Re: Why Atheism Beats Agnosticism

Prof. Gomes (gomes@dpx.cnen.gov.br)
Thu, 30 Apr 1998 21:58:11 -0200 (GRNLNDDT)


At 17:28 27/04/98 +0200, you wrote:
>
>....................
>When it comes too relegion it is often a lot harder to determine
>whether this is a 'choice' or not. I'd say that in most cases religious belief
>is nothing more than conformism out of fear and/or mental laziness. Religion
>*is* for the weak (and those that wish to exploit them, of course).
>
>.....................

Although I'm a positive atheist, and sometimes very radical, I do understand
religious, since, by birth and tradition, I have been one of them. The
emotional appeals associated to religions are very strong... They smartly
use figures associated with mother, father, brother, family, goodness,
charity, suffering etc etc ... I, in particular, followed this logical path:

1st: I verified some incoherecies on Jesus behaviour, enough for begining my
questioning on his idoneity as the "son of god"... and made myself FREE from
FAITH ( necessary, since not even a scientific mind is enough to break the
FAITH... In the beginning, I even thought that Pope, Church, Lutter,
Protestants etc simply MISUNDERSTOOD Jesus's message... who was right...
obviously I never believed that a god had created all this almost
yesterday... I was religious not idiot...). I will give you a small example,
of Jesus actuation: If you read his story with a deeper attention, you will
see that one of main subjects threated on it is the supposed Victory of him
over the Death. But It was simply really dieing and believing he would
ressurrect... for that disciples hide his body... The main problem is: He
calls the disciples to follow him and face the death in prol of FAITH and
GLORY of God... The Ignorant Plebes , for other side, "the support of
FAITH", "The rock on wich the Church would be constructed" ( the illuded
brains of such people so...) would never be told this conclusions directly,
an would have to deduce it by themselves... "Lots are called by little are
chosen". One of the mission of the priests is to keep themselves firmly on
the conduction of the "shepheards" and do not cause "scandals" to the
families and innocents... But some monks and religious not: Just read the
lifes of the so-called saints: They simply wish strongly "To go together
with The Lord" and lots, lots of them simply starved until death... Lots of
martyres where so by their own choices and not obliged or killed like other
of them ... They WANTED to die because of their LOVE to Jesus... They wanted
TO SUFFER like him... You do not read... you do not really know...
Jesus and lots of their saints were "suicides of god" ... And: Church
publicly denies this and... forgimme, but protestants know nothing about
this, they are just an independent interpretation of the words of Jesus,
with a lot of good intentions and happiness and songs, but just 500 years
old, while whole chistianism comes since 2000 ys ago...

2nd: Supposing science will one day ressurrect people from the past...
Jesus, Budha, Mahomet etc will be ressurrected by science and all this lie
will simply finish...

3rd: My last doubt was about god's existence, since up to then, I had simply
convinced myself that Jesus was not god...: But, IMHO, I see that the
problem is in our linear logic, oriented to a subject-object interpretation
of the actions... If there is an universe, it was created, if it was created
there is a creator... A simple logic conclusion got when men still were
afraid of thunderbolts... Instead, if we think the universe as the whole set
of all, including its transformations, any phenomenum may be explained as
just a self-relashionship of the universe itself... And so there is no need
of using the famous (and false) pair creator-creation... even before the
last, but possibly not the only, big-bang...

Enough for while...

Gomes.