Date: Fri, 16 Feb 2001 09:44:18 -0800
From: "Michael M. Butler" <butler@comp-lib.org>
Subject: Unkill God, was Re: Why we must kill God
Steve Nichols wrote:
> >Rock on, Mr. Nichols. Direct frontal assaults on belief systems always
> >work. Err. Don't they?
>
> Interestingly, yes!
>You can't mean that part. Ever hear of Falun Gong? Ever hear of the
>Roman Empire's actions toward Christianity in the first few centuries
>CE? Evidently imprisonment, torture and public execution aren't direct?
Christianity was enforced at the point of a sword by Romans.
Heresy was illegal until a couple of 100 years go. The conquisdors
and missionaries used bribery & violence, not argument. Xianity is
unsustainable by intellectual argument alone, this is where it is
vulnerable .. by direct argument, and scientific refutation wherever
possible.
> Why should the voices of truth be silent?
>Do what thou wilt. I'm for aikido, myself. I'm also an agnostic, since
>"God/god(s)" is a squirmy concept with a lot of wiggle factor.
Wiggle all you like .... but there is not a scrap of evidence for any of
the gods .... or do you have a way of verifying such mythology and lies?
> Young children in particular will believe whatever is told to them,
> particularly by an adult, and even older folks will subconsciously
> accept what is told to them, at least til their critical and analytic
> faculties have time to kick in.
>And young people will often appear to rebel, and then fall back on the
>faiths of their fathers (or whatever their model of it is).
Are you just a human-era conservative apologist then? I am an
unashamed agent for change and extropian/post-human progress.
>Why kick the
>props out from under them? Why, for instance, try to deprive a terminal
>cancer patient of her epiphany/notion that the world has a plan?
Better to offer them the real prospect of cryogenics and of a
cure for cancer than delusory religious blather!!!!!
> But sure, what are your suggestions for a "sneak attack" on Xian
> fundamentalism?
>I have no master plan, just a bunch of heuristics. You, on the other
>hand, have a master plan.
>I hope to pay attention to what works. You and I appear to have
>different attentions. This is OK; a sheaf of strategies is probably a
>good idea. One-size-fits-all fits few. Things got the way they are
>because people have been the way they have been.
Human supernaturalist beliefs systems are obsolete my friend.
Your agnostic stance is doomed to failure .... if you are going to
succeed in self-hypnotising yourself into religious ecstasy you
at least have to suspend critical faculties and disbelief in order
to throw yourself fully into the delusion.
>I have, in years past, sometimes thought that the final battle, if it
>comes, will not be between good and evil, but between the forces of good
>and the forces of good-and-evil-at-the-same-time. See Sowell's
>"constrained" vs. "unconstrained" visions.
"Final battle", armageddon, religo-garbage gobbledegook. Also "good"
"evil" ultimate value judgement psychobabble ... get real. I won't see
Sowell, he sounds a loser.
> www.steve-nichols.com
> MVT ... the all-conquering philosophy!
>Umm. Right. I have delusions of _adequacy_, myself.
All-conquering ... reductionist ... because true. Or are you
prepared to dispute with me? Ha! Your delusions of adequacy
are wholly unfounded unless you have a stronger view than MVT.
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