly and completely insane.

Cheers,
Michael

Subject: RE: BS: America's Most Distrusted Minority
From: GUEST
Date: 29 Mar 06 - 01:50 AM

I'm surprised that the number of "Atheists" (3%) quoted was so high given the attempts of organized religions to brainwash (sunday school, church attendance with parents and even schools run by the churches themselves) every child from 5 to however long it took you to realize that it was a load of nonsense (In my case 14 years old!)
"You have to have FAITH, my son." was how my priest finally tried to convince me. After all that shit in your formative years, it is very difficult to realize that you don't believe the priests (or your parents). It is hard to be a free thinker and there are no support groups to help you rationalize this decision you have come to. I have also learned that it is better to keep your personal religious (or lack thereof) beliefs to yourself and not try to foist your views on anyone else. Unfortuneately, the religious don't try to do the same. I drink but George Bush has become dry and been spoken to by God. So has Pat Robertson. If I were God I don't think I'd chose either of these chumps to speak for me. If I were God I'd look down on this world and decide that it was in an even worse state than when Soddom and Gamorrah were at their height and just blow the whole thing up and start again! (Well, there's a thought - with all the glaciers melting, maybe "The Flood - Part II" is coming).   
How can it be that a man who was born 2,000+ years ago (into the Jewish religion of a vengeful God) lead us into a philosophy of "turning the other cheek" and "loving your fellow man" and that his father (the big G) was now a loving God? How is it that there has been more blood splilled and lives lost in wars begun for religious reasons than for any other reason?
I am not a communist but I believe that if there had been someone like Jesus in the world today he would be branded a socialist (and in the USA - thrown in jail, never to reappear). I'd agree with his thinking, but not as a religion. Wasn't it Karl Marx who said that "Religion is the opiate of the masses"?

Subject: RE: BS: America's Most Distrusted Minority
From: Little Hawk
Date: 29 Mar 06 - 02:11 AM

"Anyone who professes to take the result literally is utterly and completely insane."

Ha! (grin) No they aren't, Michael. They're not insane at all. They're just rather conventional people without much imagination who took for granted something someone else told them when they were growing up (as 99% of humanity does, normally speaking) and never gave it any critical thought or real examination from that point on...

In the same way, people take all kinds of other ludicrous stuff for granted too...all kinds of bizarre political and social ideas and customs that are basically quite arbitrary. It goes on and on.

How many people question the basic assumptions of their society? How many people believe total BS just because it is considered "normal" by their peer group?

Are these people all insane? No. They are just average people, meaning they are easily programmed and manipulated by the social forces around them.

What they believe in may be insane, I'll grant that! But they themselves are not. It just hasn't occurred to them to question the status quo, that's all.

Now as for whether there was a man, "Jesus", upon whom the whole thing was based...you better frikkin' believe it, for this reason: New religions arise because of some unusual person, usually some quite remarkable person. He (or she) has to be someone who tremendously impressed a lot of people to the point where they felt it had changed their lives. Only someone like that can inspire a whole new religion to form. It doesn't happen by spontaneous combustion. It doesn't happen by accident.

The people on whom religions are founded are remarkable people. That doesn't mean they are "the one and only Son of God", it doesn't mean they are even right in what they say...but to assert that the religion of Christianity somehow came about without a living person at the beginning to inspire it in some way is, frankly, just asinine.

Buddha really existed. Lao-Tse really existed. Mohammed really existed. Joseph Smith really existed. Krishna really existed. Zoroaster really existed. All those people who began or inspired new religions (or political movements) (or any major social change) really existed...and the religions are the ripples spreading from the stones they threw into the pond of life.

What they did precisely while they were alive may or may not be provable, it may or may not be accurately recorded anywhere, but to think they didn't exist at all is just plain ridiculous....and it's a case of really blind wishful thinking on the part of the anti-religionist that rivals the babbling of the most rabid fundamentalist...because it reveals nothing but his desire to deny not just the unlikely aspects of religion, but ALL of it...and to have everything in the world fit HIS established prejudices and his comfort zone, regardless of all likelihood against it being that way.

It's as ludicrous to believe that Jesus (the man) never existed as it is to believe that the Rapture is going to come and snatch away all the chosen ones to God and leave the rest of us to perish here in the Tribulation.

It would demand a similar level of blind faith and utterly wishful thinking in both cases, in my opinion.

It just shows how far people are willing to go to have everything their way and deny everything that isn't as they would choose.

Subject: RE: BS: America's Most Distrusted Minority
From: Little Hawk
Date: 29 Mar 06 - 02:19 AM

By the way, folks, I realized at age 6 or 7 that the whole religious thing being presented to me was nonsense. At least that was what I thought it was. They didn't have much to say about dinosaurs or evolution, did them? And I knew about that stuff at age 6. It took one Sunday School class to convince me that they were teaching mostly nonsense. I never went to another one, and my family never went to church either. We were agnostics or atheists, or something like that.

But I sure never let that lead me to such a silly conclusion as to believe that the historical man, Jesus, never even existed.

I mean, get serious... really. Nonexistent people do not live lives that inspire brand new messianic religious movements that change whole civilizations and alter the history of the world.

Subject: RE: BS: America's Most Distrusted Minority
From: Little Hawk
Date: 29 Mar 06 - 02:24 AM

Guest - When Marx said that, he hadn't yet seen what television could do!

Be scared. Be very scared. ;-D That little idiot box in your living room has stolen a bigger piece of your life than you know, and it's got you by the short hairs.

Subject: RE: BS: America's Most Distrusted Minority
From: Little Hawk
Date: 29 Mar 06 - 02:27 AM

And you're right...Jesus, by today's terms, was a radical socialist. He was the kind of person that any competitive, ruthless, money-hungry, success-oriented society hates with an absolute passion and will imprison or kill at the earliest possible opportunity.

That's one of the reasons I really, really like Jesus...as a philosopher, I mean. I agree with his philosophy. He had it right.

Subject: RE: BS: America's Most Distrusted Minority
From: Joe Offer
Date: 29 Mar 06 - 02:39 AM

I'm Catholic, employed by the Catholic Church to teach religion. I don't have any reason to distrust atheists - but there are extremists among Catholics and other Christians who scare the hell out of me.

I guess that's the minority I distrust - ideological extremists of every ilk. Most other folks are fine.

-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: BS: America's Most Distrusted Minority
From: Scoville
Date: 29 Mar 06 - 10:07 AM

Self professed atheists are likely to be narrow minded, pretentious, boring.

Ditto self-professed Christians.




I'm [very nearly] an atheist (I explained this earlier).

I believe Jesus existed. I believe he was the spiritual son of God (not the literal one, and I don't believe that Mary was a virgin but I don't think that should count against her), which does not conflict with my almost-atheism because Jesus believed in God, even if I don't. I believe he was a respected leader and teacher. I could even believe that he died for my sins because that may have been what he meant to do, and my lack of belief doesn't cancel out his good intentions.

I don't want to be antagonistic to Christians but it simply doesn't work for me and I don't want them to hound me about it. All it means is that whatever I say or do is mine, and the consequences are mine, and whether or not I am forgiven is up to my fellow humans.

Subject: RE: BS: America's Most Distrusted Minority
From: Wesley S
Date: 29 Mar 06 - 11:23 AM

Scoville -

It's funny - I consider myself a Christian { mostly as an accident of birth } And I can aggree with a lot of what you had to say. The following words { of yours } express ideas I believe in too.

"I believe Jesus existed. I believe he was the spiritual son of God (not the literal one, and I don't believe that Mary was a virgin but I don't think that should count against her).I believe he was a respected leader and teacher. I could even believe that he died for my sins because that may have been what he meant to do."

I'll go on to say that I have hard time believing in the resurection of Christs body also. But wheather it happened or not has little to do with the worth and value of his teachings.

Subject: RE: BS: America's Most Distrusted Minority
From: GUEST,M.Ted
Date: 29 Mar 06 - 01:55 PM

The real problem is not what you believe or disbelieve---it is that people censor their own words, and restrict their own actions, out of fear that they will be ostracized if they don't say the right things in the right way--

Subject: RE: BS: America's Most Distrusted Minority
From: Little Hawk
Date: 29 Mar 06 - 02:07 PM

Very reasonable stuff you say, Scoville, and many who call themselves "Christians" would agree with most or even all of it.


The worst fanatics I have ever run into were of 2 distinct varieties:

1. religious fanatics
2. atheist fanatics

Although their beliefs were apparently diametrically opposed, in other respects you could hardly tell them apart, because they both never shut up about it and they both never stopped trying to convert everyone they met into their exclusive belief system. They seemed equally intent on "saving" other people. They were driven by a sense of innate superiority and rightness, and had nothing but contempt or pity for those who didn't see it their way.

They deserve each other, and the rest of us don't deserve either one of them.

Subject: RE: BS: America's Most Distrusted Minority
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 29 Mar 06 - 02:08 PM

"believe that the historical man, Jesus, never even existed"

There's not a single shred of acceptable evidence to show that he did....

For a guy who claimed this thread was "silly and unhelpful" your sure have posted a lot of silly and unhelpful rain-bow hugging to it...

Subject: RE: BS: America's Most Distrusted Minority
From: Little Hawk
Date: 29 Mar 06 - 02:12 PM

There is a whole hell of a lot less evidence around to prove that he didn't exist, Clinton. ;-D Your faith rivals that of the Jehovah's Witnesses.

You are such fun. As predictable as fleas on a mongrel. You think of yourself as rational, but everything you say is driven by knee-jerk emotional prejudice. You're about as rational as a rattlesnake.

Subject: RE: BS: America's Most Distrusted Minority
From: beardedbruce
Date: 29 Mar 06 - 02:13 PM

And the Illiad was not written by Homer, but by another Greek of the same name.


( sarcasm)

Subject: RE: BS: America's Most Distrusted Minority
From: Little Hawk
Date: 29 Mar 06 - 02:24 PM

And Buddhism wasn't started by Buddha, it was invented 100 years later by a man who wanted to open a begging bowl franchise in Southeast Asia... ;-D There really never was such a person as Buddha. (more sarcasm)

Subject: RE: BS: America's Most Distrusted Minority
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 29 Mar 06 - 02:26 PM

"There is a whole hell of a lot less evidence around to prove that he didn't exist"

That's not how 'proof' works, ignorant....

If you'd pull your head outa your backside, you'd grok that

Subject: RE: BS: America's Most Distrusted Minority
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 29 Mar 06 - 02:28 PM

And well, as you like to play the pedant, how can one have "A whole hell of a lot less" than "Not a single shred" of evidence or indeed of anything?

Yer once again, caught up in your own mumbo-jumbo

Subject: RE: BS: America's Most Distrusted Minority
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 29 Mar 06 - 02:32 PM

To which your response will be along the lines of "I know you are but what am I" or some similar retort that spotlights your true level of discourse and insight...

Subject: RE: BS: America's Most Distrusted Minority
From: beardedbruce
Date: 29 Mar 06 - 02:32 PM

LH, we cross posted- my comment was directed at Clinton.

Actually, there is a stome box with that name on it, from the proper period- How common was that name?

Does it matter if the historical Jesus was one person, or a different one of the same name?

Subject: RE: BS: America's Most Distrusted Minority
From: Little Hawk
Date: 29 Mar 06 - 02:35 PM

Everything you post here, Clinton, is driven by one thing and one thing alone...your toxic emotional ego. I can't take you seriously. You're just a form of light entertainment for me. You have nothing useful to say to anyone, you're just a bad attitude wandering around looking for something to dump on.

Subject: RE: BS: America's Most Distrusted Minority
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 29 Mar 06 - 02:35 PM

"there is a stome box with that name on it"
Debunked... fake...

(if it's the same box I'm thinking of)

Subject: RE: BS: America's Most Distrusted Minority
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 29 Mar 06 - 02:36 PM

"looking for something to dump on"

Good thing I have a pre-existing shitheap like yourself then eh

Subject: RE: BS: America's Most Distrusted Minority
From: Little Hawk
Date: 29 Mar 06 - 02:41 PM

The reason you HAVE to believe that Jesus didn't exist, Clinton, is strictly an emotional need on your part. It makes you feel good because it helps you further deny something you despise...the Christian religion.

Well, I can remember despising the Christian religion too...for a long time...but it never led me to such utterly irrational conclusions as to convince myself that an entire enormous religion somehow arose over the activities and life of a man who never even existed!!!

That's why I say your faith rivals that of Jehovah's Witnesses or Born-Again Evangelicals. It's based on nothing but emotion.

You're out there, man. You think you're rational, but you're far from it when it comes to this subject.

Subject: RE: BS: America's Most Distrusted Minority
From: Little Hawk
Date: 29 Mar 06 - 02:43 PM

And the hostility! LOL! Why do you care this much? Or...why do you have to pretend you don't care this much? Who are you trying to impress? It ain't workin'.

Subject: RE: BS: America's Most Distrusted Minority
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 29 Mar 06 - 02:45 PM

"It's based on nothing but emotion"

Once again, you prove yourself clueless.....

Subject: RE: BS: America's Most Distrusted Minority
From: Little Hawk
Date: 29 Mar 06 - 02:49 PM

And you prove yourself incapable of honest self-appraisal or self-awareness.

Your attitude toward other people is pathetic, Clinton. (at least on this forum, I don't know about in real life)

Subject: RE: BS: America's Most Distrusted Minority
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 29 Mar 06 - 02:55 PM

"incapable of honest self-appraisal or self-awareness"
Not even remotely....

"attitude toward other people"
This isn't other people... this is you... You're just hurt that someone calls you on your bullflop, and dismisses the thing you cling to, that thing that gets you through the nights, as a load.... as was suggested above, maybe because of the sinking suspicion I might be right. I don't really care why it hurts you so.... That's your problem.

Think YOU might be right? Lets see some decent evidence to support your claptrap....

Oh... that's right... there isn't any.... at least none that can be seen unless one first agrees to wear your own special blinkers.. If that's what it takes, I'd rather not see it, thanks.

Subject: RE: BS: America's Most Distrusted Minority
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 29 Mar 06 - 02:58 PM

"I thought for sure that lawyers were America's most distrusted minority. ;-D"

What if the majority of lawyers are atheists???

Subject: RE: BS: America's Most Distrusted Minority
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 29 Mar 06 - 03:17 PM

Quarcoo quoted and then said:


"MINNEAPOLIS / ST. PAUL (3/20/2006) -- American's increasing acceptance of religious diversity doesn't extend to those who don't believe in a god, according to a national survey by researchers in the University of Minnesota's department of sociology."

well they don't believe in "god" and not "GOD" so no problem hate them,after all no religious body will use the small "g" for the Supreme Being.

It is worth pointing out that the quoted paragraph did NOT deal with "God", but "a god", which is a quite different thing. The capitalization of "God" signals that it's being used as a proper noun, whereas "a god" is only a common noun, one of a general class. Even one who don't believe that the general class contains more than one should realize that entities termed "a god" can be manifold, and need not be "Supreme".

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: BS: America's Most Distrusted Minority
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 29 Mar 06 - 03:23 PM

"entities termed "a god" can be manifold, and need not be "Supreme"

Heh
There are those that call me "God-Emperor Of Geeks" but I've NEVER even rehearsed "Stop! In The Name Of Love"

Subject: RE: BS: America's Most Distrusted Minority
From: Little Hawk
Date: 29 Mar 06 - 03:27 PM

It doesn't matter whether or not lawyers are atheists. Couldn't matter less.

Clinton, there is a massive amount of evidence for Jesus having existed. Absolutely massive. The Christian religion itself, and the Christian civilization are the evidence that he existed.

They are not evidence that he was the Son of God, that he did this or that miracle, that he rose from the dead, walked on water, or anything else extraordinary like that, but they ARE evidence that a man known now as Jesus existed, and that he had a big effect on a bunch of other people in his local area for some reason, so big an effect that it soon launched a world religion.

And that is the part that your emotional blinders will not permit you to acknowledge. Your prejudice demands that NONE of it be true. Well, your prejudice is blind.

Buddhism is the same massive cultural evidence that the man Buddha existed. Religions based on the life of a single individual do not start in the first place without that person having physically been there to serve as the inspiration to start them. I've seen how that happens in real life. The person must be there first to inspire others by some extraordinary personal quality he or she has. That's how the whole ball gets rolling. Without the person, it doesn't get rolling at all.

You just don't want to believe there was a man, Jesus, for your own emotional reasons, and you're clinging to that in the face of a mass of cultural evidence bigger than the Atlantic Ocean.

You're the one who believes in something totally unlikely here, not me. I don't believe there was a man, Jesus, because "it gets me through the night". I like Buddhism, Taoism, and Vedantic teachings just as much or more than I like Christianity. I find them all to be good teachings, and I label myself by none of them.

What gets me through the night is the same thing that gets you throught the night. My heart keeps beating, that's all.

Subject: RE: BS: America's Most Distrusted Minority
From: Wesley S
Date: 29 Mar 06 - 03:33 PM

Clinton and Little Hawk - have you considered getting a private room for your little lovers quarrel ?

Subject: RE: BS: America's Most Distrusted Minority
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 29 Mar 06 - 03:42 PM

"The Christian religion itself, and the Christian civilization are the evidence that he existed."

Sorry LH... that's akin to saying that Platos Fiction/Social Satire is 'evidence' for or 'proof' of, the existence of 'Atlantis'.... Or that just because John Travolta, and Tom Cruise and a bunch of other wingnuts 'believe' it, L.Ron Hubbart (Sp?) is anything more than a crappy science fiction writer...

Whereas all historical, archaeological, etc. evidence to date says the exact opposite. The "Box" that beardedbruce cited was potentially interesting evidence, until it was debunked.... same with "The Shroud Of Turin"

Subject: RE: BS: America's Most Distrusted Minority
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 29 Mar 06 - 03:43 PM

"a private room for your little lovers quarrel "

Balling THIS good needs to be in public

Makes ya jealous?

I'll bet it does

Subject: RE: BS: America's Most Distrusted Minority
From: Little Hawk
Date: 29 Mar 06 - 03:43 PM

That's been suggested before, Wesley. ;-)

Clinton is a bully, as far as I'm concerned. He figures he can just drop his nasty little cynical one-liners down on me or anyone else whenever he wants to and that's it. Fun for him.

Well, I despise him just enough, and at the same time find the whole thing amusing enough, that I am willing to throw his shit right back at him. He is unique on this forum. He deserves special treatment as far as I'm concerned.

Subject: RE: BS: America's Most Distrusted Minority
From: Little Hawk
Date: 29 Mar 06 - 03:49 PM

I don't consider the existence of Atlantis to be even 1 per cent as likely as that Jesus existed, Clinton. Atlantis is merely an interesting possibility at this point, nothing more than that. It's speculative.

And from your point of view, you must admit that Jesus is an interesting possibility too, and admit "he might have existed"...unless you subscribe to the blind faith principle that says, "He didn't exist. Period. No matter what. Simply because I say he didn't."

You are the one who has no evidence. No evidence whatsoever of a proposition is far less impressive than a gigantic mountain of cultural evidence supporting it, in my opinion.

Subject: RE: BS: America's Most Distrusted Minority
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 29 Mar 06 - 03:52 PM

Looking at myself and my life, I truly believe that I am honest, moral, and trustworthy. And I don't really know of anyone who maintains to the contrary.

But developmentally, the reason I am that way is because when, at 14 years of age, I realized that I was what was seen as that "terrible, reprehensible" thing, an atheist, I decided there were two things I had to do:

1. Keep my head down. (This, to avoid losing the respect of many others I would run into along the way.) AND
2. Take personal responsibility for making my life honest, moral, and trustworthy. (This, to avoid losing the the respect of yours truly.)

    Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: BS: America's Most Distrusted Minority
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 29 Mar 06 - 04:09 PM

"Atlantis is merely an interesting possibility at this point"
That's where you're wrong... there is NO possibility that "Atlantis" ever existed, as referenced by Plato... He was writing fiction, as social commentary, and as satire....

"Jesus is an interesting possibility too, and admit "he might have existed"
By that thinking ALL things are interesting possibilities, and might have existed... Which might be cute in an imaginative 4 year old girl, but isn't go do anything to put food on the table, or get a stuck cow out of a bog.

Subject: RE: BS: America's Most Distrusted Minority
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 29 Mar 06 - 04:11 PM

oops....

I prefer to leave maybes and might-have-beens to the realm Speculative Fiction, and concern myself with facts.

"If it's truth you're after, Dr. Tyree's philosophy class is right down the hall."

Subject: RE: BS: America's Most Distrusted Minority
From: frogprince
Date: 29 Mar 06 - 04:56 PM

I s'pose this is drift, but:
I started on a job about 15 years ago, and soon found that a high percent of my co-workers were very open and proud about the fact that they were high a high percent of the time. One morning a couple who both worked there came in complaining that they had bought some pot after work the day before, but it was so lame that it did nothing for them. Then things got really weird: one co-worker after another began to sympathize with them, in all sincerity, about their misfortune. I really think if there were sympathy cards tailored to the situation, they would have gotten a pile. Finally, I sat there and said, "It's really a shame; if you can't trust your pusher, who can you trust". One single young man, an avid druggy but with some working brain cells left, looked up at me and smirked because he got it. The rest of them took me at face value.
Anyhow, if you can't distrust an atheist, who can you distrust?

Subject: RE: BS: America's Most Distrusted Minority
From: frogprince
Date: 29 Mar 06 - 05:08 PM

And Clinton: Would you say agree with any one of these statements?(a) William Shakespeare wrote the plays attributed to him, (b)The actual authorship of the "Shakespearean" plays is uncertain, or (c) The person to whom those plays are attributed definitely did not exist.   Or, do you have yet a different position on that issue?

Subject: RE: BS: America's Most Distrusted Minority
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 29 Mar 06 - 05:14 PM

Probably B...

We need to get to whatever is under Oak Island for the best evidence either way

:-P
Heh

Subject: RE: BS: America's Most Distrusted Minority
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 29 Mar 06 - 05:15 PM

And what the hell.. I may as well play this stupid Mudcat game too....

100